Has anyone cruised with Hapag-Lloyd?

[frogfish12]

I wonder if Bembridge is going to do one of his regular videos on Hapag because the video is actually a Q&A and he was answering non-Hapag questions. I quickly skipped through it, there were like only 2 or 3 Arctic related questions, one person asked if he saw polar bears and Gary said the bear was actually 1 km away and even with telephoto lens he had to crop it

 

jeff74, I thought charter flights are already included in the fare? Where do you embark and disembark the ship for your cruise? It works out better for me if they aren't included because the embarkation port is Tromso, Norway and I could fly there on my own. One thing I don't like is the hassle to join the ship because the charter flights for my cruise are

Germany - Tromso

Longyearbyen - Germany

It's ok if I plan to visit Germany but have been there couple of times

whereas for Seabourn it is only one way charter from Oslo and disembarks in Reykjavik so I can fly home directly from there

 

Has anyone been to Bear Island? Hapag goes there but Seabourn doesn't, I'm wondering it's it ok to skip

 

Also I spent time reading every single Hapag review, I knew it caters to Germans/German-speaking but now I'm not so sure if it will work

[jeff74]

@frogfish12, the charter flight is included for my wife and I but not our son.  The cruise we are on is from Tromso to Longyearbyen.  I know there is the option to not take the charter flight but I’m not sure what that involves.  I hear you about Germany and that is partially why we are flying into Amsterdam.

[whylion]

Hi Jeff,

I am interested that you were able to pay in euros.  Did you deal directly with Hamburg or use a travel agent?   It says on the website if you’re from US you have to pay in dollars, but maybe that’s just if you book online? They let us book in euros when we made a booking onboard during a previous cruise,  but I thought otherwise it would have to be dollars and the rate they give is lousy, as you mentioned.  

[jeff74]

17 hours ago, whylion said:

Hi Jeff,

I am interested that you were able to pay in euros.  Did you deal directly with Hamburg or use a travel agent?   It says on the website if you’re from US you have to pay in dollars, but maybe that’s just if you book online? They let us book in euros when we made a booking onboard during a previous cruise,  but I thought otherwise it would have to be dollars and the rate they give is lousy, as you mentioned.  
 

 I went through one of Hapag’s travel offices that is located in New York.

[cathaana]

On our E2 cruise, the whole crew spoke English. There were actually a few who didn't speak German (or barely any) and always used English. The lectures were in German but available in English on TV. Not sure whether they ever did live English lectures. There are a few extensive reviews in the Luxury Cruise sub-forum. I can't remember seeing one for the expedition ships though - also waiting on Gary there. 😄

[Conte Di Savoia]

We just booked and paid for an October cruise on Europa2 and due to a change of policy I was able to charge our passage on Amex.  Done deal

[Jacqueline]

Yes! Amazing cruise line, we loved it. Go over to the luxury cruise line forum .

 

[ClipperinSFO]

We just got back from Europe 2 through Norway and loved it. I just submitted a detailed review and will post a link once approved.  It was a great experience in every respect. 

[ClipperinSFO]

On 8/27/2023 at 4:48 PM, jeff74 said:

A piece of advice that I'd give anyone stateside that is booking on Hapag is to request to pay in euros.  At least at the time when I booked, the conversion rate to USD that the cruise line was using was 1.2 USD per EUR which was at the time and still is a fair amount over the spot rate.  Going this route will end up costing us about $2600 less and I've bought a EUR/USD ETF to hedge FX risk for my remaining amount that is due next year.  If you don't want to go through the trouble of hedging you can always "let it ride" and go ahead and pay the balance early if the fx rate starts moving adversely.

 

Thanks Jeff -- this is an excellent piece of advice, and I am not sure why it didn't occur to me to do this.  We needlessly overpaid on this last cruise.  There are lots of options these days for paying in foreign currencies, so this coaching is very helpful.

[ClipperinSFO]

Hi everyone, below is the link to my review of our recent Europa 2 Norway cruise (somehow it got tagged tot he Baltic).  I will also post it over on Luxury Cruise.  Happy reading.  

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=706210&et_cid=3718426&et