LAFFNVEGAS

You are correct 😉 Yes it will be great we have not sailed with him since Volendam in 2016 but last saw him in October 2017 when we spent time in Japan and got to see he and his wife.

Wind Surf is on the move,, On time departure tonight

We have a good friend that was formerly a Hotel Manager several years ago with HAL that we have stayed in closed contact with for 18 years, he is the Hotel Manager on board. We have wanted to sail with him again but timing and other cruises we had booked got in the way. I did not want to book far out for fear he would not be on the ship. Windstar recently moved him to this ship and within days of him telling us we decided to book it. Timing was right between other cruises we have booked and now that I am not working 2 jobs just the one that I have more freedom to travel this was the perfect time.

For those that want to see and get an idea of the size of Wind Surf, here is a web cam shot taken just a minute ago. she is behind Viking Sea that is only 48,000 tons and about 900 passengers so half the size of a Signature Class/Vista Class ship. Wind Surf is 15,000 tons and based on double occupancy holds about 342 passengers,

Beautiful web cam view of Wind Surf this afternoon. Next week I will actually be on board 😄

I forgot to add, the other thing we have been doing each Saturday is watching the St Maarten Web Cam, today the Wind Surf is behind NCL Sky and in front of Viking Sea. Sometimes the web Cam operator does follow the Wind Surf out zooming in and about 10 minutes after she has left port you can see the sails go up. Our Sail Away time is 7pm Atlantic time.

Thanks so much Everyone!!! We are extremely excited to be sailing Windstar Wind Surf a week from today. We only booked this cruise in late November when we learned from our good friend where he would be. Most cruises we tend to book several months out. But even though it's not been long it seems like forever and we are finally down to just a week from today. We do leave late Thursday night to fly to Miami, then connect to fly to St Maarten and arrive on Friday afternoon. I do plan to do a Live From and What's for Dinner, I will post here giving you all the link to Windstar Thread. After all, many of us long time HAL cruisers remember when Windstar was part of Holland America. My understanding there are still quite a few crew members working on Windstar that had transferred from HAL to Windstar and are still there. The Windstar CC board gets very little activity so we can at least make it busy for a week 😂

Hi Karen, I kind of doubt it will be the Marriott close to the pier, in the last several years it has been further out and most I have seen were Renaissance in Plantation.

It has been my experience in the past 12 months that it is taking HAL longer to give hotel options.They have been showing up between 5 and 7 months out instead of 9 to 10 months out. If you are flying into FLL or MIA getting HAL hotel is good because not only do the take you to the pier on embarkation but they will pick you up from either airport. For me it was great having a HAL Rep there and then we had a Private car transfer it was actually quite nice. The hotel we were placed in by HAL was Renaissance Fort Lauderdale - Plantation. We went out to dinner by getting a Lyft that only cost $5.00 and went to J. Alexander's that was near by. For breakfast there was a fairly good buffet with typical hotel breakfast food offered but the coffee was very good.We did not think breakfast was included we charged our buffet breakfast, a few days after we got home from the cruise the hotel refunded the charge to our credit card minus the amount I tipped So guess breakfast was included..

Excellent Web Cam viewing tonight and seeing the Sails going up.

Web Cam is giving us a nice zoom in of Wind Surf for Sail Away

I sent a message but did not think it went through but it did, or at least they just zoomed into Wind Surf, she looks pretty with the sun shining on her in the late afternoon sun.

Just call into Holland America normal Customer Service, they will still assist event hough you have a HAL PCC, they will apply it for you.

A beautiful day in Sint Maarten today, Wind Surf is alone today so doubtful the the Web Cam Operator will zoom in but will try to send them a message again.

I think it is more that you see very few kids and they do not really cater to kids.

Windstar Cruises ranked number one for Best Boutique Cruise Line and Wind Spirit was voted Best Adult Only Cruise. And in a Very Large category of all cruise lines Windstar came in number 3 for Best Ocean Cruise Line. These are some pretty good numbers for Windstar. https://10best.usatoday.com/interests/explore/best-cruise-ship-cruise-line-2024/

USA Today has done their yearly Best of Cruise categories and Eurodam came in Number one for Best Alaska Cruise. https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/travel/best-alaska-cruise-2024/ Holland America also had some other mentions in other categories https://10best.usatoday.com/interests/explore/best-cruise-ship-cruise-line-2024/

Bon Voyage!!! Wishing you an amazing cruise!!

I have done 2 Japan Cruises 2017 and 2019 both on Diamond and totally agree that Princess and the Diamond Princess definitely know Japan and you will get a more Japanese feel. Princess tends to know the various regulations and rules and can change in Japan and things tend to go a lot smoother. But with that being said the itinerary for Diamond is not very good and the Celebrity itinerary is definitely much better.

While I do not know for sure but I am guessing not, I am noticing that the ships are selling out prior to the sail date. There might be an odd itinerary that may just have an opening but it appears in very recent times WS is not having problems selling out their inventory in advance.

Yes, it is at Holland House. They actually have an excellent web cam with great zoom on the camera but that needs to be done by the operator of the web cam.

It was a very beautiful day in St Maarten, not at all windy or overcast. Guessing the web cam operator was not watching the web cam today because it never zoomed in even for sail away for Anthem of the Seas and at their Sail Away there was over 40 viewers. So not expecting them to zoom in for Wind Surf in about an hour. The sun is shining on Wind Surf and looks like the aft is probably enjoying a nice sunset.

There normally is a process that need to be done but it is totally up to the Traveler to advise the airline. I have to admit the way it was described there would not be any North American Airline that would be that strict when when it comes to airlines outside North America rules do change. Although based on what is being written they may have done what they were suppose to do. This is where Travel Insurance would be extremely important.

Did you have Travel Protection Insurance? If you had HAL's Platinum Insurance this would have been covered and refunded at 90% no questions asked. If you had another travel Insurance I would certainly be looking into filing with them.

Thanks Roy!! I knew someone here would know an answer. It just shocked me since I have never seen an itinerary like this.