countingbackwards

How much were you charged for the Elite package upgrade? Was it $10/day + 28%?

Logically - the HIA just went up by $5 per day and many drink prices just went up by $1 per day. It seems logical to presume that it’s only fair to raise the price limit by a dollar to $12 to keep things fair, and only hit folks with 1 price increase at a time (either when you buy the drink or when you buy the drink package) rather than 2 price increases for the same thing.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy both HAL and Celebrity…they’re similar to me in every way other than what I’ve mentioned. I prefer both lines to Disney, RCCL, Carnival and most land-based vacations. I will echo what others have said - new vs old ship can make more difference than the line. HAL on the old Veendam was REALLY laid back and lacked crowds everywhere…which I loved. Rooms were basic but large. Not much in the way of dining or entertainment options. Rooms were also basic and large on Celebrity M class, though their rooms were recently renovated and the M class has twice the passengers of the so it doesn’t have the same laid-back vibe. Celebrity M class is likely closer in character to the mid-sized HAL ships, which I haven’t sailed on. One thing though - the older ships with the bigger rooms work far better if you’re putting 4 in a room. Otherwise I prefer the more modern but smaller rooms on new ships. Pinnacle class on HAL is really quite similar in ship design to S class on Celebrity. My comparison in my previous post is most accurately read as a comparison between those 2 classes of ships. Celebrity Edge class has no equivalent on HAL. I’m sure they’re lots of fun though.

Having sailed both...I prefer HAL, but imagine that most who like one will have fun on either of them. Here are the standout differences: HAL has better food for beef eaters especially - included excellent MDR steak or prime rib is available just about every day. X steaks were not as good - always overcooked. Burgers at the Dive-In are delicious, whereas the Mast Grill burgers are awful frozen pucks thrown on a grill. Fresh meats and roasts at the buffet on HAL that are well-prepared vs. overcooked and bland on X. I prefer the X specialty restaurants in general, but they cost a lot more than HAL's so I'll go to max 1 per cruise - with HAL, a 2nd trip doesn't make me feel guilty for wasting more $$ on a meal that I already paid for. X has the best bar - the Martini Bar has no peer on HAL. But...those drinks are pricey. I'm plenty happy with the drinks that are just as good on HAL without the big price, and as a result I order them more freely. X has better coffee and tea at Al Bacio than anywhere on a HAL ship. Snacks are better at the Dutch Cafe, but the priority for me is the coffee, and it's just OK. HAL is more reasonable in all "after booking the cruise" costs. Cheaper drink packages, cheaper excursions, cheaper specialty restaurants. X is like Cunard and old-time cruising - a lot of the ship reserved for the high rollers. I don't like the idea of a class system...the HAL system of being able to buy individual pieces (cabanas, Club Orange) is far nicer...even if I'm not a customer for any of it, I like to know that I can be. Entertainment is just way better on HAL. I love good, honest live music. BB King's lounge is something I would happily pay for on land - especially when coupled with the HIA package. What luxury to watch talented musicians play jazz and blues classics with "included" drinks flowing. On X, they have big cheesy stage shows that aren't quite good enough to charge for on their own...HAL has the big cheesy dance shows to compete with that, but X has nothing that comes close to BB King (or the Rock Room for that matter). During the day, I prefer the trivia games by the adult pool on HAL to the more energetic zumba etc. by the main pool on X. HAL's atmosphere is elegant and relaxing; X's atmosphere is urban chic that feels somewhat forced to me. We're still gluttons on a cruise ship consuming far too much food and drink...nothing about that is chic. The balconies on HAL are nicer than any line I've been on. The teak deck and footstools included in base balcony rooms make it feel more appealing to enjoy your balcony than the more industrial feel of X balconies (I haven't been on the IV on Edge class, only M and S class balconies). Now having said all that - I love cruising both lines. I'd go for whichever was the better price on a given itinerary. Of course, HAL has better itineraries most of the time and lower prices, so it's a while since I've been on X now.

I'm (usually) a value shopper when it comes to vacations, whether they're cruises or something else. When you book a year out, you get to pick your room, but the pricing will be based on an "average" for similar cruises so it won't be the best value. If you book within a month or 2 of the cruise, you can get advantageous pricing that came up due to circumstances. As an example, in March, I got great pricing ~1 month out on an aft balcony on the NS that came up due to a cancelled dry dock for the NA that thus was cruising the exact same itinerary, departing 1 day earlier...so suddenly a lot of people moved their reservations to the NA from the NS, and lots of rooms were available. A 2nd one, in 2019, I nabbed a 12-day Med cruise mid-summer on the Veendam departing from Venice that had a free kids offer right around final payment date...put 4 of us in an OV cabin, and had the least costly Med vacation imaginable, that was on an awesome ship that got into some smaller ports. Those OV cabins on the Veendam (which I had been in before) were actually quite spacious, and the stairway to the promenade deck made them feel almost like balcony cabins. It was absolutely worth the minor compromise to get a vacation of a lifetime and show my kids a bit of the world. I would happily book a room like that again (think that the Volendam has a similar design). For regions like Alaska, the Med or the Caribbean, where there are literally hundreds of cruises by different cruise lines running near-identical itineraries, my strategy is to wait until after final payment, and choose one that was under-booked on any decent line for some reason and grab it. If it's a longer or more unique itinerary or you're targeting a specific ship, then that strategy would make less sense. I would add - the difference in prices for nabbing an under-booked cruise are far more significant than the benefits of the early HIA promotion. That promotion is valuable only if you have specific dates or ports, and can't risk just taking whatever is a good deal. As to flights...when booking a cruise, I'll have a 2nd browser window to look up air pricing at the same time as I'm investigating the cruises. You'd be surprised, but at about 2 months out, sometimes there's some cheap airfare to be had too. Value vacationing is all about optimizing the airfare and vacation pricing in combination, then pressing the "purchase" button on both within minutes of each other.