rodndonna

The break even point is much less than 15, but if you are occasional (typically max at 2 maybe 3 drinks in a day) then not worth it. Even just being beer drinkers (the cheapest drink out there), the math for out last 7 day trip was simple - HIA (Have it all )package was $45/day = $315 minus $100 towards a shore excursion minus say $30 towards dining and minus WIFI (not sure what that costs so I'll say free $0) = $185 (ignoring WIFI benefit ) or $26.40/day for drinks. a $7.50 beer costs $8.85 with the 18% gratuity. So 3 beer is our breakeven point (or 2 beer and a specialty coffee or a 2 beer and a glass of wine....)

we've only 3 HAL cruises, all post Covid. One had just BB and 2 had both Rolling Stones and BB. The music in BB's varied across the 3 cruises was quite a bit, where one was just quite bad. It was Alaska and there was a lot of Covid that cruise, so hopefully that explains them doing "Sweet Caroline"? I think for Rolling Stones venue it is easier to get a more consistent quality in the bands, and there is more opportunity for crossover of music. A rock band can do a good job of "Mustang Sally", but as much as I like "Sweet Caroline" I just don't want to hear it in the BB lounge.

Is that for Club Orange or MDR? Our cruise last week it was 8-9 in the MDR which seemed shorter than we recalled. So I guess I am wondering if CO is typically 30 minutes longer?

Thanks. Likely we can enter at 8:45 for a quick breakfast if we are up late. We never really know how late we can show up. Last cruise we would never go into the MDR later than 8:30 which meant the Lido for a couple of breakfasts, and we are really trying to avoid that next cruise.

OK thanks. Would you know, when they do 8-9 (as was our last cruise MDR breakfast) could you go to breakfast at 8:55 and be OK - or are you supposed to be in and out in that hour?

What are the hours for Club Orange breakfast dining? Is it the same as the MDR or expanded? This would be for Club Orange on the NS if that matters.

Agree - when our colour was called to board, there was a ton of people in a queue. We were asked if we had Verifly - said yes -and voila - went to a separate empty queue. I suspect because there was such a large component of Europeans who are not familiar with Verifly, that was the reason the Verifly line so short.

I didn't say that. I am speaking to the reality of the business of filling ships based what people are willing to accept. The majority of people at this point have moved to accepting personal responsibility. Sadly, some won't and will go about their day and potentially affect others, but we have hit a point where we have to accept that risk and do what we can to protect ourselves.

We've been very conservative as far as Covid goes, but at this point and where we are at now in the pandemic, even we just wouldn't cruise if those were the requirements. I think the ships would have a very hard time selling enough cabins to be profitable if that is what they required.

For sure that would be a scary experience, especially on your own. Good to hear you are feeling better and hopefully the worse is behind you now.

I think the free cruise with $200-250 spends are (will be) a thing of the past. They were VERY generous trying to get people back on ships this past year, but I don't think that is to be expected going forward. Being in that category of spend, we received those offers (and used a couple), gambled quite a bit more on the 'free' cruise, but no more offers come our way. On a cruise Sunday so will have to run another "test", but I think those days are gone. That being said, I am now getting 'free' offers from Carnival, even though and have not been on a a CCL cruise in a few years and had never received them in the past.

I know people hate it when HAL is defended, BUT, if you have Covid and tell them you have a respiratory illness don't feel up for discussion, you sound much more ill than most people getting Covid these days. I would have been disappointed if they had not called after that exchange.

You can compare the cost of the flights yourself as they will quote the cost for the flight. You can then compare to what you can find on your own or what you would expect the airfare to be.

Agree with sailing from San Juan as the best starting point for Caribbean cruises. Did one cruise with Carnival from San Juan (pre-Covid) - great itinerary. We now have 2 booked from San Juan - one in 2023 (Celebrity) and one in 2024 (NCL).

There is a forum here for insurance related discussions - might have some luck there - https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/

You sound more like an HIA candidate to me as well. Have you added gratuities to your drink costs (another 18%)? They make quite a difference as well, and HIA include grats. It really doesn't take many drinks (with tax and grats) to get to the HIA price when you count in the dinner, Wifi and excursion credit. You won't need the minibar. likely your room is not too far from a bar and you can just pop out to get drinks and bring them back.

$159 for the formal wear you would need for EVERY gala or formal night for EVERY cruise ... that's a super deal and super easy planning. I wish we had something like option that for women (as I am currently packing for a cruise)

Cool as a cucumber - my fave as well. (Also good with gin if you want then to make it an alcoholic version ) I think most of the bars can make them.

great website - I like the way you can easily see which cabins there are videos for. There is not one for our specific cabin but same level a few doors down, so we could get a good tour of what our room will be like.

We also just upgraded , from deck 4 obstructed to a deck 8 VA on the Rotterdam (forward-ish). What's the difference between a VE of the OP and a VA cabin? (I'm thrilled with our upgrade, just a curiosity)

Wow - we are leaving this weekend for the same cruise and was kinda hoping they were still sailing at lower occupancy. I guess the days of being spoiled with low occupancy rate cruises may be coming to an end, but good to hear for the cruise industry.

This has been my experience as smaller Casino players (slots) with HAL and Carnival. we sailed Carnival a few years ago (pre Covid) and then always received 'discounted' cruises from Carnival. Post Covid we sailed with HAL, played slots and had many free cabin offers last year, ending abruptly in late spring of 2022. We sailed in June, played more than we would usually play, but still no further offers from HAL. )-: Over the past year, we have been continually receiving free cabins from Carnival, even though we have not sailed with them in 4 or 5 year and never had such good offers before. It seems like perhaps our HAL Casino playing is now getting us good Carnival offers but not HAL.

My post was a response to another post where FE and HAL handled logistics and covered the costs. I don't doubt they had one of the better experiences and there are some really bad experiences out there as well. For us, personally, the risk of missing a port or even an entire cruise would be disappointing, but pretty low on the scale of tragic events in our lives (past or I expect future) so we really don't worry too much about it happening and am willing to just take that risk.

The flights have not changed. HAL has changed its itinerary to leave earlier than the original schedule, so the flight now does not arrive within the acceptable window (from a 2:00 to a 1:00 arrival requirement, our flight booking is for 1:40 arrival ).

This will sound bad, but, there is probably a point where a rep has taken umpteen calls like this daily where the info is on the website to be read. The safe answer is to just tell someone to test - especially someone who is nervous enough to call in (assuming they read it and are not confident they understand it). There is a danger is always a danger telling them "no test required" and then have the rules change again Oct 3rd before the sailing, because this caller is not comfortable with reading and understanding what is on the website. Basically, if someone is not confident on finding the information on their own, better answer is 'just test'