Ken the cruiser

This statement caught my eye. When we were on our Jade B2B and booked these 3 Oct/Nov 2024 cruises onboard in early December 2022, we only applied 2 CruiseNext certificates valued at $125 each, 1 for each of us, to each booking. Since the certificates are valid for 4 years, I’m guessing your example doesn’t apply in our situations, correct? Here’s what it says in the CruiseNext T&C, or am I missing something? All CNDs (including Haven option) are valid for new reservations that book and sail within 4 years from purchase date. CNDs become null and void after expiration. Failure to redeem and sail within 4 years will result in forfeiture of your CND(s). Not applicable towards existing reservations.

That’s what we get too, but without the choice. But we were quite happy when they offered the rebate check. It probably also helps that we book a lot of cruises with them. 😁

Good point. In our case our TA gives us a rebate check as a booking perk just prior to the cruise once we pointed out to her a while back that we couldn't use their normal nonrefundable OBC booking perk to pay the NCL DSC once onboard.

Here's the scenario. We have three B2B cruises booked on the Getaway starting in Oct 2024, with final payment due dates not until June 2024. We booked each of them using the Cruise Next certificates as deposits. We have also added the FAS Plus package to each of them, have prebooked excursions, and had shareholder benefits added to each cruise as well. As of today since we booked the cruises back in Dec 2022, the cruise fares have gone down $167 (first leg), $338 (second leg), and $378 (third leg) per person. Early next week we plan to contact our TA to "refare" each of those bookings to hopefully get the lower fares applied. Since this will be the first time we will be requesting any of our NCL bookings to be refared, I thought I would open this thread to see if anyone knows of any pitfalls we need to watch out for. For example, will the bookings turn into nonrefundable bookings if they are refared? Will we lose any of the prepaid packages or excursions or have to reapply for shareholder benefits. I'm thinking no, but thought I'd ask just to make sure. Any thoughts will be appreciated.

I just did a comparison using a mock booking without being logged in, and then logging into my NCL account to get the pricing with the Military Appreciation discount applied.

I guess if we ever decide to take HAL up on one of these offers, we'll just have to confirm with our TA that our booking will remain with a refundable deposit.

Thanks. We learned the hard way back in 2019 on our 30-day Australia circumnavigation cruise when the cruise fare went down another $3500 that a "nonrefundable deposit" booking cannot be refared. One of the little "gotcha" items not well publicized but can be very eye-opening when it happens to you.

If one chooses to take this $100 OBC offer and pays the cruise fare in full prior to final payment, does the booking now become one with a "nonrefundable deposit"? More specifically if true, does the new "nonrefundable deposit" booking status eliminate one's ability to refare the booking to a lower rate should the price go down prior to the actual Final Payment Due Date?

I think you meant refundable deposit, didn't you?

It's tough being cruisaholics! But since we're in our early 70s now and fully retired, we do enjoy searching for itineraries that take us to different parts of the world, and booking early with refundable deposits also allows us to usually get more advantageous deals while allowing us to make adjustments if other more desirable itineraries come along. Of course, it also helps to have multiple "favorite" cruise lines to choose from. For example, we initially booked Celebrity's 14-day Antarctica itinerary on two separate occasions that cruises out of Buenos Aires. Then on both occasions, we subsequently switched to different "drive by" itineraries that included 4 days cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula, once in 2018 to HAL (for a 22-day one from Santiago to BA) and then most recently to PCL for a 30-day B2B on a pair of their "combinable" January itineraries, where the Celebrity ones only spend 2 days cruising near the Antarctica Peninsula and continue to repeat the same itinerary over and over. But then Celebrity has always focused on providing 1-2 week itineraries since we started cruising with them back in 2012. And if I recall correctly, they just cancelled all of their winter 2024/2025 Antarctica cruises for some reason. Yup, there are definitely some itinerary adjustments going on.

🤣 No, that's definitely not an option. But maybe cruising on an E-class ship in the Baltic or on a TA where the temps might be cooler on average would be an option. What we also found annoying on our 21-day Edge Caribbean cruise in Aug 2021 was that there was no internet reception on our portside Sky Suite balcony when the sliding glass door was closed. That's where we learned the AC also shuts off in Sky Suites when the door is open. So as you suggested, we made a compromise and left the sliding door open 3-4" until it got too warm in the cabin for her, then we closed it until it cooled back down.

What happens when you’re in a warm climate and one likes to sit on the balcony and the other likes to sit in an air conditioned cabin to play her computer games, especially when you consider the AC in the cabin gets cutoff when you open the window? 🤔

I would recommend going to the HAL website and doing a mock booking on the cruise(s) you are interested in. Find Cruise Packages for Holland America's Award-Winning Cruises

Just curious, what if someone became sick on the ship and was offloaded in Belize to an ambulance that subsequently took them to the hospital. Would they, to include an applicable spouse, run into passport issues if their US passport expiration date was within 6 months? That's where it might get a little iffy. But my opinion is strictly from over here in the peanut gallery, as we have no plans of ever going on a cruise and testing that issue where our passports were even close to expiring within 6 months.

Very true, and we are one of those elderly Elite+ couples that have moved on to greener pasters, just like we did back in 2018 when HAL decided to implement their Music Walk entertainment strategy to attract the younger crowd. But, as with all things cruising, money talks. I wish them well, and we'll still be checking out their 2026/27 transatlantic cruises to see how competitive they will be.

You are correct. There is some reciprocity between RCCL and X with the newly acquired Silversea still off on its own. However, the accumulation of cruising points, at least when cruising with RCCL and X, is the big carrot a lot of folks I would think are hoping for, like it was between X and Azamara before Az was sold off.

Celebrity couldn't tweak this into a 21-day B2B combination by eliminating a few ports?

Actually, we like to spread our time across multiple cruise lines. We're in our early 70s and have spent over 129 days on 14 different Celebrity cruise legs and had a blast on each one of them. But then we've also spent 56 days on 6 different PCL legs and getting ready to go on a 22-day B2B, and 49 days on 3 different NCL legs since cruising started back up. We're good with the noise, especially when it's during their awesome evening shows. However, I will say we're not impressed with Boy bands smashing songs together. So you've got me there.

Really? You couldn't tweak this into a 21-day B2B combination by eliminating a few ports? 28-Day Alaska Arctic Circle Solstice (hollandamerica.com)

There's also another comment she made that might coincide with your thinking and that's regarding the possible tweaking of the 3 different RCG Loyalty programs in the near future. Just imagine how many "RCG" guests would start to book X itineraries, and possibly a few of Silversea, if they were able to accrue loyalty points from cruising on any of their 3 lines, similar to the arrangement Celebrity and Azamara used to have?

Actually, the most Celebrity itineraries we've ever linked together were three 7-day legs on the Edge when cruising started back up in Aug 2021 where the first and third legs were identical. But what can I say, we're cruisaholics and were just happy to see "the light at the end of the tunnel" again. 🤣 I was just expounding on a comment LHB mentioned where they are working on providing some future itineraries that could possibly be linked into multiple B2B+ scenarios without going to the same ports. Celebrity used to offer three different legs in the Med, from Barcelona to Rome and then to Athens before arriving back in Barcelona. However, they changed that specific set of itineraries in 2019 where the most you could hook together were 2 before duplication set in. Here's another example. Create a set of Alaska itineraries that would include one longer 10-11 day leg going to the Bering Sea and briefly stopping at Nome. But that's cool. If Celebrity wants to shy away from us "older" retired folks that like to cruise on 3-5 week itineraries that go to different destinations, that's cool. That's entirely their decision.

Cool! Thanks for pointing those out! 😁

In that case I hope X starts creating some unique 2026/27 itineraries that can be linked together to form an awesome 3-5 week cruise that goes to different ports they’ve never cruised to before. For example, create a cruise combination that starts and finishes in the US and goes to Longyearbyen. Or maybe one that goes from Ft Lauderdale to Easter Island before heading back to SA and on to Antarctica. Or maybe a cruise combination that goes from Athens to Cape Town by way of the Suez Canal and then back up the western side of Africa to Barcelona. In other words, be creative. 😁

What I find fascinating is that PCL, NCL, and HAL are adding perks to their All Included packages to entice potential cruisers to cruise with them while X is cutting them. I wonder why that is? 🤔 But OTOH I guess X feels they’re getting enough folks booking their cruises so they don’t need to entice them with extra perks. In fact they continue to cut them. That is great news. I hope it continues to work for them.

If it were us and our budget could afford it, we would book an aft-facing cabin so we can see on both sides of the ship as well as out the back. Remember, the folks in the aft are the last ones to see the glaciers as well as the ports when the ship is leaving. Also, it's less windy back there when the ship is moving.