Croptop

For my cruises, I take one of these: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00ALSMFO0 and one of these: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B003E46M2Y and have never had a problem with them being confiscated. Provides me with plenty of outlets without taking up much space. Also handy to have in the airport where plugs can be at a premium. I can pretty much always find someone who's willing to share their outlet when I pull out the the triple tap plug.

There was, indeed, a price increase recently. It wasn't just for cruises out of Australia. It was across the fleet. Looking at an upcoming cruise in my cruise personaliser, the price for the "Classic Soda Package" is CAD$15.33/day which converts to about AUD$16.69/day.

Just wanted to weigh in with my thanks to all who have posted so far. As someone who has only ever cruised on Princess ships, I'm getting lots of interesting and useful feedback on how things are on HAL. Keep the tips coming!

Really quite enjoying the posts you made so far over on your blog. Forgive the newb question but what does "EXC" stand for? As in, "Gloeta gave another high energy EXC Insight talk..." As a refugee from the Princess board, it's not a term I'm familiar with.

Thanks for posting this thread (and your blog). I've only ever cruised on Princess ships so far and I'm looking at booking a cruise on HAL to expand my horizons so I'll be following along (quietly from the back row) with great interest. Hope you have a great trip.

On Princess ships with a Skywalkers, that was my go-to place for a quiet place to read and relax during the day but lately it seems like more people have "discovered" this venue and it's not as quiet and secluded as it used to be. But still worth checking out.

Thanks everyone. Much appreciated. I was being careful to NOT select the restricted fares but perhaps I mis-clicked. Will try again.

Forgive me my newbie question. I've done a bunch of cruises in the past but always on Princess -- where I'm familiar and comfortable with all of their processes. But I'm starting to get the urge to try some other lines and I was taking a look at some HAL itineraries. I started a couple of mock bookings for some cruises in mid-January to mid-February 2021 however on the booking screen (prior to clicking the "Checkout" button), I'm seeing a deposit amount of CA$661 with some fine print beneath it stating, "CA$3,202.20 Date due July 14". Is HAL really expecting me to make final payment on a 2021 cruise a week from now? That seems... wrong.

Seems to be working fine for me in Chrome on a Windows PC.

The Ultimate Ship Tour is fantastic and I highly recommend signing up for it if you have the chance. Unless you are sailing on the Regal on 19 Jan 2020. In that case, the ship tour is crap. Don't bother signing up for it. It'll be boring and tedious and you won't enjoy it. Just skip it and hang out by the pool with some nice cold drinks. If you are sailing on the Regal *after* that, then by all means take the tour if you can get a spot. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it. Why yes, as a matter of fact I *am* sailing on the Regal on 19 Jan 2020. Why do you ask?

Every Princess cruise I've taken since 2009 has had indoor muster stations. And as marden1970 points out above, they've even recently done away with the need to bring your life jacket to the muster drill.

I thought I'd jump in on this thread to solicit some advice too: I've got two nights booked at the InterContinental at Doral this coming January prior to my cruise out of Port Everglades (I know, I know but I can get a free night at the InterContinental and even with the Uber fare from the IC to PE, it'll be cheaper than paying for two nights in the FLL area). I won't have access to a car so I'd really be grateful for some recommendations for the following: 1. A place nearby where I can pick up some grocery-type items (e.g. a small case of pop to take with me on the cruise); 2. A couple of places nearby that would be good for dinner (for me; I'm traveling solo so it doesn't have to be family friendly); 3. If by some miracle I want to do some shopping, am I better off going to the Dolphin Mall, the Miami International Mall, or the Mall of the Americas? Or somewhere else?

Yeah. I definitely wasn't expecting free since most hotels in FLL don't even offer free shuttles to the terminal. So I'm quite prepared to pay. I'm thinking I'll book a room at the InterContinental Miami for two nights since I can get one of those nights free. Then I'll just take an Uber from FLL to the hotel on the Friday that I arrive and another Uber from the hotel to Port Everglades on Sunday morning. Even with the Uber fees, I think I'll come out ahead of what two nights in FLL would cost me.

My thanks to the OP for posting this question and to all of you who chimed in with advice. For goofy reasons, I'm seriously considering booking a hotel for two nights in Miami pre-cruise even though I'm flying in to FLL and sailing out of Port Everglades. I just figured I'd like to check out Miami for a day. So I cam here looking for exactly this type of advice. I'm assuming that most Miami hotels won't offer shuttle service to Port Everglades?

Thanks for the feedback JF. Very much appreciated.