Ken the cruiser

Thanks Mary!! That is exactly what we were hoping to hear. We were on the Xpedition back in 2015 and we too have so many great memories from that cruise and are so looking forward to creating more on our upcoming December cruise on the Flora. Thanks again. You have definitely made my DW a much happier cruiser today!! 😊

Those were HAL gift cards rather than the discounted HAL AARP cards, correct? But it's still good to known as in theory they are all HAL gift cards and should all be treated the same.

I realize it's been a little over a year since you went on your wonderful Galapagos cruise, but maybe you can share what you remember about the frequency of returning zodiac rides coming back to the ship after an excursion. Here's the issue. My DW has to eat dinner early for medical reasons, so we'll probably ask the Flora's maitre 'd if we can have Room Service deliver dinner to our cabin every night between 5:30 and 6 pm, as dinner doesn't officially start in the dining room until 7:30 pm. Here's the question: We would like to go on the afternoon walking excursions while passing on the optional swimming/snorkeling portion. Is it possible to get on a zodiac and head back to the ship early, or will we have to wait until everyone on the excursion to include those attending the optional events are ready to go back? - OR - Or are we over thinking this, and the zodiacs usually have everyone back onboard before 5:30 pm?

If I might ask as my DW has to eat dinner early for medical reasons, so we'll probably have Room Service deliver dinner to our cabin every night between 5:30 and 6 pm. Regarding the afternoon long walk and optional swim/snorkel excursions. If we choose to do just the walk and pass on the optional swim/snorkel, or just walk around the area on our own, can we get on a zodiac and head back to the ship early or will we have to wait until everyone on the excursion is ready to go back to the ship?

Ah, the old side door trick. Well, I hope you're right. I guess our TA didn't know about that when we tried to book our family cruise early last year.

Looking forward to your review as we'll be on a similar HAL Panama Canal cruise in April 2025, and are interested to hear what enrichment lectures they will offer on your cruise. Have a great cruise!!!

It was probably that way prior to the pandemic. However, I just tried to do a mock booking on either the Xpedition or the Flora and the option to increase the Children count from 0 on either online booking was grayed out as well as the ability to increase the Adult count to 3. However, I could reduce the Adult count to 1 with no problem. We also actually tried to book a family of 10 cruise early last year that included two grandchildren under 17 and were told an adult would have to be the #1 guest in each cabin with one child when booking the 5 cabins for the 4 families. Now, once we got onboard, no one was going to check who was sleeping in each cabin.

We were on our first Galapagos cruise on the Xpedition back in 2016 and it was awesome! So many different species of wildlife to experience which many times are literally at your feet. Everything is included, to include 2 excursions a day, with one in the morning at one stop and then one in the afternoon at a different stop. At each stop there is a short excursion and a long excursion, but in all cases you will be taking a zodiac to and from the ship as there are no docks for the ship to tie up to. As far as teenagers go, I believe only two people are allowed per cabin, and as you know the fares are not cheap and there are no reduced fares for children. So you’ll need to figure that strategy out when you book the cabins. Also, since this is an expedition cruise, there are no teen programs on the ship. But if your teenagers enjoy being wowed by all the wildlife they’re going to see, then they will have an awesome time! As far as food goes, it was tasty when we were on the Xpedition. BTW we had such a great time, we’re going back in early December, only this time we’ll be on the Flora where I will be posting to a Live From thread which will, of course, include a variety of photos from each of our two excursions every day. Hope this helps.

My DW suggested I check out the HAL news releases on the website, and sure enough she was right again. Our itinerary was released in April 2023, which put our booking well outside the 90-day window. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/news/2023/april/news-04032023-New-West-Coast-Season

Thanks, and sorry you had to go through all that stress to get your issues dealt with! As far as the 90-day Mariner booking OBC bonus, I guess we're going to have to "assume" the HAL "database" keeps track of the initial availability dates of all their itineraries, and we just were too late to qualify. However, I will definitely keep track for future reference when HAL releases their new 2026 and beyond itineraries. We currently buy the discounted Princess AARP gift cards, as we have received assurances from various sources if the cruise is cancelled before final payment, any payments made using the GCs will be placed back on the cards they came from. As of yet, I have neither read nor heard here that the same happens with discounted HAL AARP gift cards. But if anyone has heard experience to the contrary, I'm all ears. We were finally able to get the AARP and Military Appreciation OBC perk applied to our booking once our certifications made it to the HAL database. I also realize we will have to reapply every year on the anniversary date to have the AARP certification reapplied as it's only good for 1 year in the HAL database.

If I might ask as we are 4 star Mariners, is there a way to tell when an itinerary was released to the public for booking? We booked an April 2025 Panama Canal cruise on the Eurodam from Ft Lauderdale to Seattle about a month ago and was just curious, as we booked it through our TA and just want to make sure she checked the applicable Mariner discount box when she booked it for us.

Did it bind up to a terminal access controller (TAC), which in my case was connected to the MILNET, or was it the ARPANET, back in 1983? 🤔

They just did in a sense this past June when they changed the rules when both guests in a stateroom are military veterans, in that they can no longer also collect shareholder benefit OBC if they are both receiving the Military OBC. But that's cool, especially when they grandfathered the change to those that already had both added to their bookings prior to June 29.

When we were on the Regal back in July 2022 on the New Love Boat B3B cruise in the Med, the ship was full with over 400 young adults on each leg. Staring around 10 pm to about midnight each night, the speeds got down to around 0.50 mbps because many of them were logged into their various social media sites uploading pictures and chatting with their friends. BUT I was still able to post photos and text to my Live From thread. 😊

I have to admit, unlimited internet service is definitely important to both my DW as well as myself. Afterall, how would my DW be able to play her computer games and I post to my Live From thread during the downtimes! 😂

But at the same time if those 1,000 shareholders spend on average $8,000 for a cruise, then that equates to $8,000,000. But more importantly, the $100 in OBC is also nonrefundable and must be used to purchase PCL products, which of course (except for gratuities) have been largely inflated, further reducing the impact of the SOBC. In fact, in some ways it creates an air of motivation for guests to spend more money purchasing onboard PCL products. In our case we prepurchase excursions which definitely sucks up the SOBC quite quickly. OTOH imagine how many clients would move to other cruise lines if PCL either reduced or eliminated their shareholder benefits altogether. 🤔

I was just quietly thinking that might be the issue. If I might ask, what type of discounted booking do you have? Maybe there is a special "Reduced Rate" Promotion Code present in your latest confirmation that's raising flags?

Really? We just spent $15K for a cruise so we could get the $100 OBC perk. I don't think anyone at CCL is calling us a liability. 🤣

Then I would submit it again and hopefully you’ll get a more knowledgeable person handling the response this time.

We've done a lot of cruising since it started back up and if you're averaging 3 mbs download speeds while on your TA cruise, that's really good! Now, once it starts dropping below 0.7 mbs download speeds, you might start running into some "slowness" issues to include being able to log onto CC. BTW dialup speeds back in the day were 1200 bps, just saying.

Just curious. Did your TA submit your shareholder benefit request for you, or did you submit it using the following procedure provided at this link? Shareholder Benefits :: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NCLH) (nclhltd.com)

I have to say we do enjoy the extra perks and additional room, especially when we're sitting out on the fully covered aft-facing suite balconies. As far as the old $50 Plus package versus the current $60 one, we got ours automatically upgraded to the current $60 package (for free) when we refared our booking this past May when we took advantage of a drop in price for our category. You may want to think about that option as well. Otherwise for us we couldn't see the value of paying an additional $20 per day (for both of us) to upgrade to the current one. But that's just us. Also, anyone who is not aware of the 10% discounted AARP gift cards, here's the link that will take you to where you can purchase them once you're logged into you AARP Rewards account. AARP Rewards: Explore Ways to Reward Yourself

As we count down the days, currently at 8 days and a wake up, until we board our flight to Toronto, I found this awesome Elton John song that uniquely demonstrates our evolving buildup of excitement since I first posted this thread. Right now, we're at about the 5-minute mark. 😊

Thanks! They are definitely cuties! 😁

Here’s my thinking from over here in the peanut gallery, which of course is only a guess. In order for Medicare to apply to a medical issue while on a cruise, the time has to be documented as to when you checked into the ship’s medical clinic, and the ship must subsequently arrive at a US port within 6 hours of that time. Anyone know how it really works?