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Yes you need to do it with guest services on the ship. And a tip, don’t feel you need to line up on day one or two to get it applied immediately. They are always so busy early on and it will just apply as a credit on your account. On my recent October trip, I had 5 cards to apply and it took the staff member about 20 min to get them all done. They need to bring up the gift card online to check the balance, apply it to the account, print out the receipt, get another person to initial each slip, have me sign it.

I stand by what I said above about how I dress for formal nights, but just to see what HAL says, when you click on the “How should I pack” link in Navigator, it takes you to this q&a on the HAL faq.

For dressy nights, I have stopped bringing a sports coat (always too hot plus this covid weight 🙁), but always wear a tie with long sleeved button up shirt (usually a solid coloured shirt and a brighter patterned tie). I usually save my black slacks for dressy night, saving my tan and navy for casual evenings. Same pair of black shoes for every evening. Can’t speak to your husbands uncomfortableness level, but *I* don’t think a Hawaiian shirt is dressy enough and I would feel under-dressed on a dressy night. That said, you will see others around the ship in daytime casual wear on dressy nights, so won’t be the only one.

Can’t comment on why Chase would do this, but note that the billing does not show up as HAL on the gift card purchases as they use a third party to manage the sales. My card is charged as “EGIFT CARD888 267 0447”. There is nothing that I can see on my online or paper statements (previous purchase) that would indicate the vendor the gift card is for.

I can only speak about the HAL purchased cards (not the AARP ones mentioned). Yes you can use these card to pay for cruise fare, as long as the cruise is priced in US dollars (my booking are done in Canadian dollars).

I don’t think you can use it for individual purchases, it gets applied to your ship board account at the guest services counter. You can either apply it at the start and therefore have a credit you draw down on your account, or applied later to pay off your account before final billing day.

Just purchased for my Jan cruise… anyone know how long the promo is on for? Wouldn’t mind pushing the purchase to the next credit card cycle for more purchases for April’s cruise. Plus, it seems they have gotten better with the bonus card… bought $500 and got a single $50 bonus card as opposed to two $25 ones which happened last time.

Yeah, the change happened back in June 2021. And when security sees the bottles in the x-ray machine, they ship you off to the table next to the check-in. The “plus” is that you are not limited to just a bottle per person… you can bring on a “reasonable” amount.

This replaces the pdf that was issued previously. It is very easy, and I wonder why this was not put in place sooner… or ideally along with the Sept 6th announcement. Would have saved a lot of people a lot of aggravation, myself included.

Doing the latter half of your back to back… first time on one of these class of ships…

For those that have perhaps not following along as closely, the rules for cruise ships have been different then those arriving “by sea”. Those arriving by sea are personal pleasure crafts, ferries, and cargo ships… cruise ships are separate rules, regardless of the ordinary meaning of the words “by sea”… So perhaps the cruise rules will be changing at the same time, but if I was a betting man, I say the cruise rules will be in place until November when the Eastern Canada fall cruises are complete.

Have a look at this updated protocol pdf… covers until the beginning of Jan 2023. Some require a booster, some just the original series. https://www.hollandamerica.com/content/dam/hal/inventory-assets/Health_Sanitation/2022/enhanced-health-protocol-090922.pdf

For those following along, there have now been changes on the HAL website regarding the health protocols on Sept 1, Sept 6, Sept 8 and now Sept 9. if you have recently looked at the faq and the enhanced document pdf, there have been changes. seems like the communications have been handled very poorly regarding all of this. They wanted to jump the gun without thinking through the issues for their customers. Really would hate to be a PCC or TA this last week or so.

I would suggest having a read of the new Sept 6th effecting changes… Some cruises are under an enhanced requirement (Canada, Australia) but those not covered by those requirements have the following requirements on testing (underlining mine): Unvaccinated guests are welcome with a self-administered COVID-19 test taken within 3 days of embarkation. Vaccinated guests will no longer have to test before boarding and only need to show proof of vaccination. And just an FYI… HAL has made changes to their health documentation on Sept 1, Sept 6, Sept 8, and again today… it seems like they did not plan well the communication of the rollout of their new health protocols.

If I had to guess, it was likely tied into the end of the America’s Test Kitchen sponsorship.

Nope… the policy changed in June 2021 to require corkage for every bottle brought on. But you are allowed to bring on a “reasonable number” of bottles… never seen anything where that has been defined.

As a follow up to the government page, it seems that there is a distinction between arriving to Canada “by sea” and “by cruise ship”. It seems that the former is for ferries, cargo ships, personal pleasure crafts and the latter is, well for cruise ships. The www.travel.gc.ca site has a page specifically for cruise travel. And it seems that the Canadian.visa.org website is primarily about immigrating to Canada, so they may not be as on top of things that are unique to cruise ships.

Not sure where that particular website gets their info, but on the Canadian government travel website from right before I sent this, says you still need a pre-cruise test if it touches Canada.

It is done the exact same way… we stuffed the bag both in the morning and in the evening. There was three of us in the room, but just tick off the form like always and I always also checked off the unlimited each time. I watched my account closely for the first couple of days to see that it was processed correct (no issue).

You are correct. The only pre-booking is if you are doing it for the whole cruise. Day bookings can only be done on-board.

We are in Ontario and our first two shots were at city run clinics and they have lot numbers. We got our booster while in Florida and had it added to the Ontario record without issue, but did not list the lot number (despite it being on the US record). We then travelled in March 2022 using the Ontario record with the missing lot number and neither of us had any issue. No questions, no odd looking at it, no calling anyone over to have a look.

In my mind, “reasonable” is at most bottle/person/day… beyond that, I would think HAL gets concerned about if the “excess” is being sold to other guest… they don’t want anything eating into their profits.

Here is the new itinerary from the email they sent: Date Destination Monday, April 3, 2023 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL, USA Tuesday, April 4, 2023 At Sea (Florida Straits) Wednesday, April 5, 2023 At Sea (Atlantic Ocean) Thursday, April 6, 2023 New York, NY, USA Friday, April 7, 2023 New York, NY, USA Saturday, April 8, 2023 At Sea Sunday, April 9, 2023 At Sea Monday, April 10, 2023 At Sea Tuesday, April 11, 2023 At Sea Wednesday, April 12, 2023 At Sea Thursday, April 13, 2023 At Sea Friday, April 14, 2023 At Sea Saturday, April 15, 2023 At Sea Sunday, April 16, 2023 Plymouth, England, UK Monday, April 17, 2023 Dover (London), England, UK Tuesday, April 18, 2023 Rotterdam, Netherlands Wednesday, April 19, 2023 ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

Here is the Blog post if anyone want to see it. https://www.hollandamerica.com/blog/ships/ms-rotterdam/new-150th-anniversary-commemorative-crossing-in-april-2023-added-aboard-rotterdam

The change has only just happened and they are having to handle 3 cruises’ of cancellations and moving people around. It should show up on the website around the 15th of July (based on the HAL blog post and the text of the email sent to passengers). they want the Rotterdam to be in Rotterdam for the April 18th celebration. And as someone said about, how did they not schedule this originally… regardless, I got the original cruise at $680 Cnd, so I am getting this at such a great deal.