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Great idea!

So do I 🙁

Exactly! Binoculars were not on the list of amenities for verandah and lower. How could HAL charge the OP for something that's not even supposed to be in the room?! If they can do that, they could charge all kinds of things that passengers don't even know they are in their cabin in the first place but are now missing. That's ridiculous!

We used to have fresh fruits delivered to our staterooms pre-pandemic. On our recent cruise, we asked the cabin steward for fresh fruits everyday. She told us HAL no longer provides that because they don't want cabin stewards to handle edibles 😏. On their website, "Fresh fruits upon request" is still clearly stated under amenities regardless of cabin categories. Has anyone got fruits delivered to their staterooms recently?

Sorry to hear that! I hope it will get sorted out soon. Did you and the other families all stay in suites?

When you paid to upgrade to a vista suite, is it considered a new booking? Like did the booking number change? Did you get to keep all the OBC you had on your verandah booking? What about the Platinum Protection Plan if you have bought it for your verandah booking?

I mean ALMOST 6-month valid passport

This post was originally posted on the HAL forum but got moved to here because it's more relevant I guess. According to the HAL site, they said a passport that is valid for at least six months is "highly recommended". I'm almost certain that US customs will not give us any hassles with a 6-month valid passport. I just don't know who at HAL could provide a trustworthy answer so that no one in our group will be denied boarding.

Thank you all for your replies. Thanks Brian for this particular point. From experience, answers from the cruise line customer service are really unreliable. You get different answers from different persons. Because of the time issue, renewing the passport now could be risky should delay or loss happens during the process (because they void your current valid passport once you apply for renewal). 😩

Hi, I have a question about Canadians going on an Alaska cruise with passports expiring in less than 6 months. According to the US Customs and Border Protection site, Canadian citizen's passports are NOT required to be valid for six months past their intended date of departure. Their passports must only be valid up until the date of their intended departure. But my travel agent said it's risky and the passenger could be denied boarding. I don't know if it's true. Has any fellow Canadians gone on an Alaska cruise that only calls Canadian and US ports with a passport that is valid for less than 6 months?

Thanks for the review and the Patters HenGypsy! I'm wondering if the liquor prices and choices on Discovery are good? I recently went on a HAL cruise and found the prices of liquor and skin care products in the duty free shops were so high that you can easily buy locally at a similar or cheaper price! Also, the choices were very limited. I remembered the liquor section used to be much bigger pre-pandemic and was quite disappointed to see that section being reduced to a couple of shelves in a little corner.

Thanks for your reply. I buy the Platinum CPP for cancellation coverage and other reasons. It seems redundant to have 2 policies to cover the first $10,000 of medical expense. Also, from the wordings of both policies, they will push the responsibility to each other for the 1st $10k claim. If HAL already covers $10k, and if I can increase the deductible of my insurance to $10k, I can save about 30% premium from my own policy. I'd like some advice to see if I'm thinking this wrong. 🙂

Hi, I'm thinking of buying HAL's Platinum CPP that has $10,000 Emergency Medical Coverage AND I'll also have my own Medical Travel Insurance (with $0 deductible). My own insurance policy said if I have coverage elsewhere, the other party needs to pay first. But according to the excerpt below, HAL will not pay if my own insurance is $0 deductible. Should I make my own insurance policy $10,000 deductible so that HAL will pay the first $10,000 if I file a claim? I'm so confused. Maybe I misinterpreted the whole thing. 😕 Could someone who knows these insurance terms well give me some guidance? Thanks!

We stopped traveling since the pandemic. I had embarked from Vancouver before and had very good experience back then. Can anyone tell more about the recent nightmare? Would having a Nexus card help? Would filling out that VeriFly help or even be necessary? Is there anything we passengers can do to make the process faster?

Do the friends you referred have to book the cruise through HAL or can they book through their own travel agent? If through travel agent, where can the travel agent put in the "code"? Can anyone please tell me the steps on the referred friends' side to get this OBC? If you refer 2 friends and they happen to share the same cabin, only one person can get it? Thanks very much.

Thank you everyone! After seeing so many reviews about Princess' mediocre food, I think they are swaying more towards HAL than Princess now. Hope HAL won't disappoint them! HAL's food was great pre-pandemic. Actually the best amongst the mass market brands IMHO!

Also, does HAL have any cooking shows any more? I really enjoyed the America's Test Kitchen shows but I've heard that they are no longer offered.

I think I've read some posts mentioning about ballroom dancing being offered every night. But some of the posts are pre-pandemic. Can anyone confirm if this is still available every night now? What time? I'm trying to persuade a young couple to try HAL. They are not very into party cruises and love ballroom dancing. What other interesting things can they do onboard HAL?

There has been an email confirmation about the verification right away. But the OBC is still not on the account online from what I saw and what the HAL people said at their end 8 days after. 🤷‍♂️

That really helps! Thanks! Can't wait! 🎾🤩

I called HAL about 8 days after verification and they said OBC not reflected yet. It takes 2-3 weeks to process. But fellow members here say they got it in 24-48 hours. I can give my TA a call but I doubt they will be of any help since they're kind of a no-frill TA 😄

Thanks Nancy! From the sound of it, those activities don't seem too "not to be missed". I will stick to my late seating then because I prefer to have the same server every night. 😃

Hi everyone, I have some questions I hope some of the seasoned Mariners can help. 🙂 1) Late Seating Dining: I've looked at some recent online sample daily activities of HAL cruises. It looks like a lot of nice activities are happening between 8-9pm (like some Music Walk performance, Chocolate Surprise, some game shows...) not that we want to go to every single one of them. We always like to dine late (Late seating at 8pm). It didn't seem to be a problem when we used to sail on HAL pre-pandemic. Does it mean we'll be missing a lot of actions because of that? 2) Pickleball: - How long is the court available for pickleball when it's on? - Is it on everyday or just certain days? - Are there many people participating? - How long do you have to wait to play? 3) Educator OBC: - Can you see your Educator OBC on your online account after you verified your status? If not, how can you confirm you have gotten it? - How long does it take for it to reflect? - If you're also a shareholder, are you allowed to have both Educators OBC and Shareholder OBC? Thank you in advance.