waiting2retire

6 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

Maybe the cut off is 15 days.  I do club orange on b2b 7 days (14 days in total) and pay the equivalent of $25 usd per day.

I think b2b is considered two separate cruises for Club Orange. I booked a 14 day TA and the 7 day immediately following at the same time and was charged $15 for the 14 day and $25 for the 7 day. 
 

1 hour ago, hmorrow said:

We’re on a 10 day carribean, and are a vs. should it be 15 a day, also? Wonder why she told me 25. I wonder if I could get a refare and keep the same cabin. That would be great. I have a travel agent. I’ll talk to him about it……he’d probably have to orchestrate it. I was surprised the customer service gal, even talked to me, since I have a TA.

I believe it is usually $25 pp/pd on cruises under 14 days and $15 pp/pd on cruises 14 days and over. As with everything, I’m sure there are exceptions, but this is what I have found to be the case. 
 

1 hour ago, 0106 said:

I think the biggest benefit of Club Orange is the cabin upgrade.  I select an obstructed verandah fare, pay for Club Orange and get an upgrade to the highest fare cabin within the verandah category.  I always price it both ways; just paying for the highest fare verandah cabin has always been more expensive that adding CO to the lowest fare verandah cabin.

I do the same and so far it has cost me less than if I had booked the higher cabin initially and I get the bonus of the Club Orange dining room, priority embark and tenders and separate guest services line. I have heard that some people have received some OBC when booking CO and staying in their cabin. Won’t know if you don’t ask. 
 

Note that some shorter itineraries still require pre boarding Covid testing, eg any cruises that stop in Canada, so it does still depend on where you are planning to travel. 
 

Enjoy your return to cruising!

From the HAL FAQ page:

Updated) Am I still considered fully vaccinated if I did not get a booster shot?

On 7/24/2022 at 6:04 PM, 0106 said:

I booked CO because I booked an obstructed view verandah and was able to upgrade to an aft verandah for less than the actual cost of the aft cabin.

Exactly what I do. 
 

Easy one for me. I love tenders (crazy, I know) and I love the water/beach in Half Moon Cay. Also nice to have a free light lunch onshore if desired. 

I have used Airline Limousine (416 675-3638) for many years. I find it worth the cost to know that my ride will be at my door on time and I will have a smooth relaxing trip to the airport. Travel is stressful enough these days!

Not happy about this at all. We had originally booked the 14 day TA and the following 7 day Norwegian fjords cruise separately as it was much more cost effective to do so. 
 

@Overhead Fred, where does your new itinerary go after the TA portion ends in Rotterdam on April 19?  The second leg of our b2b is booked from Amsterdam on April 29.  That’s 10 days between the cruises now and we didn’t budget time or $$ for that. 

This change messes everything up and I’m not at all sure I want to travel that far north for the majority of the TA portion. At least leaving from Ft Lauderdale going to the Azores, in mid-April, the weather was likely to be much warmer. 
 

And if we decide we don’t like the new 16 day itinerary and want to cancel, will HAL refund the 50% non-refundable portion of my deposit?  
 

It’s really not nice of them to mess with booked itineraries like this 😡

There doesn’t appear to be a lot of rhyme nor reason to the “special pricing”. My daughter and I are both 3 star Mariners and the last cruise we booked together, her pricing was cheaper than mine 🤷‍♀️  Sometimes they are the same price, either “special” or with no Mariner discount at all.  
 

53 minutes ago, Idratherbeatsea said:

 

I need negative Covid test to fly Vancouver to LAX….just saying

Yes, to fly into the USA a Covid test is required. 

But July 1 is a holiday in Canada, so if you are in Montreal a day early you should see some. 
 

Success!  After persistently (obsessively?) checking the site over the past couple of days, I just booked an appointment in Niagara Falls, which is a one hour drive, for Friday this week. This will be my first Nexus application and will be very glad to have it done with!

55 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Looks like there may be action on opening Canadian Interview sites. Note the last sentence "The CBSA says in an email that Canada and the U.S. are in discussions about when to reopen Canadian enrollment centres."

 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/nexus-program-backlog-balloons-to-nearly-300-000-applications-1.5924162

Glad someone finally sat up and took notice. Maybe some publicity will light a fire under the CBSA to reopen Canadian centres sooner rather than later. I have booked an interview in Detroit (a 4 hour drive) after failing to find an interview time in Niagara. Would be lovely to book something in Mississauga!

3 hours ago, canadarocks said:

Thanks so much. Were you happy with #4195? 

We were very happy with 4195. I love the larger deck 4 balconies and the fact that there seems to almost always be either sun or shade to be had, depending on your preference at the time. It was a nice quiet room with no excessive motion. 
 

Enjoy your cruise!

The cutoff is where the fire doors are. There is a fire door across from 4169 so that the only stateroom access is aft of the elevators. We were in 4195 in April and I’m pretty sure that once we turned starboard at the aft side of the elevators we could turn right to access our cabin but not left. That would mean the last accessible cabin on the starboard side was likely 4175. 
 

We just had a similar situation with Holland America.  My daughter contacted the Family Assistance number from the information provided.  The rep said she contacted the ship and the Port representative in Amsterdam was to take care of shipping the items to us.  That was two weeks ago. We still have our fingers crossed. 

We used Walmart.  No email, but they provide you with a paper copy which we took a photo of.  We carried the paper copies as well, but the photo was sufficient.

For anyone still interested in the OP’s original question, I was in an obstructed balcony cabin on the Rotterdam for one day in April to isolate pending a second negative Covid test. I believe the cabin number was 4132. The tenders had just been out, but I’m pretty sure they were back in their normal position by the time I took this photo. 

I have only used FlightEase twice now, so not  on of experience, but in neither case did the fare I chose ever go up prior to final payment. In fact, the first time I used it was just prior to the Covid pause and got R/T flights from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale for $24.00. Still not sure how that happened, but it did. 
 

This time, our flights from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale , then return to Toronto from Amsterdam after a transatlantic cruise, came in at less than $600 pp, much better than any flights I found on my own. 
 

As I said, I am obsessive about it, checking the FlightEase fares at least once, sometimes twice a day. They can change quickly and once the seats are gone, the fare is gone. 
 

Definitely not a problem to click on the Change Flights button. It won’t change your flights until you confirm the flights you want to change to, so if you don’t find anything you prefer, just back out. 
 

I booked my flights a few months out when I booked the cruise, then checked somewhat obsessively until I found flights that not only saved me $$ but with airlines and timing I preferred. 
 

On 4/28/2022 at 5:14 PM, NCTribeFan said:

I've booked the Rotterdam TA for next April.  What is the charge to add Club Orange?

 

I need to check my booking and see what cabin I have (it's an interior).  I most definitely do NOT want heavy vibration for two weeks!

I believe the cost of Club Orange depends on the length of the cruise or some other random criteria. For our 21 day TA it cost $15/pp/pd. 
 

On 4/28/2022 at 1:48 PM, Cruisetrekker said:

Could you tell me who the current captain is onboard  the Rotterdam ?

it is Captain Timmers but he will be leaving the ship in Amsterdam on Sunday. Not sure who the next Captain will be. 
 

I am also on this cruise and loving my first transatlantic!  I hope I don’t jinx it with just one more sea day to go, but the seas have been very calm, and other than a few showers, the weather has been amazing. 
 

with regard to the food onboard, we purchased Club Orange for the sole purpose of decreasing the price of the veranda cabin we wanted. The bonus has been that the CO dining room has wonderful service and piping hot food. The Dive-In fries are still the best at sea and our Canaletto dinner was delicious. Our Pinnacle dinner was very good but I have to say the quality of the beef was not as good as in the past. Tamarind on tap for tomorrow. 
 

I am a mask wearer. At the beginning of the cruise I would say approximately 40-50% of cruisers were wearing masks indoors. Today it’s more like 15-20%. I think people are becoming more confident as the cruise continues. While there is no way of knowing how many cases of Covid are onboard, I have heard very little coughing, sneezing, or other signs of illness. We are on Deck 4 aft, and it seems both sides of the midship cabins are blocked off. We have noticed very little coming and going from the blocked areas. 
 

any other questions feel free to ask and I will answer if I can. 
 

The boarding pass did say 5 Gala nights for my 21 day cruise, just not which nights they would be. This info was available about 2 weeks prior to boarding.