new_cruiser

6 hours ago, Charleen2 said:

Steward is 2.5 hours from the Anchorage airport, so most will need to do an overnight stay in either Anchorage and take an early morning shuttle to Steward or shuttle from the airport to Steward and overnight there.

Or take the train from Anchorage to Seward. It leaves Anchorage at 6:45 AM and gets to Seward at 11:20 AM - similar to the shuttle bus schedule. The train is more expensive than the shuttle but very comfortable and quite scenic. 

2 hours ago, Psoque said:

Is the double Yacht Club discount for 2025 itineraries?

Some 2025 itineraries: it applies to sailings through March 2025 if booked by Sept 30.

2 hours ago, CulverCityCruisers said:

Nothing is ever "FREE"  they just add the $89 per day into the price.  

With the current special, they didn't. We switched our February 2025 cruise to the current special to add All-In and the base fare stayed the same. Our price went down slightly because special increased our 5% Yacht Club discount to 10%. We got All-In and a slightly lower price.

I wouldn't ever buy All-In at $89 pp per day. As 4-stars, we already get free WiFi. We are light drinkers paying $73 per day (89 - daily gratuity) to get free alcohol wouldn't make sense.

1 hour ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

@new_cruiser  Thanks for pointing this out.  My TA was in the process of making final payment today and thankfully needed the CVV code from me and I saw this in the meantime.   I booked in late June for Pride in December 2024.  I'm not sure if the All Inclusive promo included the 10% at the time as I don't remember that or reduced deposit.  Anyway I had TA call today and they put in a Price Protection form and gave TA a new rate (which was apparently wrong) as they called my TA back.  It appears they can't do math as they quoted the additional discount of $305 pp but then gave an overall price pp at about $1k less!  After over an hour on the phone they agreed to have supervisor provide written details tomorrow!  I believe the $305 is correct as it reflects the extra 5% and the $80 pp the taxes/fees have gone down since booking.

 

Anyway it appears I have to keep track of the details of the promo even if the name doesn't change.

 

But thanks to this thread I should be saving over $600 on this Xmas cruise.

I don't think the offer changed from late June, but I might be wrong. We got a post card in early summer telling us about the promotion. It seems it always pays to keep an eye on how Windstar applies things as some things don't seem to be fully automatic.

I've done some solo trips and that pricing is even more opaque. When I'm traveling solo, I just check it to see that it isn't higher than what I expect and as long as that's true I'm fine. Their normal solo supplement is 75% but it seems that there is some part of the cruise fare that they don't apply it to because the invoice has always come out slightly lower than I expect. Until recently, the Reduced Solo Supplement page just gave the price for the lowest category room and didn't have solo supplement %. And since the price on that page was static and not linked to the current price, one couldn't even calculate what the supplement was supposed to be if the cruise was on sale. So I would just call my TA and get a quote. Recently, they added the % to the page so that will be easier to check. 

On 9/4/2024 at 6:17 AM, Psoque said:

Also, is the current promotions for 2026 Europeran itineraries a good deal?  Has Windstar offered more impressive booking incentive in the (recent) past?

In most cases, the $200 OBC per cabin plus complimentary All-Inclusive is as good or better than past booking incentives.

Some past incentives have had a higher OBC amount for the premium suites but didn't include All-In. Depending on how valuable All-In is to the particular passenger and depending on length of cruise, the higher OBC might be a better deal for those who book the large suites. If you book don't book a premium suite, the current deal is best even if you don't care about WiFi and included alcohol since you get the OBC plus All-In covers daily gratuities ($16 per passenger per day).

Many Windstar cruise fares are higher than $2000 ppdo, so the extra 5% off plus complimentary All-In on the current kind-of-late booking deal is usually better than the $200 OBC for the Early Booking deal. But I haven't seen that offered before.

3 hours ago, oakridger said:

The current All-Inclusive Upgrade also includes all gratuities and $200 OBC.

 

"All-Inclusive upgrade — with Wi-Fi, unlimited wine, beer and cocktails, and all gratuities — plus a $200 onboard credit per stateroom"

 

The OBC is a feature of a particular special, not of All-Inclusive.

The Early Booking Offer for 2026 includes complimentary All-in plus $200 OBC.

The Complimentary All-Inclusive offer on sailings through March 2025 booked before Sept 30 doesn't include OBC. Instead it has a 10% Yacht Club  discount instead of the usual 5%. On many Windstar cruises the extra 5% off would save more than $200 per cabin.

They have a Price Assurance Policy that let's you re-price to the current fare if the price drops over 90 days before sailing. Generally, that means you lose any perks that went with the prior fare and get the ones that go with the new fare.

I've seen fares go up or go down as the cruise approaches. We are probably about 50/50 on cruises where it never dropped below our original fare and ones we re-fared under the price assurance program.

Currently, they have the all-in package included on a lot of cruises (some before a certain date and some far out in 2026).

We had a February 2025 cruise booked and used the policy to get ihe current offer. It truly was All-In for no added cost; our cost actually went down 5% because the fare didn't change but the current promotion includes a 10% Yacht Club discount instead of the usual 5%. Also, they let us keep the free hotel night that was part of our original promotion.

7 hours ago, Charleen2 said:

A little more detail would be nice, like what are we doing with a wetlanding in the two NPs. There is no town. Rudyard is actually Rudyerd. 

This is what I have for the Star Seeker 10 day cruise the end of July 2026:

If the do a wetlanding in Kenai and Misty Fjords, it must be for a hike or nature walk. There is nothing there other than nature. When they did Alaska before, they had kayak and zodiac trips those places but didn't land. Kenai Fjords has a glacier.

In both locations in May, there were bears on the meadows by the Fjords. That would make landing tricky. That's probably seasonal as we were told bears tend to graze when they get out of hibernation. It helps get their digestion moving. In Misty Fjords, there was a whale in the fjord with us. 

The map for the ones to/from Seward shows the path going to Kenai Fjords which would be a glacier day, but the itinerary just says 2 sea days. It should only need 1 sea day to get from Seward to the first inside passage port but if they are going to Kenai Fjords why isn't it on the itinerary?

Strange because under dining on that same page it says stylish athletic shoes are fine for dinner. 

Also, I think it's wierd to have jeans be okay and not athletic shoes.

In my experience, athletic shoes are fine. 

This is the source I quoted:

https://www.windstarcruises.com/voyage-plan/general-information/#DiningWithWindstar

Where are you reading that?

Dinner dress description on the Gerneral Information page for booked guests says:

"If you’re dining in Amphora, Stella Bistro, or Cuadro 44 by Anthony Sasso in the evening, slacks or non-distressed jeans are appropriate, paired with collared, button-down or polo shirts, or fashion tops or blouses. Skirts with nice tops, casual dresses and sundresses are also good choices. Dress shoes, nice sandals or stylish athletic casual shoes round out your evening wardrobe."

Whenever I've looked, the website has not prohibited athletic shoes. It used to prohibited jeans but now non-distressed ones are allowed. Several years ago (pre-COVID), some cruise directors would say no "trainers" when they gave their introductory talk but that was contrary to the website. I ignored them since it's not right to try to inforce a stricter policy on board when guests relied on the website for packing. I never had anyone question my shoe choice in the dining room.

On our post COVID cruises, no one has said "no trainers". 

We've arrived on board and sent almost everything to the laundry after unpacking (long flights plus 4 days pre-cruise), sent in laundry every day and left with almost everything clean for our post-cruise stay. All covered by the package and never any complaints about it.

The only time there has been an issue was when we boarded in Aukland. Due to an unreasonable heavy storm, the ship came into Auckland the day before we boarded and then stayed in port until the day after we boarded. They couldn't discharge the grey water there and tanks were near capacity so the couldn't do laundry until we got out to see. So return of t g at first laundry was delayed a day.

There have been a few different Lisbon to Barcelona itineraries. Currently, most of them are similar to the one we did in which all the stops other than Gibraltar were in Portugal and Spain. This itinerary has a stop in Almeria which is about 90 minutes from the Alhambra. The Windstar excursion to the Alhambra is very good and because it is a long excursion and a significant distance it's a good way to go. On our cruise, we had to skip the Almeria stop due to high winds but stayed an extra day in Malaga instead. That's a similar distance to the Alhambra so the Windstar excursion was switched to depart from there instead. We and about 6 others had booked a non-Windstar excursion and had to scramble working with the tour provider to get it modified to leave run from Malaga. 

The other itinerary stops in Tangiers and has some different ports in Spain. The current version of it doesn't stop in Almeria and doesn't have excursions posted so it isn't known whether they will have an Alhambra excursion from there. It does stop in Seville so you are right in town instead of needing to take a shuttle from Cadiz and that is an overnight stop which is pretty nice. Our cruise stopped in Seville, but they have stopped doing that with most of their cruises because the channel in the river is pretty tight - the ship had to back for a good bit of the way out. 

They have some new winter itineraries that are Barcelona to Malaga or round trip from Barcelona that hit Gibraltar and the Spain ports (except Cadiz/Seville) - I guess they stay in the Mediterranean to avoid winter seas in the Atlantic - even at other times of the year, the sea can get a bit rough on the way to Lisbon. Those have overnights for some of the stops.   

They have never done on line bookings. I call or use a travel agent.

I suspect not. Their floats are tethered to the ship. There can be enough current that an untethered raft might get too far from the ship.

Mayreau is mostly a beach stop with the beach BBQ provided and staffed by Windstar. The passenger capacity of a Star ship is larger than the island population, some people walk up to the small town, there is a bar near the dock and there is usually an excursion to a nearby Reef with a tiny island but mostly the stop is about the beach BBQ. As long as the beach is still there, it shouldn't be impacted by the hurricane.

Soufriere is a great stop. It's nice to be near the Pitons instead of having to cross the island to get to that area. Sorry, I don't know anything about the current state of the ports but it's a very nice itinerary.

I didn't need any printed paperwork to board so you don't need to worry about not having a printer. IIRC, I didn't need any electronic paperwork either. Just my passport. I think this is pretty typical of small ship lines.

10 hours ago, morgan5 said:

If you have both OBC from Windstar and a travel agent, which one gets used first? Hopefully it's the Windstar credit, but I'm curious. So if I have let's say $200 OBC issued by Windstar and $200 OBC issued by a travel agent and at the end of my cruise I end up spending say $300 in misc. purchases. Would I get $100 refunded back to me?

They have always used the Windstar OBC first when I've had both Windstar OBC and OBC from my travel agent. The OBC from my travel agent was shown as something else on the statement of credits that I got at the beginning of the cruise - I don't recall what it was called but I think it was something like prepaid credits.

13 minutes ago, MNgardens said:

Today I went to look at the cruise prices and found that the accommodation is now priced at $999,999. Does anyone know what weird pricing like this signifies? Is it about to be yanked for a charter?

 

I don't know but there are several other cruises with that price. Possibly a website glitch or possibly cruises they aren't ready to book?

16 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

We called our TA Wednesday to book a cruise that included the complimentary all inclusive. Yesterday that same cruise was on 7 for 7. The basic cruise price was less than the Wednesday price. However, it doesn’t include the free all inclusive . To buy the all inclusive adds a huge amount to the price.  I am confused. The sale price is higher than the regular price?

For some, the lower price without all inclusive may be a better deal. We don't drink much and have been fine cruising without on-board internet so as long as the price difference is more than the gratuities plus a bit for drinks, we would probably have preferred that even before we were both 4-star. Now that we are 4-star, we get internet for free so we wouldn't even lose that with the 7-for-7.

11 hours ago, sundown6 said:

I can totally relate to your situation. When my husband and I applied for Global Entry, his approval took much longer than mine, so I get the frustration.

For me, the renewal process took about three months from start to finish. However, it's a bit unpredictable, and it might vary for you. Since your husband's credentials are still good for the upcoming trip, that's a relief!

I'd suggest checking the Global Entry website for the latest processing times and keeping an eye out for any earlier interview slots that might open up. Fingers crossed it all works out smoothly for your trip in September!

Even if his expiration date was before the trip, he would be okay as long as he had submitted the renewal before it expired. The Global Entry website says:

" If you submit a renewal application before your membership expires, you will be able to continue to use benefits up to 24 months after your membership expiration date. An interview may be required upon renewal. This will be determined by the vetting center."

So it also confirms that your husband might not need an interview. I can't find anything about renewing after expiration - it might be the same as starting a new application.

I don't know if reapplication is the same, but for renewal you may not need an interview. My husband and I renewed last year. Approval came surprisingly quickly - a couple of weeks - even though there were warnings on the site that renewal might be slow. Mine came with a new card, but he was required to interview again. I don't know if it's random or some other factor (e.g. because he has a common first/last name combination). 

He was able to schedule the interview within a couple of months at SFO (I don't remember exactly how long now). Interview availability can vary a lot depending on where you are trying to get the interview. When we initially applied for global entry, interviews weren't available in any reasonable timeframe at our nearest spot (SFO). You can always check around for availability at other locations - my husband found quick availability at another airport reachable as a daytrip with cheap roundtrip flights. 

On 5/23/2024 at 10:12 AM, mnocket said:

For those of you renewing your passports, don't make my mistake and forget to check the box to get the bigger passport with more pages.

I have been getting the extra pages book because of business travel to countries that required a visa - single entry visa to China took a whole page so by the time they stamped entry and exit plus the US stamp on return, one trip took 2 pages. 

Now that most countries do electronic visas and with less stamping, I don't expect to need the bigger book ever again and I'm glad to have something thinner.

Everyone should have layers including a rain layer (at least a rain shell with a hood - it didn't rain hard enough or long enough that we found rain pants necessary. Also sun screen as a lot of activities are outdoor.

The rest depends on what you plan to do, your interests and personal needs. I enjoyed having a compact camera with a 30x optical zoom - getting pictures of distant wildlife without losing resolution. A nice not too heavy binocular can be nice also.

Hiking shoes (e.g. Merrill Moab) are nice if you plan on a lot of hiking. For me, high top hiking boots are for back packing - the ankle support helps when carrying a heavy load but not needed for regular hiking unless someone has ankle issues.

Motion sickness medication  - if you generally need it on a cruise, bring it. Also depends on itinerary. Sailing is usually very smooth while in the inside passage. If the cruise goes to Seward or Whittier, it can get rough crossing the Gulf of Alaska. It's also useful for a Kenai Fjords boat excursion from Seward.