Ipeeinthepools

Can anyone provide some information about luggage check-in for large cruise ships in Amsterdam. I have sailed from Amsterdam several years ago but I have forgotten the details about luggage check-in. Is luggage check-in similar to the process in North America where you give your luggage to a porter outside of the terminal? Are you expected to tip the porters and if so, how much? Thanks

That should be a perfectly fine inside cabin. That's a great location. Easy to get to the Lido deck as well as the NY Deli and the pool. It's only 2 decks up to the Crows Nest. There are really very few cabins in the area, so I would worry about a lot of traffic. Go for it.

Let me see if I understand you correctly. FlightEase either made a mistake back in April or didn't recognize that someone else made a mistake and you're happy that they fixed the problem after you found the mistake. This isn't my idea of anything worthy of praise, but I'm glad you're happy.

That's just a sales gimmick. I'm sure it's less drag, but I doubt it's very significant. If it were really that important and the IV concept was that great, can someone tell me why they didn't put them on the suite cabins?

Commando for me on a cruise, that solves some of the problem.

Can you explain to me why you should wait until you get onboard to see if Celebrity gives me OBC? If there really is only one level of WIFI, why shouldn't everyone just cancel their upgrade purchase before they board?

Excellent !!!

Me too 😉

Congratulations. 🎉🎉🎉

and part of the reason I don't book suites.

All of the ducks I find go into the pool with me.

Congratulations. You are now in charge of the Navigator App Help Desk on CC.

Maybe that's it, I never took a detailed look at the itinerary but numerous ships do stop in Detroit. Hopefully you'll stir up some walleye when you pass by.

No stops in Detroit either? I'll need to come out in my fishing boat and waive as you sail by.

I've booked several HAL cruises and I book my upgraded room as soon as I booked Club Orange. I probably wouldn't do it any other way. I'm booked for July23 and July 24 and I booked CO at the time of booking for both. Our cruise in Feb 24 is my only cruise that I didn't book CO because it was the first cruise that I booked and I probably didn't get the best advice from my friends.

I deleted the App and started over, everything is fine now. White screen is gone.

OK, got it. Thanks.

Thanks, sounds like a plan. I'll buy whatever's included in the basic drink package. 😉 If you got a 20% discount, I think you're the leader in the clubhouse. I doubt anyone will do better. 1. I wasn't referring to cruise line insurance. Several agencies have contracts with name brand third party insurance companies and offer slightly reduced rates and often a waiver of pre-existing conditions. That's important for anyone with some sort of medical concern as well as anyone with relatives with medical concerns. The TA also provides some additional OBC. 2. TAs are no different than anyone else, they occasionally make mistakes. Maybe they book the wrong cruise, maybe they miss final payment, perhaps they were confused about something and misrepresented the cruise or some other part of your trip. Who pays for those errors?

So after you've dealt with this agent for a while are you actually cutting out the larger agency? Is that correct? If that is true do you also give up other benefits from the agency such as booking travel insurance with improved benefits? What about errors and omission coverage? What happens if the TA makes a mistake that costs you thousands of dollars or your trip gets cancelled due to a mistake? Does this TA carry their own insurance policy? You might be paying a high price for your additional discount.

It's always a good idea to keep checking and sometimes there are price reductions. However lately I've evolved to booking most of my cruises when they just open reservations and most of the time the prices only go up from there. HAL also seems to have some very good promotions within 90 days of the cruises opening up for sale. However, these 10 percent OBC offers still seem to fall short of what I have found on other cruise lines for group rates and then I received additional OBC over and above the group rate. I just checked the rebates on my upcoming HAL cruises that I'm receiving from my toilet paper TA and they are in the region at the published HAL prices. Perhaps HAL just doesn't offer group rates.

Just out of curiosity, were you able to get this type of discount on our upcoming trip on the Konigsdam?

I'll give that website another try. I tried that awhile back, maybe Covid was still affecting things, but I didn't have any success. Maybe this is more Agency specific than I realized. I have tried with my current TA but she was not able to offer anything but a small amount of OBC. I also have friends who cruise a lot that use a different TA but the same agency and they have never got this type of discount.

Thanks, we'll need to chat sometime on our upcoming cruise. Maybe you can try a referral one more time to see if you get another $75.

You're almost correct. I believe the data and I am at least skeptical about your claims. Maybe you are the smartest cruise shopper in the world and the rest of us just don't get it. However it looks like you are the only person currently making that claim. You also didn't understand the example. $100 off the cruise rate plus the standard $50 OBC is better than your $100 off after the cruise. That's why I switched from a big box TA to an individual TA for other cruise lines. I just haven't been able to find these same type of offers with HAL. As an example, here's the type of difference that I have been able to get on my October cruise on another cruise line. I booked onboard through the cruise line and my pp fare for a 14-day balcony cabin was $3100. When I switched to the group rate when I got home the fare was reduced to $2600 pp plus I will get a couple hundred OBC. I booked on-board to get the onboard booking bonus. I'm reasonably new to HAL looking for the same kind of discounts.

Thanks for the link. However you and I are talking about completely different experiences. I've worked with a couple TAs that have blocks of rooms at reduced prices and there was a limited amount of these cabins. They weren't on every cruise, they weren't in every cabin category and I have never seen them advertised. You would need to call the TA and have them check on the particular cruise. Now perhaps the TA's could sell these cabins at the regular price and get a larger commission and provide kick-backs out of that larger pot. I don't know. The TA's I have worked with just provide the lower rate.