Host Walt

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All Holland America ships have "observation lounges" (called Crow's Nest on Holland America) up front. ...

HAL has been making some changes and is replacing some of the Crows Nests with a new feature called Explorations Central with info on future ports of call. The forward view continues but its no longer a lounge/viewing area. The Zuiderdam is the first ship that has been changed.

It is kind of strange or unusual that the ship is 2 days in Ft Lauderdale , Dec 18 and 19 . After the TransAtlantic and before the 4 day cruise , which makes me think there could be something special going on on one of those two days ?????

HAL used to do 1 day "voyage to nowhere" sailings for agents and VIPs out of Ft Lauderdale with its new ships (speaking of the S class ships when they were new in the late 1990's).

This thread has been copied to the Florida Departures board where you may post replies. This West Coast departures thread is closed.

Here's a Cruise Critic article that might be helpful:

 

Finding a Cruise Travel Agent

Good luck. We are in California, and were told that we could not take our foster child out of the country. We were able to go out of state with him, but that required a hearing before a judge and his approval. We have since adopted our son, and now we can cruise again.

Personal comment and thought:

 

Congratulations to both you and your son. It's wonderful seeing kids in foster care become adopted and more to see foster parents step up to the plate and make the move. The world is so far better off for your efforts.

Get a wheelchair or scooter.

 

My preference is a power wheelchair

Best idea! When I was "mobility challenged" a few years ago we sailed on a 3300 pax Princess ship, the length of the l-o-o-o-n-g cabin deck hallways were the biggest concern. At the time we planned our activities around their location on the ship to minimize the walking distances.

 

Your point about places to sit is warranted because there is nothing available in the cabin deck hallways to rest during the long treks so what we did was to go up or down to activity decks where there normally were places to find places to sit. On reflection there were no situations with long lines or extensive delays that required lengthy standing.

See this earlier thread for further information:

Click this link:

***HAL's website - what a mess!

...From the deck plan, the stern B cabins, especially 101 and 102, might have a slightly different layout because the ship is narrowing there...

Having experienced 102 the layout is essentially the same as all the others. However if the ship is under motor rather than sail there is an annoying vibration and a bit more water noise.

... Captain moved the ship closer in while we were on Zodiac. He also had fun doing 360's later in the day. Beautiful spot.

I'm glad to see that Windstar still permits its Captains to do things like this which is one thing that adds so much to any Windstar cruise.

One terrific resource that we've used frequently is TOM's PORT GUIDES (a totally free site with no ads).

One thing it took us several cruises to master:

 

DO NOT EXPECT (or try to achieve) PERFECTION. (Remember that "Perfection" is the enemy of excellence.}

 

Rather enjoy the experience and don't sweat the small stuff.

 

And as Mike says, R-E-L-A-X !

Says page 2000 on my screen.

Actually that's post #20,000 which appears on page #1,000.

Oops Sorry for the major typo in thread title ......... It should, of course, read 2019. :eek:

 

:eek:

Title has been corrected

... I'm sailing the 17 day on Wind Spirit on 11/26/18. I started a roll call some months back and there are a few members, but it does not show on the list of roll calls...

Unfortunately the Toll Call finder tool has had some issues lately that have caused several roll calls to be omitted. The staff is working on resolving those issues.

You may get more responses, and better responses, if you post to the River Cruising forum:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=191

 

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Roz

 

 

Roz's suggestion is a very good one. In addition I copied your post to the River Cruises Roll Calls board where you should get more responses. You'll find a number of other posts that may be helpful on both boards.

 

 

River Cruises Roll Calls

(https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=685)

My DW and I love sitting out on the balcony with the lights off listening to the ocean slapping upside the ship and gazing out into the blackness to see if we have any ships nearby...and reflecting on how lucky we are to be having this experience together.

Just to be sure there is one other aspect that has not been mentioned; that is, what happens if the ship has to bypass a port. On a Windstar cruise we were unable to call at Santorini (Greece) because of seriously high winds and port congestion. The order to bypass was made by the Santorini harbormaster that morning as we were heading toward the island. We sailed around the island and wound up having a "day at sea."

 

All passengers who booked shore excursions in Santorini through Windstar were not charged or were refunded any payments already made. The excursion company lost all of the revenue because of the cancellations and the Windstar customers were all well handled apart from the disappointment of missing a fabulous port.

 

If one arranged private shore activities it would have been a real problem for them to recover whatever they may have paid to their private tour provider. (I don't know if anyone did that but I've been on other cruises (e.g., Princess) where this has occurred.)

 

We've always done comparative "shopping" to determine how much the "markup" was on excursions we've booked and have seen those "markups" to be rather modest.

 

Just one other matter. When we booked an excursion to Olympia, Greece through Windstar on another cruise, the provider arrived with a coach that would have been filled to capacity with the number of passengers booked. The Cruise Director told the operator that they must provide a second coach and host, which they did, which made the excursion even better.

My welcome back to Joe, with whom I've worked on another Cruise Critic forum a few years ago. This forum, and especially the roll calls, have been growing a lot over the last few years, especially with the expansion of the fleet and the novel (to Windstar) new itineraries.

 

 

Joe, the Windstar members are a great bunch of people with a special sense of adventure and great experiences.

And here's a thread on the HAL home page:

An Introduction to the Ships and Classes of the HAL Fleet

That is a very alarming title for those of us with upcoming Sky Suites booked - at least a question mark at the end would have softened the panic a little.

 

Done.

Click here for details of the CCL shareowner benefit:

http://www.carnivalcorp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=140690&p=irol-sharebenefit

HAL contact info:

HOLLAND AMERICA LINE

World Cruise Reservations

450 Third Ave. W.

Seattle, WA 98119

Tel 800 522 3399

Fax 206 270 6080

I joined a cruise downline on HAL's Rotterdam and had to make detailed arrangements with HAL to do that. The cruise started in Rotterdam and its forst port of call was Oslo. A last minute issue at work required that I attend a meeting on the date the ship sailed from Rotterdam. HAL said I was welcome to do that but had to meet the Security Director at shipside at a specified time before boarding and present my Passport. I had only one suitcase; a carryon. My wife boarded in Rotterdam with the rest of my luggage so that was not an issue.

 

 

It went perfectly and was greeted in the Crows Nest after I boarded with a complimentary adult beverage.

 

 

That was several years ago so I can't say you can do that now, but it's easy enough to call the cruise line to determine the rules.

Our very first "real" cruise (not counting one night overnight sailings on BC ferries and Viking Line (Stockholm to Helsinki) was in 1987 on Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam. The cruise was the very last HAL Alaska cruise and was terrific. The weather was lousy in Ketchikan but beautiful in Juneau and Sitka and the sail to and within Glacier Bay was perfect. There was no indication of any diminution of service or entertainment quality on board. The best part was the sunset viewings from the Crows Nest cocktail lounge that occurred well before our late seating dinners at 8:00pm.

This thread has been closed after removal of a large number of rude and unnecessary political posts.

You did what we always do on a cruise, that is do a detailed check of our account daily including the first day. I always find an error on something and get it corrected immediately. The primary error type is cocktail charges where the stateroom number was in error.

 

 

The erroneous charges are always reversed with no problem, but your advice is right on point.