What is a "Collectors cruise"

[Tampa Girl]

We are currently booked on the March 1, 2026, New Zealand/Australia 50-day "Collectors Cruise".  What is the difference between that and a "Legendary" cruise, and is the onboard experience any different from 10-day cruise?

[The-Inside-Cabin]

31 minutes ago, Tampa Girl said:

We are currently booked on the March 1, 2026, New Zealand/Australia 50-day "Collectors Cruise".  What is the difference between that and a "Legendary" cruise, and is the onboard experience any different from 10-day cruise?

As far as I know a collector cruise is two shorter cruises linked together under one booking number.  There is nothing special about a collector cruise except for the name.   Most people will only be on one or the other. 
 

sometimes they may have a special reception for people doing both cruises.    My one and only collector cruise was in 2016 - so times probably changed.  

[CruiserBruce]

A Collector's Cruise is essentially a B2B sold as 1 cruise, one reservation, 1 booking number. There is frequently a small discount to book as a Collectors Cruise over the individual cruises. There is sometimes a cocktail party or similar event for those on a Collectors Cruise.

 

Have done several Collectors Cruises, and have one booked for July 2025.

 

Legendary Cruises are much longer, typically.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Also the price might be less booking the two cruises together . BUT if the price goes down on one  half      7-7 14-14 7-14  then it was not a bargain ..

Edited Sunday at 03:44 PM by Gail & Marty sailing away

[Petronillus]

Our last cruise was a collector's cruise that started in Hong Kong and ended in Hong Kong 28 days later. I have no basis for comparing it was the "legendary" category, but one aspect that made it different from other cruises is that we had whole swathes of pax starting and ending their cruises at different points. A large contingent were already halfway through their 28-day voyage when we boarded because theirs started in Singapore and ended in Yokohama. Similarly, lots of people were on for only 14 days. So, in terms of the overall ship, there was no single embarkation or debarkation day, with all the attendant hustle and bustle. It affected the feeling of ebb and flow of the voyage.

[Lido deck main]

We are on a collectors cruise in July,  14 nights, leave from and return Vancouver.  Most people are doing 7 days, they either do the 7 cruise first then land portion, or land portion first and then cruise.  Our last collectors voyage, Zaandam 2015 Alaska, same thing 14 days, (split into 7's for land portion people.  I can't remember exactly how many collector people there, about 200, they had a special Indonesian lunch in MDR one day just for the collector people.  I will post back in late July if they offered us collector people anything special.

[BermudaBound2014]

42 minutes ago, Gail & Marty sailing away said:

Also the price might be less booking the two cruises together . BUT if the price goes down on one  half      7-7 14-14 7-14  then it was not a bargain ..

 

@TableGirl the above is very good advice. Once you book a Collectors cruise you can no longer benefit from reductions of either segment and price reductions on collectors cruises are very rare. 

 

Also, If you book as a B2B (separate booking numbers) you can double your shareholder credit, aarp credit, etc.... and often times that is more than savings achieved by locking yourself into collectors cruise pricing. 

 

Sorry if you already knew all this, just trying to help 🙂 

[FlaMariner]

2 hours ago, Gail & Marty sailing away said:

Also the price might be less booking the two cruises together . BUT if the price goes down on one  half      7-7 14-14 7-14  then it was not a bargain ..

 

Also agree with this....

 

We've done 3 B2B/Collectors cruises (since the unpleasantness/restart) and the price was always better booking as individual cruises vs the collector cruise......If booked as individual cruises, the shareholder, welcome back and other OBC offers may be more $$$ than if you just booked one cruise.  Another choice is the cabin.....Perhaps one of the cruises is more port intensive and you may be fine with an inside cabin but then the second cruise you may want to bump up to a balcony.....or vice versa....

 

Of course, YMMV......and I'd suggest doing the math on both options.

[SilvertoGold]

2 hours ago, Lido deck main said:

We are on a collectors cruise in July,  14 nights, leave from and return Vancouver.  Most people are doing 7 days, they either do the 7 cruise first then land portion, or land portion first and then cruise.  Our last collectors voyage, Zaandam 2015 Alaska, same thing 14 days, (split into 7's for land portion people.  I can't remember exactly how many collector people there, about 200, they had a special Indonesian lunch in MDR one day just for the collector people.  I will post back in late July if they offered us collector people anything special.

Please do let us know. This lndonesian lunch takes me back many years when we did an Alaska Collectors every year. The Indonesian lunch was great, a nice treat but it has been years since the last one for any Collector we have been on.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

If you book separately have the two or more bookings LINKED together.

Our fall trips are 8 or 9 bookings long. About 85 days.

[Tampa Girl]

2 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

@TableGirl the above is very good advice. Once you book a Collectors cruise you can no longer benefit from reductions of either segment and price reductions on collectors cruises are very rare. 

 

Also, If you book as a B2B (separate booking numbers) you can double your shareholder credit, aarp credit, etc.... and often times that is more than savings achieved by locking yourself into collectors cruise pricing. 

 

Sorry if you already knew all this, just trying to help 🙂 

 

No, I didn't know all this, and it is, or might have been, very useful; but we booked this cruise months ago.  I don't know if this is what is called a B2G,  but it is in two segments:  Aux - Sydney and Sydney to Seattle.  I just checked the prices, taken separately, and our price for the full 50 days is about $3,100 cheaper, so as of now, we lucked out.  But, thank all of you for the info.  It will probably be very useful in the future since HAL seems to be favoring B2B cruises, whatever this may be called. 

[ferretktf]

9 hours ago, Lido deck main said:

We are on a collectors cruise in July,  14 nights, leave from and return Vancouver.  Most people are doing 7 days, they either do the 7 cruise first then land portion, or land portion first and then cruise.  Our last collectors voyage, Zaandam 2015 Alaska, same thing 14 days, (split into 7's for land portion people.  I can't remember exactly how many collector people there, about 200, they had a special Indonesian lunch in MDR one day just for the collector people.  I will post back in late July if they offered us collector people anything special.

On one right now (Nieuw Amsterdam) …nothing special offered, no lunches, no reception etc.
 

Today is switchover day and we were anticipating a lie in but sadly from 6am, every 10-15 minutes, the in room speaker blared out the latest disembarkation status, so no chance of a lie in!  Guess we could have predicted this?

 

at 9am we felt, ok, the masses will have gone now, so time to go and get some breakfast …..only to find that all eateries on the ship were closed until lunchtime.  (To be fair I think they were doing a deep clean that they could not do any other time of the cruise, well other than during the night I guess)

 

ok, maybe we will take advantage of an empty pool and hot tubs, but unfortunately, despite being open at 7am very other morning of the cruise, they were also shut until lunchtime.

So we got off the ship instead and went for a hike!!

 

so overall, we do not feel very “special” at all doing the collectors voyage!  But then again, we were not expecting anything so no real issue.

[CruiserBruce]

@ferretktf, 90 or better percent of the people are getting off on turn around day...the ship is being resupplied, heavily cleaned. Tons of stuff is going off, and coming on. Most staff are focused on that. 

 

For that obvious reason,  nothing special for B2B pax is done that day. Any special events will occur some other day...usually on the second half of your cruise.

[Blackduck59]

We are on the 43 day "Collector Cruise" Auckland to Seatte (we are getting off in Victoria) in 2025. The first leg, Auckand to Sydney (14 days) is a regular voyage. The second much longer leg (29 days) is a "Legendary" Voyage. I'll let everyone know the difference next year.😉

[ferretktf]

30 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

@ferretktf, 90 or better percent of the people are getting off on turn around day...the ship is being resupplied, heavily cleaned. Tons of stuff is going off, and coming on. Most staff are focused on that. 

 

For that obvious reason,  nothing special for B2B pax is done that day. Any special events will occur some other day...usually on the second half of your cruise.

Sorry, I wasnt clear, I wasn't expecting anything special *today*... But I also wasn't expecting the room announcements from 6am (probably should have been I guess) or the facilities shut in the morning (less obvious). 

 

And you are correct, only 100 of the 2200 are staying on! 

[kazu]

8 hours ago, ferretktf said:

Sorry, I wasnt clear, I wasn't expecting anything special *today*... But I also wasn't expecting the room announcements from 6am (probably should have been I guess) or the facilities shut in the morning (less obvious). 

 

And you are correct, only 100 of the 2200 are staying on! 

 

Breakfast is served earlier on disembarkation day so that people can get off in a timely manner.  The times are posted on disembarkation / turnaround instructions usually as well as the last Daily (which is not really a Daily).    I believe they are on the TV as well.

 

they apply to all of us whether it is disembarkation day or turnaround day.

[Tampa Girl]

10 hours ago, Blackduck59 said:

We are on the 43 day "Collector Cruise" Auckland to Seatte (we are getting off in Victoria) in 2025. The first leg, Auckand to Sydney (14 days) is a regular voyage. The second much longer leg (29 days) is a "Legendary" Voyage. I'll let everyone know the difference next year.😉

 

The 2026 cruise is the same - a 14-day regular voyage and the second, a 36-day leg. If HAL considers the longer let to be a "Legendary" voyage, it has not yet been so named.  In any event, we love the itinerary and are looking forward to touring North and South NZ, Australia, the South Pacific, and the Hawaiian islands, regardless what the cruise may be called.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that a B2B cruise involves the first leg returning to the original embarkation point, i.e. FLL, and then cruising a different itinerary on the second leg.  That is not the case in either the '25 or the '26 cruise.  It seems to me that it is no different than any other long voyage, i.e. a 25-day TA to Fll, which cruise may have three segments, each commencing in a different port.  We have tried to stay away from B2B cruises because of returning to the original embarkation port before commencing the second leg.

[FlaMariner]

18 minutes ago, Tampa Girl said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that a B2B cruise involves the first leg returning to the original embarkation point,

 

I've used the term B2B "back to back" to define remaining on the ship for the next voyage.....no matter if it was the original port.

[Tampa Girl]

3 minutes ago, FlaMariner said:

 

I've used the term B2B "back to back" to define remaining on the ship for the next voyage.....no matter if it was the original port.

But that would include all long voyages which have several segments, i.e WC and other Grands, as well as some repositioning cruises.  I haven't checked, but now that I think about it, I would assume that our 50-day cruise is repositioning the Noordam back to the U.S.

[Blackduck59]

@Tampa Girl for us the 29 day segment Sydney to Seattle is labeled as a "legendary" voyage. Perhaps the "collector" designation is how they differentiate between a B2B and a cruise that stops and disembarks some passengers while embarking others. 

Edited Monday at 03:18 PM by Blackduck59

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

2 hours ago, Tampa Girl said:

 

The 2026 cruise is the same - a 14-day regular voyage and the second, a 36-day leg. If HAL considers the longer let to be a "Legendary" voyage, it has not yet been so named.  In any event, we love the itinerary and are looking forward to touring North and South NZ, Australia, the South Pacific, and the Hawaiian islands, regardless what the cruise may be called.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that a B2B cruise involves the first leg returning to the original embarkation point, i.e. FLL, and then cruising a different itinerary on the second leg.  That is not the case in either the '25 or the '26 cruise.  It seems to me that it is no different than any other long voyage, i.e. a 25-day TA to Fll, which cruise may have three segments, each commencing in a different port.  We have tried to stay away from B2B cruises because of returning to the original embarkation port before commencing the second leg.

original embarkation point  No it does not have to

[ferretktf]

5 hours ago, kazu said:

 

Breakfast is served earlier on disembarkation day so that people can get off in a timely manner.  The times are posted on disembarkation / turnaround instructions usually as well as the last Daily (which is not really a Daily).    I believe they are on the TV as well.

 

they apply to all of us whether it is disembarkation day or turnaround day.

yes, but finishing 90 minutes earlier ~(and not even leaving 1 counter open for the B2B until normal time) was less expected