Elkins45

I don’t think we have a PCC from Holland American. That’s interesting because our Carnival PVP contacts us all the time and Norwegian assigned me one before I even booked my first cruise with them. I suppose we don’t have one because our only HA cruise was arranged Boyd Rewards and not with HA or a TA directly.

A little background: my wife likes to play the slot machines and one of the comps she gets is an occasional free cruise offer. I'm not a gambler and I get nothing. Over Christmas we took our first free HA cruise.She spent considerable time in the casino. I might have played $100 worth of blackjack but honestly I can't remember if I did or not. Fast forward to a couple of days ago when I (not she) received an email offering me a free inside cabin on a fairly decent selection of HA cruises. Of course I know it's not really free because gratuities and port fees aren't included, but it's still tempting offer. Do any of you know if they will honor this offer for a single cruiser? The fine print on the offer says "rates based on double occupancy" but doubling a free fare is still $0 by my math. My wife is unavailable for all of the ones that are attractive to me but I might consider going by myself if HA will let me without paying for the empty second bunk. Yes, I know I can just call and ask, but why wait on hold and use up my minutes when somebody here might already know? I'm still wondering why they sent me the offer and not her. They won't have any chance of winning it back from me in the casino.

Carnival has many more itineraries from US ports than MSC, and I like their food and shows slightly better than MSC. I also find their customer service to be more responsive. I like that MSC sometimes has better solo rates, I love their overnights at Ocean Cay, and their pizza is awesome. I also like the older and calmer clientele with fewer kids. The Carnival 24 hour party atmosphere can be a bit much. I think I slightly prefer MSC, all things considered, mostly because of the lower number of kids.

My first MSC cruise was after the Covid restart. I picked them because they had a great rate for a solo cruiser, but mostly for curiosity. I had very low expectations for the price, so I was quite pleasantly surprised by my Divina experience. Unfortunately as cruising has crept back toward normalcy the fantastic single rates seem to be fading. Now my favorite thing is Ocean Cay.

I liked the ship and I liked how Carnival handled the situation. I didn’t like how crowded it was. Unfortunately when you’re on a ship with 6000+ people there are always going to be long lines for everything. Our fault for picking their newest ship in June, but in the future I’m going to try to limit our Carnival sailings to off-peak times and (especially) smaller ships. I think I’m just generically programmed to be uncomfortable jammed together with that many people.

I’m reminded of a joke. How can you deduce if you’re with someone who is a former Marine, someone who doesn’t own a TV, or someone who doesn’t fly? You don’t have to deduce it: they will tell you.

On our first cruise in 2015 we did the muster drill standing out on the exposed deck by the lifeboats. That was where our muster station was located. On Celebration last week our muster station was the casino and they just scanned our cards. I know how to put on a life vest and I appreciate not having to stand out in the heat, but I must admit I did like at least knowing where my lifeboat was the old way. There was no lifeboat hiding between the slot machines.

Our total additional costs are a Lyft to the hotel, a day’s food and an extra day of pet boarding. Probably $150 at most, not even enough to bother submitting on our travel insurance. We just arrived home and I’m happy to be sleeping in my own bed tonight.

We were on Celebration and had a 4pm flight, but we didn’t step off the ship until 6:00. We had booked our air thru Carnival’s Fly2Fun so we called them from onboard when it became obvious we weren’t going to make it. Carnival rebooked us for today and paid for our hotel. I’m really happy we used their air service for this one because they were really responsive and took care of us. Right now we’re waiting to board our second flight home.

To follow up: I called today and the whole process took about six minutes. They are apparently using some sort of VOIP phone system so I had a hard time understanding their customer service person due to electronic distortion. Because of that I elected to just cancel and then rebook later rather than try to have them reschedule.

We booked a cruise during my wife’s fall break but now she’s changed jobs and can’t go. I either have to cancel for both of us, change it to a solo for me or move to a different date. I see on the MSC website that cancellations are supposed to be done in writing, but what if I just want to move or make it a solo? Can I do that over the phone? Would you trust them? I hear horror stories about MSC phone support.

Vacations to go used to list the MSC single rates but now nothing shows up when you sort by cheapest singles rates. This changed quite recently.

When I registered on the NCL website and entered my contact info I was subsequently contacted by a personal vacation planner. I ended up using this person to book my first NCL cruise. In the course of arranging this upcoming trip I emailed them a couple of times and left a voicemail. At least one of the emails was missed entirely and the voicemail was responded to two days later. That was three days ago and the promised change still hasn't been made. Since the final payment deadline is approaching I'm considering just calling the main NCL number and dealing with whomever picks up the phone. Is this typical or is my person just having a bad week?

For those of you that have sailed from Seward before: what time do they usually start boarding the ship? My cruise doesn't leave until 9:00pm so that's a long time to be waiting around if they don't let me on the ship.

Just as an example I looked up the December 3 sailing of the Seashore from Port Canaveral. Changing the number of occupants from two to one increased the per person rate from $219 to $358. That’s a 163% increase. Right after Covid singles were maybe 110% at most. I guess when they were sailing with only 800-1000 passengers per trip they were just happy to get a warm body in the room.

MSC, at least on the two ships I sailed, were just regular rooms sold at a reduced rate.

I've only cruised solo on MSC, and not in a dedicated solo cabin. Twice on Divina and once on Meraviglia. Two were in fall 21 and the third in spring of 22. In all three cases the fare I paid was substantially less than for two persons. IIRC it was around maybe 115% of the quoted double occupancy rate. Sadly, these bargains seem to be going away on the MSC and other third party websites. Not having to pay 2x to travel alone was a big reason that I started sailing with MSC.

I obviously don’t know what flights they will select for me, but the cost is $507. When I went to Expedia my preference of the available flights is $488. It doesn’t appear that I’m getting any sort of discount unless they are quoting a level above basic economy. I was willing to pay the small difference if it bought some additional protection, but now that I know it doesn’t I’m inclined to just do it myself.

Since I’m solo on this cruise it’s not BOGO. If NCL doesn’t provide travel assistance with their air then there’s really no advantage to book with them.

No, I still have the option of changing my flights to arrive the day before. I just wanted to know if there was some sort of backstop if I gambled on arriving on the day of departure.

I’ve booked an Alaskan cruise from Seward to Vancouver. I did my flights through NCL and their vacation planner insists that I will be fine flying in the day of the cruise, and that they can’t book transfer for people coming in the day before unless they also book their (very expensive) hotel. If I elect to fly in day-of and book a transfer thru NCL does that offer any sort of protection? I know with Princess if you book air thru them and miss the cruise they say they will get you to the next port so you can board there. I have no idea (thankfully) how that works in practice, but at least they say they will. If I’m left sitting in an airport because my connecting flight was cancelled will NCL do anything, or am I just screwed in every possible way and on my own to get back home after wasting all that money?

I’m not sure the MSC executives back in the home office really understand the US cruise market just yet.

I'm surprised not to see this port here in Departures (instead of Ports of Call) since there are several cruises that depart from either Seward or Whittier. I'm looking at one of the NCL cruises from Seward to Vancouver and am trying to get info on how it works to board at Seward. It appears you fly into Anchorage and then take a 2+ hour bus ride to the port, correct? It would seem to be almost a give that you would come in the day before, especially if traveling from the east coast. Does anyone have hotel recommendations that are close to the airport but also convenient to port transportation? Are there any particular transport options to the port you would recommend? In doing some searching it looks like there's a train as well as a bus.

“Such a low score is virtually unheard of.” That’s not a phrase you like to read about your upcoming cruise.

My wife and I are scheduled to cruise on this ship in October. It’s her first MSC cruise. I suppose I’d better stock up on Imodium. https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2023/05/articles/disease/msc-seaside-flunks-usph-health-inspection-with-score-of-67/