What should be purchased pre-cruise?

[DougK]

I'm returning to HAL after more than a decade away for a cruise in July. Many things have changed in the meantime, and I'm trying to figure out what to book when. I'm going to have a reasonable amount of OBC, so if there aren't clear advantages to booking in advance, it makes sense to wait until boarding and use the OBC. But it's hard to tell from HAL's web site whether there are or aren't advantages. I think I know some of the below, but have questions on others. I'm hoping to call upon the knowledge of more seasoned HAL cruisers. (And all of this is for somebody with minimal HAL status, so no discounts based on status.)

 

1) Shore excursions. As I understand it, there's no discount in advance, but waiting runs the risk of tours being filled or, at the other extreme, being cancelled due to lack of interest.

2) Specialty restaurants. As with shore excursions, it seems that individual bookings have no discount but ensure better choice of date/time. Dining packages have discounts but don't allow reservations until boarding. Are the packages (e.g., Distinctive Dining) available on board as well, at the same price? If so, it seems like waiting makes sense since I can't make reservations anyway.

3) Wine packages. As best I can tell, there's no advantage to buying in advance.

4) Internet. I think there's a discount for pre-buying the Premium plan, but the Social and Surf plans aren't available in advance, and waiting to purchase them still ends up being cheaper than the discounted Premium plan. Correct?

5) Spa. Here I have no clue. Are there discounts for pre-booking, or is it actually cheaper on board? Seems like I've read both.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[kazu]

4 hours ago, DougK said:

I'm returning to HAL after more than a decade away for a cruise in July. Many things have changed in the meantime, and I'm trying to figure out what to book when. I'm going to have a reasonable amount of OBC, so if there aren't clear advantages to booking in advance, it makes sense to wait until boarding and use the OBC. But it's hard to tell from HAL's web site whether there are or aren't advantages. I think I know some of the below, but have questions on others. I'm hoping to call upon the knowledge of more seasoned HAL cruisers. (And all of this is for somebody with minimal HAL status, so no discounts based on status.)

 

1) Shore excursions. As I understand it, there's no discount in advance, but waiting runs the risk of tours being filled or, at the other extreme, being cancelled due to lack of interest.

 

Correct - there isn't normally.  (Now and then, some people have gottena promo rate - around a 10% discount but that is a rarity).  If there is a shore excursion that you REALLY want you may wish to book it in advance to avoid the risk of sell out.

4 hours ago, DougK said:

2) Specialty restaurants. As with shore excursions, it seems that individual bookings have no discount but ensure better choice of date/time. Dining packages have discounts but don't allow reservations until boarding. Are the packages (e.g., Distinctive Dining) available on board as well, at the same price? If so, it seems like waiting makes sense since I can't make reservations anyway.

Right again.  I haven't seen the Distinctive Dining offered on board - only on line but best to wait for others to chime in on this one.  I do tend to prebook these if there are specific nights and times I want but YMMV.

4 hours ago, DougK said:

3) Wine packages. As best I can tell, there's no advantage to buying in advance.

No advantage of all.  I always wait to buy on board to see what the available wines are.

4 hours ago, DougK said:

4) Internet. I think there's a discount for pre-buying the Premium plan, but the Social and Surf plans aren't available in advance, and waiting to purchase them still ends up being cheaper than the discounted Premium plan. Correct?

Correct again.  The Surf plan does it for most of us that just want internet and email, etc. And, it's still cheaper than the Premium even with the "discounted" rate.  Buy on board.

4 hours ago, DougK said:

5) Spa. Here I have no clue. Are there discounts for pre-booking, or is it actually cheaper on board? Seems like I've read both.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Spa - wait until you are onboard.  I've found the spa pass (for the pool & beds) cheaper on embarkation day.  

[Cruise4food]

6 hours ago, DougK said:

3) Wine packages. As best I can tell, there's no advantage to buying in advance.

About to purchase a first wine package for a 21 day cruise. As I understand, a 4 bottle package has perhaps 10 or so bottles from which to select, after you board. On previous cruises, based on sharing a table with others who had wine packages, you select one bottle at a time. Towards end of the voyage, the selection list is shorter as the popular brands run out. 

[DaveOKC]

kazu has answered the OP's questions exactly as I would have.  

 

My pet peeve is that HAL will not let us use OBC credits to book tours prior to boarding.  This makes it tough, as you want to lock in certain tours that you really want to do, or else you run the risk of missing out.  Until HAL gets around to changing this (like Princess, Royal Caribbean and some others have), be sure to buy your "must have" tours as early as you can (they do sell out some tours, especially those with limited capacity).

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 hours ago, Cruise4food said:

About to purchase a first wine package for a 21 day cruise. As I understand, a 4 bottle package has perhaps 10 or so bottles from which to select, after you board. On previous cruises, based on sharing a table with others who had wine packages, you select one bottle at a time. Towards end of the voyage, the selection list is shorter as the popular brands run out. 

 

I've never seen wines run out during a cruise, but if you're at the end of a restocking cycle that could happen. What does happen is that the list online isn't always up to date. If some wines on the list become unavailable,  then they substitute. Like kazu, I wait until I'm on board and see the actual list before I choose a package.

 

You "select one bottle at a time," meaning you don't have to make all your choices on Day 1. But you may have more than one bottle open at a time. If one of you wants red and the other wants white, then it's OK to have two bottles going. The wine stewards will store open bottles for you, or you may take one with you to finish in your room or on your balcony.

 

[oceanmom]

18 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I've never seen wines run out during a cruise, but if you're at the end of a restocking cycle that could happen. What does happen is that the list online isn't always up to date. If some wines on the list become unavailable,  then they substitute. Like kazu, I wait until I'm on board and see the actual list before I choose a package.

 

 

Nieuw Statendam wine list at Christmas was sparse. The wine steward kept offering us bottles from a higher level package because they were out of the bottles we wanted. And even then, the reds were almost gone. We got the last bottle of Meomi on board. He commented that there were a lot of wine drinkers on that cruise.

[Cruise4food]

23 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I've never seen wines run out during a cruise, but if you're at the end of a restocking cycle that could happen. What does happen is that the list online isn't always up to date. If some wines on the list become unavailable,  then they substitute. Like kazu, I wait until I'm on board and see the actual list before I choose a package.

 

You "select one bottle at a time," meaning you don't have to make all your choices on Day 1. But you may have more than one bottle open at a time. If one of you wants red and the other wants white, then it's OK to have two bottles going. The wine stewards will store open bottles for you, or you may take one with you to finish in your room or on your balcony.

 

Thank you for the information. Exactly the details I needed to know. 

[DougK]

Thanks, kazu!

[kwb101]

12 hours ago, DougK said:

1) Shore excursions. As I understand it, there's no discount in advance, but waiting runs the risk of tours being filled or, at the other extreme, being cancelled due to lack of interest.

Prices for all shore excursions on our 21-day Alaska trip (May 7-21) dropped 15% for one week in January,  then went back up and stayed there. HAL kept dropping the fare until departure: an inside cabin went for $1099 at the end.

[RMLincoln]

We have had them run out of our selection from the wine packages.  After that we decided to request that our selections be put aside.  They can tag them or give them to you to take to your room.  m--

[3rdGenCunarder]

20 minutes ago, kwb101 said:

Prices for all shore excursions on our 21-day Alaska trip (May 7-21) dropped 15% for one week in January,  then went back up and stayed there. HAL kept dropping the fare until departure: an inside cabin went for $1099 at the end.

 

Did they announce the lower excursion prices as a sale? 

 

If I hadn't already booked QE for Alaska in June, I'd have jumped on one of those fare drops for Maasdam. I hope this doesn't mean low interest for the EXC cruise.

 

[zentraveler]

2 hours ago, kwb101 said:

Prices for all shore excursions on our 21-day Alaska trip (May 7-21) dropped 15% for one week in January,  then went back up and stayed there. HAL kept dropping the fare until departure: an inside cabin went for $1099 at the end.

 

I am on Nieuw Amsterdam 7 day Inside Passage cruise and it seems prices may be dropping. Are we just out of luck if we are already confirmed? We are in an assigned cabin (vs guarantee); can we rebook at lower rate? 

[zentraveler]

15 hours ago, DougK said:

I'm returning to HAL after more than a decade away for a cruise in July. Many things have changed in the meantime, and I'm trying to figure out what to book when.....

 

I had that question about dining in particular. If we book a specialty restaurant and then decide for some reason to do something else can we be refunded the pre-paid charge? The fine print that is offered only seems to cover the excursions.

 

Also we will be interested in "anytime" dining in the MDR and I understand we can pick a reservation time?  I don't see how to do that ahead of time. Can we also pick if we want to eat alone or join a table with 2 or 4 other people?

[3rdGenCunarder]

21 minutes ago, zentraveler said:

 

I had that question about dining in particular. If we book a specialty restaurant and then decide for some reason to do something else can we be refunded the pre-paid charge? The fine print that is offered only seems to cover the excursions.

 

Also we will be interested in "anytime" dining in the MDR and I understand we can pick a reservation time?  I don't see how to do that ahead of time. Can we also pick if we want to eat alone or join a table with 2 or 4 other people?

 

You can't make "anytime" choices in advance. You can make reservations on board, but it isn't really ANY time. You can't make a reservation for the middle of the dining time. So you can reserve between 5:15 and 6:00 (sometimes not as late as 6:00) and then after 7:30 or so. Times vary from one ship to the another. You can always just show up when you want. Sometimes you might have to wait, sometimes not. You may request a table size when you make a reservation or when you show up without one.

[kwb101]

4 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

Did they announce the lower excursion prices as a sale? 

No: they were just down as a new,  lower price (in red), but that was it. No notice about how long they'd be lower, either. 

 

4 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

Did they announce the lower excursion prices as a sale? 

When I checked the prices fire all three trips on May 6 (the day before we left), the last one in June was priced about the same as the May 7 one,  white the May 28 one was slightly higher (inside about $1199). I think the May 7 one left with some empty cabins. 

 

1 hour ago, zentraveler said:

I am on Nieuw Amsterdam 7 day Inside Passage cruise and it seems prices may be dropping. Are we just out of luck if we are already confirmed? We are in an assigned cabin (vs guarantee); can we rebook at lower rate? 

If you've already made the final payment (75-90 days out), you're probably out of luck. You may want to call your TA to see if anything can be done.

[qoap24]

17 hours ago, DougK said:

4) Internet. I think there's a discount for pre-buying the Premium plan, but the Social and Surf plans aren't available in advance, and waiting to purchase them still ends up being cheaper than the discounted Premium plan. Correct?

 

I had know idea that I could get a discount on the premium plan until I saw your post. Thank you. I went in and bought it now. I was going to buy it anyone but now I saved a couple $$.

[TAD2005]

If you are considering purchasing the Signature Beverage Package (SBP), you would be very smart to purchase it online before your cruise.   There is now a $10 per day (plus 15% service charge) penalty for waiting to purchase it onboard.   Some call this $10 a discount for purchasing online.  But the real reason that HAL is encouraging you to purchase the SBP online, before your cruise, is because you are buying it with your own money and not using the HAL provided free Onboard Credit (OBC).   They want you to use your own money to purchase extra cruise items that have a lower markup.   For higher markup items, like shore excursions, dining packages, Spa treatments, etc, they are happy to let you use the OBC.

The SBP is $44.95 per day plus 15% if you purchase it online, before your cruise.  If you wait to buy it onboard, you will now pay $54.95 plus 15%.   For some strange reason, the Elite beverage package costs $59.95 plus 15% and it doesn't matter if you buy it online or onboard.

[liketraveling]

19 hours ago, DougK said:

I'm returning to HAL after more than a decade away for a cruise in July. Many things have changed in the meantime, and I'm trying to figure out what to book when. I'm going to have a reasonable amount of OBC, so if there aren't clear advantages to booking in advance, it makes sense to wait until boarding and use the OBC. But it's hard to tell from HAL's web site whether there are or aren't advantages. I think I know some of the below, but have questions on others. I'm hoping to call upon the knowledge of more seasoned HAL cruisers. (And all of this is for somebody with minimal HAL status, so no discounts based on status.)

 

1) Shore excursions. As I understand it, there's no discount in advance, but waiting runs the risk of tours being filled or, at the other extreme, being cancelled due to lack of interest.

2) Specialty restaurants. As with shore excursions, it seems that individual bookings have no discount but ensure better choice of date/time. Dining packages have discounts but don't allow reservations until boarding. Are the packages (e.g., Distinctive Dining) available on board as well, at the same price? If so, it seems like waiting makes sense since I can't make reservations anyway.

3) Wine packages. As best I can tell, there's no advantage to buying in advance.

4) Internet. I think there's a discount for pre-buying the Premium plan, but the Social and Surf plans aren't available in advance, and waiting to purchase them still ends up being cheaper than the discounted Premium plan. Correct?

5) Spa. Here I have no clue. Are there discounts for pre-booking, or is it actually cheaper on board? Seems like I've read both.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I just got off the Eurodam two weeks ago. The Spa Pass was $139.00 to pre-book and $169.00 when we boarded.  This was for a single.  I cannot remember what the couples pass was.