Cabin selection/availability on HAL's booking site

[wwcruisers]

Does anyone know if there is a trick to selecting a particular cabin on the HAL Booking page? I'm trying to do what we used to refer to as a 'dummy booking' -- just to see which Neptune Suites are available on a September Pacific Coastal repo cruise on Volendam. No matter which cabin number I enter on the 'select your cabin' page, I get the "sorry, we can't help you" reply -- with instructions to try again later, or call a HAL rep. I've tried several times in the past couple of weeks -- always with the same result, no matter which cabin numbers I enter. And, I don't want to take up a HAL rep's time -- since we don't know whether we'll be booking this cruise yet. Over the decades, my DH and I have booked many cruises on RC & X -- so, we're familiar with their websites. But we are relative newbies to HAL. Thanks, everyone!

[CruiserBruce]

"Picking" cabin is simply finding an unassigned cabin...but it doesn't tell you how many guarantee bookings there are, and guarantees aren't assigned until about 2-3 weeks out. So it is not a very good measurement of what the sales are for that sailing.

 

The website has many issues...try again another day.

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, wwcruisers said:

Does anyone know if there is a trick to selecting a particular cabin on the HAL Booking page? I'm trying to do what we used to refer to as a 'dummy booking' -- just to see which Neptune Suites are available on a September Pacific Coastal repo cruise on Volendam. No matter which cabin number I enter on the 'select your cabin' page, I get the "sorry, we can't help you" reply -- with instructions to try again later, or call a HAL rep. I've tried several times in the past couple of weeks -- always with the same result, no matter which cabin numbers I enter. And, I don't want to take up a HAL rep's time -- since we don't know whether we'll be booking this cruise yet. Over the decades, my DH and I have booked many cruises on RC & X -- so, we're familiar with their websites. But we are relative newbies to HAL. Thanks, everyone!

 

Have you tried going through the "change your cabin" steps? (choose deck, chose forard/mid/ aft, etc) It seems that HAL shows a greater number of available cabins than they used to. You won't know for sure if what you see is all that's available, but it will give you some idea. If you see fewer than 10, that probably is all that's left. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by 3rdGenCunarder

[wwcruisers]

Thanks Guys -- we may have to actually call HAL to see what's available in the way of Neptune Suites, for this sailing. But, we'll wait a while and see if this cruise is even going to be possible first. LOVE the itinerary -- 5 days from Vancouver to San Diego, with one quick stop in San Francisco. Beats the heck out of flying to San Diego!

And CruiserBruce -- LOL on the website issues. It's reassuring to know that RC/X aren't the only ones with those!

[Euby]

I have found the following things to help when I have issues with some websites.
 

• Try a different web browser
• Turning off VPN
• Clearing browser cache

[MAVIP]

And calling might help in case cabins you would prefer are "in hands" of another HAL office/area. 

 

[3Shelaghs]

I found out the hard way....... on the bottom of one of the first couple of pages during your fake booking, there is a little white box, where you can insert a cabin number. Ta Da.... many of the cabins on the other pages aftr you have picked "choose your own cabin", are shaded denoting cabin is not avail..... but have found many times when I type in exact cabin it is indeed available! Type it in, and it pops up to a regular booking page.

[janmcn]

Had no problem checking ( and Neptunes were available) going through HAL site. 

[Iamthesea]

I find HAL's website a pain to use when looking for a stateroom.  Too many steps and going back and forth. 

 

I use a larger TA's website to check availability.  I am not allowed to name the site, but it has the word cruise in it.  There are many online sites where you can get the same information.  The site I check show all the available staterooms in any one category at one time, no matter what sub-category or deck.  So no going back and forth like I have to do on the HAL site.   

 

I checked for your cruise, if it is the 9/27/23 cruise.  Both categories of Neptune's say Category is Almost Sold Out - TBA (means to be assigned.)  Sounds like a popular cruise!  If you are interested, you should book now.  You can always cancel before final payment.

[Florida_gal_50]

2 hours ago, Iamthesea said:

I find HAL's website a pain to use when looking for a stateroom.  Too many steps and going back and forth. 

 

I use a larger TA's website to check availability.  I am not allowed to name the site, but it has the word cruise in it.  There are many online sites where you can get the same information.  The site I check show all the available staterooms in any one category at one time, no matter what sub-category or deck.  So no going back and forth like I have to do on the HAL site.   

 

I checked for your cruise, if it is the 9/27/23 cruise.  Both categories of Neptune's say Category is Almost Sold Out - TBA (means to be assigned.)  Sounds like a popular cruise!  If you are interested, you should book now.  You can always cancel before final payment.

I do that as well.  The hal website is a huge pain to navigate.

[cruiseaholic78]

When booking our Westerdam cruise (28 days Tokyo Singapore) the cabin we wanted was not available for the whole trip. Looking at booking two cruises of 14 days it was, so contacted T.A. and after an extra phone call it was booked, so its always worth checking if wanting a B2B.

Edited March 4, 2023 by cruiseaholic78

[Iamthesea]

That's very strange!  It pays to always have an agent to fall back on.  Glad it worked out for you.😉  We have to change staterooms on a month long B2B and it was not great having to pack all of our belongings, but the room stewards handled the move beautifully and were so nice.