HAL's 3rd person policy

[jimbug]

Hello,
What is HAL's policy regarding adding a 3rd person into your cabin?

I am about to book an SS suite for two people, and there is a possibility we may add a third after the final payment date, but well before the cruise. I checked--the room does hold a max of 3 people. Does HAL allow you to do this at "no extra charge" at any point in time up to a certain deadline?

Thanks so much!

[Krazy Kruizers]

At the bottom of the "price" page for each cruise, there is a list for what it will cost for the 3rd and 4th person in a cabin. The 3rd person is not free.

After final payment, don't be surprised if the 3rd person cost goes up.

[lknick]

It's not like a drive-in movie with a flat fee per car. There is a charge, which is conspicously placed at the bottom of the price sheet on the web page.

There is nothing to indicate on the price sheet that the 3rd and 4th person is not valid up to the date of sailing.

The fee is a flat fee based on age. Sometimes on promotions, the extra charge is only tax and port charges, but this is not frequent.

[kruzkeen]

There was an interesting point brought out yesterday on the thread SHIP CAPACITY by grannynurse. You might want to read:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=99821&highlight=charter

[grannynurse]

whether or not you'll be allowed to add after final payment. Seeing that you're talking about an SS cabin it must be a Vista-class ship or the Prinsendam. You'll have more opportunity to add on a vista-class, BUT if your sailing is an out-of-the-way itinerary, it may sell out more quickly.
Try to book ASAP for all 3 of you.
GN

[jimbug]

Hi, I know that the 3rd person will have to pay the 3rd person rate...I'm just curious if HAL limits the ability to add into your own cabin. It would be on the Westerdam, and our SS suite states it holds a max of 3 people. We'd book 2 in immediately, and pay the 3rd person rate as soon as the 3rd knows for sure.

I guess my question is whether or not HAL will allow us to do so after the final payment date? Will they charge us MORE than the published 3rd person rate after the final payment deadline? Thanks!

(Sorry, I realized how poorly worded my original question was....)

[KAKcruiser]

I have added a third person after the original booking but before final payment. This was no problem. They charged the rate that had been in effect when we originally booked. However, this was probably 3 or 4 years ago. Things change.

[Cruise Fanatic]

Jimbug,
If you are thinking of adding a 3rd person to share your cabin, I would suggest that you do it as soon as possible due to the Ships Capacity. If the ship you are traveling hold a max capacity of 1400 passangers, and they have booked 1400 passangers the chances of you adding a 3rd party to you cabin would be slim..on the other hand using the 1400 passenger max...if the ship has only booked 1300 passengers I would say that you would have a good chance of adding the person. (now they have room for 1299 more passengers) So the bottom line is not how many persons to a cabin, capacatiy is based on the total amount of passengers the ship is authorized to carry...hope that this explanation helps...enjoy your cruise HAL is my favorite line....

[pumpkin123]

Jimbug-
It doesn't matter if your stateroom holds 3 passengers or not. The important part is whether or not the ship is sold out to triples and quads. Once they reach maximum capacity, they will close the ship to any additional triple or quad cabins.
So, as long as there is still space, you will be able to add your 3rd person after final payment.
The ships do not fill every bed in every cabin. I would imagine that they are limited by things like lifeboat capacity.

[Arubalisa]

Our family booked 4 Cat. A's on Zaandam sailing on Dec. 18 for 7 adults and 3 children.

We just added another child, our foster/adopt daughter (needed to wait for the judge's order allowing us to take her out of the country) to our Cat. A.

HAL is charging $300 over what they charged us originally for the other 3 children in our family.

This price ends up being the cruisline's published fare for 3rd/4th person. HAL is charging the same 3rd/4th person for the Christmas sailing, regardless whether a child or adult.

A sacrifice :rolleyes: our family is willing to make in order to spend Christmas together :D Now if we could only come up with a way to get those Christmas presents aboard already wrapped....

[lknick]

On HAL controlled cruises, HAL limits the total number of passengers to two times the number of seats in the dining room. After that, 3rd or 4th are not accepted despite the configuration of the cabin.

Chartering is a different story.

[GA girl]

We have a family cruise booked in June 2005 on the Zuiderdam and were going to wait to see if our grandson could get leave from Air Force (he would be 3rd passenger in category S) before booking for him. Our TA strongly urged, because of ship capacity, to go ahead with his booking and then cancel if we had to - we'll lose our insurance payment if this happens, but it's important to us that he can get on the ship if he's able to be there.

I went to a link provided above by kruzkeen and was really astounded to read that on a particular sailing the Amsterdam put 1790 people aboard when capacity was around 1300 - please don't slam me for this, but could this really have happened? Forget the food, seats in the dining room, etc. - the most critical issue is that the ship is required to provide life vests and life boat capacity for all guests and crew - I wouldn't want them to fudge on this!

[Lovebirds]

I went to a link provided above by kruzkeen and was really astounded to read that on a particular sailing the Amsterdam put 1790 people aboard when capacity was around 1300 - please don't slam me for this, but could this really have happened? Forget the food, seats in the dining room, etc. - the most critical issue is that the ship is required to provide life vests and life boat capacity for all guests and crew - I wouldn't want them to fudge on this!
The stated capacity of the Amsterdam is 1655 passengers and a crew of 700. I keep reading about them cutting back on staffing, are they replacing the missing staff with more passengers?

[gatour]

GA Girl,

I wouldn't worry about fudging in regards to the amount of lifeboats/lifevests for passengers. This is highly regulated and very easy to check, just count the number of beds and make sure you have enough seats in the lifeboats to accomadate all of the people that could possibly sleep in those beds. This includes all of the "normal" beds along with the 3rds and 4ths, and of course staff. Generally, "full" means that each cabin on the ship has been sold. Most cruiselines advertise "capacity" as 2xnumber of cabins onboard ship. If the number of cabins is 1000 then "capcity" would be 2000.

However, there are usually some cabins that can accomadate 3 or 4 people,so a ship like the one above could sail with 2500 people. As long as the ship was designed to handle the people service wise, no worries. There will be enough lifeboat space to handle the 2500 people and staff along with a "fudge" factor.

If you look at the side of the lifeboats, you will see the number of people that each lifeboat can handle. Whenever I have checked and did the math, there were plenty more seats in the life boats than the number of people that could be aboard.

In regards to lifevests, along with the ones in the cabins, there are plenty on the lifeboat deck. If you look along the promanade or lifeboat deck you will see either benches or metal boxes. These will contain additional lifevests.

[FoxyTerrier]

It's not like a drive-in movie with a flat fee per car.

Put the 3rd person in the trunk and sneak them on board. ;)

That used to be so much fun when I was a teen - and of course we would start to giggle making the thrill of not getting caught so much more exciting.

[tomc]

Put the 3rd person in the trunk and sneak them on board. That's how Harpo Marx got onboard the ship, in Groucho's steamer trunk.

[GA girl]

gatour....

Thanks for your response - it's not that I was worried about vests and lifeboat capacity, knowing that HAL would be within regulations - just found the passenger numbers quoted in the link to be surprising. Perhaps it's because my husband and I have sailed the Atlantic and Caribbean waters many times in our sailboat that we're especially conscious of safety factors - our liferaft for two of us was a 6-person capacity!

BTW, are you a 'FL gator' or from GA?

[gatour]

I am a Florida Gatour. I have used this handle on various systems since the 80's when I was in college at UF.