rodndonna

Thank you so much - (my husband is the "app" guy, so I'm blaming him!)

Thanks! Using the app, but didn't see them noted - perhaps not looking in the right place. Don't mind bring surprised on which nights they are , as long as we know how many evenings to pack for. 😄

We'll be on our first Celebrity cruise a week from today. How many Gala (or chic or dressy?) nights will there be on a 7 night cruise? It's on the Millenium out of San Juan if that matters. I am guessing 2?. Is there a pattern to the nights it/they would typically be on?

Less math just makes for a more enjoyable holiday and we always have that extra "conversion math" to make matters worse.... Without HIA, I can't "not' sit at dinner and so the mental .. "that glass of wine is $11 US, plus grats ..$13 US, convert to Canuck dollar.. $18 ish CAN$". It's more math than I like to do on holiday and more than I would typically spend on a glass of wine at dinner ... so removing all that thought process and math for us just makes for a more enjoyable holiday.

We have to admit to really liking Youtube for researching our holidays (land and cruises) and in particular "new to us" cruise lines or cruise ships. They can also be quite useful for reviewing options for ports of call for upcoming cruises. I credit YouTube with helping get me through the pandemic...I watched ALOT of travel and holiday videos for a couple of years. There are some good ones, and many bad ones. Like anything you can find your way to channels or "vlogers" that provide content that works for you (much like we like certain magazines or newspapers ....). Youtube is also my "got to" for help with golf game and piano lessons and fixing anything tat breaks 😃

Condolences to you and your family. My "limited" understanding was that you would start with your local funeral home (where remains will come to) and they would help you through the process.

No - they'll find you. They wander in the halls of their rooms and hunt everybody down at some point early in the cruise.

On your first day, your cabin stewart will ask about your preferences for housekeeping (morning/evening) and you can let them know you would prefer they only change towels that are on the floor (or whatever). They are good at sticking with that, and will still ask you whenever they see you "do you want/need any more towels?"

It still wouldn't hurt to let Guest Services know what was happening. Perhaps in their inebriated state, your neighbours had some lapse in judgement and didn't realize they were a noise issue. Regardless, I would like to think Guest Services would follow up with them and let them know there were "complaints" of excessive noise the previous night. If the complaint backfires and causes further retribution, at least it will be much quicker to have security or guest services work on resolving the issue.

I was speaking to access to the Fjords with the mainstream cruiselines like Celebrity. For sure Hurtigruten provides (and would likely continue) to provide the best experience with its small ships. Of course with that comes a price point above the standard offering on Celebrity. I was taking a point of view with "Celebrity" or equivalent since this is a Celebrity forum.

That's a good point - if Norwegian Fjords are on your list somewhere in the future, it is worth considering moving it up the list as it will become more difficult in the future.

Some great ideas in this thread. I'd throw Asia into the list. It's on "list" for 2025, likely Japan, but we haven't booked anything yet. Another option would be to do a river cruise, We did the Nile about 15 years ago, and it's high on our favourites list.

I agree - way too many variables. Like alot of people I use Google flights for flight options. I just recently found Cruiseplum.com from another poster here somewhere (they are NOT a travel agent - they don't sell cruises so reference is allowed) - really a useful too for reviewing cruise options (including final pricing including taxes and grats) when you drill down on a selection. If someone could merge the analysis of those 2 sites/databases, that would be amazing (but I don't think its logistically doable)

It depends on how lucky you are with the timing of the shuttle. In our experience it was pretty random, so give me parking at the airport any day. We eventually upped to pay for "valet" with park and fly which was at least more reliable and quicker. They even used to have your car running for you to warm it up (not any more though). Can't avoid dragging my bags when travel, finding a train or finding the park and fly shuttle pickup spot .....seems kinda the same to me - so I consider that a wash. But for sure If in your experience the shuttle system and parking off site is more convenient, why pay the premium. Clearly, there are more people than those of us in SW Ontario who find parking the airport more convenient, since they charge a premium for it.

We now take the connection (from London), but agree, for the extra $100 or so on typically a several thousand dollar holiday, it becomes money well spent for that ease of getting into and our of Person. The older we get, the more we find value on those kind of things.

One nice thing about AC is the do open up the window for rebooking (without fee) reasonably early when there are potential weather disruptions. Another thing we always keep in mind is if somehow the flight from London to Toronto is the issue but not Toronto to our destination, we would generally still have ample time to get to Toronto to catch that flight. Always something of a crapshoot travelling in winter though..but we were lucky with our 2 winter flights to holidays this year. 😃

Thanks for posting this - great site !

We live in London now, and our trips are generally booked from London (with connection through Pearson on Air Canada) and have not had any problems with connections which are typically in that 2 hour window (3 trips so far this year - all through Pearson, another in 3 weeks). Departing form London is just sooooooooooooo much easier than the drive to Toronto, parking (and/or hotel), shuttle and going through Pearson, It helps that we are actually in London so we can just leave the car at home and cab to the airport. We used to live in Niagara and do the drive to Pearson , was always a hassle no matter how/when we did it. That being said, when we were doing it, we eventually decided it was well worth upgrading to "Valet" with park and fly or even parking at the airport. Sure it cost more, but just seemed worth that extra $100 or whatever it was to make the experience less painful. LOVE flying from London though ...can't beat it!

Deciding HIA value has "tangible" expenses we can easily define "things we would buy regardless" and the more difficult to quantify, the would consume or use it, but wouldn't normally be willing to pay for it, and then the intangible value of the "convenience" of not having to think about it and not having a bigger bill at the end of a cruise. For us as moderate drinkers (typically 3-5 alcoholic drinks a day) we generally "close" to the cost of the package or just under. We like having the internet but would not generally pay for it (so it doesn't save us money but adds value for us) We typically would buy 1 specialty dinner per week, but then have 2 dinners when 1 is in the HIA package (so doesn't save us money, but adds value to our holiday) We typically wouldn't (or really limit) purchase of water (when going ashore), speciality coffees, mocktails etc. Again, doesn't save us money, but we like having them if they are included, so with HIA it adds value and we will have them through the cruise. The major deciding factor for us though, is really just convenience of having drinks and some perks prepaid. We (me .. the cheap one), can't stop accessing the cost of each item as I purchase it, so it just makes things more enjoyable for our holiday.

It sounds like you are at 4-5 drinks a day (2 drinks and a bottle of wine is 2.5 glasses of wine per person) so lets say 4.5 drinks/day average. Assume your drinks are $9.5 average and wine $10 per glass (9.5*2 + 2.5*10)+ 18% grats = $51.92/day If you drink beer only and buy wine packages, you can bring that down some. Generally in the range of somewhere in the 3-5 drinks a day (or more) you will see value in the HIA package.

We've done both and like both for different reasons - The main advantage of 'anytime' is more obvious - no fixed schedule. We have never had an issue getting a table for 2 with anytime, but we also dine on the later side (never before 7) The advantage for for fixed dining for us is that the service seems to be much better, and creates a nicer dining experience.Your servers get to know you (surprisingly quick) and then automatically know your preference such as if you like your meal courses paced slower or faster. I mention that one as we like to take our time when we dine (we aren't big show people), and sometimes with "anytime" it can just feel like the clock is ticking to get you through the meal.

We have one booked in April on the Millenium for Southern Caribbean Bumped ours up from an inside so was a no-brainer when the price was good. We've generally only done insides but have upgraded to aft balconies since Covid on 3 of our cruises and we have an aft booked for Hawaii in 2024 (Edge). When it comes to balconies, I have "go big or go home" (inside) kind of thought process - 😉

That is what happened with us. Any refunds for canceled cruise costs went back to our gift cards (and not always the original one - got quite complicated. After we were onboard a cruise and applied gift cards to our account, any unused balance went to the Credit Card assigned for the room account (based on 2 cruises last year, but may not be the case going forward)

That is what is stated in the terms. On our June and Dec cruises last year, our gift card balance was refunded to our credit card and not our gift cards. I still wonder if that was something they were doing to clear out the large balance of gift cards purchased before the restart. They have also changed companies doing the gift cards, so may have wanted to get the old ones cleared out. From my experience - it happened fot us (twice) but I wouldn't count on it in the future.

Unless things have changed since our last HAL cruise (Dec 2022), if you apply the card to your account when on board, whatever balance you have at the end of your cruise is refunded to the credit card you have assigned for the cruise. Seems very odd, but we were able to do that on 2 cruises last year. They have changed the gift card company in the last year, so maybe they were just trying to get them flushed out, it seems hard to believe they do that though.