rodndonna

For sure that would be a scary experience, especially on your own. Good to hear you are feeling better and hopefully the worse is behind you now.

I think the free cruise with $200-250 spends are (will be) a thing of the past. They were VERY generous trying to get people back on ships this past year, but I don't think that is to be expected going forward. Being in that category of spend, we received those offers (and used a couple), gambled quite a bit more on the 'free' cruise, but no more offers come our way. On a cruise Sunday so will have to run another "test", but I think those days are gone. That being said, I am now getting 'free' offers from Carnival, even though and have not been on a a CCL cruise in a few years and had never received them in the past.

I know people hate it when HAL is defended, BUT, if you have Covid and tell them you have a respiratory illness don't feel up for discussion, you sound much more ill than most people getting Covid these days. I would have been disappointed if they had not called after that exchange.

You can compare the cost of the flights yourself as they will quote the cost for the flight. You can then compare to what you can find on your own or what you would expect the airfare to be.

Agree with sailing from San Juan as the best starting point for Caribbean cruises. Did one cruise with Carnival from San Juan (pre-Covid) - great itinerary. We now have 2 booked from San Juan - one in 2023 (Celebrity) and one in 2024 (NCL).

There is a forum here for insurance related discussions - might have some luck there - https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/

You sound more like an HIA candidate to me as well. Have you added gratuities to your drink costs (another 18%)? They make quite a difference as well, and HIA include grats. It really doesn't take many drinks (with tax and grats) to get to the HIA price when you count in the dinner, Wifi and excursion credit. You won't need the minibar. likely your room is not too far from a bar and you can just pop out to get drinks and bring them back.

$159 for the formal wear you would need for EVERY gala or formal night for EVERY cruise ... that's a super deal and super easy planning. I wish we had something like option that for women (as I am currently packing for a cruise)

Cool as a cucumber - my fave as well. (Also good with gin if you want then to make it an alcoholic version ) I think most of the bars can make them.

great website - I like the way you can easily see which cabins there are videos for. There is not one for our specific cabin but same level a few doors down, so we could get a good tour of what our room will be like.

We also just upgraded , from deck 4 obstructed to a deck 8 VA on the Rotterdam (forward-ish). What's the difference between a VE of the OP and a VA cabin? (I'm thrilled with our upgrade, just a curiosity)

Wow - we are leaving this weekend for the same cruise and was kinda hoping they were still sailing at lower occupancy. I guess the days of being spoiled with low occupancy rate cruises may be coming to an end, but good to hear for the cruise industry.

This has been my experience as smaller Casino players (slots) with HAL and Carnival. we sailed Carnival a few years ago (pre Covid) and then always received 'discounted' cruises from Carnival. Post Covid we sailed with HAL, played slots and had many free cabin offers last year, ending abruptly in late spring of 2022. We sailed in June, played more than we would usually play, but still no further offers from HAL. )-: Over the past year, we have been continually receiving free cabins from Carnival, even though we have not sailed with them in 4 or 5 year and never had such good offers before. It seems like perhaps our HAL Casino playing is now getting us good Carnival offers but not HAL.

My post was a response to another post where FE and HAL handled logistics and covered the costs. I don't doubt they had one of the better experiences and there are some really bad experiences out there as well. For us, personally, the risk of missing a port or even an entire cruise would be disappointing, but pretty low on the scale of tragic events in our lives (past or I expect future) so we really don't worry too much about it happening and am willing to just take that risk.

The flights have not changed. HAL has changed its itinerary to leave earlier than the original schedule, so the flight now does not arrive within the acceptable window (from a 2:00 to a 1:00 arrival requirement, our flight booking is for 1:40 arrival ).

This will sound bad, but, there is probably a point where a rep has taken umpteen calls like this daily where the info is on the website to be read. The safe answer is to just tell someone to test - especially someone who is nervous enough to call in (assuming they read it and are not confident they understand it). There is a danger is always a danger telling them "no test required" and then have the rules change again Oct 3rd before the sailing, because this caller is not comfortable with reading and understanding what is on the website. Basically, if someone is not confident on finding the information on their own, better answer is 'just test'

We booked FlightEase for an upcoming cruise that has now changed the cruise departure time to an earlier time, and have received notice that our flights will be changed by FE for us. From the schedules, we can see there are no other options other than flying in a day earlier now. Will HAL cover the cost of a hotel? I know they do not when it is an airline schedule change, but this is a HAL change ....so maybe ....???

Thank you for posting your experience. We are the 'risk takers' types who fly in day of, but do so at this point in our lives, accepting the cruise ports themselves are not likely "a trip of a lifetime, never going to have a chance to go there again" . As long as I know that if we miss the embarkation, HAL is handling the logistics and associated costs of whatever we end doing, we are OK with the risk. Someday though , if I splurge for a Galapagos Islands cruise (which I expect will be a "one of" trip for us), I will arrive a couple of days before embarkation to be safe.

I really like the pdf, it seems to make it things pretty clear what rules apply based on what cruse you are on doesn't it?

Has anyone booked the Costa "Cruise and Golf" packages?\ https://www.costacruises.com/deals/cruise-golf.html I searched this forum and can't find any discussion about it. I think it was to start last spring, but was likely pushed to this fall (I see it is available for fall 2022). We are looking for Fall 2023, so would be interested to hear from anyone doing the package this year.

I think the incidence of Covid these days with the new variants is just much too high for that to be realistic.

This was a beef on our 2 cruises (one with masks required, one with recommended). It was generally easy enough to keep ourselves regardless of what alway people were doing. But really, how hard is it to look in an elevator, see that everyone in there is trying to keep others safe so if you refuse to wear a mask, fine, but at least wait for the next elevator or ask if it is OK.

On our Alaskan cruise, I can't remember which port, but a crew member told me they have a free shuttle that takes crew members to a Walmart. She said that was the looked forward to the most on that itinerary 😃

There was live piano music in the Ocean bar on our June Alaskan cruise, but I don't think we had it on out Panama Sunfarer last December. Maybe it is itinerary specific or just coming back?

Would it be logical to expect that the cruises from San Diego for 2022/2023 (Nov-Feb) will be repeated with similar itineraries in late 2023/2024? There is nothing there, so thinking they are just not finalized or available yet. Have not sailed Princess yet (3rd booking should be the charm!) so not that familiar with what would be typical.