bundtkate

This bit is oddly worded. It doesn't say that your booking is fully refundable if you do not sail because you didn't clear. It just says that your booking is fully refundable if you do not sail, full stop. I'd read that as you could literally just not show up after clearing and you'd be eligible for a refund, but surely HAL wouldn't put themselves in that position, right?

I do not get motion sickness, but used to suffer from chronic nausea and found the Relief Band helped to a degree. It would not eliminate the problem, but it would provide enough relief I could fall asleep. It did not help enough I'd have been able to enjoy a cruise, but different ailments respond differently to various interventions so your wife's experience may be very different from my own. One thing I will mention is that positioning matters. If it's in the right spot, it almost feels like your whole hand is vibrating, which may be bothersome long term. If your wife chooses to try it, I'd give it a go before going on the cruise to make sure that won't bother her. If it does, she'll have time to change plans. Also, FWIW, it was recommended to me by my gastroenterologist who was a researcher at teaching hospital in Kansas City so I presume there is some scientific merit to the gadget. He said Sea Bands didn't work because they only provided pressure on the relevant nerve and that the electrical stimulation provided by the Relief Band was different. I'm far from qualified to debate that, but it worked well enough for me that I feel comfortable saying it's worth a try.

While you can't iMessage an Android user, you can most certainly text them just fine on WiFi. The key is to use MMS (needs a data or wifi connection) instead of SMS (requires a cellular connection). Admittedly, Apple makes this hard to do because they want everyone using iMessage so I always recommend Signal or, if you must, WhatsApp. Since the latter is owned by the data mining blue F site, it's not ideal but it's easier for many and better than nothing. As a bonus, you can place calls on a data connection over either of these apps as well!

Thank you and here's hoping! 🤞 I've heard the stories about Canada Place so I'm sure at least one shorter line would be a blessing.

Do you know if Americans with Global Entry can use this line, by chance? I started traveling to Canada for work fairly often and know we get to use the Nexus lines at airports when returning to the U.S. Curious if the cruise would be the same since technically, we're getting cleared to go to the U.S. in that case too ..

I haven't tried Celebrity yet, but the only cruise line I've found to make acceptable coffee outside the suite areas is MSC and even then it depends on who makes it. Haven coffee on NCL was acceptable, but their cappuccinos were far too hot and had more milk that I'd choose. Even Viking River's coffee was mid at best. I've also never seen a proper tamp on a cruise ship. They have those tampers attached to the machine which is just wrong. You can't possibly tamp with adequate pressure if you're pushing up onto a fixed place tamper. You gotta put it on the counter and put your shoulder into it a bit. But, hey, Celebrity may well be the one that breaks the mold. As a fellow snob going on Apex next year, I'll be keenly interested in your thoughts if you try it out. At home, I have a Breville Barista Express which is actually doing me dirty right now and hasn't pulled a decent shot in a few weeks, but we're working on getting our groove back. I also worked as a barista at an indie coffee shop in the midwest throughout college and law school so after 7 years of free espressos made from beans roasted on site that day, there's simply no hope for me on a cruise. I've found I do best either bringing along an Aeropress with some pre-ground (desperate times ...) vacuum sealed beans or embracing my inner basic millennial and drinking lattes that taste less like coffee and more like dessert.

Ah, thank you both (edit: I mean all 3 of y'all!)! I guess that's what I get for looking at the individual deck images on HAL's site and assuming they'd include all the info the PDF does. Looks like ours is a double! Victory!

Hijacking a bit (sorry, OP!), but how can you tell which cabins are quads/triples after booking? I'm used to this being noted on deck plans, but I'm not seeing it for the Koningsdam and I very carefully chose our stateroom location so an unexpected change would be disappointing.

I can totally do that, but since I'm not sailing until June, I can't say whether or not I'd actually recommend these folks at this stage. I ended up booking through Alaska Shore Excursions. They have a number of helicopter tours and I went with one through Coastal Helicopters that lands on Herbert glacier instead of Mendenhall, basically because the timing and price were right. Since then, I've read that Herbert is a little farther away and thus a less popular choice so it could be nice for less crowding on the glacier and more scenery from the air, but maybe worse because the ride takes longer so less time actually on the glacier. We'll see, I guess!

I'm on Koningsdam so maybe a bit different, but HAL wouldn't let me book a 3:15pm glacier landing and said it conflicted. By my math, I think the Tracey Arm excursion should arrive back in Juneau around 3, but HAL seems to want a bigger buffer than 15 minutes (which is fair). I ended up booking third party because HAL had no available landings leaving after 3:15pm at the time I booked. Assuming that you want to book through HAL, don't waffle and book early. There were landings leaving at 4 and 4:30 at least. I just missed out even though I was still 5 months out. When they say Alaska excursions go early, they mean it! 😅

Ah, that would explain it! I have to agree with @HeddaGarbled that things should always be this way. The crew work hard and gratuities should be part of the cost of cruising so it's nice to see it actually works that way in some places. Thanks so much for the help, y'all!

My husband and I are going on our first X cruise next year sailing out of Southampton. I noticed that the beverage packages have a higher limit for UK and Australia sailings (e.g. up to $17 for premium out of the US, but up to $20 out of the UK). I'm wondering how this impacts the value of the beverage package for our sailing. Does the package cover more when sailing out of the UK, or are drinks simply more expensive on UK sailings thus the higher limit is meant to ensure the same drinks are covered regardless? I've struggled to find any bar menus specific to the UK so I'm inclined to believe they're the same and UK sailing simply include more, but that's counter-intuitive given how lines have recently been tightening belts and limiting inclusions so I'd hate to assume.

My husband and I are now a little less than 3 months out from our first HAL cruise and first Alaska cruise. We are 36 and 39, still chose HAL despite claims of "sleepiness", and have found plenty of active excursions to suit our preferences. One I'm particularly excited about is our Skagway excursion taking the White Pass rail up and biking the Klondike highway down. When originally planning, we were also stuck between HAL (Koningsdam) and Princess (Discovery Princess) and, like you, posted on both the HAL and Princess boards to help make a decision. I obviously landed on HAL in the end and these threads may be rather specific to my husband's and my listed preferences, but I found the feedback valuable so hopefully they help you out too. HAL thread is here and Princess here. A few things that lead us to choose HAL (besides itinerary which isn't a factor for you): 1. Smaller ships. HAL can dock in more (and sometimes better) locations. For example, if Skagway has rockslide troubles again, HAL can dock at the smaller unaffected pier, whereas many Princess ships can't. Sapphire maybe can as an older, smaller ship so you might not be too concerned about this. 2. Enclosed pool. Lido pool area can be enclosed in bad/cold weather and I believe the pool is heated allowing use of the pool in unpredictable Alaskan climates. It also provides another comfortable (warm!) viewing area for scenery due to the large windows around the Lido. 3. Price. We wanted reserved outdoor space and on Princess that meant booking a balcony. On HAL, The Retreat allowed us to book an inside and reserve a cabana as our outdoor space for far less than the cost of a balcony. Cabanas also come with the added bonus of a cabana attendant and some extra included food. There are folks here who think I may live to regret this choice due to cold/wind/rain and cabanas not providing adequate shelter. They may be right that I don't get as much use out of them as I'd like should the weather not cooperate, but I expect a balcony wouldn't be any better and it would have been more expensive so I'm not too fussed either way. 4. Shower curtains. I know, it's piddly, but they are so irritating and when you're having difficulty deciding, every con counts for something. No shower curtains on HAL. Hopefully some of this helps and if you're still stuck come June, well, I'll be sure to post our thoughts on HAL.

I just did this in February! Things may have changed, but I got a reduced deposit ($200, I believe?) and $250 OBC for an IV on a 14-day Apex sailing in Summer 2025. You can do this at Next Cruise, but be careful to let them know which fare you want (all inclusive or cruise only) and double-check your invoice that they booked the right thing. I don't think they're used to this fare structure since they mostly deal with Royal so I ended up with cruise only when I asked for AI. I did the math later and ended up deciding this was actually the better bet for us, but if you know you want AI, it's best to confirm you got it before leaving Next Cruise.

Thanks so much for doing this, Kazu. I love seeing the Bon Voyages (even when they're not for me) and it's just such a thoughtful thing to do. 💜 My husband and I will be sailing June 1, 2024 on Koningsdam 7 day Alaska Inside Passage. Not our first cruise, but our first on HAL and first to Alaska so extra exciting nonetheless. 🙂

Funny enough, my flights actually were ticketed. I had requested early ticketing so I could choose seats (AC won't let you pick until you're ticketed) which is why I very much expected to be able to manage this through AC regardless. I was able to look at and pick a different flight from what AC had accommodated me on so I may have been fine had there been one that worked. I just couldn't cancel entirely and unfortunately AC had no flights available that would allow me to make my connection. This very much may be something that only happened because the stars aligned. I did early ticketing. Air Canada has a bit of a reputation amongst my primarily Canadian coworkers so maybe they don't quite do things like the US airlines I'm used to. My itinerary included multiple airlines and the connection I was going to miss with the change was on United so maybe that made things harder. But either way, Air Canada seems to have wanted me to jump through some extra hoops they didn't make me jump through when I canceled an earlier direct booking for the same reason so dealing with all of this was, imo, a bit harder than it had to be.

I would disagree with this ever so slightly because it does make dealing with flight changes more difficult. When booking direct, you can make changes on the airline's website if the new flight doesn't work and can even cancel the whole thing if nothing to your liking is available. If you book through Flight Ease, it seems Air Canada at least wants you to contact HAL if you need to cancel and rebook. Hopefully that's just an extra phone call in most cases and no big deal, but in my case it also turned into a small battle over change fees I knew I shouldn't have to pay as well tacking a few extra days onto the resolution. My TA sorted it for me and the flights I got through Flight Ease saved me enough I don't regret my decision, but if I didn't have a TA, I'd probably be singing a different tune and may still be booked on a flight that guaranteed a missed connection.

Hey, text communication can be hard. No body language or facial expressions to help interpret folks' intentions means all of us misinterpret from time to time. I'm sure I've done it several times too. 🙈

I don't believe they are calling you anything. They referring to people who attack others for their opinions/experiences as "keyboard cowards" and were attempting to emphasize that they were not trying to attack you and thus become a "keyboard coward" themselves.

I'm definitely the target demographic here (36, husband is 39, no kids) and am brand new to Celebrity, but I will have absolutely no idea what I think until 2025 when we go on Apex to Norway and the Arctic circle (and I guess I'll be 38 by then and my husband will have crossed the 40 barrier to 41). We are experienced cruisers with 11 (10 for hubby) now in the books (6 RCI, 3 MSC, 1NCL, 1 Viking River). We also have two coming up -- the 2025 on Celebrity and an Alaska on HAL this Summer. Despite the RCI dominance there, we really don't have any brand loyalties. The skew is the result of many of our early cruises being retreats for my work that were always on Royal. If you look at what we've booked ourselves only, RCI and MSC are tied. While I have no idea how we'll like Celebrity, I'm optimistic. I actually think the IV we booked will be great for Norway since it'll probably get chilly as we head north. We'll get more use out of the big window that we can open when weather permits than we would a Verandah that would only be usable when it's warmer. We cruised pre-COVID and acknowledge the cutbacks, but haven't been terribly bothered by them. I still don't understand why I would need twice daily room cleaning and look forward to signing up for "Go Green" and giving my steward a break if that's still an option. I've been lusting after e-class ships for quite some time and am stoked to finally experience one for myself. Plus, the itinerary is super cool. We knew we wanted to do Norway and Celebrity crushed the competition on the itinerary with most others being shorter and not making it into the arctic circle. Celebrity was a bit spendier than we usually book -- even more expensive that the 14-night Viking River Cruise we took and that one included flights -- but times have changed since then (we booked that river cruise in early 2022) and the complete package seems worth the money. If I remember over a year from now, maybe I can come back to this post and see if I still agree with past me's best guess. 😅

I mean, from my perspective it was really easy, despite the esclator. I was off the ship and in the car within about 15minutes tops and that includes the time it took me to figure out the parking lot was on the other side of the terminal. There really weren't any bottlenecks and the facial recognition for immigration made getting out of the terminal a breeze. That said, that's just my experience and it may well depend on certain variables -- I was self-disembarking, I'm young and travel light so the escalator wasn't really a bother, and I got off pretty darned early so there weren't any crowds yet. I was also heading to the parking lot, not waiting for an Uber or Taxi to the airport. If you have to collect your luggage in the terminal, have any sort of issues that make the escalator troublesome, get off later with larger crowds, or have to deal with airport transportation, then one or more of these things could make the process harder. 🤷‍♀️

This is what seemed to happen in practice, but onboard they implied you simply could not self-disembark with more than one roller bag. It was also mentioned that the crew may stop you if you attempted to self-disembark with more than one so YMMV, I guess? I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a bit at being told to stay put on the escalator with the little carryon I'm regularly expected to hoist over my head into a bin, but I suppose at the end of the day it's both easier and safer to have a hard and fast rule rather than quibble over bad size so I guess I can deal. 😛

I believe this varies based on port and itinerary, but we just disembarked Harmony in Galveston and I could have got off the ship as late as 9am.

Thank you! Not the most pleasant day to be boarding today, but here's hoping it clears up for you quickly. 🤞 I hope you enjoy it regardless and if you find yourself in need of a non-rainy drink, Ram at the Solarium bar took good care of my family this last week. Bon Voyage! 🚢 So our last sea day was mostly uneventful, but activities were loaded near the end of the day. My cousin got into the karaoke contest finals so our afternoon was wine tasting, a surprise show, dinner, and karaoke all back to back to back. This also made for a bit of a late evening and we wanted to get going early to beat the crowds so I decided to fall behind again in favor of getting enough sleep. SURPRISE SHOW I mentioned on CC recently that Hideaway Heist was nowhere to be found in my cruise planner and that was true, but cruise director Steve announced yesterday evening that it would be performed at 5:15pm. That was just after our wine tasting so I went to check it out. It's completely different from The Fine Line in every way (except for spinning guy – he was still there for some reason), but equally fun and impressive. The aqua shows are consistently my favorites and this was no different. We were apparently the first guests to see this show in 2024, but it seems to be ready to go now so anyone else sailing on Harmony soon should keep an eye out. If you're boarding today, check your cruise compass and your app so you can grab reservations if you didn't see them on your cruise planner either. DINNER The last dinner was a bit odd and featured an autumn turkey dinner despite the fact that it's February and very nearly spring here in Texas. It was also the first day I didn't find something that I wanted on the menu so I went with two apps and no main. I wasn't a big fan of the French onion soup. Thin broth, not a lot of onions, and just generally lacking in flavor. Everything else was great tho. Totally anecdotal, but I noticed that the members of my family who went for more traditional dishes found the food to be lacking. Those of us who went for the more exotic fare enjoyed it. Make of that what you will, but it seems like you might get some better meals if you are a more adventurous eater. KARAOKE This is not where you will usually find me as I would pass out before drinking enough that I'd sing in front of others, but my cousin decided to compete and made it through to the finals. This meant she was singing with the house band in Dazzles. Unfortunately, she didn't win, but she had fun and got plenty of compliments from the audience so it was an enjoyable experience for all involved. DISEMBARKATION By the time karaoke was over, it was pretty much time for bed. We wanted to walk off as soon as we could so were aiming to meet in the hallway at 8. We ended up being cleared earlier than that (I think around 7:30?) and I was walking off around 7:45. Disembarkation was pretty easy. We carried off our own bags, but Galveston is apparently a bit weird about that. Cruise director said if you have more than one piece of rolling luggage you can't carry off your own bags. I heard them directing folks with more than one bag to the elevators so it seems that may not be totally true, but for whatever it's worth. They do yell at you for walking on the escalators, I learned. Oops. All told, though, we were at the car and getting on the road a little after 8. Almost no traffic leaving the north lot yet so it was almost no time before we were on 45 and headed home. Overall, this was a really lovely cruise and the family is already talking about making this a regular thing. Since this particular ship was my suggestion, I was glad to hear everyone liked it enough to want to come back. I don't see myself cruising out of Galveston with my husband any time soon as the itineraries remain a bit heavy on places we've been numerous times, but it does seem I'll be back with the girls again so maybe y'all can join me for another live in a year or so. I've got a few final thoughts swirling so I'll probably do a wrap-up sometime this week, but if anyone has questions in the meantime, I'm sure I'll be around. Thanks for coming along, y'all!

Thank you! Honest, I'm slowing down at this point. Might have considered just going to sleep tonight and staying a day behind, but today was light on activities so I think I can make it. I also used to live in Corpus! Been gone a bit now and am closer to San Antonio, but I still miss that streudel place on the island. Yum! Anyway, Cozumel. My day started on an unexpected note when I coincidentally woke up one hour early and saw a text from my mom that she forgot to mention that our 11am excursion was at 11am local time which, wouldn't you know, is 1 hour ahead of ship time. So instead of going back to sleep, it was up and at 'em. Got lucky I guess. FOOD TOUR The excursion in question was a private food tour my mom set up for us. I might have spent the last 3 years endlessly gushing about these mole tacos my husband and I had in Cozumel shortly post-restart (Sept 2021, I think?) so I think she was inspired. Or wanted to add some variety to my gushing. Either way, we headed out around 9:30 ship time, grabbed a taxi to the mega where we met our tour guide, and spent the late morning/early afternoon sampling local cuisine. Chow included many aguas frescas, a few Indio beers, cochinitas pibil, shrimp tacos, sopa de lima, pan fried grouper, and pan dulces. All were delicious, but I failed in my photography duties and only took pictures of the cochinitas and the grouper. We also went on a side quest to a local open air market: Our guide's finger sneaked into that last photo cuz she was telling us how to figure out if the fish is fresh. The barracuda she's pointing to was – its eyes were clear. The groupers' were cloudy indicating they'd be caught a different day. At our last stop, I bought a small variety pack of pan dulces so I got to try more than just the concha I ordered at the bakery. They were $2.50 and super tasty so I was hoping someone would help me with them. No help from the fam, but a pair of fellow cruisers were jealous of my goodies so I pawned off a mini concha on them. They loved it and thanked me, but I don't think they understood what a favor they'd done me. I thought about how I'd smuggle any leftovers on the ship, but ended up finishing them all in the end. Good thing too as Cozumel port security made me send my cardigan through the scanners even though other ports let me keep it. My plan to hide them under the cardigan tied around my waist would have been thwarted. COLOMBUS I didn't think I'd ever be hungry again after that so I skipped lobster night at the MDR (yes, I know, a cruising mortal sin) and caught the 7:45 pm Colombus showing with my mom. Someone said the set was amazing and OMG was it ever! This former theater kid was thrilled with that ship. I'll admit, I thought the plot itself was a bit much at times, but it was one of those things where it's so corny it's actually kind of amazing in a way. It's probably a one and done for me, but it was very much worth going. The cast for all the shows on Harmony have also been just immensely talented. Even when they're singing songs I'm not big on, I'm blown away by just how good they are at what they do. Royal deserves the entertainment accolades it gets for sure. JAZZ IN THE PARK After crashing my family's balconies and stargazing for a bit, I finished out the evening in central park listening to a jazz quartet while finally polishing off my book and checking out a new one from my local library on my Kindle while in the middle of the ocean. Technology is grand, ain't it? This was such a lovely and relaxing time and the quartet is fabulous. They're going to be back tomorrow evening and consequently so will I. Central Park really cleared out after the music ended so I grabbed a nightcap at Trellis Bar and read a bit more. After a while, I grabbed some Sorrento's and while I was eating some unfortunate cruiser found out pizza was included for the first time. On day 6. Poor guy. Anyway, I'm looking forward to a sea day (and no early morning activities) tomorrow. Only thing on the docket is one more wine tasting in the afternoon so should be a relaxing final day. Always a bit bittersweet that last sea day, but I think it's just about time. I will be glad to watch some football with my husband and our cats soon.