Real NHDOC

Never had an issue applying GC balances to our onboard account during a cruise. You can time your visit to Guest Services to be when there is no line and they can do it in just a couple of minutes. If you are in a Neptune Suite the concierge can do it for you too. They all seem to be very familiar with the process now. So either way would be fine. I would personally choose to do it on the ship myself rather than put it in the hands of a TA and hope that it shows up on the folio once aboard...but that's me.

I know some Canadian ports do not count as "foreign ports" for the purposes of PVSA from my own experience - that's why I said always check with the cruise line first. I had booked an Alaska cruise followed by a repositioning cruise where I was to get off in Honolulu but the itinerary was Seattle to Vancouver, with a stop in Victoria the night before and then Vancouver to Honolulu. In the eyes of the PVSA neither Vancouver nor Victoria is apparently considered a foreign port so the cruise was considered to be Seattle to Honolulu, which was deemed in violation. I was told we could get off in Victoria and take a ferry to Vancouver and rejoin (apparently an overnight stay in Canada would satisfy PVSA) or would have to cancel one of the legs. I cancelled the entire trip instead but learned a lesson about PVSA!

As most others have said, it's not a big deal and they do it all the time. You pack up your loose items in your suitcases and leave your hanging stuff in the closets and the stewards take care of the move. Never have we had to remove our personal belongings from the ship because of this. While it isn't a convenient as having the same cabin it isn't something to dread either. One hint would be to have your agent contact ship inventory to see exactly what cabins could be made available for the B2B. Lots of times they won't show on the public sites but have cabins that can be "freed up" and given to you - it just makes a little more work for them but can help save you from having to move so worth a try. Also, make sure they link the two bookings in their system. They should do it automatically but sometimes don't. One last thing - I don't recommend ever booking any B2Bs without checking first with the cruiseline that it can be done. Some cruises violate the PVSA if booked consecutively and sometimes this isn't discovered when the bookings are made. Ask me how I learned this.

I hadn't thought about that although it would make sense if that were the explanation. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to spend $18K-$20K for a 35 day cruise for a guarantee cabin when, for literally a few dollars more you could be assured to have an acceptable one, but that's me. I mean, if you have that much money to spend on this cruise why gamble getting a cabin you'll be unhappy with? But it would explain why they show many cabins available in just about every category if they're already sold but just not yet assigned. The other thing is that final payment was recently due on this cruise so it is also possible that they had lots of people who cancelled recently and a slew of cabins has opened up that they now will have to deal with selling. I just checked and there were 14 Neptune suites showing as available. Hard to believe that many people who would shell out $50K for a NS would choose a guarantee.

I am not sure I understand your comment but actually don't have the cruise booked at all (or any cruises currently booked). Only would consider it if we could have signed up for standby as we live around an hour from the port and it would have worked well for us.

I inquired with our PCC about the Voyage of the Vikings 35 day cruise out of Boston which shows as being offered on this standby program. She said, after checking, that HAL has closed out this cruise and is no longer offering Standby for it. It's strange that they do that since the cruise is far from sold out (albeit the current prices start at an eye-popping price of around $200PP/Day). Especially strange they would close it out since HAL could just keep collecting the $4800 per cabin for an interest-free loan and just refund it later if the cruise is full. I suspect they are afraid that by offering such an expensive cruise for $49 a day it will discourage people who are hoping for a bargain from booking the cruise at 4-6X that price. In other words they are creating vacancies because of the program. It's weird because the VoV is typically sold out, sometimes years in advance but this year there are plenty of empty cabins for sale. My suspicion is that as we get closer to the July departure their dynamic pricing will adjust fares down to sell out cabins at somewhere between $49 and $200PP/Night thus shutting out many of the standby people but it will be interesting to see what happens.

This past Sunday was embarkation day. On Monday morning when heading out to breakfast were greeted with the putrid smell of hours old vomit all throughout our hallway on deck 10. Had to step very carefully to avoid walking through it. I called guest services to report it and a crew arrived within the hour to try and clean it up. For the next day there were housekeeping supervisors, cleaners, managers and guest services staff working in that hallway. Finally we gave up and asked to be moved because we couldn’t walk out in the hallway without gagging and the smell had now penetrated our cabin. Fortunately we got moved yesterday to another deck. It’s now Wednesday and the hallway still smells like deodorants and vomit. I told the hotel manager that while drinking to excess and vomiting is an excusable event what is inexcusable is not reporting it immediately so it can be cleaned up. Since it sat several hours soaking into the carpet and padding it’s unlikely they will ever get the odor completely out. In fact they were going to cut out a section of carpet to replace it. So, does this story maybe justify more of my outrage over who HAL is marketing to? We had to move from a cabin I specifically chose and booked for 28 days because of the behavior of the miscreants they brought onboard. Yeah, I’m really an entitled elitist.

I was attempting to draw a comparison between my experience last Spring on Nieuw Statendam and this Spring. Last year the ship was full and the itinerary was the 10 and 11 day circuits. Way fewer children and overall a much better experience for all. Prices, on a per passenger per day basis were actually HIGHER than for this year’s 7 day “day care center at sea”. So, the takeaway should be that HAL can actually make good money catering to its core, loyalest customers without having to cheapen itself to attract families with children (which, let’s face it, isn’t its strong suit). As their core customers die off people will naturally become fans and graduate from RC and Carnival once their kids grow up and leave the nest. They don’t need to bring them in before that time which is their probable justification for marketing to them. Play to your strengths and develop a niche that fills a need and don’t destroy the brand by trying to be a family friendly cruise line because it’s just not necessary (and they don’t do it as well as their competitors do).

People are the worst.

My biggest complaint is we invested a lot in getting to 5* on one cruise line and now have the perks which we earned and can’t enjoy because it’s a different cruise line. I don’t think that’s an unjustified complaint.

It just drives away their most loyal customers and best crew members - sounds like a winning strategy to me!

Or February. January is probably the safest month to avoid families because they just ruined the holiday cruises and most schools have no break until at least mid-February.

It doesn’t take 300+ children to spoil a cruise. Just two running around the BB King’s dance floor all night like it’s a playground is enough. Certain parts of the ship should be “adults only”.

Same as last year, and, while it attracted a few kids last spring the shorter itinerary has made this the “school break express” now. Over 300 kids onboard (and the kids area is woefully undersized) so they are everywhere, all the time. Parents are taking full advantage of the drinks package too. HAL has to make up its mind about what kind of cruise line this is. The bipolar approach where the small ships do the “good itineraries” and the larger Pinnacle class are relegated to becoming floating day care centers just isn’t a great strategy. We loved the Pinnacle ships but next winter the only one doing longer trips is the Rotterdam and it will be alternating trips to the Panama Canal, something we’ve done multiple times and don’t want to pay $800pp extra to do just to avoid children.

HAL has successfully ruined the Nieuw Statendam by changing the spring itinerary from 10-11 day circuits to 7 days. It used to be our favorite ship in the fleet but after 14 days aboard we can’t wait to leave. Last year the longer loops kept the family crowds to a minimum. Ship is now packed with families and inexperienced cruisers. I won’t go into details but suffice it to say their behavior has us seeking shelter anywhere we can find it. The only quiet place left is the thermal suite, which, fortunately none of them has discovered yet. They even retrofitted the area above Canaletto to be a kids activity area so if you eat in there you hear what sounds like a basketball dribbling on your head. Way to ruin what was only a marginal atmosphere to begin with. Next year HAL has the same spring itinerary planned. Unless you’re a masochist avoid the “Carnival Statendam” ship at all costs!

Funny story. We spent a month aboard Eurodam in February and received several mariner’s cocktail coupons. For part of the cruise we had purchased HIA so didn’t use them and saved them. Now aboard Nieuw Statendam and have already used a couple of the coupons without issue but the other night were told they would not be accepted in the ocean bar because they were marked as being from Eurodam and they now only accept coupons issued on this ship for this voyage only. Keep in mind there is nothing on them to the effect “only valid on ship/voyage marked” so to impose such a restriction seems unfair as they could easily have done this and we would have known that was a condition of the offer. Since HAL is so inconsistent we just took them back and walked down to Billboard Onboard and there they were accepted without question. I plan to discuss it with the beverage manager aboard and suggest that if they plan to restrict the acceptance of the coupons to the ship and voyage that the coupons be rewritten to include that restriction. If HAL values our loyalty so much why should it matter which ship or voyage we use the coupons on? After all, it is a perk we earned by continuing to give them our business. If I happened to pay for the HIA package why shouldn’t I be allowed to keep the perk for another cruise where I have not? It’s not like I am counterfeiting them. And if it does matter to them then just print it on the coupon and don’t make it (yet another) inconsistently applied condition.

One of my pet peeves isn’t the inconsistency of pricing but of the drinks themselves. I realize bartenders are humans and as such cannot be expected to replicate the exact same drink time and time again but sometimes the quality (and quantity) varies so drastically it is impossible to compare one with another. So, for me the price is secondary. A bad drink is worthless. Unfortunately they usually put the worst bartenders in the busiest bars at the peak times, like at happy hour.

Personally, I am very thankful HAL permits smoking inside of their casinos on most ships. It takes away even the slightest urge I may have to go into it because it’s so repulsive to even walk through. It’s probably saved me thousands of dollars, so keep it up!

They don’t smoke inside on Eurodam or Nieuw Amsterdam. Play on those and you can lose fast with the slanted odds.

The higher limits tables have the 3:2 odds in blackjack but on the $6 tables the sucker odds do prevail. Also, their Roulette tables have a 0, 00 and either a 000 or a boat so the Roulette is another sucker bet since they pay 36:1 but have 39 pockets for the ball to fall into instead of 38 (or 37).

The very liberal interpretation of those paragraphs would be hard to convince a judge to mean “we can move you from your chosen stateroom simply to maximize occupancy on the ship”. That would violate the spirit of the contract in my opinion. If they wanted to include such a statement they certainly could but these sections simply don’t apply to motivations like maximizing revenue. Otherwise they could bump you every time someone was willing to pay more for your stateroom than you paid.

I just read the ticket contract and can find nothing that says HAL can move guests from their chosen stateroom arbitrarily in order to accommodate other guests. The term “Stateroom” appears 20 times and none of those paragraphs even remotely say anything about this new policy being permitted. There are conditions under which you agree to being moved or confined but those have to do with medical conditions and emergencies. I believe if HAL did move guests arbitrarily from their chosen stateroom to accommodate larger parties then it represents a breach of contract and a refund would be in order.

I emailed the ship services department last Wednesday expressing my disappointment (mentioning I was currently aboard) and have only received the instant auto reply stating I would hear a response in 48-72 hours.

Prior to March 1, 2024 the MDR was typically open for lunch on every embarkation day. I say typically but not always because there were periodically times where they did not provide this amenity due to things like coast guard inspections, crew shortages, etc. but it was listed as an official perk on the Mariner’s Society list of benefits for the past couple of years. On March 1 it ended and has been removed from the website. There is also some confusion about the various Mariner’s lunches. The welcome aboard lunch is the one on embarkation day which was open to everyone while the Mariner’s lunch that is offered after the awards ceremony is by invitation only, usually to three star and above level, and is offered often on a sea day during the cruise, usually close to the end.

Kinda makes it easier for them too since there aren’t as many over 14 days - especially in the Caribbean.