Hllb

Just curious how this works. Not sure I want it, but I don't see anywhere I can purchase it for my June 24th cruise. Does that mean it's sold out already? How do the upgrades work with it? Do they present you the open rooms and let you pick? Or just randomly assign you one?

Perfect, thanks!

Ah, thanks. We're all one family so I'm paying either way LOL. But I wondered when people posted their example rates, like $299 pp, would that be X3 for our balcony cabin. Seems like it would only be X2. I am watching sales too for the possibility of just upgrading that way, but haven't seen anything yet. I just got back from Dublin and spent less than I had planned so have a little extra money floating around.

Thanks for consolidating that! I had read through about half that thread so far LOL. We have two cabins, one interior and one balcony, and if the right price came along, might want to upgrade to either two balconies, or upgrade one of the cabins to a signature suite. Which cabin doesn't really matter to us, though the inside only has 2 ppl and the balcony has 3. Do they adjust the offers based on the number of people? I know they price them per person, so if there are 3, that means it would be more expensive than if there were only 2? Or would the cost pp, likely be less for the cabin of 3, as they really just have a set price and assign it to the number of people booked?

I've seen reference to calling and asking about upgrade offers for your cruise, particularly for those who booked through a TA as the TA may either not receive such offers, or not pass them on. When should you do this, and how do you do it?

I've been told to definitely do it, so I booked it for our family of 5. Ouch LOL....but cheaper than the original tour we had booked for that port stop, so I guess that makes it slightly less painful.

In doing some research, I found a website that you can book this tour with Allen Marine, and it will somewhat show you a schedule. What I learned for myself, is that they appear to do this tour in the morning on most days, but in the afternoon on Mondays. My cruise is in port in Juneau on a Monday afternoon. Most Mondays are available via this website, but not the day my cruise is in port, presumably because HAL has them booked that afternoon. Either way, I thought people may find this helpful: https://truealaskantours.com/tour/tracy-arm-fjord-glacier-explorer/

Well, on the upside, here's a review of that tour and they also had a 1-10PM port call, so perhaps the reason they canceled yours was incorrect? Not sure, this was from 2021. Yes, I'm grasping at straws here LOL. https://eatsleepcruise.com/tracy-arm-fjord-and-glacier-explorer-excursion-review/

Not that I can tell, no. This is going to make me upset - I canceled another excursion that is likely sold out now once I saw this offered. I've emailed Allen Marine to get verification from them, and trying to reach out to HAL but I don't expect them to have any kind of answer. I'm hoping things have changed since last year, but fear not.

Well crap....ours is an afternoon docking as well. Now I don't know what to do - I'd like to do that excursion, but certainly don't want to do nothing at that port stop!

Do you know why it was canceled? I have it booked for our June cruise, so was curious

Soft sided get dirty super easy and that annoys me. I have hard sided and love them. The only thing I don’t like is that luggage stands are fairly useless for them since you can’t just flip up a lid as it’s filled with stuff.

We are booked on Eurodam this summer for Alaska. I have some miscellaneous questions. 1) Why choose fixed dining over anytime? We did anytime on our one Carnival cruise and liked that - rarely waited more than a few minutes for a table and we’re always sat in our requested section 2) Someone mentioned that you don’t self-serve in Lido market. Is that true? That would make me happy - people are gross lol. 3) I’ve seen reference to no production shows. What exactly does that mean? WhT kind of shows will there be? 4) I saw reference to the MDR may be open for lunch on embarkation day and you should go there as Lido will be crazy. Is room service available for lunch during embarkation? 5) someone said HAL, for the most part, has glass enclosed showers but that’s not what I’ve seen on Eurodam balcony cabins. Is this something they’re switching? 6) someone mentioned making a reservation for time for anytime dining on the first day. Is that expected? I thought you could just show up whenever, not that you had to make reservations ahead of time I’ll probably think of more questions later.

I’ll preface this with I haven’t been yet so am just sharing what I’ve read planning for our trip this summer. Glacier Bay should be on the itinerary which gives you (I think) only Holland America, Princess, and Norwegian to choose from. Next choice is a one way or round trip. Most people recommend one way for the best options. If, for whatever reason, you choose a round trip, out of Vancouver is better than out of Seattle as most of them travel the protected inside passage for better scenery and calmer waters (not all do, but most out of Vancouver). for us, the flights were too pricey for a one way or out of Vancouver so we’re doing round trip out of Seattle on Holland America. Some of the port times could be better but we have more port days so will get a little more variety for less time. We may go back though so I feel like it’s a decent compromise.

We are doing Alaska this summer and I am very particular about planning things, so I've booked everything but one port in advance. I plan to book that last one as well, but we haven't decided what we want to do. If you aren't picky about what you do, you can afford to wait. I am such a planner, with a spreadsheets and hour by hour time allotted to activities, it would stress me out way too much.

No, I was sharing the exact same scenario with another line. Things may work the same way with HAL.

If you booked with a FCC, you likely would lose part or all of that, according to the cancellation fees, but they probably wouldn’t come after you for any other money. At least that’s what Celebrity told me. I canceled my cruise last week. I haven’t gotten the confirmation yet - but I won’t owe the $750 cancellation fee. That’s the amount the deposit would have been if I booked with cash, and I would lose that if I’d paid it.

I'm guessing a courtesy hold as well. You'll get the booking number and paperwork, and in there it will say the deposit is due by xxx, and if you don't pay it, the hold disappears. Generally they hold for 5 days I think. What I found annoying was that you can't release the hold early online. If you want it gone, you have to call them.

A Caribbean cruise and forgot sun burn relief gel. It was stupid expensive onboard. We are really diligent with sunscreen so it never occurred to me, but it was still needed.

I had booked directly for an upcoming cruise. Then I decided I wanted to switch to a different cruise and cruise line, but the cost was about $1500 more and I'd lose a fair amount of OBC. Then I saw a reference on another site to a site that lets TA's bid on your business with quotes. I figured I'd try it. I received a single response for a really good rate. Did some research on the agency and saw very positive reviews. I called and ended up booking with them for my desired cruise. I ended up getting a better rate than direct booking, and more OBC than my original cruise, which ended up making the new cruise only around $450 more, rather than $1500 more.

I’m not going to shame someone for how they want to spend their vacation. They like to game - no issue with that if that’s how they want to spend their time, even on a vacation. Isn’t the point to enjoy ourselves? But OP, I just realized - how are you going to play if it’s a new release? Will you have a disk and it won’t need online access to play? I can’t imagine the ship’s internet would be usable for anything online.

There have been some website issues the last few days - there’s a thread about it somewhere. Try again tomorrow and it might be ok

It seems like a good deal to me, even with the fees. Its less than I am paying for an inside cabin on a HAL 7 day cruise, without drinks/dining/etc. Less by about $1,000. If you are OK with the ship and itinerary, seems like a good deal.

We have been on only one cruise and it was on Carnival Breeze over Christmas 4 years ago. We had a great time. Literally zero complaints. After reading on here, I’d expected the food to be terrible - it wasn’t. We ate in the MDR most of the time, with only one specialty meal. The food was really good. Sure, there were things we didn’t like, but that was personal preference. We had one new thing that was amazing - alligator fritters. We started with Carnival for a reason - it can only go up from there! since we had just discovered cruising when the pandemic hit (and my daughter and I had a canceled Mediterranean cruise in 2020), I was very worried about the industry surviving long term. The cuts I’ve heard about are fairly understandable given everything that’s happened. I hope some things come back with time but others are likely gone for good. we are currently booked on HAL Eurodam for Alaska this summer.

If this is a charter and no kids onboard, perhaps they’d let you use the teen club? I believe there are gaming consoles there. Worth asking about, though I don’t know how charters work.