terrydtx

That was my take as well, but no time lines its all about the cash needed. My best guess this will be the end of the M class ships as they are just getting too old and will be sold off in the next few years.

On the Edge in January I was told the dry-cleaning benefit was no longer available.

Last June we were on the Equinox with our 13 year old granddaughter in a Sky Suite. She got all of the HIA Retreat amenities, except the drinks package for her was the non alcohol one so she could have all the mock drinks, sodas and bottled water she wanted. Her gratuities were also included as the cruise was before they took that away from retreat bookings.

It is not limited to 30 items, it is one full bag. We used this 4 times on our 2 Edge B2B cruises in January. No limits just stuff the provided bag with as much as you can and write Elite on the laundry list. We had no problems and every item came back folded and clean, no shrinking either as we wrote cold water wash on the laundry list.

We did the double Denali with HAL in 2019. At that time the dining plan was ridiculous in price. We found that by crossing the street at Mckinnley Lodge we could dine at several excellent Non-HAL restaurants, including one very good Pizza and Italian food restaurant. The Loge had a very nice coffee venue where we got sweet rolls and coffee for a reasonable price for breakfast. The Denali tour had an option for a box lunch that was about $15pp as I recall. I was very happy we did not waste our money on the dining plan.

We jumped to HAL for the same reasons. We can sail on a new modern ship with no sun rooms passed of as a balcony, and have better selections and quality of great food in the MDR and even the Lido buffets. We love the HAL Billboard Onboard music venue and is all the entertainment we need. We also have the options of longer itineraries without having to book B2B's that are of more intertest to us.

And when very few booked at those prices, the price dropped to $25 pp per day.

My fear is that as more and more book this way with CO, HAL will take it away as a CO benefit.

We have done the same with CO, if you do it right the cost of the upgraded cabin often pays the added cost for CO. On our August Volendam cruise, we wanted a midship A category Vista Suite, we booked a B category added C and then upgraded to the A midship one we wanted The difference in cost from B to the A was within $10 of the cost for CO.

Yes, I have done it many times. With a 15 drink per day limit on the HIA drink package this is the best way to do what you are asking.

We have been on 7 Celebrity cruises and 2 HAL cruises post Covid. While Celebrity has made many changes to the negative, specially concerning the Retreat Sky Suites, I can't say HAL is any worse than before covid. We found the food and service in HAL MDR's and Club Orange in many cases to be superior to Celebrity and Luminae, prior to Covid I would say this was the opposite.

Our last, which will be our last, Celebrity cruise was in January. We are now looking elsewhere after seeing too many changes by Celebrity taking away previous amenities while raising prices 40% or more. We have future cruises now booked with HAL and Oceania. We are also looking at Silversea, Windstar and other real premium and luxury cruise lines.

Mine too

No you will need premium and use WiFi calling on your phone to FaceTime.

The only thing I can think of is the OP has a TA who either, doesn't know HAL and CO or was just not wanting to be bothered booking CO for her client.

I do not own any leather dress shoes, so I would say you over dressed. I also do not own any suits or sport jackets since I retired in 2020 either. My favorite shirts to wear on a cruise for dressy nights are my Tommy Bahama Hawaiian print shirts. Here is another shirt I wore on a dressy night on our Australian cruise in January.

We were on the K'Dam last November from San Diego with CO. It was well worth the cost, the CO dining room had excellent food and service. We used the upgrade to move up to an aft facing cabin #6235 on the 6th deck. The other amenities of CO are just frosting on the cake. We tend to book our future cruises early and would never now book a HAL cruise without CO. We have moved over to HAL as one of our primary cruise lines from Celebrity and CO was one of the big reasons as we like something extra and nicer. On Celebrity we had booked mostly their Retreat class cabins for the added amenity facilities, but current ridiculous high pricing and cuts in service have driven us away.

This has become the norm as dressy nights have degraded to wear what you wear any other night. For me the only difference between dressy and casual night is I wear a button up shirt on dressy nights, and collared golf or pollo shirts the other nights.

The CO dining room is so much nicer and intimate than the MDR, not having a view of the sea is well worth it. IMO the food served in CO seems to be better than the MDR and we have found the extra CO entrees that are cooked to order to be far superior to the MDR fare. The service in the CO is also far superior to the MDR, IMO.

Sounds like you need a new TA. When I have my TA book a HAL cruise and want CO I have her do it all at the same time and do my cabin category upgrade that comes with CO. That is something any TA should know how to do. When I booked our upcoming Volendam cruise last year, my TA booked the B category Vista Suite and had us upgraded to an A category which we would have booked without CO. This upgrade with CO paid for the cost of adding CO.

On Embarkation day the shore excursion desk can have over 100 passengers in line all afternoon, which is why I always use the CO guest services line. Never had any problems doing this. The CO Guest services is like having a concierge.

I use the CO Guest services line as there is usually no one in line, unlike the shore excursions desk and general guest services line that can be exceedingly long specially on embarkation day. Being able to use the CO guest services line is one of the best amenities of CO. Why we only cruise with HAL with added CO. Funny and pathetic story from our HAL cruise last November on the Koingsdam. On embarkation day, I was in the CO line and the person in front of me wanted all of his prepaid crew gratuities refunded to his OBC. He said he only tips the people who provide direct services on any cruise. The agent told him that he had booked with a promo that included pre-paid crew gratuities and they were non-refundable as they were included in the cruise fare, but he still demanded to have them refunded to his account. A supervisor was brought out to discuss this with him and he continued to argue the point until he was asked to leave as the supervisor already determined that no gratuities would be refunded. I heard him say something like he would never cruise with HAL again.

Here is a diagram of the cabin from Cruise Deck plans showing the slanted balcony

I have not had any problems changing pre booked excursions with a credit card switched to OBC once onboard, even if sold out. I just go to guest services and get this done, CO makes this even easier as there is a CO only line for guest services.

I had that same issue on the Volendam and even when I had to get a crew member involved to remove a chair hog from our loungers it created more animosity that I wanted to deal with. We now only book Vista Suites when we sail on the Volendam which is what we have for our August cruise of Canada.