iancal

Why on earth make an excuse or an apology? No reason to. It is not as though it is deep dark family secret or somehow we are breaking the solemn ancient and accepted rules of society. We very much prefer casual. There are many like us. We all have ten fingers and ten toes, but no horns so not much different than anyone else.

 

It also suits how we travel.

 

Table cloths???? Would that be linen, polyester, or plain old plastic? New one on us. Hope they don't forget the napkins and the napkin rings. Go figure. Each to their own.

The last time we were there we stayed at an all inclusive in Veradaro. We did not need soap, toilet tissue, etc. Not certain where you heard this.

 

While we were there, we left the resort, took the local bus to Havana. We had pre arranged a B&B and a guided tour of old Havana. It was wonderful. Our guide spoke English and had previously worked at Cuba's UN office.

 

Lot of Americans go to Cuba. But many, many more visitors from Canada and from Europe.

 

Resort food was/is mediocre-poor but I suspect the lifting of that silly embargo will solve that problem.

I think it is as much aspirational as anything else.

 

We sometimes chuckle to ourselves when we read some posters comments about buying formal clothes at a thrift ship or from on line/mail order shop.

 

Do people really think that the reason we prefer casual is because we cannot afford a $90. tuxedo or dress? Either they do not understand it or they do not want to understand it.

We love Cuba. Some of the best beaches in the Caribbean. Wonderful people.

It is called 'cheating the customer'

 

HVAC/AC and plumbing issues are the reason why we will not consider a number of older HAL ships.

 

We thought it was age, normal loss of system efficiency, or mods from the addition more cabins in what were previously public areas. I guess intentionally adjusting the AC systems simply adds to the existing issues on these ships and causes issues for the newer ships in the fleet.

When you look at the popular mass market cruise lines out there, HAL is probably the cruise line with the most narrow market slice and appeal, or at least it seems that way. Especially for holiday cruises.

And HAL appears to be doing absolutely nothing to move in the same direction as the market or rest of the mass market lines. The one exception to that might be the staffing cuts-they are all doing it.

Perhaps this is one more reason why they had to 'blow out' cabins on sailings during the peak Christmas season.

Yes. Our Bowling League also made black tie optional last year.

 

I understand that most 4H clubs have eliminated the black tie requirement from their annual festive banquets.

 

The Legion folks, whose premises they use for the event, did not like it, but hey the trend is definitely toward more casual.

Any time in the winter when it is cold and snowy at home.

You have more patience than me.

 

I would not wait on the phone for 40 minutes to buy anything. I would assume that the vendor was not interested in my business and hand up well before that.

What's different about formal nights HAL from other lines that we travel on...

 

-HAL does not offer any alternative casual dining venues other than Lido

(and I lump Caneletto into that)

 

-HAL closes the Lido at 8 which really means that they start closing down at 7:30 and not much fresh hot food makes it to the steam tables after 7:15

 

-HAL has this ridiculous request that if you are not dressed to MDR code you should avoid public areas....but not the Lido. Who on earth is going to follow this rule or even expect that others will follow it? Certainly not us.

 

Most intelligent people would ignore the third item. That leaves one and two. HAL only needs to offer an alternative casual dining venue on formal nights AND extend the Lido hours by an hour. I suspect that if HAL did this they might attract more potential customers.

Multiple flights. Europe I not great for us. SE Asia is worse. Leaving in two weeks for Thailand....24 hours elapsed with two stopovers. YUK.

We had done 4 Med cruises in the past three years. 3 on Celebrity, this year on RCI. We selected Celebrity based on price and ship. Twice on Solstice class ships, once on Millenium class. We very much enjoyed all three Celebrity cruises. In fact they remain among our favourite cruise ship experiences.

 

The itineraries are very port intensive so we were not overly bothered about cruise line. We narrowed it down to HAL, Princess, and Celebrity on the first three. We then booked just inside the final payment window when our 'target' price hit. It just happened that X was the best deal.

 

This past Oct we did a short 8 day on Serenade. It was fine, but we certainly prefer the MDR food on Celebrity. We needed one way air home-RCI and Choiceair had the best combination of cruise fare, itinerary, and air fare for our requirements.

We have done numerous gty selections on several cruise lines including HAL.

 

We have only been disappointed once and even then, after asking to be placed back in the gty 'pool', we were subsequently assigned to a great location.

Our only wish for HAL on formal nights would be to make the alternative dining venue casual AND keep the Lido open for at least an hour longer. That would go a long way to making the ships a little more attractive to those who prefer an alternative.

 

We don't really care about the MDR any more.

No red herring for us either. We leave in two weeks. Our cruise is Feb. 20. In between it will be primarily island hopping/beach wear in Thailand and Malaysia. We will have many modes of travel but mostly ferry and mini bus. No one to handle your luggage but you. So we only pack what we absolutely need because neither of us can easily handle anything bigger/heavier than a 20/21 inch case.

 

Besides, why on earth would we carry dress shoes, jacket, etc. to use for a few hours on three nights out of ten-twelve weeks simply to attend a very mediocre dining experience?

 

I think what you pack very much depends on where you are travelling, your modes of travel, and how much you can physically handle.

 

Not everyone who cruises leaves home, takes a cab to the airport, and then a cab to the hotel or cruise ship and does the reverse at the end of the cruise.

We sometimes find that certain airlines will not process either our VIsa or our MasterCard. But they will process our Amex. Just had this experience when booking a few Air Asia flights.

 

Also had this experience in the past on some hotel booking sites.

The combination of the MDR noise level, the slow service, and the declining quality of the food and the food preparation have eroded the experience for us.

 

These, combined with our unwillingness to pack clothes for a few nights out of an extended land trip and cruise have erased any desire that we had to attend the events.

 

But for those who do enjoy it, I do not think that it is a cost savings for the cruise line...perhaps even the opposite. From what we can see, the formal evening menu items can hardly 'stretch' the cruise line per diem food budget. I would suspect the cruise line sells less wine, fewer pre dinner drinks, and fewer photos when they delete a formal evening from the cruise.

Don't know about that. I do not have any pre existings, DW had a very slight issue. The company that we used was in Travel Underwriters in Richmond, BC. They have a web site. Very good to deal with.

When we cruise from FLL or MIA we generally arrive a few days early and rent a car. We do one way rentals in Florida-never paid more for this. More than once we have flown in to FLL and back from MIA or vice versa. My BIL has found a few good deals thru PBI.

 

So, we always look at air to/from FLL, PBI, MIA etc. Sometimes there is a saving to be had shopping these about. Same with your origin if it is possible.

We never buy cancel for any reason insurance-and have never shopped for it.

 

The only reason we would cancel would be medical. We never book very far in advance- two/three months at the most..

 

Our TA was referring only to trip cancellation (for emergency/medical reasons) and out of country medical. Most of the time we do not even bother with trip cancellation though we should start. We have probably saved thousands to date so the probability of a cancellation event occurring is probably increasing for us.

 

Two years we found a great annual policy and amended it to include 7 months of continuous travel outside the country. What we liked was that we were able to reduce the premium significantly by increasing the deductible to $5K. We are not concerned about a $5 or $10K bill, it is the medevac and the longer term hospitals stays-especially in the US- that we want to insure against. That premium was just under $800. for both of us-over 60/under 65.

Hank...this is EXACTLY what a TA told us a number of years ago. We did a fair amount of business and leisure travel with her agency.

 

She did not want to sell us cruise line insurance, the insurance that her agency sold, and recommended against the bank travel insurance (in Canada) as being far more expensive w/ less coverage than other travel policies on the market at that time.

 

Her advice has held true every time we have shopped for travel medical insurance or trip insurance since that time.

We will frequent the casino on a Celebrity ship.

 

Won't even walk through the casino on HAL. It reeks.

Last time I checked the cruise lines do not listen to me.

 

So we simply vote with our feet and with our wallets on many issues. It is better that moaning and groaning about shipboard policies, etc that we do not necessarily like.

 

So DW does not like smoke...that cancels out the possibility of any HAL cruise where we want a verandah cabin. Why take a chance? Same goes for some things that we do not like on other lines. Fortunately there is lots of choice out there.

Same here. When we push the buy button on a cruise inside the final payment window we understand that we are committed. We also understand that the price could subsequently go up or go down. But we booked at a price that we were happy with. It does not make us any happier if the price subsequently increases or less happy if the price decreases.

 

My guess is that on a ship, like an airline or hotel, there are many price points for the same cabin.

Travel agencies are paid a commission by HAL to handle customers, book cruises, etc. This is what cruise lines pay travel agencies for.

 

Why on earth, unless it was an exception, would a cruise line pay a travel agent commission and still have to service that TA's account?

 

It costs the cruise line money to service a client directly. That money comes from the cruise commission that they would otherwise pay an agency for an indirect booking. This is why you were referred back to your TA.

 

When you book with a TA, the agency 'owns' the booking. Some agencies take this ownership very seriously and simply do not want their clients speaking directly with the cruise line. The cruise lines are obliged to honour this relationship by referring you back to your TA.

 

Travel agents view you as 'their customer', not HAL's or anyone else's. If you feel differently, then book directly with the cruise line.