HAL Swaps MS Oosterdam for MS Amsterdam in 2017 for Alaska Seattle R/T

[Sequim88]

Just a heads up for people booked for 2017 R/T to Alaska from Seattle on HAL's MS Amsterdam. Log in and check your booking or contact your PCC or travel agent. You probably have a new booking for the same dates as your Amsterdam cruise on Oosterdam. HAL has swapped Oosterdam for Amsterdam for 2017 sailings. I've confirmed with our PCC and she was able to assign us to a very equivalent accessible inside cabin to the one we had picked on Amsterdam.

 

This will also affect Amsterdam Roll Call threads for those sailings. A request has been sent to CC help to move the threads (and change ship name if needed) to the Oosterdam Roll Call board. If you don't monitor the Holland America board often and your roll call disappears check the Oosterdam board.

[Sequim88]

Found out Amsterdam will continue the 14nt R/T but scheduled sailing days have changed. Maybe even adding sailings. Oosterdam will specialize in 7nt and maybe add sailings that were formerly Amsterdam 14nt.

[TheCalicoCat]

Just curious (not debating) but where did you get this information?

 

My Travel Agent hasn't heard any of this & I would have thought that HAL would have provided this information to the professionals so that they would be prepared for any questions.

[Sequim88]

When I logged in to my HAL account I saw it was asking which booking I wanted to see. I thought I had only one but saw one for ms Oosterdam on same dates as the Amsterdam booking. So I contacted our Personal Cruise Consultant at HAL and she confirmed the switch and that we had automatically been assigned a equivalent handicap accessible inside cabin on Oosterdam to what we had selected on Amsterdam. Only thing left is transferring the deposit from the Amsterdam booking to the Oosterdam one.

 

When I checked with people on the Amsterdam 14nt R/T Roll Calls they confirmed they were still on Amsterdam but their dates were changing a couple days. Looked like HAL was compressing the schedule to open up more 14nt runs in the vacated 7nt schedules. Added 7nt itineraries for Oosterdam in the vacated 14nt period is speculation but can't see HAL not doing that.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Sequim88
typos

[TheCalicoCat]

Thanks, I am on one of those 14-night cruises - same ship but they moved the dates up...

[flteacher]

The information was sent very sneakily last week.

It was under the guise of a "Booking Confirmation", which I ignored until seeing this post.

Rather annoying. I had a suite booked on the Amsterdam, but HAL raised the prices and made the switches to the Oosterdam on price point only.

Sadly, they are the only game in town. So, the best deal was to do the Explore 4 nonsense and get the "free" stuff. I am paying a little more to keep a suite, and gratuities are marketed as free. Very clever. I'll save money by now booking all excursions privately, not through HAL.