islandwoman

Sorry, I can't help you with that as I don't have such a link. But I would like to ask you a question: Why would you want to purchase OBC? Do you get a discount or what?

I am answering from my current experience on the Koningsdam. I don't know whether the Westerdam will be the same. We have open seating and it's been quite annoying to try to get into the dining room when we want. The good part is that your parents won't have to stand in a long line. You all will be given a beeper to notify you when your table is ready. Or you can make reservations. We just learned today that the dining room closes reservations at 4 PM. So it will be another night for us of waiting for a table. In your case, since you seldom eat dinner after 6 PM, why not switch to fixed dining and avoid the hassle of waiting and/or making reservations? The only downside to that is your early dining time might interfere with shore excursions. Perhaps someone with more HAL experience than I will tell you how you can work around that situation if you choose fixed dining.

We are currently on the Koningsdam. We booked too late to buy the "Early Bonus Have It All" package that would have covered crew appreciation as well as everything that is included in the HIA (without the Early Booking Bonus). We bought an unlimited internet package online before sailing and are paying for our drinks as we go. We usually have 1-2 per day. Yesterday we didn't buy any because the ship gave us a "free" glass of bubbly at the Captain's welcome party. We did the math and discovered that if we drank enough to make the HIA package a good value, we'd miss the entire cruise, passed out LOL. Ship's excursions are expensive and for you those might make the HIA package a good value, but I doubt it. Do the math. No, we don't regret having passed on the HIA package for our cruise. We would buy the Early Booking Bonus HIA package, when available, because the included crew appreciation would make the difference for us.

I don't have HIA for my upcoming cruise, but my cruise fare came with two specialty dinings. Will those be included as part of daily spending?

If I'm not being too nosy, how many sets of sea day clothing and how many sets of dinner clothing (other than "dressy" night and orange night) clothing do you pack?

How long will it take to get clothes back from the laundry for cold wash/hang dry and for cold wash/low dry? In other words, how many sets of clothing (day clothes and dinner clothes) will I need to pack? I didn't sleep last night, worrying about how I'm going to get all of these clothes into my suitcase.

Is it customary to change for dinner on smart casual nights? Or can I just show up in the same clothing (turtleneck, pants, tennis shoes) that I've been wearing all day, and still fit in? I have some dressier blouses that I bought just for dinners on cruises, but I don't think they're going to fit into my suitcase 😒

Contact HAL. They probably have something in the medical center that you could use there.

I am booked on a 22 day HAL circle Hawaii cruise. Should I expect theme nights? What should I take along for them?

I'm a HAL newbie too, but this here are some tidbits I've learned from sailing on other cruise lines: Don't rely on Corporate to pass your food allergy information on to the ship. Sign up for fixed dining so that you always have the same waiter. Eat in the MDR as often as possible. When you board, speak with the maître d' in the MDR and make sure that he/she understands that your dietary requirements are due to allergies and not just preferences. Also speak with your waiter and be sure that he/she understands your dietary restrictions. Don't accept "Oh I'm sure ..." for an answer. If you intend to eat in the buffet or in any specialty restaurants, also speak with those maître d's. If you have any questions when eating there, ask the server at the buffet counter or your alternative restaurant waiter and if he/she doesn't seem sure of the answer, ask him/her to find out.

So do you bring a bottle or more onboard at $20 "corkage fee" each? Do you buy a bottle from the dining room to keep in your cabin? Or do you go to the bar and get a glass of Cabernet and take it back to your cabin every time you want to pair it with chocolate chip cookies there?

Why? Does HAL charge extra for snacks? After what I paid for my upcoming cruise, I would be really upset if I thought that I had to supply my own snacks 😒

This discussion brings up another laundry question: If I have clothing that includes items that need to be dry low and items that need to be hung dry and maybe even items that could be dry medium, do I need to send them in 2-3 separate bags with different instructions on each bag?

It is my understanding (although I have no experience) that in hotels, concierges expect large tips in return for fixing problems. Is it the same on HAL, or are their tips covered by the assessed crew gratuities?

Do you think the Neptune Suite on the Zaandam is worth the extra cost above that of the Vista (notice I didn't say "Vista Suite") ? I'm not asking you to guess whether it would be worth it to me. But I would like to hear your perspective on whether it would be (or was) worth it to you, and why.

How do the Club Orange cabin upgrades work - When can you get them - how many categories can you upgrade - can you pick your upgraded cabin?

Can I order a pitcher of mimosas from room service?

Canadians, If you're flying on Westjet to Florida to board a cruise, be sure to allow an extra day (in a hotel in FLL for example). The last time I flew Westjet from Orlando to Calgary, the flight was delayed by 12 hours! There was a thunderstorm, (OK, not their fault) and they had to stop at a different airport on the way for re-fueling and were therefore VERY late landing in Orlando.

Where do you find the time? I'm retired and can barely fit in 1-2 cruises a year !

Sandiego1 said: Air credit for an inside cabin is an incl perk for the P2P. One must purchase the flight through FlightEase and the credit is $500pp. The Surf WiFi package is also a perk. If we live in Florida and can drive to the port (Ft. Lauderdale), will HAL credit our account the $500 that we will have received toward air fare? Also, what is P2P?

I agree. I'll happily do a 4-7 day cruise where I can easily drive to the port, but if I have to fly a quarter to half way around the world to embark a ship, I want the cruise to be long enough to be worth the time, trouble, and expense.

My first Celebrity cruise was on the Chandris Amerikanis August 4-11, 1992. After requesting credit for this "missing cruise", Celebrity gave me 30 Captain's Club points.

"Aquadesiac Of course, in a perfect world, itinerary is important. However, it is not guaranteed. No cruise line can be certain they can deliver the ports they advertise.... .....The serene vibe on Viking is one of the reasons we chose it for 2025. " As much as I would like to take your advice to consider a WC on Viking, their cancellation penalties are too punitive for us. At our age, we don't even buy green bananas 😟

I agree. The first thing DH does when I show him a new cruise is to look at the itinerary to see how many new to us ports there are. That isn't easy because after more than 50 cruises over more than 60 years, We have visited most cruise ports. DIY land tours would offer new places, but we should have done that early and cruised later 😕 At our ages, packing, unpacking, repacking and schlepping luggage from hotel to bus to airport to train to another hotel has become a bit much!

The cruise line didn't want to talk to us. They kept telling us to contact our TA, but after much time, effort, and persistence, we were able to get the cruise line to give us the information we needed to then get our TA to give us the information we needed, to fix the latest and most serious issue ourselves directly with the cruise line. At this point, it is not worth the trouble and aggravation to change the TA for this cruise (judging from all the helpful posts on this thread. Thank you everybody.) But we have found a different TA for any future bookings.