pricing complaint, am I missing something

[MicCanberra]

Not sure if it makes a differenct but I had my HAL ships mixed up. The BTB was on the Nieu Amsterdam, not the Zuiederdam.

 

Any way I put a courtesy hold on a Balcony. Still pretty expensive. I'm gonna watch like a hawk for a price change.

 

Keep an eye out for the specials and grab them fast.:D

[Jade13]

Here are a few more details.

 

The HAL ship is the Zuiederdam, and they offer one 7 day Eastern Caribbean followed by one 7 day Western Caribbean, just like we would be booking on Celebrity. The difference is that HAL allows pax to book them as one cruise in addition to offering them separately. Both cruises would be during poplular spring break weeks.

 

So my thinking is 7 day cruise on any line during spring break will have lots of kids.

 

Truthfully we are leaning towards Celebrity, but price difference was just really shocking to me. I have cruised HAL before, but one was as a teen on a Christmas cruise in 1980, and the other was our Honeymoon in 1993. Both were wonderful experiences, but probably not as good as what Celebrity offers today. MIL just took a HAL cruise at Christmas and loved it. I think of them as a comperable but different product than Celebrity. We spent all our evenings in the Piano bar on the HAL cruise in 1993 as we found that to be the most fun place for us.

 

PS, Kids don't want to do HAL either, and Celebrity is their first choice.

 

People should not be so quick to state that HAL has little to offer children, or there will be no children on HAL. We just got off a HAL repositioning cruise from South America. We were on the 22 night from Valparaiso, but most pax were on the 34 night from Buenos Aires. There were 3 children. When we disembarked we were told 300 were boarding for the Bermuda cruise from NYC last week. This is on a 1,300 pax ship, so approx 25% children on Veendam. Club HAL is very popular.

 

Regarding the btw, yes HAL offers what they call "Collectors Voyages' where multiple itineraries (usually 2 btb's) are bundled together with favorable pricing.

[jdvmd]

Just chiming in. We did the Westerdam for spring break with our 14-year-old. There were TONS of kids and teens onboard. We had a great time! We are leaving on the Maasdam in a couple of weeks. Both of my kids (now 22 and 14) have always had a great time on HAL. It will be the same situation next spring break - there will be lots of kids.

We are Elite with Celebrity and Princess, Diamond with RCCL, Platinum on NCL. My kids have always loved Celebrity the most. RCCL ships are great but they are pricey. For us, we enjoy Holland's liberary policy regarding wine being brought onboard. In contrast, RCCL doesn't allow even one bottle.

I would go for the itinerary that suits you the best.

[Cruise Arizona]

I wish Celebrity would offer price breaks on BTB, but my husband made the executive decision this morning. We are booking the Silohouette, though I think the Nieu Amsterdam also would have been a good choice. We taking a vacation my husband prefers to go with what he knows he likes rather than take a chance on something unfamiliar. I am willing to research something else and if it looks comparable then go with the better price.

 

I do think that HAL on BTB 7 day spring break cruises would have a lot of families, much more than any other sailing except maybe Christmas. So I do think that this might be a good second choice, but DH's first choice is the Celebrity cruise so that is what we have decided on. With the cruises being BTB it does give us some flexibility should we want to adjust our plans at a later date. To get the pricing on HAL it must be booked as a 14 day voyage.

 

DH is not nearly as worried about the pricing as me... he sees this a three vacations rolled into one... Two cruises with the kids plus our anniversary cruise. Not sure how many more opportunities we'll have to sail with the kids. It sure would be nice to get the lower price offered by HAL but not a deal breaker at this point.

 

Thanks for all the help.

[junglejane]

Suzanne: enjoy your B2B on the Silhouette. You'll be getting on when we are getting off. I subscribe to my Roll Call in part to get alerted to price drops. We were originally planning a Christmas cruise, so by comparison the current prices on the Silhouette seem pretty good. But a price drop would definitely be welcome.:)

[ISABELLA]

Our teens get a two week spring break, and being that they are not getting any younger we are seriosly considering changing our current cruise plans so that we can vacation with them instead of just us.

 

So we have to hit a March 16 to March 31 window and we have looked at several options.

 

At the top of our list is back to back East/West Caribbean on the Silhouette in a balcony for nearly 8K.

 

We also priced the exact same itinerary with HAL. They offer the option to book the same itenerary as a 14 day rather than BTB. I was shocked that their price, unless I'm missing something, is about $1400 less for 4 people for nearly the same itinerary.

 

We are elite with Celebrity and for the two btb I figure we get about $1000 perks, so why not save the 1400 and book with HAL.

 

Why the big price difference???

Maybe Celebrity is more popular...............

[Cruise Arizona]

they sucked us in.... we booked the BTB Silhouette today.

 

We are going to just have live with the price unless some deals come available.