HAL panama canal pricing

[NoWhiners]

Hi all

 

We are thinking of taking a cruise through the panama canal (full transit, from Atlantic to pacific) in April 2010. TA said the prices don't really look that great. Has anyone been searching or checking prices and can provide some additional insight or info?

 

Thanks

Mary Lynn

[pris993]

Just looked at a similar cruise May 7 on Princess from Ft. Lauderdale to San Francisco. Prices are about what I would expect for a balcony cabin $5000 + for two.

 

Expect prices will start out high given the market this year, they may drop if the economy does not improve. It is a wait and see game.

 

Even some of HAL promotions for this year -- prices seem high.

 

We have a future booking credit on HAL and Princess. We will go with the best price on either.

 

Since 2010 cruises have just been released it is early to expect a good price.

[geoherb]

The prices I saw looked high. The airfare for one-way Panama Canal cruises will also be higher. Do you have to take the cruise then? Or would other dates work also? Perhaps you could do a fall transit through the canal, when ships are repositioning from summer in Alaska.

[Cruisin'Lady]

I have been watching the pricing on these cruises as I am very interested in one of the repositioning cruises from Ft Lauderdale to Vancouver. The one for this spring is really reasonable for an inside cabin...but its 700 dollars more (per person) for the reverse trip in fall.

 

I have yet to see the prices for 2010 for this cruise...but will be looking for it for next spring.

[TCF]

Not sure that booking early is the wisest move. The crusie lines will be betting on the economy improving a year to 18 months out and will set fares accordingly.

The best move might just be to sit and watch the fares as the economy unfolds into next fall/winter.

Just a thought.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We did the full transit last year on the Westerdam -- and will soon be doing it again. We booked this years cruise while sailing last year.

The prices are high for full transits -- and the price we paid never went down.

[Texas Tillie]

Don't forget that cruiselines have to pay $250,000 to over $300,000 to the canal authority for a full transit.:eek: So, the rates can only be so low.

[brownie1005]

Hi all

 

We are thinking of taking a cruise through the panama canal (full transit, from Atlantic to pacific) in April 2010. TA said the prices don't really look that great. Has anyone been searching or checking prices and can provide some additional insight or info?

 

Thanks

Mary Lynn

 

While on the Maasdam last December, we really wanted to book Rotterdam FT for 12/09. We were disappointed though, as the prices were very high. For the next few months I checked pricing every now and then (ok, probably every day :D), and found the prices had gone down considerably the first week of March. We booked through HAL and ended up transferring booking to a TA. (TA had pricing HAL couldn't match.)

 

We are literally sailing for 1/2 the fare originally quoted!

 

Don't give up!:):)

[NoWhiners]

All

 

Thanks for the scoop! Price we were given was $5000/per balcony cabin (VD) on HAL for next April (2010), including all fees, not travel insurance (which we can get for $102 per booking). I think we will talk to future booking people when we take HAL to Alaska in June and see what they say. TA says I can transfer booking to them when I get back and they will pass on their usual discount. Plus, we should get OBC from HAL? I have heard it only costs $100 deposit to book a cruise when you are on a cruise and it can be transferred to another cruise within 4 years? Anyone know how accurate my assumptions are?

 

Happy Easter to all,

Mary Lynn

[brownie1005]

All

 

I think we will talk to future booking people when we take HAL to Alaska in June and see what they say. TA says I can transfer booking to them when I get back and they will pass on their usual discount. Plus, we should get OBC from HAL? I have heard it only costs $100 deposit to book a cruise when you are on a cruise and it can be transferred to another cruise within 4 years? Anyone know how accurate my assumptions are?

 

Happy Easter to all,

Mary Lynn

 

Mary Lynn,

 

When we found out from the Future Cruise Consultant what the Panama FT was going to cost :eek:, we opted instead to just purchase the $100 deposits and decide what to do at a later date.

 

So when we did book, we used the deposits that we had made onboard and also received our OBC.

 

Have fun on your Alaska cruise!

 

Happy Easter to you too,

Karen

[LADYLAYLA]

Actually, they pay the same whether it is a partial transit or a full transit. It is based on pasenger count (learned this on our partial transit last month) I believe they said the Zuiderdam paid $327,000 for our transit that day

 

 

Don't forget that cruiselines have to pay $250,000 to over $300,000 to the canal authority for a full transit.:eek: So, the rates can only be so low.

[NoWhiners]

Mary Lynn,

 

When we found out from the Future Cruise Consultant what the Panama FT was going to cost :eek:, we opted instead to just purchase the $100 deposits and decide what to do at a later date.

 

So when we did book, we used the deposits that we had made onboard and also received our OBC.

 

Have fun on your Alaska cruise!

 

Happy Easter to you too,

Karen

 

 

Hi Karen

 

So, is it really true you can hold cabins with $100 and apply them to a cruise within the next 4 years? We are thinking we can do this: book the canal, keep checking prices (our TA always rebooks us until final payment. For the small fee of $25 But, this saved us $900 for our AK cruise). We think prices will be low in 2010 because economy will still be recovering. Other choice for us is to wait until 2011 and do canal, which might cost more.

 

Any thoughts/advice?

Mary Lynn

[brownie1005]

Hi Karen

 

So, is it really true you can hold cabins with $100 and apply them to a cruise within the next 4 years? We are thinking we can do this: book the canal, keep checking prices (our TA always rebooks us until final payment. For the small fee of $25 But, this saved us $900 for our AK cruise). We think prices will be low in 2010 because economy will still be recovering. Other choice for us is to wait until 2011 and do canal, which might cost more.

 

Any thoughts/advice?

Mary Lynn

 

Mary Lynn,

 

Wow! Nice job on the $900 savings :D

 

I'm definitely not a cruise expert (working on it though :)) and wasn't exactly sure how the $100 deposit was going to work. The TA that we ended up transferring our booking to knew all about it, though. Our next payment isn't until final payment in Sept, I think.

 

I didn't think much of the Future Cruise Consultant that we had to work with on the Maasdam, or we might have done what you're thinking of doing and put the $100 toward the Panama cruise and hoped the fares went down. He was so frustrating though, that we just opted for the $100 future cruise deposit on any cruise w/i the 4 year period.

 

Maybe some other seasoned HAL cruisers can address the pros/cons of actually booking a particular cruise on board vs just purchasing the $100 future cruise deposit?

 

Karen

[NoWhiners]

Karen

 

 

Ohhhh--now I get it! You can book an actual cruise OR put $100 down for some cruise in the future? What does the $100 get you? (besides the luxury of having a "previous booking" and OBC?)

 

The $900 was nice, and we had 3 cabins, so it made up for the overpriced airfare to vancouver!!

 

ML

[scottjeanne]

We are on the FLL to Vancouver Panama Canal transit this May. The prices offered this winter were fabulous-oceanview, 17 days for less than $900 per person. The one way, nonstop airfare from OHare to Fort Lauderdale and Vancouver to OHare (on two different airlines) was only $300, so it did not add significantly to the cruise fare. I cannot predict what the price will be next May, but look for the repostioning ones and perhaps you will get a good deal also.

[chloes nana]

We are on the FLL to Vancouver Panama Canal transit this May. The prices offered this winter were fabulous-oceanview, 17 days for less than $900 per person. The one way, nonstop airfare from OHare to Fort Lauderdale and Vancouver to OHare (on two different airlines) was only $300, so it did not add significantly to the cruise fare. I cannot predict what the price will be next May, but look for the repostioning ones and perhaps you will get a good deal also.

do you have all the same excursions and port stops on the repo cruises?

[Stakeout]

Karen

 

 

Ohhhh--now I get it! You can book an actual cruise OR put $100 down for some cruise in the future? What does the $100 get you? (besides the luxury of having a "previous booking" and OBC?)

 

The $900 was nice, and we had 3 cabins, so it made up for the overpriced airfare to vancouver!!

 

ML

 

we've been doing that for the past two+ years or so since they've been offering it onboard.. buy any number of $100 deposits you want ... we usually buy four at a time... charge it to your favorite credit card...

 

use them anytime within 4 years... either direct with HAL or thru your Travel Agent.. doesn't matter ....no need to book a particular cruise with the onboard cruise consultant...although you can..

 

we had to cancel a back to back on the Nordam this past January ... we had used the four $100 deposits for them... they gave us the credits back in our account and we are now using them for our back to back Holiday cruises in December...

 

seems to me if you cruise HAL a lot it's the best way to go rather than having to put up high deposits beforehand...

[scottjeanne]

I beleive our itinerary is typical, but since this is our first Panama Canal transit, I cannot say. We stop at Caragena, Costa Rica, Acapulco, Huatulco, Cabo San Lucas and San Diego. Apparently, we were to have stopped at Victoria before Vancouver, but due to the dry dock schedule, they took out that stop.

[serendipity1499]

Karen

 

 

Ohhhh--now I get it! You can book an actual cruise OR put $100 down for some cruise in the future? What does the $100 get you? (besides the luxury of having a "previous booking" and OBC?)

 

The $900 was nice, and we had 3 cabins, so it made up for the overpriced airfare to vancouver!!ML

 

While on our Alaska cruise, we put $100 Per person down for a future cruise & did not specify the cruise or the length when we did it..

Following is the OBC which HAL applies toward a future cruise within 4 years:

Inside or Outside Cabins

Length of Cruise: 7-11 days $25.00 pp OBC - 12 + days $50.00 pp OBC

Verandah cabins:

Length of cruise: 7-11 days $35.00 pp OBC - 12 + days $75.00 pp OBC

Suites" PS-S/SY:

Length of cruise: 7-11 days $50.00 pp OBC - 12 + days $100.00 pp OBC

Also when we book we advise the On Board Consultant that we do not want the deposit assigned to any Agent..We have Holland keep the Deposit..This way we are not tied down to one Travel Agent..If we did not have HAL keep it they would have automatically assigned it to the Tour Operator we were booked with in Alaska....

The reason we did this is that we use one TA for our normal cruise bookings with no land,...However, when we book inclusive tours which include land, hotels, air etc., we use a Tour Operator which DH's Company has dealt with for many years..We've booked several inclusive tours with this Tour Operator, which gives us rebates for future bookings..

Hope this helps..Cheers...:)Betty

[NoWhiners]

Betty

 

I was following until you got to the part about having HAL keep the deposit. When i talk to my TA, they always say HAL gets the money, so how is this different? Or do some TAs keep the deposit?

 

maybe I'm just slow today--it is Monday;)!

 

Mary Lynn

[cmdchiefthom]

I had booked an SC stern corner suite on the Zui's 10 day April 2010 round trip from Ft. Lauderdale, to the canal a couple of months ago. I thought the price was about right at that time. I just got off the Westerdam yesterday and had the SB stern wrap-around suite on deck 7, and just loved it, so I called HAL about changing my reservation. Bottom line is that I was able to change suites, saved just about $1500.00, and received a $75.00 PP OBC to boot. Got the whole deal, with insurance for less than eight grand. I consider that a pretty good deal!:D

[NoWhiners]

Thom

 

That sounds pretty good--congratulations on quick thinking! We are now thinking of just booking a future cruise when we go to Alaska in June, then decide which one as we watch prices.

[serendipity1499]

Betty

 

I was following until you got to the part about having HAL keep the deposit. When i talk to my TA, they always say HAL gets the money, so how is this different? Or do some TAs keep the deposit?

 

maybe I'm just slow today--it is Monday;)!Mary Lynn

 

 

OH...Sorry to have confused you Mary Lynn..

I did not explain it properly...

You are correct, Hal always keeps the deposit, however they will normally credit it to the TA who booked the cruise you are on..Therefore if you want to transfer it to another Agent, you will have to go thru hoops to do so..

In our case we used a HAL Tour Operator for Alaska...It included land, air & hotels, transfers & our cruise..And we paid the $100 pp deposit & left it open (no agent-no cruise)..Now we've booked our 28 day round trip on the Statendam for Nov. 2009 & have used our regular travel agent here in Florida..So we just gave our deposit confirmation number to our Agent & it was OK...

We don't let HAL credit it to any Agent until we decide which Agent/Tour Operator we are going to use for a particular cruise....I would recommend this, especially if you want to use different Agents for different things..

Hope I've been clearer & made it easier to understand...

cheers..:)Betty..

[NoWhiners]

Hi Betty

 

thanks for the clarification! I think we will still be OK. We are using a warehouse big box store for our cruises lately (rhymes with bosco) and they told us that we can switch the booking to them and its the same as HAL. They said that HAL doesn't do this with everyone, but it is in effect for them. Don't know if this is a marketing ploy or what, but they have been great whenever we call and this new wrinkle seems pretty good too!

 

We are going to book future cruise when we are on zuidrdam in June (in AK), then ckheck out how transfering works. I'm not worried--whenever we call and have a question about HAL, they call HAL and get the straight scoop.

 

Mary Lynn

 

PS: The same company offers pretty good trip insurance. Only noted this because I read a thread about this topic earlier tonight. Covers pre-exisiting conditions, through cruise. Cost us $62 each for 7 days in AK.