DSWinBC

10 hours ago, Crew News said:

Today;s check-in eliminated the US Immigration folks and substituted another facial recognition scan that took mere seconds. When I get more feedback, I will post here. 

 

For the second week in a row, I observed no boarding passes being checked to verify deck numbers..

This US immigration process was used on the May 1 Zaandam embarkation as well. There was a line for US citizens and another for Canadians. No kiosks being used to answer questions which always slowed the border ‘experience’. Took very little time to get thru!
Seemed like other passport holders had to go thru the ‘normal’ US customs process.

We boarded the Zaandam on Wednesday May 1 (there were 2 other ships in port—Grand Princess and a Regent ship)

We did what Crew News suggested and dropped our luggage off just before check in (vs going downstairs to drop off luggage) My dh had to get a new photo taken but they already had a photo of me from another cruise so they used that one. Very quick and easy process for check in and we were pleasantly surprised with how quickly we got thru US customs 

Once we got to the “holding area”, cruisers sat on chairs in the order of arrival—started letting people on board at 11:30am. 
We found the embarkation process much better this year than the past 2 years 

My son is currently on the Solstice for the cruise this week. He said there is approximately 1500 passengers onboard (& 1200 crew)

Thanks for all the replies!

We have learned now how the non-refundable deposits work. I do wish that the CC onboard the Koningsdam (or the agent my dh talked to this morning) had explained this prior to us booking!
Thanks also for recommending we ask for a new PCC—we will do that!

Hi! Long time “lurker” on this forum 🙂 I have appreciated all the information I have learned from the members!

We booked the 2 week Alaska cruise for May 2023 onboard our last HA cruise in December. We booked for $1929 (pre taxes) each for an inside room. When we look online now, for an equivalent midship inside room, the price is $1580.70 (pre taxes)

My husband called HA this morning and was told the price is still the same as what we booked!!

From this forum, I have read that as long as we have not paid the final amount (due date is in February), HA should give us the lower price.

 Dh did not talk to our PCC (as she does not return calls) but just to the random person who answered.

My question is should I try calling again to hopefully get another agent to talk to? We hate to cancel and rebook as I guess we then will lose our non-refundable deposit plus the bonus OBC we received for booking on the ship.
Should I ask for someone ‘higher up’ to talk to?

Any suggestions would be welcome 🙂