CruiserBruce

Welcome to Cruise Critic! The place for all the HAL questions is the portion of Cruise Critic devoted to HAL, located here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/103-holland-america-line/ Personally, I don't understand why Have it All can't be applied to both rooms. The only hang up is those under 18 can't be included in the drink package. Where did you book this? could they have screwed something up? Yes, you can switch occupants around when on board.

You don't book your boarding time. They are assigned.

Boston is a wonderful city to visit, the port is close to the airport, if that is a criteria (not for us, coming from the West Coast, have to fly in the day before, minimum), there is a hotel or two within easy walking distance of the port. The only negative is the port doesn't handle disembarking well. The taxi coverage is horrible. Overall, disembarking is a cluster due to the physical plant.

I agree...absolutely no evidence checking in early gets you your GTY assignment any sooner. We routinely do our check in stuff many months ahead.

As discussed here frequently, you can only walk to Terminal 2 and 4 from the gate near the Hilton Marina. The rest of the port is quite spread out, and definitely not walking friendly from the gates.

Getting through Immigration and Customs, claiming bags, then getting to the port takes a while. Probably not at the port much before 8am. I wouldn't want to be leaving my bags before the bags coming off the ship have been offloaded and claimed. Maybe overthinking this, but the chance of your bags getting confused with the offloading bags is always on my mind. Maybe a local here can tell you about a good restaurant for breakfast near the airport.

Its Pier 91, not 19. If you look around the board, there are several options. Fly SEA to Vancouver. There is a bus service. There is a train service. You could rent a car. As your cruise starts in Vancouver, and ends in Seattle, RCI might offer a bus transfer.

Perhaps some reading around the board would be beneficial.

Pretty sure the correct user name is @sail7seas, not SailSevenSeas. If she is still monitoring, hopefully she will see this, now that she has been "tagged".

You will give the money to the main Customer Service Desk onboard.

All depends on one's ability to lug their bags around.

Probably around 6:30. But this can definitely depend on the cruise line involved. Some aren't overly aggressive about early disembarking.

Transport schedules are based on demand. So if there are passengers arriving at, say, 8am, they will start having buses available. However, it may take awhile to fill a bus and send you off. If you aren't there at 10:30,nothing is going to happen, except the crowd will build rapidly, which may be incentive enough to take the Skytrain.

@Pat6116 make your "home page" for Cruise Critic this: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/ You won't have any problems seeing the huge amount of resources available here.

Agree totally with @cruisemom42. And yes, you should make transport arrangements in advance.

Commonly mentioned here...Ft Lauderdale is usually cheaper. Plus, when are you arriving, and how do you plan to get to Miami? Shuttle services dry up as the day gets latter, but taxi and Uber/Lyft are always available.

Just look for the CLEAR signs. There is someone there to guide you along. Please come back and tell me if this, or the info in post #2 was wrong.

The problem might be that your credit card rejected an overseas charge. My card (Chase) contacts me if they do this, and ask if it was me. I say it was, and they have the charge re-submitted.

The RER (train/subway)system is great. Are you going to be lugging a lot of luggage?

Yes.

The Heat play at night. Shouldn't affect you getting to the port in the morning.

Getting an idea of what "regular" pricing is, by looking now, is a good idea, but yes, unless they are really having problems selling the award seats, they will be at full price or higher this close to current flight dates. I don't know AA's procedures, but I know UA's mileage rates seem to move around a lot in the first 20 or so days after releasing the seats. So, in your case, if you are going to fly, for example, June 25th of next year, start looking at the rates on say, for May 25th, and watch what the rates do for that day for a couple of weeks after release to get an idea how they might vary. I know for a flight I was trying to book, I found that 10-12 days after release seemed to be the "magic window". It may be different on AA. Another tactic to help on this front... if AA has a "see the whole month" feature, (called "I am flexible" or "flexible dates" on United) where you can see the mileage rate for an entire month, you might find every Tuesday (an example) has cheaper rates. Or connecting on a different partner might be cheaper rates. So, flying in a day or two earlier might save you a bunch.

You won't have a problem making a 2:45 flight.

Even if you are the last person to board the last cruise line transfer to MCO, you will have little problem making an 1pm flight.

With all due respect, if bad manners is a deal breaker for going on a vacation, there aren't going to be many vacations you will find acceptable, cruises or any other choices.