Booking future cruise while on board

[flashdog_1]

I was sure I'd posted this question a couple of days ago but cannot locate it. Sorry if it's a repeat.

 

1) Is there a benefit to booking a future cruise while on board a cruise? Do they give you a shipboard credit or lower rate?

 

2) Can you sign up for Mariner's Club while you are on board, if there is a Mariner's discount associated with the particular cruise you want to book?

 

My Veendam cruise is in March and the 2007 fares have just been released. I'm wondering if I should wait til I'm onboard to book it or if all the guarantees will be taken before i get on board.

 

Advice, please. Thanks

[jhannah]

You don't sign up to be a Mariner. You automatically become one after your first cruise.

 

There are occasionally special Mariner discounts on select sailings. But they're not huge amounts.

 

Booking a future cruise onboard gets you a shipboard credit for the cruise you book. It ranges from $25 per person to $175 per person depending on length of cruise and what category of cabin you book. Those were the 2005 amounts, and they might have changed.

[RuthC]

On longer cruises there's a Future Cruise Consultant on board; on shorter cruises you can book by using a provided number from your cabin. The benefit is an on-board credit for the future cruise, but the amounts have been greatly reduced. I'm getting $50 for my next 7-day inside.

If you book with the consultant you also (usually) get a bottle of wine as a "thank you" on the current cruise.

Just by taking a HAL cruise you become a member of the Mariner's Club; the number will be sent to you. Eventually. If you need it beforehand you can call Seattle to get it.

You probably won't need it for the future cruise since so few cruises have a Mariner's discount these days. On the off-chance you do need it, this is what would happen:

If you're seeing a cruise consultant you would be given the Mariner's rate since it's clear you are. If you are calling from the ship say so. I believe they can tell, but it doesn't hurt to point it out. Ask about the rate.

[booboo29]

DH and I have booked with the Future Cruise Consultant a few times. It always worked out very well for us. We have had to make changes after booking and never had a single problem.

 

As jhannah mentioned, you do get shipboard credit and the amount depends on the length of the cruise that you book.

 

I recommend booking onboard and I intend to so so on our March cruise.

 

Jennifer

[Randyk47]

Since we have so many sea days on our upcoming cruise we thought we might deal with the future cruise staff and check into a Med cruise. Having said that I don't expect we'll book with them but we'll see. As mentioned on other threads, being a Mariner and Mariner "discounts" are really not much of an advantage. In fact, I've yet to see an offer from HAL that I can't beat through my regular TA or Internet providers, way beyond any $100 to $200 ship board credit.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We had a surprise on our last Ryndam cruises - no cruise consultant. There used to always be one on cruises of 10 days or more (had one on our Volendam - 10 day cruises Feb/Mar 2005).

 

Instead we got a paper and a Planner.

 

When there was a cruise consultant on board the ship, not only did you get shipboard credit but you also got a free bottle of wine when you booked a future cruise while on the ship.

 

However for us, the AMEX shipboard credit has always been better.

[Maryandi]

Even if you already have a cruise booked. I would check with the consultant about shipboard credit on your already-booked next cruise. We ended up with $600 per cabin credit on our B to B.

 

and you can book an' open date cruise' and get the shipboard credit to be used on the future cruise. There is some kind of time frame you must comply with - but I don't know what it is.

 

Never hurts to ask, Mar:p

[flashdog_1]

Thank you for the information. Is there no set rule about the amount of the shipboard credit? (Celebrity gives $50 for 5 days or under, $100 for 7 days, $200 for 10 and up and perhaps $250 for 14 and up). Did i understand you correctly that $50 credit is per cabin, not per person? I'm thinking of a 7 day cruise on Zuiderdam in Nov 2007 to Eastern Caribbean for $649 guarantee. Does that one fall in the $50 credit criteria? Hardly seems worth it to wait, does it?

[RuthC]

Is there no set rule about the amount of the shipboard credit?...Did i understand you correctly that $50 credit is per cabin, not per person?

There is a set schedule of credits for booking on-board---I just can't remember what it is. It is based on length of the cruise booked, and has gone down significantly from previous years.

A couple of years ago I got $300 just for myself on a 34-day cruise; I think this year's top rate is $75.

My $50 this year is for 2 people on a 7-day cruise.

wowzo, are you certain about that "open ended" booking? Was it on HAL? I never heard of HAL giving the on-board booking credit unless a specific cruise was booked. I have heard of HAL transferring it to another cruise if there's a change in plans.

[Randyk47]

Wow Ruth! That makes booking on the ship even less attractive than before. :( My comments about savings was at the old schedule, not the new one. Maybe the bookings have gone down to the point where they're not putting future cruise agents on the ships as often per KK's comment.

[jhannah]

and you can book an' open date cruise' and get the shipboard credit to be used on the future cruise.

Has HAL started doing this? I know Princess does, but have not heard that Holland America offers this open booking.

[KAKcruiser]

There is no disadvantage to booking onboard. You can always get a lower price if the fare goes down or you can turn your reservation over to a travel agent. The future cruise credit has gone down considerably recently. I have not heard about an "open" booking on HAL. I know they do that on Princess. One other comment -- on cruises with an onboard cruise consultant, I have had a hard time getting together with her. She is always busy.

[cruisinjudy]

On our fourteen day Veendam there was no future booking person, the credit was down and the deposit was up. We almost reconsidered, but booked anyway.

[jhannah]

Since there are relatively few perks for repeat cruisers (and I understand why, since there are so many) it would be nice if HAL ramped this benefit back up into something more meaningful.

 

Maybe since there are so many repeaters the added expense of an onboard consultant and awarded shipboard credits isn't seen as necessary.

[blue whale]

Wowzo, how long ago were you able to get the credit by consulting the booking person on board for a cruise you already had booked? We had done that over a year ago, but heard that this was no longer possible. Still we are going to take all our paper work for our future cruises when we sail in March to see if we can "rebook" on board.

[kryos]

On longer cruises there's a Future Cruise Consultant on board; on shorter cruises you can book by using a provided number from your cabin. The benefit is an on-board credit for the future cruise, but the amounts have been greatly reduced.

The future cruise consultant on the Amsterdam did a presentation on HAL's upcoming itineraries, and she mentioned that the person at headquarters responsible for lowering the amounts of the available shipboard credits when you book a cruise onboard is no longer with the company, and that the team of future cruise consultants was working to get those amounts increased ... preferably back to their old levels. She seemed very optimistic that that was gonna happen.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[kryos]

Maybe since there are so many repeaters the added expense of an onboard consultant and awarded shipboard credits isn't seen as necessary.

Oh, believe me ... I doubt HAL will eliminate the future cruise consultant on the longer itineraries.

 

I heard scuttlebutt around the ship that the consultant on the 30-day Amsterdam Hawaii/South Pacific cruise wrote something like $7 mill in future cruises during the voyage.

 

That's a lot of bucks! That's a lot of future cruises!

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[flashdog_1]

Since you are our most recent contact with the future cruise people at Hal thru your seminar on Amsterdam, I'll ask you if you booked your next cruise with them? (I saw in your signature that you have one toward the end of this year).

 

Do your documents state precisely what "award" is given for each cruise length?

 

Maybe it IS worth waiting til next month to book if they are hoping to revamp the credits. Did you get a feeling that this revamping might be a pie in the sky future kind of thing or something that might be remedied fairly soon? Thanks

[Maryandi]

We got the shipboard credit for our B&B 2 1/2 years ago.

 

The shipboard credit for a future cruise (open date) is from a post from Jim Vhovac who did it for 2 cruises. Approx. 2 years ago.

 

I sorry to see that they might have done away with some of this - I'm still going to see what the deal is on our Mar. 13th Volendam cruise.

 

Goodluck, Mar

[kakalina]

I was on the same cruise with Kyros and the month before that on a 44 day on the Veendam. MaryJane on the Amsterdam gave a very nice seminar on future cruises. We have booked on board many times and transferred to our cruise consultant at HAL. He always gets us dinner in the Pinnacle for 2, champagne or wine, and fresh flowers in our room, plus on board credits that were $150.00pp on the Amsterdam and the Veendam. We have always been pleased with how this works out.

[kryos]

Since you are our most recent contact with the future cruise people at Hal thru your seminar on Amsterdam, I'll ask you if you booked your next cruise with them? (I saw in your signature that you have one toward the end of this year).

No, I did not book a future cruise, mostly because my vacation plans for the rest of this year are already set in stone. The earliest I could be looking at is mid-2007 and HAL does not have firm pricing yet for most of the itineraries I would be interested in. The cruise I have booked at the end of this year is a CruiseCritic group cruise that I booked through CC's travel agent.

 

The shipboard credits are still the smaller ones right now ... the woman said they were working to change them back to the levels they had been at in the past ... but she asked for everyone's patience. In my case, my TA generally has group space available on many of HAL's sailings (they only book HAL from what I understand) and the available shipboard credits by booking onboard are more than offset by the GAP benefits I can get by just booking through my own agent. I think for an inside cabin ... 10 or so day cruise ... the shipboard credit is only like $50 each. Nothing much to get excited about.

 

But ... I will say ... every time I passed by that future cruise consultant's desk in my daily travels ... she always had someone there, not to mention a group sitting on the couch waiting to talk with her. People were keeping her VERY busy ... and from what I understand, many were booking extended voyages in the range of 30-60+ days. God, I should only be so lucky. :(

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita