rodndonna

We are typically "risk-takers" who book day-of flights for cruises, but that would be waaay too close for me, and i would change unless this is not a cruise you are willing to risk a higher risk of missing.

I just checked today's banner - FREE 2nd ,FREE $250, FREE Ulimited OpenBar, AIR,More Do I really think when it shows a fare of $1000 - my husband will be Free and we will get $250 and the bar is free and the airfare is free .... so $750 fare for 2 of us to fly, cruise, drink and more - sign me up!!!! "FREE" is a term used very liberally in marketing ... by everybody and all cruiselines.

I agree - the logic of not giving NCL hold the money doesn't make sense, and it is actually the opposite where you have pay for the flights when booked as opposed to final payment. Another advantage allows for easier cancellation if you have to cancel your cruise before final payment as your air is also then cancelled (and is never paid for).

Our HAL PCC uses an appointment booking system that some PCC's with HAL started trialing maybe a year ago. I really like it, easy to just go to the site and select a time/day for her to call us with a note saying what it with regards to. If you get a new PCC you may want to ask for one who can schedule call backs if that works for you. I HATE phone tag and/or being called at some random (usually bad) time.

And yet .....here you are - exclusively commenting on ....."HAL" forum .....🙄

We showed up without luggage tags, so our tags were just boring black and white that the porter writes the cabin number on. We were inside so pretty sure we would have had the least interesting colour anyway 🙃

Just watched the cruise Partridge family episode - it almost felt like a prequel to Love Boat except with just 1 love interest story (Laurie). As it was before Love Boat, I can't help but wonder if the idea for Love Boat came about in part as a result of that episode.

Found it on CTV app (throwback section).... 😃 Gonna watch it now (I love being retired!)

Thanks! I checked YouTube and I got a 3.5 minute video someone taped on their TV (pretty poor audio) In the short video it does seem "vaguely" familiar.... Will definitely be looking for the whole episode on Tubi (which alas I did not know existed until now). We also get "retro" which plays Partridge family as well ... will have to keep on eye there as well.

A few more dollars but worth it for the comfort if the schedule works but schedule options are very limited compared to options across the buses and why we were looking at buses. Some day maybe we will have Gotrain out here in London 😃

OMG - somehow I missed or do not remember that episode ... hard to believe as I grew up on Partridge Family and Love Boat ... have to go find it on Youtube.

Agreed - for 2 drinks not worth it, but that is a far cry from needing 10+ to make it worthwhile and that was my point. The breakeven is closer to 4 drinks in a day (assuming none of the perks other than daily grats have value).

I don't know what kinda drinks you are pricing to come up with 10+ and numerous others to break even at $60/day (which includes gratuities on those drinks and the Wifi). We are in the camp pf really don't drink much (probably don't come out ahead over the duration of a cruise) but generally still get a package so we can budge and prepay and not think about it when we are cruising.

I'm in the camp of probably better to cancel at this point as it is not heading in the right direction. 14 days is a longer cruise for a first time family cruise. It's not clear where the cruise is going and if you going primarily for the itinerary or to experience being on a cruise? Maybe stick with land based for this year and if still interested in trying out a cruise, take a little more time for your next holiday to better get your ahead around "what is it actually going to cost?" before you commit so you can better look forward to it. As other have suggested there are lines that are more inclusive in pricing although they are typically more expensive overall. Have you looked at any Marella cruises? They are (were) all inclusive pricing (taxes, grats, drinks and flights if doing cruise/fly holiday) or at least were when I last sailed them before Covid. If nothing else, looking at one of their cruise packages costs can give you a comparable idea of what the overall cruise holiday might cost.

I've done some searching overtime (although not exhaustive) but when we've looked into golf/cruise holidays- Perry Golf Cruises (I think they are all coupled with Azamara) https://www.perrygolf.com/golfcruising/ Costa golf and cruise (I think the are all Med cruises) https://www.costacruises.com/deals/cruise-golf.html It seemed arranging golf excursions in Bahama's (with any cruise line) would be easy My theory in why we don't see much in terms of cruise line golf excursions is the logistics and timing required for the transportation and golfing itself.

As I've not booked a refundable with Princess, would the Cancellation Schedule for Refundable not indicate $0 in the first entry as opposed to $100? I've had refundable on HAL which uses a similar table, and when it is refundable the first entry at final payment date is $0 (otherwise it is the non-refundable deposit amount). Other than that there is no seperate statement the way Princess seems to.

Your invoice should have a Cancellation Schedule table - for example this is ours. We had $100/pp non-refundable deposit if not cancelled by Jan 5, 2024 (final payment date)

We used NCL's BOGO flights for our cruise last week and had positive experience. Flights we had were Toronto to San Juan with no deviation We booked about 1.5 years in advance and price we received would not have been beat over that period that I saw. We received direct flights which was pretty much a sure bet since arriving day of and only 2 direct option flights (Westjet and Air Canada) that would have worked. (gasps of horror - we flew day of!) We were pleasantly surprised that we had free baggage outward with no idea why (with the airline baggage rules we should have had to pay and did coming home) We received our flight details about a month in advance and they were ticketed in advance of the 3 day window before our flight allowing us to go in through airline website (Westjet in this case) and change our flights if they were being flagged for potential delays (typically weather)

We'e actually never had a cabin have that made a big impact on our cruise - we do everything from GTY insides (more common) to aft balconies (rarer treat). We've never been on a cruise where we didn't enjoy ourselves. Our most recent cruise last week was on NCL's newest ship (Viva) and we had an inside and loved it. I actually think we may like having an IV (it's unique and I really would like to check it out). I can't imagine I am going to hate it - worse case it's still a kick-a** Oceanview, but regardless, there is NO WAY it could sabotage our holiday 😎 Edit: Forgot to add that the afts in the Beyond also don't appeal to us from a location point of view on the ship dues to distance from the stairwell. For example on the Summit we were one deck below Sunset bar (or 2/) and close to stairs - so we would just pop up to get a drink and sit on our balcony and listen to the evening performer. Same with HAL, when we have had afts we were close to stairwell and could just pop up to their aft deck bar area (which is where we spent alot of our time)

We started with the intention of getting a sunset verandah, but since this is our first Edge class, we decided to try an IV since we are so curious. We do love afts though - had a sunset on Summit - that balcony was crazy massive 😃

Well now that some of the "older than 40 crowd" are chiming in, I'll throw in my 2 cents. We have had sailed one Celebrity cruise, a few HAL and one NCL cruise since Covid. (Our pre-covid were all Marella/Thomson, Carnival and NCL) Right now we would place Celebrity as our "preferred" among those lines right now with regards to overall ship experience, and have 2 more Celebrity booked. We also have a couple of HAL and one Princess booked. I'm not expecting to be wow-ed by Princess and expect to keep leaning to Celebrity when looking for on-board experience and HAL for pricing and itineraries, but will also continue to sprinkle in other cruise lines for regular check-ins.

Thanks. I've been reading up on that. Problem is I can't find any real definitive source as to what rooms or what the source is that are impacted. We booked 8254, can't find any mention or review on that cabin here or on cruise deckplans (maybe that is a good thing). At least we know we are surrounded by cabins and we always sleep with white noise (playing on our tablet). Hopefully the noise issues were just a new ship breaking in thing...and we have 2 years of "breaking in" to go or some resolution to whatever the problem is 🤔

I recall liking it because I thought being on a cruiseship "helipad" would potentially be the only chance I would have to do so (with a drink in my hand no less!) You are right though, the "sail away" aspect was nothing I recall as being interesting.

We're in the process of booking a cruise for 2026 - with still a relatively small number of cabins booked. What is glaring though with that small number of booked cabins in key areas, is that they alternate. Really obvious how the bed by the bathroom is by far the preferred layout.

Thanks! You must be onto something because every room on deck 8 that you recommended is gone but one - 8254 - so we put a hold on it until tomorrow when our Celebrity cruise consultant is back.