How does the Holland America cruise wait list work?

[islandwoman]

The cruise I want has not posted yet. (None of the cruises for those months have posted yet) HAL will not even tell my TA if this cruise is going to be offered, but they said that we could get on the wait list for $500 per person. 

 

How does such a wait list function?  Is there any point in giving HAL $1,000 when we don't even know whether or not this cruise will sail? 

[CruiserBruce]

We did it only once, it turned out fine. But we knew the cruise was going to be offered...this was a while ago when there were different lines of communication.

 

In your case, I would monitor here for the release of schedules for the time frame involved, and book as soon as you are ready when the schedules are released.

[Dutchman48]

21 hours ago, islandwoman said:

The cruise I want has not posted yet. (None of the cruises for those months have posted yet) HAL will not even tell my TA if this cruise is going to be offered, but they said that we could get on the wait list for $500 per person. 

 

How does such a wait list function?  Is there any point in giving HAL $1,000 when we don't even know whether or not this cruise will sail? 

Also done it once. Worked fine, we were notified when the cruise was released and could except or decline at that time.

The only thing I would ask your TA is how is your deposit handled, is it refundable or does it become a future cruise credit.

[Mary229]

I waitlisted and could not go. The deposit, technically an option, was immediately refunded.  They now call them “Futuredams”.  $500 is a lot, usually it is less 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Mary229

[islandwoman]

We signed up.  The wait list only cost, $100 per person, not $500 per person as we had expected.  Our TA sent us an email with the subject line "Future Dam".  😀

Our wait list reservation appears in our account on hollandamerica.com, but it's listed as a cruise on March 16-17, 2024 - not even close to what we asked for.  Is this just because there is no other way to record a wait list in our online account?