sailandcruise

If the price is a new regular price and not a Senior Discount or Resident Discount, you get to keep your 1-2-3 Go perk if you have it now, right? Will try to upgrade tomorrow morning with a $50 price increase.

 

 

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I didn't have any 1-2-3 Go perk so I don't know what happens to it.

The prices I mention -- both the before and after -- include a senior discount.

I also keep my shareholder credit. When the agent tried to get me the new fare, it wouldn't come up on her computer so she had to contact the "resolutions team" to do an override. She said that this was because of the shareholder credit.

Thanks to all who responded for your advice.

I called them and upgraded from an inside for which I paid $249 pp and is now available for $179 pp to a balcony at $299 pp. (not sure what the balcony cost previously, but I'm sure it was significantly more). :D

I am booked on Constellation sailing on April 5. I just checked the current price and there is a significant last minute price drop -- obviously, to fill the remaining unsold cabins. My cabin category (inside) is now about 25% cheaper than the fare I paid; one category higher (ocean view) is now slightly less expensive than I paid for the inside. I know that I am not entitled to the lower fare and that Celebrity is under no obligation to provide me with any compensation. I willingly paid the fare that was being offered at the time I booked. However, I am wondering if I should call Celebrity and ask if they will provide OBC or an upgrade?

Take his card and find some homeless person on Market St. that looks like him. Tell him he can spend three days on a cruise ship and eat all the food he wants and even take a shower. I bet you will find some takers. :D

totally impractical. How would this person re-enter the US at the end of the cruise? By using your brother's passport and impersonating him? :confused::eek:

Your travel agent can give your dining preferences, i.e., table size, to Celebrity in advance, and can also specify bed arrangements in advance.

I didn't use a travel agent; I booked directly through Celebrity. Is there a way to make these preferences known without a travel agent? Do I need to call them?

Thanks.

I just booked a cruise on Celebrity's web site. It gave me the choice of dining -- fixed or select, and for fixed the choice of two seatings -- but it didn't ask about table size preferences. Is there a way to specify this in advance, or do I have to check with the Maitre D' after boarding?

Also, if I want to switch from fixed to select, can I do this on-board? (I would want to do this if my table size preference can not be accomodated. I don't want to just pick Select in advance because I don't want to have to pay the gratuities up front, I'd rather have the charged as part of my on-board bill.)

Also, the web site did not ask me about bed arrangement preferences. I know that this can easily be accomodated on board by asking the cabin steward, but it's the first cruise I've booked where this was not asked about at booking.

On the 2013 Westerdam Christmas cruise, I brought a print out of the email from HAL confirming that my shareholders' OBC would be applied on the ship. I checked with the front desk several days into the cruise, and they said that the ship had no record of it. :mad: When I showed them the printed email, they added insult to injury and told me that they would have to verify with headquarters that I did indeed qualify for the shareholders' OBC. :confused: :mad:

A day or two later they did add the credit to my account. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth -- first because the email assured me that the ship would be notified and apply the credit, and second because when, due to their own failure to do what they had promised, they acted as if I was somehow trying to claim something I did not deserve. I don't know whether Seattle or the ship messed up originally, but I do know that the front desk personnel could and should have been apologetic and offered to fix the problem rather than accusatory.

Ship time was local time when I was there aboard ms Zuiderdam in January 2012.

What about the other papers of HAL boarding documents (10 or more pages), do we need them also? They are too heavy, especially for two people.

If I recall correctly, the instructions say that one copy per cabin of the other pages is all you need to print and bring. Only the first page is needed for each person. In practice, I don't think you need even one copy of the other pages, although they do contain some useful information.

As long as the full boarding pass is available, why does it matter how much paper there is around it?

In the situation I described above, the waiters were responding to the passenger's request. The fact that it was more convenient for them was incidental.

The major backup during the boarding process seems to be the embarkation photography. I always decline to have my picture taken, but end up having to wait my turn for my group to be called and then to get pat the photographers. On my recent cruise, there was a path around the photography stations for handicapped and perhaps VIP guests. If HAL would open up this path for any passengers who don't want their pictures taken in the terminal I bet that the boarding process would take much less time. I'd like to have the option to easily bypass the photographers.

I was skeptical at first but it turned out great.

We walked outside the gate and there were a large number of scoters available. (No need to make advance reservations -- we were the second ship in port and got off later than most passengers, after the shore excursions had all departed.). They appeared to be new and in good condition. Helmets were available and required for all -- drivers and passengers. There were red ones and pink ones -- the rental person told us that they donate $5 per rental to fight AIDS and breast cancer, depending on the color of the scooter.

He quoted us a price of $30 per scooter per day, or $35 with gas included. We rented two scooters for three people with gas. He gave us an orientation briefing and off we went. It took a little while to get comfortable but we got the hang of it and loved exploring the island. This island seemed ideal for this type of activity -- it is quite small, very flat, and has minimal vehicle traffic. I would recommend one scooter per adult, however. While they can hold two people, it's not as easy for the driver to control with a passenger holding on, and it's certainly not as much fun! :D

I have several questions about the in-room TV channels.

First, I am someone who enjoys knowing about the nautical aspects of our cruise, so I often leave the TV tuned to the navigation channel while in the room. I like that this channel doesn't have any sound. However, I think it would be good to broadcast announcements on this channel as well as on the channel with the bridge camera. (And while they're at it, how about on the channel with the aft-facing camera as well?). As it is, whenever I heard an announcement from the hallway speaker, I had to switch to the bridge camera channel to hear it. (And it came with am slight delay, which made for some interesting sound effects until I turned up the volume to drown out the hallway speaker.). Also, this channel kept displaying the temperature of the jacuzzis and hydropool, but not the outside air temperature, which I would have found more useful. What do these pool temperatures have to do with navigation? :rolleyes:

Second, the program guide channel didn't have the listings for TCM or TNT, just the name of the networks. So there was no way to know what was on or what was coming on later for these channels.

Third, the HAL information channels devoted to the shopping lecture and the shore excursion lecture played the same loop continuously for the whole cruise. Why do they tell us about ports we've already visited? Couldn't these channels be used for something more interesting and relevant as the cruise progresses? I suppose that I should be thankful that at least these lectures were the actual talks given on my cruise, and not a generic advertisement produced at corporate. :rolleyes:

Obviously, none of these things is a big deal, and didn't adversely affect my overall cruise enjoyment. And no, I wasn't awake in my cabin that much that this mattered much at all. But little things add up, and it wouldn't cost much for HAL to pay attention to these little things and improve overall quality.

At Crown Bay (and I think at Havensight as well, but I haven't been there in a while) the taxi procedure seems to be to wait until it is full before departing, especially for the taxis that have several rows of bench seating behind an enclosed cab for the driver. We went ashore after the main rush and found a taxi lined up for Magen's Bay. The three of is got in and were comfortable in a single row. Other parties occupied the other rows. We waited for at least ten minutes while the driver searched for additional passengers and refused to leave. And she loudly and rudely told us that we had to move over and sit uncomfortably close together so she could have at least four people in each row, even though there were no other passengers in line then, and even though it would have been uncomfortably tight to add an additional person. After 10-15 minutes of asking her to depart, all the passengers had had enough. :mad: I suggested to all the passengers that we just leave and not ride with this rude and inconsiderate driver. We all just got out and she was left with no passengers at all. We then walked through the parking lot where we found an air conditioned minivan taxi that six of us shared for a much more pleasant ride to Magen's Bay, for the same fare per person! We asked the driver to return and had an equally pleasant ride back later that afternoon. :)

I'm posting this so others are aware that you don't have to take the open-air group taxis that may make multiple stops with passengers packed in like sardines. Just venture into the parking lot and find a car or minivan taxi that will take just your party directly to where you want to go,

The smokers were two middle aged men. The incident occurred as a rain storm began, so we all headed inside. So the timing wasn't necessarily due to their having finished smoking the cigarettes; it is entirely possible that what they threw overboard were more than just butts. In any case, when they came inside they met their wives who had not been outside smoking with them. I went up to them and said something like "Please don't throw cigarette butts overboard. They are a fire hazard. Don't you remember the safety briefing we were given? What you did was very dangerous."

I wouldn't have recognized them again so I didn't see a point in reporting them to the front desk, but I hoped that their wives would say something to them or cause them to be embarrassed by their unsafe and unacceptable behavior so they wouldn't do it again. However, in light of everyone's thoughtful comments on here, perhaps I should have just reported the incident to the safety officer via the front desk.

On my recent cruise a table mate with the Signature Beverage Package would have three glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon each evening with dinner. After several days the waiters learned this pattern. To avoid his having to finish one glass and then order and wait for another, and to avoid the waiter's having to make extra trips for the second and third glasses, they offered to get all three glasses of wine at the same time. They told us, however, that they would have to run the SBP card three times with at least five minutes in between because the HAL bar computers are programmed to allow no more than one drink every five minutes for an individual package. I guess this is to prevent someone from ordering a drink for him/her self and for another person with whom he/she would share.

 

I have 'surveyed' appx 1800 pax from different (other than HAL) ships. What I find is that those pax who have only cruised one line tend to favor that line by a wide margin...naturally. Those pax that have cruised both HAL and another (mass market) line tend to favor HAL by an equally wide margin. Interesting.

I wonder if passengers who have cruised only one line do so because they favor it, or if they favor it because they do so? Probably even more complicated because a choice of cruise is influenced by one's previous experience -- if a passenger has a good experience on a cruise line, he/she will be more likely to choose it again, while if he/she doesn't like his/her current line, he/she will be more likely to choose a different one for his/her next cruise (if there is a next cruise). This is an example why designing scientific surveys is hard. :)

On a recent cruise, I observed smokers on the promenade throw their cigarette butts overboard. Obviously, this is a fire hazard. Should I have reported it to security? Said something to them? Ignored their behavior and hoped that it was caught on a security camera?

Has this happened to others on this board? What did you do?

"Anchoring" is a term used in cognitive psychology to refer to the tendency of people to make decisions by adjusting their value from an initial piece of information, even one that has nothing to do with the actual decision. For example, in an experiment in which people were asked to write down the last two digits of their social security number and then to estimate the price of an item such as wine, chocolate, or computer equipment, those with higher two-digit numbers consistently bid 60 to 120 percent higher for the same items.

What does this have to do with the Signature Beverage Package? Well, on my most recent cruise a table mate who had this package would try to "get his money's worth" by having the maximum allowable number (15) of drinks each day. If HAL did not have this maximum, then the only relevant number would have been the "break-even" point of seven drinks per day, when the cost of these drinks if purchased individually first exceeds the price paid per day for the Signature Beverage Package, so he would have stopped when he had had enough rather than trying for 15. Perhaps if there were no maximum number, passengers with the SBP would actually drink less than they do with the maximum. I wonder if HAL's marketing department made a mistake? It would certainly be an interesting experiment if they removed the maximum on randomly selected cruises and compared the number of drinks per person for these cruises and the ones with the maximum.

BTW, I learned about this phenomena and others in a book I found in the library aboard -- kudos to HAL for having a much better selection of books in its libraries than their competitors do. And for those of you -- if any -- who may be interested in this phenomena, there is a Wikipedia article on anchoring that explains it further.

Yes, I did choose this thread title to arouse your curiosity about what anchoring a ship could possibly have to do with the SBP. But no, I didn't have either 7 or 15 (or any) drinks before writing this post. :D

I will be on the Westerdam's holiday cruise next week. The two sea days are Sunday December 22 and Thursday December 26. Will these be our formal nights? Or will they reschedule the formal nights for Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, even though there are port calls until 6pm and 5pm on those days? Or will there be more than the two usual formal nights? :confused: :confused: :confused:

I believe she was on the Maasdam sailing from Norfolk, VA in October, 2006 -- my first HAL cruise, 11 nights to (and from) the Southern Caribbean. :D. She was already quite well known by passengers and crew, although I have no idea how many days she had sailed by then.

Returning to Miami from a cruise that called a Falmouth, Jamaica and at Grand Cayman, I was asked "Why are you traveling alone?" followed by several questions about my occupation and employer. I found this unusual, especially the first queson, but didn't make the connection to the specific ports of call until I read this thread.

Single supplement is about 60% for inside category nine for $476 compared to $299 double occupancy. With taxes $577. Category 11 is $433 plus taxes. Two adults would be $598 or $558, respectively, before taxes, or $299/$279 each. Supplement is 55% on the category 11.

Cruises with Star and Orient will no longer count for credit in the Latitudes program.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. :confused: My cruise on Orient Lines was in December 2007. Orient Lines ceased operations several months later. At the time, the cruises that would have been credited to Orient Lines' Polo Club were supposed to be transferred to Latitudes.

I realize that current cruises -- since the inception of the new Latitudes program -- on Orient and Star don't count for Latitudes. But there were no Orient Lines cruises after the new Latitudes program was established. :confused: