rodndonna

We did the California Zephyr - it was maybe 2008-09 - was a great trip. Have done distance trains - coast to coast Canada, coast to coast Australia but still just that one Amtrak trip (so far) ....

Oddly enough we are quite introverted, and yet in the past, we really enjoyed shared dining and never actually bad experience. Weirdly as an introvert, it was easy to engage socially with people in a dinner format. Over the last few years though, there seem to be just too many topics being brought up that I'd rather not chat about on my vacation, and so we no longer dine with others. Shared dining is just a fond distance memory for us now and will stay that way.

The 1.30 rate was the last rate I remember from summer, so good to see they are still holding that rate 😃 I wonder if Electro's experience in having to purchase and use OBC was handled differently for some odd (but maybe legitimate?) reason? Can't think of any reason why they would have charged it that way though....

Maybe that has changed (for the gratuities). Not a huge deal, but kind of a bummer, I know they used to add and then remove the gratuities everyday on the account, but I "thought" on our last cruise (Sept/Oct) that was not the case anymore but could be remembering that wrong. I don't recall it ever showing up as some form of OBC though. It would show up as a charge and then add a credit to reverse (forget how they labelled that credit back, but not OBC). It makes sense if it was considered OBC that it was charged in US$, as OBC is strictly US$. ...Weird ....things are always changing though.

when they add it onto your booking (which is in CAD$) do you get a seperate charge to your card in US$ or does HAL not convert and charge you in CAD$? On our cruises in CA$, they always convert it and charge us in CAD$. Same as when we have added in HIA after booking - when it was a charge of $50 US/pp/day, it would be converted to a CAD$ value and that value would be better than we could do by a few points (maybe 5 points better was about what I remember on our last booking a while ago) edit: By prepay I am referring to BEFORE you get on the ship. If you get on the ship and go to guest services and prepay grats, you would then be charged in US$. As a side note, this does not apply to excursions, dinners etc. Those are all charges US$ regardless of when you buy them.

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.