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Out of curiosity, I decided to check back and see if this cruise would have proceeded.  Nope.  Looks like they canceled all the Antarctica cruises this season for this ship (MS Fridtjof Nansen).  Glad we backed out in July and saved the grief. 

I feel for anyone that was still booked.  I know it's a big disappointment and massive pain to have to cancel/rebook, especially late in the game.  Not just the cruise itself, but all the flights, hotels, tours, etc. 

We may try again in another year or two, if things ever get back to normal.  (And if Hurtigruten is even still in business by then.)  In the mean time, looks like another year of road trips for us instead.  Flying (especially out of the country) just isn't worth the mess.

7 hours ago, Avram3 said:

Much thanks for letting me know that Hurtigruten does, in fact, refund the deposit promptly. We booked through the UK office and if we cancel now, it's non-refundable. We can however, move the pre-payments to another Hurtigruten booking. If they cancel, it's a 100% refund or applied to another cruise with a 10% discount. We also discovered we have up to two weeks before the cruise begins to change cruise bookings and apply all the money to another Hurtigruten sailing. So again, we hope we can make the November 2nd cruise happen. It's a bucket list event!

Keep in mind that ours may have been an exception since I called immediately (morning of the next business day) upon realizing my mistake.  I have no idea if that really had anything to do with it or not, but it's possible that they treated it as a sort of unofficial 1-business-day grace period or something.

You might be able to get a refund anyway.  They have the "Request a refund" link on the COVID page.  My concern wasn't just about the cruise cancelling, but being late getting home if a 72-hour PCR test is required to come back.  As well as the overall difficulties in Argentina ruining that part of the experience.

https://www.hurtigruten.com/expedition-practical-information/covid-19-updated-information/expedition/?_hrgb=3

Anyway, best of luck!

Got the check today with full refund of our deposit, 2.5 weeks after calling to back out.  Right on time, as they said allow 2 weeks for it to go out.  Happy with that.  And relieved. 

We'll try it again sometime in the future when things really are back to normal.  I was exercising a little too much wishful thinking jumping in now, I'm afraid. 

Good luck to all. 

I called Hurtigruten first thing Monday morning (after booking online the prior Friday night (customer support is closed Sat-Sun)).  Told them when I went to book flights on Saturday, that's when I noticed how bad the situation was in Argentina, including the LEVEL 4 - DO NO TRAVEL warning. While they're hoping that will ease up by November, they were willing to make an exception to their normal policies and OK'd a cancellation of our booking and will refund our deposit by check within 2 weeks.  We breathed a sigh of relieve they would refund our $5k after we realized we'd made a mistake in not checking the Argentina situation first.

I don't know whether they OK'd the deposit refund because we'd only just booked (and they basically treated it like a grace period), or whether they think the November sailing is in likely danger of cancelling anyway.  I suspect it's probably some of both.  The customer service rep messaged their boss while I was on the phone and got the OK to refund within a minute.

Hopefully the situation in Argentina improves dramatically by then and everyone already booked can sail. But with November only 4 months out, we just didn't feel that was very likely. It was important that we get back into the US for work right after the cruise, but presently that requires another PCR test (in Argentina) within 72 hours.  We don't have that time after the cruise.  Hopefully that requirement will change, but we'll wait to rebook until it does first.

We already got caught on a COVID cruise situation in March-2020. We were on a 2-week Celebrity cruise from Dubai to Singapore that only made it a week before getting stranded in Mumbai as countries started closing down.  Fortunately we'd booked air through Celebrity for that one, and they were GREAT about getting us home from Mumbai.  They even refunded the full cruise fare, even though we got 3 ports in. Can't speak highly enough of how they handled the chaotic situation.  But we don't want to get stuck in a similar situation again.  And I don't get the impression that Hurtigruten would be as accommodating as Celebrity was.  They seem to be focused only on their cruises, while getting to/from home is our own responsibility.  I'm not sure if they'd be of any help getting us home if things go sideways.

With life mostly back to normal in the US, I think we just got lulled into forgetting it's still a mess in many other countries (like Argentina). 

https://ar.usembassy.gov/covid-19/

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/argentina-travel-advisory.html

Well, I should have looked closer. While the cruise looks fine, Argentina doesn't. I didn't realize there's still a LEVEL 4 - DO NOT TRAVEL Advisory in place by the US State Dept. Disappointed Hurtigruten's US website doesn't allude to that. I know they're hoping that clears in time, and they don't want to scare customers off, but still. 

Anyway, the credit card charge for the deposit hasn't even processed past PENDING stage yet, so I'm hoping they'll just terminate the booking since it's only been 1 day. I screwed up by not checking Argentina better first, but hopefully Hurtigruten is more understanding than their website is. 

Hi all. I know it's still a bit risky to book a 2021 cruise like this, but we took the chance today and booked this one. I'm mad at myself for missing the deadline on a sale last week that would have saved us almost $2000 per person, but at least we still get the free single supplement for a 2nd cabin (there's 3 of us). 

I'm hoping we can find an estimate for when the flight(s) from the cruise returns to Buenos Aires after the cruise. The airport is a ways from the center of the city and it would be a lot easier not to go back and forth again after the cruise. There's an 11:30pm flight back to Denver, which would seem to be pretty safe. Anyone have a clue? I assume they use charter flights?  500 people looks like too many for regular scheduled flights. 

I've never even bothered to look at our status.  Looks like we're Select.  Website says we're supposed to get a discount on 1 bag of laundry for a cruise of 12+ nights (which this is).  So maybe we'll be able to get it for $20. 

11 minutes ago, Mark_T said:

Yes, but I seem to recall that it is now $50...

Woah!  For the same small bag?

If that's the case we may just pack more prudently.

Thanks.

We have a 15-night cruise coming up next month on the Celebrity Constellation.  It's been a few years since we've cruised on a Celebrity ship and I get my cruiselines mixed up. 🙂

Does Celebrity do the $20 "everything you can stuff in it" laundry bag?

Just a follow-up... As I hoped they might, the Lufthansa flights became available on their website to reserve seats (for a fee) today.  I've been checking once or twice a week.  We're a little over 6 weeks out from the flights.  That's about the time I've heard that group reservations like this actually get ticketed and become available.

Advanced seat assignments were $40 for one leg and $30 for the other (standard economy class). 

20 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Almost positive Lufthansa doesn't allow seat selection for coach more than 23 hours prior to flight. Particularly for domestic flights.

Maybe not for free, but they did for purchase on our last flight with them.  For both the "domestic" leg (Krakow to Frankfurt) and the international leg (Frankfurt to Denver).  For this cruise, we have Denver to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Dubai legs on Lufthansa.

On our last trip I booked through United directly (not a Celebrity flight add-on).  I booked Standard Economy through United.  That got free advanced seat assignment on the United flight legs, but not the Lufthansa ones.  But I was able to go into the reservation on the Lufthansa website and pay the $40 to choose advance seats for those legs. 

It's not even allowing me to do that this time.  I'm guessing that since ETNs aren't showing up either that the reservation simply isn't ticketed yet.  Hoping that when it is, the advanced seat assignment option becomes available (even if for a fee). 

I booked flights with Celebrity Flights for an upcoming cruise.  Combination of United and Lufthansa flights.  I'm pretty sure Celebrity uses some sort of group rate fares, and I read somewhere they don't actually ticket the flights until a few months before the flight (it's about 10 weeks prior now).  I do have record locators for each airline segment though.

I can go in now to United and select seats, no problem.  But Lufthansa tells me that I can't select seats until 23 hours before the flight, at check-in.  But it also shows "Not available" under the spot for Electronic Ticket Number(s).  Does that mean the flight hasn't been ticketed yet?  And does anyone know if seat assignments then become available on Lufthansa once it finally get ticketed?

58 minutes ago, Jayayeff said:

the 30 day tourist visa is fine, I used one for 3 consecutive India ports on a cruise last year as that counts as a single entry.  You only need multi-entry if you leave India and visit other countries between each of your India ports... I was told by the Consulate here that the 30 day double entry can be used for up to 4 consecutive cruise ports or entry into an India port then visiting a different country followed by re-entry to India for remaining ports.  The example I was given for double entry was on some cruise routes East to West (or vice versa) you could visit a port on the east coast of India then maybe visit Sri Lanka or the Maldives before visiting further India ports on the west coast... 

 

Anne...

Thank you so much!  It's great to hear it confirmed from someone who's actually done it.  The official India website is seriously lacking in such information. 

On 11/24/2019 at 11:36 PM, Jayayeff said:

 

You will definitely need a visa for India.  I did a cruise that included Indian ports last year and even though the cruise line said we needed a costly 'paper' visa that was not the case and the much less costly online evisa worked perfectly fine...https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/    I travel on a UK passport but I'm pretty sure the same facility is available to Australian passport holders. The application process is a bit of a pain but once you've completed the form, added the attachments and made online payment the evisa is in your Inbox within 24 hours.  I haven't been to any of those African ports via cruise ship but I would be surprised if you needed visas in advance especially if you only have one day port calls.   Does Azamara not use a visa agent that they can at least refer you to even if they only process for US passengers???

 

Anne...

Does anyone know whether for a cruise with 3 consecutive India ports (Mumbai, Goa, Cochin) we need the 30-day eTourist visa ($25 USD) or the 1-year ($40 USD)?  From what I've read, the 30-day is supposed to be a double-entry visa, while the 1-year is multiple-entry (not 100% sure if that's correct though, I just read it on TripSavvy).  Some people say 3 consecutive India ports means it only requires a single entry, but I can't find that listed officially anywhere.  In fact, I can't find anything about # of entries anywhere on the official website, only external travel sites. 

Obviously I'd prefer to just get the 30-day and save a little money but if there's a real question I'll just get the 1-year to be safe.  Does anyone know for sure which is needed for such a cruise?  (We're not going anywhere else in India other than the 3 cruise cities.)

8 minutes ago, Jayayeff said:

The hotel you mentioned is very close to the airport, and easily accessible by Metro - and all Metro stations do have both escalators and elevators.  The Port Saeed area around Deira City Centre is mostly commercial and the roads there can get very congested.  If you look at properties a little further from DCC along Beniyas St. it will be a little less congested and you will be in what is referred to as ‘Old Dubai’, which is much closer to the Creek, and more pedestrian friendly.   There are several hotels and aparthotels that personally I would recommend over the Somewhere Hotel.   Rates are still very reasonable, especially compared to those around Burj Khalifa and Downtown.   Ones I know personally are the Dubai Sheraton Hotel & Towers, the Hilton Dubai Creek and the Rotana Al Bandar however there are several others if you look on the usual hotel booking or review sites.... The drive from the airport is only a few minutes difference however, they are not right beside a Metro station if that is important  to you...

 

Anne...

Thanks Anne.  Appreciate the info.  I almost went with one closer to the creek (Raddison Blu).  I looked at the Hilton too.  All the hotels looked nice, actually, so it came down more to ease of using the metro.  If there's more stuff to do/see by the creek, maybe I'll switch.  We effectively just have 1.5 days at the hotel.  Flight arrives 10:30pm so we just go straight to bed around midnight and probably sleep for 10 hours after the long flights and jetlag. One day of seeing things via Metro, and half a day the next before we head to the cruise port midday (although it stays docked for a night so we have an extra Dubai day from the ship to see things).  With such a short hotel stay, I didn't think we'd be hanging around the hotel area much at all, so I just went with easiest metro access.

We have a March cruise starting in Dubai, and we're staying 2 nights in hotel (the ship also docks an extra night).  Never been to Dubai before so I did some research.  The layout kinda reminds me a little of the Las Vegas Strip, in that the properties and things to see are huge and spread out and not very walkable.  It doesn't appear to me that there's any core "Old Town" area to stay in like many European cities have, where you can just stay there are walk around and see the best stuff.  Looks like it's gonna take transportation to see much.

So instead of picking a hotel near some destination, I picked one with the easiest access to the Metro.  I chose the Somewhere Apartment Hotel in the Dubai Creek area (next to the Deira City Center Mall).  The subway entrance is literally on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.  Looks like a nice hotel, although every hotel I checked looked really nice and had surprisingly good prices.  I thought Dubai would be much more expensive but there's tons of decent 4-star hotels for under $150/ni (USD) after taxes.

It's also very close to the airport.  After 20 hours of flights to get into Dubai late night, the shorter the ride from the airport the better.  We might even just take the subway since it looks like there's escalators on all of them (not sure about elevators).  Wouldn't want to drag our luggage up stairs. 

18 minutes ago, 81Zoomie said:

I appreciate all the hints.  I have gone to already booked, the flights tab, and the flight quotes tab.  All are now about $15 more than booking directly with the airline.  I will try to call Celebrity.  Amsterdam must be a happening place in August!

There's so much variance in flight searches and fares.  The routes with more competition (as Amsterdam probably has from major US cities) probably show the better fares on more of the usual search engines. My flights were less common (Denver to Dubai, Singapore to Denver) thus could be why I had such great variance between searches.  Celebrity Flights was $1013, ChoiceAir $2200, United $4000, and Orbitz/Expedia/Priceline/GoogleFlights were in the $1500-$1800 range.

If you haven't tried those latter 4 (and other 3rd party search sites), I'd check them too.  They tend to have many differences as well. 

August is a long way off.  I'd feel comfortable holding off for a good fare to pop up for another 4-5 months if needed.  Should always be able to get at least a reasonable fare on Celebrity if a good sale doesn't pop up by then.

6 hours ago, 81Zoomie said:

I was hoping choice air had better pricing.  I keep checking the flight quotes and there is only an approximate $10 difference between booking direct with the carriers and choice air.  Am I missing something?

Did you check it directly on the Celebrity site? Go into ALREADY BOOKED, then BOOK FLIGHTS.  I found drastically cheaper fares that way than going to ChoiceAir.com.  I expected them to produce the same results but it was very different.

3 minutes ago, waterbug123 said:

 

Is there a particular reason you use a TA to book flights, even when you can find the flight you want on your own? 

I meant I use the TA (major membership warehouse) to book the cruise, not the flights.  Get better perks and bonuses that way.

I nearly always book airfare on my own (either direct with the airline or through Expedia, Orbitz, etc, depending who comes up with the best fares and flights).  I like to have full control over flights and fares chosen.  But when it's a Celebrity cruise I also check their flight prices as they're often much cheaper.  Like on this cruise, I paid $1013 while United showed $4000+ for the exact same flights (not that I'd have chosen those for $4000, of course). 

I ended up booking the cruise, then using the booking# to recheck ChoiceAir (nothing changed - still $2300+ flights), and on the Celebrity website thru TripPlanner (the $1013 economy flights were still there, although the premium economy flights went up).  So basically it sounds like the fares were the same whether a booking# was provided or not.

Still doesn't explain the completely different results between ChoiceAir and the Celebrity site directly.  I went ahead and grabbed the $1013 flights, which is quite good for DEN-DXB + SIN-SIN flights.  The exact same flights priced on United's website are $4000+.  Expedia, etc all want $1500+.  So I'm happy with what I got, and they were better flights/times.

It's always a guessing game on what flight class and features you're gonna get that way though.  This combo of flights uses Lufthansa on the outbound flights and United on the return.  I was able to get into the United reservation and select seats for free.  Also says 2 checked bags free!  That's unusual.  But Lufthansa says no advanced seat selection until check-in.  Not sure if that's because the flights may not have been ticketed yet and that could change, or if we're stuck waiting until check-in.  Hope not.

Getting ready to book a March cruise (Dubai to Singapore).  I always book through a TA, but I also check fares on Celebrity's website just in case.  I also check airfares externally and on ChoiceAir.  But now I'm baffled by different option: the "Flights" button when going into to check a cruise fare directly on Celebrity's website.  When I select a specific cruise there (only to look, without actually purchasing), a "Flights" tab is there to the right of "Shore Excursions".  When I click on that it allows be to get a flight quote and select specific flights.  That's all good.

My confusion is that they offer completely different (way better) fares than the flightsbycelebrity.com website (i.e. ChoiceAir).  I get a $2200 best fare showing up there, but only $1000 by using the "Flights" tab!  I figured the "Flights" tab would be the same as the ChoiceAir, but it's not.  Anyone know what the deal is?

Obviously I'd like to book the much cheaper fares.  But I don't know whether I can do that if I book the actual cruise externally via a TA.  Can I book the cruise externally and then go into Celebrity's website and still get to that "Flights" tab to book the flights using that flight engine rather than the ChoiceAir/FlightsByCelebrity engine?

3 minutes ago, colbe said:

Yes we book directly with HAL. There is no advantage with booking any other way in New Zealand. I can see my bookings almost instantly.

Ah, ok. I figured the bookings made directly with HAL would automatically show up. 

I was just curious if anyone had any luck getting the ones make through a TA to save, or whether they also had to retype in the booking# every time. 

Thanks. 

27 minutes ago, knittinggirl said:

Is this all the time, or just today?  Pretty elementary, but if you haven't done it in a while run CCleaner and reboot.

It's been doing it for a few months now.  Might have coincided with when I installed an SSD and migrated Windows to it.  I think I installed the newest version of Firefox fresh too, but maybe not.  Anyway, I'll play with it.  My main question was just whether anyone else was having it fail in Firefox too.  Looks like not.  At least the "not finding it by booking# part", anyway. 

25 minutes ago, colbe said:

Yes, no problem seeing my 4 bookings every time I check.

Interesting. Do make the booking through HAL directly, or use a TA? 

29 minutes ago, OlsSalt said:

 

Might want to look into  those super-light weight, 5#  "IT brand "suitcases when looking to shave pounds off the luggage.  I liked getting five free extra pounds of things to take, instead of paying for my standard 10# suitcases. 

Thanks.  Unfortunately we just replaced our old hardshell spinners (that served us well for almost 20 trips) with new ones a year ago.  Went from 11# to 10, but that didn't save much. 

I just checked IT and most of their large hardshell spinners look like 10# as well, although I do see a 27" that's only 8.5#.  Wish I'd seen those before.  I'll have to look more.