melissy123

Does anyone know, in general, at what point does HAL assign specific cabins?

I had seen “waitlist” when I was on standby. But those are two separate programs…

3 minutes ago, Raybit said:

Have been able to add HIA, pre-pay gratuities and get checked in with no problems.  Much smoother than our first standby (also San Diego) in January.

Have you been assigned a room yet?

Wow.  We actually got confirmed on the standby list for the March 30 sailing on the Zaandam. No email but I had called Holland America to ask what’s going on because I got an email saying to add passport info but I couldn't do it online. Turns out there was an invalid number for my phone so it wouldn't let me complete online checkin. But I'd gotten a similar email a month ago. So weird. But at least we're on this one. No stateroom assigned yet   But I have boarding passes so now I know for sure we are confirmed. 

That appears to be the case. You can cancel at the 48 hour mark 

We are on the standby list for Zaandam on March 30

From the FAQ:

If HAL does not confirm guest on the Cruise’s standby list at two (2) days prior to the Cruise’s depart have two options.  They can choose to have their reservation cancelled and will be refunded the full amount of the cruise fare that they were charged at the time they were placed on the standby list or they will have the option to remain on the Cruise’s standby list until 90 minutes prior to departure and their booking will be fully refundable if they do not sail.  

I didn’t mean movies. Or discos. But live music. Singers. Production shows with a theme like Broadway or Motown.  And having something every night. Not just one every three days.  We’ve had the best food and service on Celebrity. Even Princess didn’t come close, we just got off a Princess cruise in Australia. 

Trying Holland America again after a long absence. Have been spoiled on Celebrity by the amount of options to do at nighttime. Bu Holland America seems to be pretty quiet at night.  We booked Niuew Statendam for a pretty port intensive itinerary so not worried about that.  Plus lots of music options on that ship.

BUT in looking at Zaandam ,where there’s a fair number of sea days. Maybe there’s a game show one night and maybe a comedy show another night. Not much going on during the day for sea days as well.  Pretty boring IMHO. Is this pretty normal for HAL?

39 minutes ago, ESCARGO said:

Ellie, MSC Meraviglia removed their Library where they had games and puzzles and added a small smoke-free casino in place of it. 

Ted

So no more games available?

I'm doing the October 4 cruise as well, same itinerary. Looking forward to seeing the daily calendars, especially as to the timing/variety of the shows and what's happening on sea days.  We did our first MSC cruise to Greek Islands this summer on one of their old ships. I found the food to be blah but that's also because I caught Covid at some point on that cruise.  Looking forward to the Meraviglia.

Too bad the August 12 sailing of the Pride doesn’t go to any great wine growing regions. Hopefully the UK sailings follow the same protocol as to allowing alcohol/wine being brought on board. 

I read something in another thread that in Europe, Carnival allows you to bring back wine/alcohol when in port, back to your stateroom.  Does anyone know if that is true now?

I booked a snorkel excursion with Dive Fair Helen, for a snorkel tour, on their dive boat.  I booked this with a third party, and then recently got an email that I need to contact Dive Fair Helen directly to coordinate a pickup spot.  I have emailed Dive Fair Helen directly more than once, and tried to book the tour directly with them also, but have received no response from them.  At this point, I'm wondering if I should cancel the excursion with the third party altogether.  

Anyone have experience with Dive Fair Helen?  It's been over a week worth of trying to contact them. 

On 7/4/2019 at 9:08 AM, shirazcruiser said:

We’re also interested in the Pitons Cruise & Snorkel since we’ already done the Coastal Cruise to the Pitons which was on the barge type boat. I emailed Shorex for a more detailed itinerary and received the following. It sounds like you spend all your time at the Pitons. Has anyone taken the Pitons Cruise & Snorkel? 

We are interested in the Pitons Cruise and Snorkel as well since our preference is to mainly snorkel. Celebrity says it uses a third party operator for this. Has anyone done this tour. I was comparing this to the Ambrose Spencer tour which is the same price but goes to two beaches. But the celebrity excursion says you snorkel directly from the boat versus Spencer where you snorkel from the beach I think.  

Woukd rather give my money to a local operation but it’s a hard choice in this case. We are on the November 2 sailing. 

We have something like 8 sea days on this upcoming Panama Canal Cruise. Never had that many sea days. Looking for something to fill the days....

We haven't sailed Celebrity for a while. Wondering if they still offered the computer classes for Apple devices? We are sailing the Infinity Panama Canal at end of September.

I have bookmarked the webpage for the Tuesday newsletter Celebrity Cruise Lines puts out for the "Xciting Deals." Saw a great deal on a Panama Canal Cruise. This sale was only good for 9/6 and 9/7. On 9/5 we called Celebrity, but were told to call back 9/6 at 7 a.m. Eastern Time. We did call back at 7 a.m. Eastern Time and then were told they couldn't find the sale, and we should call back at 10 a.m. Not trusting this information, we called back right away and spoke to another agent. Nope, they still couldn't find the sale. 5 hours and numerous phone calls later we were given different information: it was a mistake; it was a typo; no, it wasn't a mistake but there were limited cabins available and those were all gone; or they had withdrawn the sale price as of 9 a.m. and only if we had made the reservation before then. We spoke to Customer Service several times and documented who we spoke to, but the ultimate result is that Celebrity won't honor the price that was on their Xciting Deals.

They finally admitted the price was a mistake and they have no intention of honoring that price.

So stewed about this for the last few days, and thought why don't I turn to the experts.

Who do I go to at Celebrity to escalate this?

Is Celebrity pretty much not going to take responsibility for honoring an advertised price?

Hi, thanks for the quick responses. I will post this on the Celebrity page (my bad, it's been a long time since I've been here).

The ad was their normal Xciting deals newsletter. In the end, they said the price was a mistake, but they weren't going to honor that price, because it was a mistake.

I have bookmarked the webpage for the Tuesday newsletter Celebrity Cruise Lines puts out for the "Xciting Deals." Saw a great deal on a Panama Canal Cruise. This sale was only good for 9/6 and 9/7. On 9/5 we called Celebrity, but were told to call back 9/6 at 7 a.m. Eastern Time. We did call back at 7 a.m. Eastern Time and then were told they couldn't find the sale, and we should call back at 10 a.m. Not trusting this information, we called back right away and spoke to another agent. Nope, they still couldn't find the sale. 5 hours and numerous phone calls later we were given different information: it was a mistake; it was a typo; no, it wasn't a mistake but there were limited cabins available and those were all gone; or they had withdrawn the sale price as of 9 a.m. and only if we had made the reservation before then. We spoke to Customer Service several times and documented who we spoke to, but the ultimate result is that Celebrity won't honor the price that was on their Xciting Deals.

So stewed about this for the last few days, and thought why don't I turn to the experts.

Who do I go to at Celebrity to escalate this?

Is Celebrity pretty much not going to take responsibility for honoring an advertised price?

Hi, I wanted to do ziplining on our own when we dock at Ocho Rios. I definitely do not want to pay a lot, as there's probably 5 or 6 of us who are going to zipline.

I looked up H'Evan Scent, found their website, and their 5 line zipline is $2700 in Jamaican dollars which is $24 US dollars (per person) so about $120 US dollars for five people.

Different tour companies will take you to their zipline, but they charge anywhere from $85 to $99 per person, or say $500 for five people (a savings of $380 if we do it on our own). I can't imagine that hiring a taxi to take us to St. Ann and back will cost $380.

According to the H'evan Scent website, they do pickup at the cruise ship terminal, but that's 45 minutes away, so I can't imagine that's included. But I've emailed them and waiting for a response.

Has anyone done this specific zipline "on their own," by arranging their own transportation?

We are a group of six, older teenagers and active adults. We are in Jamaica in December, ship is in port from 10 am to 6 pm. We are thinking of doing ziplining in the early afternoon, and then do the falls later in the afternoon when the crowds have died down.

Is this doable? Does anyone have recommendations for zipline companies that will not be too far from the port?

My impression is that the falls are not too far from the port in Ocho Rios and is something that can be managed in 90 minutes or so. Is this correct or am I way off?

"try to book a snorkeling boat that promises to take you to 2-3 different reefs"

Question for ABQRobin: Where would you book a snorkeling boat, and what reefs should you ask to be taken to? How much should that cost?

We had gotten off the cruise ship last time, and got on a little panga boat (?) from one of the vendors on the docks, but I recall we stayed pretty close to the port area. We did stop 3 places, but all within sight of the cruise ship.

If you are a Costco member try them out.

Just got back from the MR on Sunday, and Stone Island was my favorite!!! The directions the OP gave were perfect. I just printed the directions and took them with me.

 

The boat did the job. We were the first "tourists" on the boat. We got there along with all the vendors and took the boat over with them. Once we were there our main thing was to do ATV's. We heard good things about Victor's so we went there and the server called the guy with the ATV's, and they brought 4 of them to us. We did have some problems with the ATV's not being maintained, but they were good about fixing the problems and we got a replacement vehicle. He originally quoted us $35 each, but we said no and he dropped it down to $30.00. The beach you drive on is dirty so you have to watch where you are driving, but it was so fun!!!

 

We also ate at Molakay's which was very good. I had the coconut shrimp and the others in my group had fish tacos.

Was the cost for the ATV's $30 per hour then? Thank you.