rodndonna

About an hour on our cruise transfer bus in October (it was a Sunday)

Are you sure that wasn't the result of a "good" currency exchange rate? As pointed out here by another poster, we Canadians generally do better by prepaying for our gratuities as they give us a pretty good deal on on our horrendous (but maybe not as horrendous as yours?) currency exchange rate.

Generally it seems the new ships have more sea days, which maybe a good thing with more tome to explore the fancy new ship. NCL is a bit of an odd duck with our upcoming Viva from San Juan - brand new ship and NO sea days.... We have been to all but I think one of the ports, so hoping we have more time to explore the ship when others are in port on a couple of days.

Not sure if it was HAL or Princess, but I recall Alaska being offered "at par" for Canadians as a sale at one time. I think maybe it was Princess though...??? Much like Can/NE cruises, I think there are always good deals to be had as they have so many sailings to fill.

We're eyeing them closely.... Was thinking we have a good chance at a Casino "deeply discounted" for a Can/NE cruise and decide then, but with the current sale and our "standard" Casino discount, gratuities included, and then having our OBC for AARP, stockholders, FCD and Welcome back offer being eligible.... we're not actually saving anything to wait for that last minute deeply discount offer... tempting....

January is a great time for the Caribbean, especially if trying to get away from a cold climate. We have Jan 2024 booked on NCL (Viva) and Jan 2025 on Celebrity (Constellation)... haven't looked at 2026 yet ... but likely will book one for 2026.

As another thread on here has mentioned - there is also some coupling with other Carnival lines like HAL. We haven't sailed with Carnival in many years, but have sailed a few HAL cruises since pandemic now. We were lucky with some freebie's on HAL when occupancy was still ramping back up which are no more, but we do get good discounts with HAL. We are also on a Carninal daily freebie list offer (which seems to change through the day). Those offers are all very near term and not really doable for us - but I do like window shopping them daily for "what could have been" 😉

I can honestly say, I have never met anyone from that day (i.e., "my" day) that didn't own that album (Rumours).

I think we get "preferential" currency exchange on those sailings.

Depending on the performers and the set (they vary the themes for the shows), there can definitely be some "sing along" invites and opportunities ... 😃

I also find Celebrity a little unintuitive to get a search going ... another way is to start a search from homepage with "Find a Cruise", and get to that elusive "All Filters" where you can then select the ship, departure month(s), durations etc. that you are interested in. I tend to think that "All Filters" should be there in the first step... but I don't seem to get it until I initiate a broad search from the home page.

This is us .. although we still have the pooch. Absolutely no suitcases until he has gone to the kennel (pet resort) 😉

I agree. I currently have and NCL, Celebrity and Princess bookings (as well ad HAL) . Apart from NCL, if I change my Celebrity cruise it will cost me $200 in change fees. If I move/cancel my Princess cruise it is $200 cancellation fee. I typically book HAL with FCD's for deposits, so if I want to change/move the cruise, it's $200 lost deposit. They are all just variations of the same thing (except for NCL)

I should clarify the one I showed was a short cruise (no HIA available). I was just trying to show the conditions (refundable vs non-refundable) are reasonable clear.

I think they are kinda clear - for example these are the 2 options - one is reduced non-refundable deposit and the other is refundable (higher cost fare) and then when you click through details for flexible fare - it states it a "refunadable" deposit

It's $100 pp, so typically $200 for Celebrity to make a change.

It's unfortunate, but shouldn't you at least be eligible for 80% of the deposit with your protection plan? That would be $240 back, so at least out only $60. I just glanced at the plan, and that was how I read it.

something like 300 or 330 days. Basically when the airlines open the window to book.

I have used HAL (and Princess and Celebrity) as well, but NCL BOGO only once for an upcoming cruise. In my limited experience with NCL BOGO - the price we paid was in reality what ended up being the lowest sale fare we could have gotten on our own, so arguable if there was a cost savings or not. It was a nice advantage that we could lock in that bottom price airfare more than a year in advance as predicting airfare that far in advance is difficult. The disadvantage with NCL BOGO was of the two obvious airlines we could have had with a good direct flight with - we got the wrong one (for us) and will have to now pay baggage fees. The only other option was the airline we have free baggage on. 😐 Overall, I think I agree with you though, and would prefer to see NCL switch to an air program that is similar to HAL/Princess/Celebrity programs.

For sure we have received it with Stockholders OBC and FCD bonus , so can't see why it wouldn't be the case for Military or AARP.

They say "competitive rates", so sometimes you can do better. I have read you can't beat the business class fares to Europe but we're lowly Econo folks. One benefit to the program are you can book as a "fixed" fare or a "flex" fare (typically a little more than fixed) which you then can continually change or cancel up to final payment. For us, the flex option is nice. We book, and often rebook as prices and sales come up. Come final payment. if we find a better deal outside, we have canceled and booked independent. The other benefit to the programs is they will handle and pay for alternative flights to get you to the next port in case of a missed cruise. We like this option when we fly in "day of" but have never had to test it. Like BOGO, folks have a love/hate relationship with the air programs and differing experiences.

That's what I would think. Maybe dropping the BOGO program and go with something similar to HAL, Princess, Celebrity etc.

Check your credit card insurance - many credit cards have trip delay insurance.

Good points. Just adding "as a day of flyer" from a bad winter location (Toronto), we always keep an eye on the airline website in the days leading up to the flight. Our major Canadian airlines (and I assume US ones) allow you to rebook your flight at no charge staring about 3 days before if it is flagged as having any chance of being impacted by weather or other issues (and they are really generous in that predictor in an effort to mitigate the onslaught of potential issues from delays or cancellations.

We just received our BOGO NCL assigned flights for the Viva yesterday, and the gave us flights arriving at 2:45. 🤞 We typically fly in day of *yikes - the horror!" and thought with an 8:00 departure, 2:45 arrival was actually pretty good 😎