rodndonna

I can't answer your question but am going to add my recent experience which has me wary of use Flightease in the future - ' we booked a flexible fare and were fully paid (before final payment date). We found a new flight for a savings of about $300 and rebooked the flights with it stating the $300 would be credited to our account on sailing (since we had paid early). HAL changed out embarkation time earlier, so Flightease had to change our flights to meet the new departue time. The last change (which we did not initiate but was forced from a HAL change) appeared to them wipe out our reduced fare savings as we were not credited to the $300 cheaper rate that we locked in. We still have a request in with accounting to review this and have not heard back .... it will determine whether I use FlightEase again.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E3N07D/J357.html It fits in your window of dates. I have not done this itinerary, but others here can speak to it. I believe it is also a great itinerary for 7 days though. For your dates, you have only the option from Copenhagen (instead of Rotterdam), but it is the same itinerary Viking Saga itinerary otherwise I think. Also - same class of ship.

You can do Viking Sagas on the 2nd of Aug from Copenhagen.

We did that itinerary on the Rotterdam this past June and thought it was a great itinerary. We solicited opinions on here for 7 day options this one came out on top.

Thanks! I really never clued in until I was reading a thread on another cruise line with a similar program and it then became clear. It is a nice benefit then!

We purchased a $100 FCD (Future Cruise Deposit) on board our cruise in December (just filled in the form and put it in the box) and now have a very simple question - When we use it, is it to be $100 credit towards a deposit on a cruise or would that become the deposit (essentially becoming a reduced deposit of $100 total).? I had presumed it is just a credit of $100 towards the normal cruise deposit . When I read some threads people mentioned it having the benefit of a "reduced deposit" , which I just thought meant people feel they are reducing their deposit by that $100 by prepaying some months (or years) before. I've read the terms and conditions but it's still not clear to me which it is.

I think if the Princess line has a class of ships with a good component of ballroom dancing for entertainment, then it would be that much less likely HAL would ever incorporate it also. Princess and HAL ate both CCL cruise lines, and they have to differentiate them somehow. Not a lot of things you can do, but the focus of the entertainment is probably one of the bigger ones.

My "guess" is that it would be flagged so that whenever they are checking in to enter the MDR, they would automatically be offered the Vegan/Vegetarian menu as defaults over the regular menu. Just a guess though. We are "primarily" vegetarian, but eat seafood when cruising so we generally just use the normal menu.

Barcelona, Florence and Rome were the 3 mentioned that I was referring to. Sounds like you have a fantastic trip to plan and look forward to - enjoy!

I can't speak for the poster of that comment, but I agree with them and would call them "first Europe cruise" staples . If you have not been anywhere in Europe. those 3 ports have major WOW factor offerings.

This did this on the Rotterdam in October and I would have called it a fail.They had a talented piano player, playing in a packed bar Ocean Bar full of people talking and laughing very loudly where he could not really even be heard. It was in essence a very talented musician becoming background music (that people just had to talk louder over). I felt really bad for the guy. Billboard does do sets of "request" music. You're right though, never any duelling (thankfully), not sure why they keep getting called that. On our last cruise, they played a show one evening in the theatre and were joined by the dancers and had some visuals using the screens around the stage and theatre. Really enjoyed that show (forget what it was called).

In the end if the demand is there (enough people are expressing interest in something), I do believe they would still be offering it. Like anything, It may be popular for a while, and then maybe not. If they have venues that start to become unpopular (empty), I expect that would be why they stopped them offering them.

What's generally might the "PLUS ONE ADDITIONAL OFFER!" listed at the bottom of the table be?

I can see itineraries with "Heritage cruise" across the top for at least a week now. Not sure if you can filter for them, but they are marked with a banner along the top.

As my knowledge of what people do on cruise ships is limited to what I have seen on "the Love Boat" , I googled the job description for a CD. They aren't involved in the planning or selection of entertainment (which I think makes sense), they are more day to day managers of the entertainment on board (among other things) https://jobdescription.org/cruise-director-job-description.html#:~:text=Cruise director job duties and responsibilities include%3A 1,among passengers and their fellow crew More items

On the Rotterdam last September there was a piano player in the Ocean bar (I guess it was probably happy hour, pre dinner time) . It was a little sad though as the bar was packed, but no one was listening and just raised their voices quite loudly to speak over him while playing. Had we not started polite applause between songs, I don't think anyone would have even applauded. I hope that would not be a common experience, but it was our only cruise of 4 with a piano player in the Ocean bar.

Good to hear. Our next cruise is on Celebrity which will be our first with them and really looking forward to it.

A misunderstanding - I was referring to your suggestion that HAL check out Celebrity and see what they are doing. This sounds more like you want HAL to include more of the things they (HAL) have done in the past.

Wouldn't we then just run the risk of cruiselines all being the same then? There isn't alot of room for differentiation within a limited price point. Isn't is better that we have options of lines that focus on different forms of entertainment and then we just sail with the one that best matches our preferences? We happen to really like live music - and that is what has drawn us to HAL. We are trying Celebrity (and Princess and NCL) again within the next 12 months, but I have a feeling HAL will be our preference overall for entertainment since we love live music.

Maybe just something about that ship,? We were on the previous week, and of our four HAL cruises (all post Covid), it was the friendliest and best atmosphere cruise (everyone seemed to be just enjoying themselves). It was the least interesting itinerary of the four, but our time on the NS in early December was the most overall "enjoyable" of the four. We did come across quite a few "first cruise since Covid" folks, so you might be right in thinking that is factored in to why everyone was so pleasant.

On a recent NS (which was full capacity we were told), we took "anytime" dining and dined as 2, always arriving between 7:45 and 8:15. We never waited to be seated. We are leisurely diners and our meals were typically 1 - 1.5 hours . For our personal preference we find they can be a little 'too' quick sometimes, but that is the tradeoff we pay when we choose "anytime" . Less of an issue with Fixed when they figure us out, but we wanted the dining flexibility on our last cruise. Oddly, we still ended up dining at a regular time every day and could have went Fixed.

From here (Eastern Canada) the flight schedules are not too bad (not back to pre-Covid options), but the flight prices are higher. We really like the itineraries from San Juan as well. Carnival used to cruise from SJ which we have done, but they have pulled out now. We've booked NCL Viva in Jan 2024 from San Juan also. Great winter getaway cruise itineraries for us. Japan is on our to-do list - likely 2025. It would be our first trip to Asia so will take some time to figure out.

I've not been through the process, but assumed it was a "blind" bidding thing. Not sure we want to start a bad habit of going higher than an aft balcony 😄

I just watched a video tour of our newly booked aft balcony and thought the balcony was impressively large, and then I watched one for an FV at the corner .... THAT"s A NICE balcony! Maybe our next Celebrity cruise 🤔

It is April 8th. Just got our upgrade to an Aft verandah - really happy with the price. Not sure if it is flight costs keeping the bookings low, or if so many folks are just Guarantee bookings planning to Moveup or what. But at the current pricing, wasn't worth the risk 😎