kirtihk

For some of my previous cruises besides a cruise fare, just port charges alone for 10-14 day cruises were in a range of $700-900 and then $400-600 tax totaling $1,100-1,500. For my 12-day last cruise to Brazil (I came back a week ago) port charge was $816, and tax was $550. So, it's funny to see complains about total cruise prices discussed in this thread ("several sites list inside $118, balcony $199 and Mini-suite $299").

If you’re new to Seabourn and have a cruise booked to sail with them before or on April 14, 2024, I can set up a referral for you that gives us both $250 per cabin of on-board credit. Please e-mail me at mikhail_khitrik at yahoo dot com and I will establish it for you.

I’ve read so funny thread!!! Entitlement - Enshmitlement … whatever…

Nice! The beach picture is exactly where we will stay across this Thursday prior to our 12-day Amazon River on Seabourn Venture cruise. And we will be on Pursuit on the 16-day Norwegian cruise starting in June.

"of course it would be stressful to call NCL just to be told to call the airline. " - perhaps, I was clear 2 times with my point: I was writing the opposite - if air was booked through a cruise line and you call an airline, the airline would tell you to call the cruise line that booked your flights, and that is stressful, because as I wrote you would have much less flexibility of rebooking available preferrable flights, since you would just rely on a cruise line person without a chance to plea for the best flight, for example, perhaps, even from a different airline which sometimes is allowed in these days (a few years ago it was a standard procedure when no flights were available on the originally booked airline).

In my last statement I was writing only about cancellation/delay occurring on the day of flying, not on any day prior to it. Imagine contacting the cruise line at that stressful moment! When you call an airline directly, you may discuss all possible combinations to achieve the best outcome (basically, it's up to you depending on availability vs a cruise line air department).

A potential big issue with booking air through a cruise line is in case of having flights cancellation/delay contacting directly an air company might be impossible: they could say to contact the third party (which is a cruise line) for any issue meaning you don't have control of situation for 2 reasons: 1. a cruise line might not help at all or a slow help that might lead to further delays, and 2. there would be no flexibility of getting a new flight with a cruise line assistance on your behalf while when you are on your own, you may discuss multiple choices (if available) with an air line to get the best outcome at the time of changes. The above matter goes along with topic in the reply # 95 ("The communication is extremely clear that if you want to control your flights, have flexibility with your flights, want specific flights, then you should not use their BOGO Airfare Program.").

It's good. On my mentioned cruises all bars were closed at midnight (or sooner); they were just offering to remaining guests to order more just 5 minutes prior to closing.

Imagine the last passenger was gone at 11:45 pm, so, they closed right after, and then you appear at 12:01 am. On a serious note, we shall see a reality - we go to the Seabourn Venture in a week (12-day Costal Brazil and Amazon River cruise on March 17). Also read my post # 99

It's the same even at least on some luxury cruise lines: I was on Ponant and Regent last July and this January respectively, and both closed bars at midnight.

True, but only if you invest what they hold from you (if you don't pay that amount to them). Otherwise, it wouldn't matter what they do with your money unless you are unhappy with it just because of displeasure of that matter.

They might increase the spread (even more higher price vs NRD than now for any given booking) for refundable to still keep attracting people for NRD.

It was $100 pp loss if cancelled NRD vs around guaranteed $400 pp more for 7-day refundable. So, NRD was making sense. But now, with the full deposit ($250 pp per 7-day) loss on NRD it's less attractive.

It all depends: I saw Aqua price on Ascent for April 2025 actually went down a lot (vs the original price for the same month/year) a few months ago, and our agent gave us even much better price which is even less than the current least expensive balcony price (he applied his special group booking; he said sometimes his group booking is considerably less than other times even for the same cruise line), so we booked it for a great price.

Again, in general paying in full even a year ahead is sort of ok (unless one invests during that time with a high % return), but as I wrote there is a high risk of losing everything if cancelling any time for such a long time! The $25 deposit expired on March 1. We are looking for an Asia cruise on Viking for November 2025, but currently they only sell up to October 2025; so, we were not able to take advantage of this promotion.

Not only hold but also losing a payment if cancelled right after paying the initial deposit!

The actual problem (besides just simply being upset by generally increasing prices these days across the globe on everything which I so obviously predicted in March 2020 - "to break is not to build") is a business applies a new price on an item (Wi-Fi, beverage package, whatever else) being associated with a purchase completed prior to that increase (and a fine print states that it could occur at any time which is "fine" meaning one agrees to that when paying for an original product like a booked cruise); however, the same fine print dictates that there will be a prorated scheduled penalty up to 100% if a cruise is cancelled after the final payment date (and sometimes even sooner by losing a part of the entire deposit depending on a cruise line). So, you booked a cruise, paid the balance on the final payment date; then a week prior to your cruise a cruise line increased a price for whatever, and you cannot cancel your cruise without a penalty if you don't want to accept this price increase on that whatever additional item(s). So, they can do whatever they want, but you cannot do anything at that point. Thee same is true not only in regard a price increase. For example, I booked a Seabourne Venture March 17, 2023 Amazon river from Rio de Janeiro to Manaus cruise 3.5 years ago (yes, in June 2019!!!), and just 3 weeks ago we received an email from the cruise line stating that we must complete the yellow fever vaccine (when we booked this cruise, I verified 4 (!) times within a few months since we booked it that that vaccine was not required for our cruise), and cancellation due to this new requirement of this cruise was allowed to me without losing the entire paid cruise.

I referred to my last sentence that you replied to.

All right, it is not up to all of us, just those who have such a desire.

Makes sense. I just pointed out that these days regardless of what a cruise line is all of them missing points here and there. In my comment I was writing about Regent (Splendor) that is higher than Viking (considered the most luxury in many aspects), and yet ... I'm not saying we must accept "new norm" (I don't actually believe in it, anyway) as I don't accept pushed to our throat many other "modern" matters; I'm saying gladness is inside us, and it's up to us how to deal with reality in order to not destroy glory of our mind's realm.

A big part of it is euphoria of finally feeling freedom, and cruise lines, obviously, realize and temporarily have been feeding on that phenomena. As we know, ecstasy never lasts forever and so (not supported by increased product quality and quantity) elevated prices. The same applies to current (for last 4-6 months) tripled air prices. Focusing on positive is a key to prolong healthier life! Voyage, Voyage!

Glad you liked it! On top of that, I am originally (lived my first 31 years prior to coming to US) from a country where in order to survive, we had to use special words to “manipulate” (trick, fight, negate, hide from) the system.

To make a clearer meaning of what I intended to say, I would rephrase my statement slightly (or greatly, depending on an angle of viewing it) - “words have power”.

and we cruised ("nowhere cruise") to French Polynesia on March 8 - 25, 2020 from Eastern Island on Ponant Le Soleal - pre-Shmandemic cruise.

"Shm" - is Yiddish slang - beginning of many words starts with or replaced with "Shm" to diminish a magnitude of a sense. I inherited it to use in English, too (as in illusion - shmillusion; cat - shmet; doctor - shmoctor).