terrydtx

9 minutes ago, kazu said:

 

I am confused by your TA - why would they tell you to do book the cruise?  They should have moved on the cruise once they confirmed CO and done them both in one felt swoop.

 

Once I experienced CO I knew I wanted it on the Rotterdam and it was too late to backtrack so I called the line and had it added.  However, if I had realized how much I enjoyed the dining room after the K, I would have had my TA take care of it all when she did the initial booking. 

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.

9 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

I'm with you 100%.  The only difference for me is that I wear my normal running shoes on casual nights and I wear the leather dress shoes on dressy nights.  Perhaps I’m overdressed.

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.

7 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

It is $15 pppd for cruises 13+ days... see attached.

 

@terrydtx I have booked my first HAL cruise for K'dam next February.  Have you ever done COmon that ship and what would be your views on investing in the experience?

Club_Orange_Benefits.pdf 413.25 kB · 2 downloads

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.

On 3/16/2024 at 5:22 PM, shipshapegirl said:

We just got off of Nieuw Statendam last week.  We still enjoy dressy nights but I have to say very few people dressed any different than any other night for the Dining Room.  Blue jeans, no collared shirts and anything else they wanted to wear was fine.  I seen no one turned 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.

On 3/15/2024 at 8:54 PM, chill6x6 said:

Another question if I may....

 

Club Orange vs. MDR...I'm guessing CO is in the interior of the ship(Rotterdam) so no view of the ocean I am guessing.  I'm guessing it would still be possible to have an aft wake view while dining in the MDR on Rotterdam?

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.

On 3/15/2024 at 7:02 AM, LLRS11 said:

I just booked a cruise yesterday on Rotterdam, and before I booked it I asked my travel agent to verify that Club Orange was available. She said she called HAL and was told that they are unable to verify that it's available until after a booking is in place. She instructed me to book the cruise, then to call HAL directly to add Club Orange.  I did that, and of course Club Orange was not available.  It's frustrating that they couldn't give me that information before I booked, so I could choose another date.  

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.

17 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 

I agree. I think to be on the safe side we’ll just head to the Excursion Desk to get this done. 😁

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. 

46 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

So you don't need to specifically go to the Excursion Desk to get this done? Guest Services will also "refare" your prepaid excursions with excess shipboard OBC as well?

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

3 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 
I know some people have been successful with that approach but the concern is that  when you cancel a sold out shore excursion your spot might move to someone on the waitlist and you might not be able to rebook.  Perhaps that works better with specialty dining.

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. 

20 hours ago, BobbiSox said:

Thank you all for you humor and your good ideas. My experience with the lanai deck chairs has not been very good. I have spent a lot time explaining to other passengers that  lanai chairs are for the lanai passengers only.. Hard as it is to believe, there are some rude people on HAL. I've TAPED  on signs that I had made at home :THESE CHAIRS ARE FOR LANAI GUESTS ONLY. I've gone to customer  service. I was told recently by another lanai guest that her chair had a permanent wooden sign attached that stated 'for lanai guests only', but even that didn't help and caused a lot of trouble. I'm very small and fit in a very small chair, which is easy to move around as a carry-on..  I'm driving to Fort Lauderdale, so no luggage problems. This is my last lanai if it doesn't work out, I'll go back to a balcony.

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.

If you can't find something to your liking in MDR, then your best bet would be to eat in the Lido where there is a much larger selection. The Chefs in the MDR and CO have a limited menu based on availability of ingredients and whipping up something special is asking for too much. CO does have one extra special entree every night not available in MDR for non-CO guests.

Take an Uber, we did this last November from pier to SD airport.

8 hours ago, dameexquise said:

Hello, I'm thinking of booking 11196 on Edge next year. Were you able to get any photos of the views? Also what are your thoughts if the particular cabin; its balcony; and is views?

Here is a link to a video of 11197 on the Edge

Celebrity Edge Cabin 11197 Video and/or Picture (cruisedeckplans.com)

We had 11197 on the Apex last year and it was a long walk to the front of the ship where all of the Retreat facilities are located. This year on the Edge we moved our location to the front of the ship Cabin number 10119 where were close to the steps and elevators to get to Luminae and the Retreat Lounge and sun deck.

6 minutes ago, Dolebludger said:

Do you have any control over flight routes booked through Celebrity? With some cruise lines you do, and with some you don’t. And with lines that include air in the cruise fare, selecting your airline and route often involves an additional fee. In this time of lack of airline reliability, we want as few connections as possible. Each time there is a connection, the chance of a missed flight increases. And on the connections we can’t avoid, we want adequate layover time to avoid missed flights, but not too much time. 

Yes you can, you go online and look at multiple airlines and routes, then choose which ones you want. Best part is you can fly on one airline going and another coming home. What we did in January to Australia, American to Sydney and home on Air New Zealand, can't do that booking direct with airlines.

I wouldn't think any consent needed, but if you are worried, I would call Celebrity to make sure.

We have successfully used FBC for every overseas cruise we have done with Celebrity. Most recently in January for our flights to Australia. The big advantage was we could book one airline to Sydney (AA) and another for the return flight from Melbourne, (Air NZ) with both in Premium Economy. The cost was a lot less than we could have done booking ourselves. We booked these flights last May and on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving we got an offer to upgrade to BC on the flights to Sydney from AA, we jumped on this.

Earlier this week there was a post on another social media site about FBC from a very happy FBC passenger. They were flying from NYC to Venice last year. The morning of their flight they woke up to a message from FBC that their flight to Venice on United had been changed to a flight on Swiss Air to Zurich connecting to Venice. At first they were very upset and called FBC to find out the change was made because during the night the UA flight to Venice had been canceled and FBC was able to move them to Swiss Air. The poster's comment was he was happy to not be one of the other 200+ UA passengers trying to scramble on their own to bet rebooked to Venice.

8 hours ago, Gigi1977 said:

I would go to Tamarind.  

Our favorite and IMO the best specialty restaurant of any cruise line.

14 minutes ago, pirate cruiser said:

I was told we could add CO to our Rotterdam cruise in Dec. but since we are in the cabin we want (aft deck 6) we would not get anything in place of an upgrade. 

When we added CO to our Koningsdam cruise last year, we already had the aft facing verandah cabin we wanted with no higher category available we got $100 OBC instead of the upgrade.

12 minutes ago, EJL2023 said:

Have you viewed the article on their website I noted in post #5?

I just read that blog and it confirms everything being said here about the upcoming refurbishment.

19 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

 

Below is a copy of an email I received from my TA directly from Oceania, dated 24/11/2023,  in response to my question about exactly what the refurbishment was going to be.

 

Rereading the email it looks like none of the bathrooms are going to be refurbished??

 

This information has been made public in later statements by Oceania.

 

Further to our call, please find below the details regarding the refurbishment for the Oceania Marina:

• Our second O-class vessel, Marina, will undergo a full and extensive refurbishment in May 2024. 
• Marina will be the final ship within Oceania Cruises’ award-winning fleet to be refurbished

·         While it will be extensive and all encompassing, it will not be to the same level of her sister ship, Riviera:

• All of the upper suites will receive a full cosmetic refresh, the same as Riviera. 
• All of the penthouse suites will be completely redecorated
• All of the staterooms will have a fabric and upholstery refresh.
• We will not be building out entirely new bathrooms as it unfortunately cannot be accomplished within the timeframe required. 
• All public areas will be refreshed to be in-line with Riviera.

 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Kind regards,

 

 

When we booked our 2025 cruise in 2022 we were told that the Marina would be getting the same total refurbishment as Riviera before our cruise next year. I admit it is disappointing, but not enough to deter us from going on the cruise. We booked this cruise for the itinerary, not so much for the ship. I have no doubts we will still love the cruise.

24 minutes ago, TAW1963 said:

Thanks!  I booked directly with HAL.  I agree and thought it best to contact HAL for this question too, but often times one gets differing answers depending on the agent they get.  If others may have experience with this and were allowed to do this, then I may push back a little more if the HAL agent says no.

Usually if you are changing cabin category and pricing you have to cancel the previous cruise and initiate a totally new booking, but you will lose any booking amenities and addons from the previous cruise. You could lose CO if it is already sold out for your cruise. It is the same if the price drops for your cabin, you have to rebook to get the new pricing.

If you are past final payment you should call HAL or whoever you booked the cruise through to ask this question. 

2 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

The signs on the wall are small and could be overlooked, although the glass sliding door is a big hint. I've seen passengers in lanais put out their own large, laminated signs saying something like "this chair is reserved for cabin 000" or something like that.

Once someone left a towel on our deck chair, I guess to reserve it, that we promptly removed. One of the times when I asked a passenger to move from our chairs, she said "what's the harm you weren't using it" 

On 3/9/2024 at 10:34 AM, Vallesan said:

Marina is going into dry dock for refurbishment at the end of April. The PH cabins are being completely refurbished with new bathrooms etc. The lower cabins are due to have new ‘soft furnishings’ but the bathrooms will NOT be refurbished.

We are booked in a A3 cabin on the Marina next year, it had been my understanding that all of the cabins were getting cabin and bathroom refurbishing with the dry docking in April, has this changed? If this is the case I am not too pleased about this.