ChinaShrek

The rain ponchos are the best! You can be spotted miles away.

And now you have to keep checking for gift cards. They might be emailed to you. Some people have also reported physical gift cards being sent to them.

Bar Harbor did a major impact study of cruise passengers and found out that very few cruisers spend any actual money in the town. Most passengers book a tour and buy a t-shirt. Drive to Bar Harbor, stay a week in a cottage, and eat out every night. Now you are helping the local economy. It is about keeping life in Bar Harbor they way it was 50 years ago. Nothing wrong with that.

Lots of ports are saying no to cruise ships. Norway is a wealthy country and does not cruise money. In fact, the economic benefit of cruise ships on the local is often exaggerated. Bar Harbor is also limiting cruise ships to 1000 passengers per day in total. It is not about changing the cruising industry. It is about how cruising destroys certain communities in the summer. The locals not want this. Venice has also limited cruise ships. If you really want to travel to Norway, people can fly there. Same with Bar Harbor.

I actually wasn't joking. I think if it goes to only a 5% discount then I will not bother to buy them. I keep track of the gift cards and how I use them in case I need a refund on anything. That takes effort. Emailing my TA with gift card numbers takes effort. What if I cancel a Carnival Cruise but have no plans for another Carnival cruise for years to come? Now I have thousands of dollars tied up in gift cards.

It's almost not worth buying now.

Not online. You have to call or have your TA call.

I actually thought you were supposed to just show up and not make reservations with Anytime Dining. Why would I want to make reservations ahead of time? I have no idea when I am hungry.

I am not seeing any standby cruises in Europe. I would consider one of those because I could book flights with miles and easily cancel for a refund if I needed to.

Sigh. I miss the UK being part of the EU. Oh well.

Club Orange gives your priority tendering in tender ports. I don't know if that means you go ahead of HAL tour people, after them, or with them but i think you should be fine.

It's also interesting that the other cruise lines are still 10% off including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Celebrity.

I thought I was the only one with invoice issues with my TA! I often book HAL and Carnival cruises on the website and then transfer to my TA for either OBC or a reduction in price. The percentage I receive seems to vary based on a number of unknown factors. Recently, I booked a $2200 Carnival cruise and received $200 off the price. Cool. Then I booked a HAL cruise for $2180 and he said he could only give me $150 in OBC. These are both 2025 cruises. Okay, fine. Now I am not complaining about the incentive but I reserved these cruises weeks ago and I have only received one of the invoices, I will have to chase down the other invoice by email, which I am prepared to do. It seems that my TA has his assistant do this work and she does them in batches. So, I wait. What's my point? I guess I have two. The cash back percentage seems to vary and TAs seem in no rush to get invoices out.

It sounds like his TA would take at least a week to apply them! 😂

If this is a special art cruise then there are people (maybe hundreds?) who have paid to enjoy the Park West art talks on the cruise. While some people are inconvenienced, others are happy. I have a friend that loves going to Park West talks and feels that it is a good way to learn business practices or marketing.