pghflyer

I have had 3 international one-ways booked and 1 domestic one-way booked by NCL. All the international included checked bag by default, and the domestic (on United) did not. In general, my flights were OK but on my most recent international flight I have a 5H55M connection time, which is 5 minutes from their promised 6H international connection threshold limit, so it does happen.

I asked this in a few other postings this week because I have the same conundrum, and someone suggested that you can cancel your excursion on board, which generates REFUNDABLE OBC, and then immediately rebook....which would use your NON-refundable OBC first. I am sure you can ask before doing all this if there is a waitlist and if you risk losing your spot, this feels like a change in payment method and should result in a loss of spot IMO but who knows.

Agreed the CN pricing is unnecessarily confusing and likely costs them purchases. Get $500 for $250? Done. I just thought I read that NCL stopped allowing the remaining $250 cost (of an example $500 purchase) to be paid with NON refundable OBC.

Do they really only issue OBC if you cancel onboard? I was hoping I could "cancel" some of my prebooked (with my CC) excursions and then immediately rebook them with my OBC. As an aside,the only downside with all these big all inclusive packages is it gets to be tough even finding things to use OBC on. I am prepaying my gratuities to save on the 20% price increase.....I think we can still buy CruiseNext with all forms of OBC right?

We used the app but very limited functionality if I recall correctly. The newsletter was definitely delivered in paper every evening.

We took an MSC cruise in Europe last year and LOVED it, very different from the other lines with a true European feel....AND probably half the price of NCL or RCL on equivalent itineraries. I like NCL but I like my money more.

Boarding in Sydney, they asked to see our Verifly status specifically to enter the port check-in area. It was super easy to upload our vaccine cards and self test results and zero problems, glad to have it.

Sorry newbie with a few questions. Is it one FCD per person when applying as a deposit? AKA Spouse and I would each have to have one to make a cabin reservation? If it only requires one certificate per cabin, is there a limit to how many you can apply (and the associated OBC)? So if I bought one $250 FCD, we would get $75 $OBC on our future cruise if we booked an 11-21 night veranda room? Can we apply a 11-21 night deposit to a 7-10 night sailing? I assume it would then earn the lower 7-10 night OBC?

I send my trade confirmation in the day after I make the trade. Mine was sent about 4 months prior to cruise and took about a week to get a confirmation email.

I also never use ship excursions and took the HIA. 1) Your HIA excursion amount can be prebooked and will apply. 2) Any traditional OBC from HAL or your travel agent will not apply. If you prebook excursions choosing more than your HIA amount, you have to pay remaining amount with your card at time of prebooking. 3) You should really prebook if you want any selection. Almost every excursion was sold out on my 13 day cruise except for a few very expensive selections.

SO :) Even though my app submitted inquiry said my excursion was paid with HIA credits, it turns out guest services must have misunderstood when they called me back promising refundable credit. I stopped by shore excursion deck to confirm and they assured me such HIA credits are always only for excursions and will not be refunded in any circumstances. So I took their word for it and booked for another port/day (lucky for me I still had days left and there was one excursion left that wasn't sold out, most all are on this cruise). If I hadn't been able to use it, I would have circled back on the bad first services response. Also 2 days later we each received a $15 credit ("Taxes, Fees and Port Expenses Adjustment") for Burnie, Tasmania being cancelled.

We are first time HAL (but many times on many other lines) and only on day 4 so take that context. Love the small size of the ship, especially our low booking capacity (65%) as ship feels empty. Very easy and efficient embark/disembark. Ship is nice and clean and classy although clearly old bones. Nice use of technology for an old ship with the App being very handy, plenty of room USB ports, nice TV navigation channel, and good theater technology. Ship is quiet with very few noisy programs or announcements or loud background music. Program / activities are relatively small / minimal but are well done - like the dance group and classical performers. The daily program is literally a folded single page (printed front and back so 4 small pages), it doen't even contain any port or navigational information. Food quality is good but much less variety. In spite of much fewer passengers, the service is slow and hard to come by, the worst of any cruise we have taken. You may wait at a bar table for 45 minutes without a server coming to ask if you would like something / refill. Small bar menus, each featuring 5-10 cocktails.... but longer lists of wines/beers/liquors. They will make other non-listed cocktails but you need to know what to ask for and sometimes be able to tell them what is in it. Generally, liquor selection diversity is smaller at all bars than any other cruise we have taken. Food venues have severely limited hours (ex. Buffet closes dinner at 8pm) so you really need to plan your meals a little bit.

Sorry dup post

Sorry dup post. But did just get a call from Shore Excursion desk about our cancelled excursion (paid for 100% with HIA promo). He said the cancelled excursion value would be put back in our account as refundable credit.

We are on Noordam now and find myself with unexpected time as they cancelled Tasmania (Burnie) due to weather 25 minutes before docking time (the harbor pilots were on board attempting the dock). The free HIA package is pretty good, definitely dead spots at back and front of ship, particularly on top deck. Otherwise no problem doing email and casual surfing and reasonable (2-4MB) downloads..... but definitely streaming (music, video) doesn't work for me.

We are first time on a HAL ship (Noordam) and surprised how small the bar menus are at every venue, about 10 cocktails listed at each (ex. No mojito, martini, old fashioned) and then specific liquors and wine. On the other lines, bar cocktail / mixed drink menus are huge so kind of surprised.

Holy hell, the buffet closes on Noordam at 8PM after a 6:30PM Sail Away? Wow this is going to be interesting.

Here is what mine looks like having never used HAL before but properly linked with Princess, where I have cruised before:

Seriously, I have zero interest in packing fancy clothes ON VACATION that I will wear nowhere else, just to eat a dinner (where I am the customer), surrounded by a bunch of strangers I likely will never see again. This was already dying a well-deserved slow death prior to COVID and likely accelerate now that many of us don't even have to do "business casual" clothes anymore since a lot more work from home. No reason people can't opt to dress up if they enjoy it but glad so many lines are no longer requiring it of all their customers.

Thanks for this thread. Strangely HAL matched my Princess account (so my HAL number is same as on Princess....but neither matches CCL)........but they didn't do the same for my wife.......so we are checking in on that too. But yeah as you guys described, we have our first ever HAL coming up and I show as 1-star and she shows as nothing.

Also interested on pricing for OZ/NZ

my vote is to leave a note for hotel manager, if it is truly a misunderstanding they can disregard but at least someone spoke up

it is a real shame we can't help each other out here, it would be VERY helpful to know that (totally making it up) 60% of CC members would recommend XYZ TA. For pure price, I still like to make sure I am getting the best deal via blind quotes from multiple TAs on the compete site....although 75% of the time, the same company (for the last 10 years) is always on top.

My first time ever calling this line and was surprised had to wait 20 minutes for an agent

These huge bundles that all the cruise lines do now really make it so you need to value that stuff yourself and back out your valuation of a perk to figure out your price you want to pay for an itinerary. I do it in a spreadsheet so I can compare among lines too with their different bundles. $200 in shore excursion is worth about $50 to me since I don't prefer ship arranged excursions, and even in the rare case of an attractive option, they are typically priced about 40% higher than booking yourself with the same or similar provider. I have a Holland AU/ NZ itinerary now where we have $200 each but are going to just eat most of it because they only offer a small number of bus-only tours in most the ports and we will be doing pre and post trip activities that wouldn't work with the slow bus airport transfers on embark/debark days.