lack of document dance

[carolcp]

We are booked on the July 12 Prinsendam cruise. Our travel agent said we should receive the documents 10 days before the cruise. PROBLEM - we are going to be somewhere in Ireland 10 days before the cruise. Can the travel agent get the documents to us any earlier?

 

Hubby was just on an Alaskan cruise on the Oosterdam and his documents arrived at least 5 weeks before the cruise.

 

Carol

[LAFFNVEGAS]

I think it depends on how long ago you booked your cruise and if you have other travel plans being arranged by HAL. If it is just the cruise and you booked this cruise several month ago you should be receiving the Docs any day. We are on the Maasdam July 9th and we got our Docs last Thursday. Now if HAL is arranging air or hotel or both and/or you booked recently you TA is probably right.

[Brandis]

Hi Carol!

 

We are on the same cruise. As we live in Switzerland and booked with a TA from the US, we asked him when we would get the Tickets. She said that the usual time is about 10 days before the cruise but she would make sure that they were sent as early as possible.

 

On our last cruise (also Prinsendam, but different TA), the tickets were sent by DHL and we got them about 2 weeks before the cruise. Transit time was about five days, so the TA received the documents at least 3 weeks before the cruise.

 

Another option would be to have the tickets be held a the pier for you to pick up.

 

Marc

 

BTW: Are those envelopes, ticket booklets etc. furnished to the TA for each individual booking or do they have a stock and can print out and send the material as needed (meaning the TA could send it out whenever he wants)

[carolcp]

We booked our cruise about 2 months ago. We are doing our own air and hotels. This is our 6th HAL cruise. We will be in Copenhagen a couple of days before the cruise, I wonder if they could deliver the documents to our hotel? I would hate for the house sitter to find the documents on the front porch after we leave. By the way, did you notice that the July 10th cruise doesn't even show up on the HAL site. I hope that doens't mean it was chartered up by a special interest group.

 

Look forward to seeing other CC'ers on the cruise. We will be with our 2 daughters, 17 and 13.

 

Carol

[Brandis]

You mean our July 12 cruise? I think it is fully booked, tried to look up available rooms with several online TAs and all categories were closed. Maybe because of this it doesn't show up anymore.

 

If you talk to your TA, it surely should be possible to have the tickets sent anywhere you want, but personally, I would rather have them either sent home earlier or for pickup at the pier than having to worry if the hotel might misplace them or something liket that.

 

Marc

[LizB1]

My suggestion is to have your TA call Documentation Dept. at HAL and request your tickets by next week. This can be done. We have already received our docs for the July 16th Maasdam cruise so there should be no problem.

[trubey]

I used the pier pick-up method last year and thought it was simple and easy. This year when I requested it, I was told by HAL that it is only for an emergency if you don't get your documents in time. I don't understand why, if the world is going to e-ticketing, HAL seems to be returning to the 1990s.

 

I will be in the same predicament as you on my next cruise. The travel agent assures me that I will have them on-time, but I just have the feeling that I will be calling HAL and the TA the day before I leave and telling them that we need pier pick-up.

 

FYI: Here is an e-mail I got from HAL re pier pick-up.

 

Dear Mr. Trubey,

 

Thank you for contacting Holland America Line with regards to your

November 9, 2005 cruise on board the beautiful ms Prinsendam.

 

Your cruise documents will automatically be sent to the travel agent

that booked this. We can only have the documents "pier pick-up" if a

booking is made within 5 days of sailing. Otherwise, we do have to mail

the documents out. We would recommend you work something out with your

travel agent.

 

Please feel free to contact us if we may be of additional assistance.

We are confident our "Tradition of Excellence" will surpass your

expectations. We look forward to welcoming you onboard in the near

future.

 

Kind Regards,

 

 

Brandi

Internet Department

Holland America Line

877-724-5425

 

[Bill S]

If worst comes to worst, do not fear! As long as you have the booking confirmation document from your TA with the booking number on it, you will not need any docs. That happened to us in late 2003 when we departed for our HAL South America cruise with no cruise docs whatsoever!

 

We checked in and showed our booking confirmation from our TA and a supervisor confirmed we had paid and we were on-board in minutes!