LAFFNVEGAS

Congratulations!! Deck 5 aft facing on the Oosterdam is the BEST!! Those balconies are the largest, staterooms also slightly larger. As for motion yes there is some but it is a totally different feel from being forward on the ship. The movement tend to happen more at higher speeds. I am one that gets motion sick and I will pick all day long an aft facing stateroom.

I would absolutely love to do this and not take a second thought of the price. Unfortunately I would be doing it along lol DH would say he is going to the Lido to eat 😉

Thanks I guess I was thinking of NA and Eurodam, I actually have not been on a Vista Class for quite a few years, mostly NA and Eurodam the last several/ I guess I was thinking Vista Class was the same since I know that Pinnacle Class is totall different.

Not on the Westerdam. I believe they are only on Lido Deck around the Lido Pool. But someone could correct me if I am wrong.

I would guess HAL knows since that is what is being offered for all pre and post cruises that sail from Treiste. HAL hotels provide Airport transfers to the hotel and tranfers to the ship.

I would assume bus.

They use the Hilton Molino Stucky Venice.

The places for me that were always crowded and lines. Dutch Cafe, Front Desk, Then at some peak times Shore Excursions Desk, Buffet, and even Explorations Cafe in the mornings. Of Course evening anywhere near BB King was crowded.

Oh No, I am so sorry to hear this about your truck getting broke into here in Vegas. 😟

Most Definitely!! 👍

This would be a good niche if HAL was Consistent with their food quality, offerings and management. One never knows if the Pinnacle Grill will be a good one sailing you are on or not. Same with Main Dining Room, Lido, Tamarind. This has been that way for many years. Back in the day when I easily did 4 HAL cruises a year they would be different unless I cruise the same ship just a month or two apart. I have never ever found that on Norwegian. They are probably the most consistent cruise line I have ever sailed. Princess varies but not as drastically as HAL as done for year. I have been told my management many years ago that a lot depends on what the revenue from cabin sales is for a projected week and provisions ordered and used are based on that. It stand to reason if they are having to give away the staterooms they are not going to spend a whole lot of provisions. If HAL wants to really concentrate on their niche passengers and earn more revenue per stateroom they need to become more consistent and not cheapen their product. People will be wanting to return and willing to pay more.

Leanne, I hope you are feeling better. I started the itching feeling just reading what you went through, I have had hives several times. I am very allergic to wool and it if lays on my skin a long time I break out in huge welts. I also break out in hives if I drink a lot of wine with high amounts of sulfites but My mouth swells up and gets tingly before that happens lol It was only when I was young and foolish I did not catch the signs. But I know hives are not fun and can be scary. Thanks for giving us the link for watching the ships in Juneau!!

Sadly I really do not think the visa problem is why many of the crew are short staffed. It is just an easy excuse they can pass off. That does not seem to be the probel with other cruise lines.

Hank, I totally agree. I also have never signed any receipt for drinks on NCL, as a matter of fact when you have the drink package there is no limit. The last several NCL cruises specifically out last cruise in February there was a group of 6 of us that always dining together 5 of us ended up always getting the same Riesling so at each restaurant they would just bring over bottles of that wine and just keep pouring it for us. We often lost count of how many glasses were poured lol I truly love the option of upgrading to the Haven on NCL. I agree that it is as if HAL is going backward to compete with this market. Princess does realize they need to get into this market at least it appears that way with the NEW Sphere Class ships. Time will tell with that. I do think that HAL could do many things to start to improve their Suite product instead I feel it has lost so many of the perks it once had. One thing that comes to mind was the special Suite buffet brunch they would serve for suites on the last sea day up on the Crow's Nest. There are so many things that no longer are there that now the Neptunes Suites are just a larger stateroom with a big ticket price.

What is interesting itis not even the lower end staterooms not selling with HAL even Neptune and Signature Suites. With Princesss their sister brand and competition. Suites are pretty much sold out and what is remaining is considerbly more than what HAL is offering for a SA Neptune Suite. NCL is drastically higher with very few remaining. With all this being said I will state HAL has always had alot of very low price stateroomsveven before covid. I think they always planned to make up profits selling cheap cabins but hoping people will spend money on expensive excursions I do not have the data on that but seriously doubt that iw working like it did 10 years ago. I totally agree I think HAL could do better with round trip Alaska from California. Princess and Carnival have been extremely successful with those itineraries.

I agree it is a beautiful day there, Sunny 54 degrees, the weather forecast for Juneau this week shows Sunny all week till Friday, then Saturday chance ofrain and definitely next week at this time cooler and cloudy.

Carnival has 3 ships in Alaska this year. The New Carnival Luminosa which not brand new but new to the Carnival Fleet but still a newer ship. Looking at her sailings in the same time period for late August into September that ship is totally sold out for every week. Next is an older ship Carnival Spirit sailing out of Seattle, August 29th Insides start at $839.00 per person (the week prior it is $889.00 pp Ocean View is $1179.00 and a Cove Balcony $1319.00 PP an actual Ocean View balcony non-obstructed is $1439.00 Carnival Miracle is also doing Round trip sailings from San Francisco and is totally sold out but those are unique with sailing from California. Those have been sold out for a long time. Thos Spirit Sailings are pretty picked over and not much availability from what I can see.

Most of the Nay Sayers myself included are well aware of HAL being Cheap and I have stated several times I am sailing on the Westerdam with Low Expectation but I am saving $4000 booking HAL Corner aft Neptune over my normal NCL Haven that I orginally placed on hold before finding an available corner aft on HAL. DH and I discussed it and we thought the $4000 savings was worth going into the differences we knew would occur.

OK here is the run down for number of ships in Alaska and their total Maximum Berths for their ships. Celebrity 3 ships Total Max Berths 9502 HAL 7 ships Berths 17219 NCL 5 ships Berths 17452 Princess 8 ships Berths 29751 RCI 4 ships Berths 14770 HAL does not have the most ships nor the most berths in Alaska, That Honor goes to Princess yes many of the Princess sailings are quite full with many categories closed the whole season. That is not the case with HAL. Across all of the Alaska sailings HAL has the lowest prices including with Have It All. What is interesting for sailings that are already well past final payment HAL has a lot of dates with Interior cabins for $669.00 per person out of Seattle and even several $379 pp out of Vancouver or Whittier, Princess on the other hand has N/A. No Availability on most of their sailings. They do have a few cheap Interiors out of Whittier but very few.

Ray, to see where HAL stands in this is to then look at this same date for Alaska end of August and look at Princess, NCL, Celebrity and RCL These are lowest price for each category or remaining categories Discovery Princess Aug 27 Inside $824 OV SOLD OUT Balcony $1213 NCL Encore Aug 27 Inside $879 OV $1319 Balcony $ 1649 Celebrity Sept 1 All Categories Sold out RCL Quantum OFS Inside $ SOLD OUT OV$ $1619 Balcony $1839 All four of these have very limited availability yet both Westerdam and Eurodam are pretty much wide open with no categories really closed....My Question is Why is This? The other cruise line pricing is considerablyhigher exception is Princess but they are still higher. HAL should be able to have the same prices as Princess or even higher but they do not. I agree HAL pricing should be a lot higher but they are not.

I looks forward to hearing about your second week on board the Westerdam. Now that they have gotten their feet wet so to speak in Alaska mode 7 day cruises the crew may be getting a little bit more into routine. Let us know what things are happening for Alaska cruising. Thanks so much!!

I certainly hope and would love to see some changes for our September Alaska cruise on the Westerdam. Anything new I would welcome. If in fact this is fleet wide or especially for Alaska that could help to encourage HAL going in the right direction and bringing back old HAL Mariners as well as encouraging the new Mariners sailing. BTW I totally agree with having Mark Pells as HD definitely one of the good ones. 🙂

I do sail on other lines and that is how I know that HAL could be doing a LOT better job in numerous areas also know they use to be very competive. Since My last HAL cruise which was July on the Rotterdam that over all I was not at all impressed with. Specifically all dining options, lack of crew and service and the entertainment even on the Rotterdam. The Main stage was the same stuff I have seen numerous times. It really does get old after a while. Possibly if some ships had different shows??? But I do sail on other lines. After July last year was on the NCL Bliss in November, this was an amazing cruise. One of the best in the last 5 years. Full capacity of passengers. Yes Entertainment had already started to be cut back but there is entertainment all over the place. They have some of the best Specialty restaurants at sea. While we book Haven we usually only eat evening meals once or twice a week in the Haven Restaurant. Too many other great meals to be had on the ship. In December we were on the Discovery Princess, we had not sailed Princess since just weeks before the shut down in February 2020. We did see obvious cutbacks especially in the Main Dining Room and felt the Quality of their Specialty Dining had also gone down. But their pricing for Specialty dining was less than HAL and NCL. But what was great was their Entertainment. The shows were absolutely amazing, there was entertainment every where ont he ship. Lots of music, great people watching in the Piazza. I have to admit we had lots of fun each and every day and evening. Princess earned more points in my book with that cruise. Next was February 2023 we flew to Miami for the NCL Encore, again we were in the Haven, actually everything was perfection it was perfect and yes if money was no object I would be sailing NCL Haven for for every cruise I ever booked but...... right now I think NCL has over priced themselves. To book the same cruise we did in February for the same suite for next February the price is within a few dollars of double what we previously paid. Yes, I love NCL and yes they also have had cutbacks not nearly to to extend of HAL but I draw the line on the extreme over paying. But the difference with NCL and HAL those staterooms are selling at the high prices and they are not cutting the prices as much as HAL. The few prices they have cut after final they are actually giving back to passengers in the form of Future Cruise Credit at 100% of the difference. Why I am returning to HAL..., well old habits are hard to break, I keep hoping to see improvements and we are 11 days from reaching our 300 day medallion, and our second cruise with HAL this year we will hit 5 Star on about the 2nd day. You might say it was always a challenge to try to get to the next level. We had originally always thought we would go after our 500 days but both DH and I have given up on that. That is not going to happen. There are too many other cruise lines out there that we enjoy. I do have hope that Holland America can turn around. But they really need to start to make improvements now because there are many of us that want to travel and ready to spend money. Ten years ago I still cruised other lines but strongly would always go to HAL not so any more.

I debated if to write this under two of the active threads on the Westerdam or just state my opinion seperately. I decided to do the latter.Below is just my personal thoughts and things that keep coming to mind as I have been reading many posts over the last several weeks. I have been closely following Westerdam since we will be sailing on her in September and loved following the Live From Japan thread by Hank. I think we need to come to the realization that Holland America may be at a Cross Roads of Sinking or Cruising. I know that many HAL Loyalist like to look at the cruise line with Rose Colored Glasses but there are some facts coming out that one cannot deny. The Cut Backs are glaring especially on the 2 remaining R Class Ships and all of the Vista and Signature Class ships. Money seems to be going into the Pinnacle Class ships with a few exceptions of the oldest being the Koningsdam. They are cutting corners on maintenance; supplies are not being delivered to ships. We are past the time of stating Supply Chain because this is not happening on any other major lines with the exception of Princess but not to the severity of HAL. Unknown if this is HAL just not ordering supplies or if vendors have cut them off for nonpayment. Shortage of Crew is a major problem that does not seem to be a problem or at least near as severe on other lines, my guess is many crew have gone on to other cruise lines and or got out so not to have to work under the conditions they are now subject to. We have seen where other cruise lines are offering jobs at enticing bonus to get crew and many are jumping ship. All of the above leads to low moral of crew, because passengers are not happy so they complain, in turn passengers complain so much that HAL has to give extra ship board credit or refund some services, but in turn the past guest most likely will not return. HAL has already started giving away lots of sailings dates that are post final payment that are not selling well as there are promotions for Mariners. An Interesting tidbit, comparing many Europe Cruises and even a few Alaska sailings to Princess most of the Princess categories are Wait Listed/Sold Out, those available are quite costly compared to comparable Holland America itinerary. At this point HAL needs to make some major decisions. Start to fix the problems and put money into this, possibly with the help of CCL Corp. Happy Cruisers mean returning passengers which help to equal Happy Crew. Turn around would be they would not have to give away everything including dropping cruise fares, giving away Ship Board Credit to make passengers happy. This investment may take some time to reap rewards but may make it to not sink the ship. Or continue in the downward spiral of lack of provision from vendors, maintenance issues and give away free cabins to fill the ships. They have already dropped to a low in Land Side Customer Service with outsourcing that and reports continue to come in with continued reports of constant long lines at Customer Service Desk on board.. I have seen this since the restart yet did not see this on other cruise lines. From the restart they went into the mode of huge cutbacks which is very evident. Mostly noted is Entertainment and Dining. I would say at almost two years since restart they have got to see this is not working and need to make some changes. Or is it CCL Corp Plans to Sell off Holland America and at this point has no plan to invest more money to HAL. Don't get me wrong, I have 3 HAL cruises currently booked and have no plans to cancel, my September is already paid in full and December more than half paid off. But many of the things being spoke of I actually witnessed last July on the Rotterdam the Flag ship. I truly want to see a turn around for HAL but know I must cruise with lower expectations.

Sadly the DO NOT UPGRADE no longer works, This has been a thing for several years with Princess that it means absolutely nothing (they gave the excuse last year of needing stateroom for quarantine but this was not always true) what I have seen happen frequently now even if marked DO NOT UPGRADE, someone with just move them at HAL especially if they are booked on a Collectors Voyage and the price drops. Some department seems to think it is a good thing to catch the price drop before the passengers does and give an upgrade within the same meta but may not be a good location. Just a location that is not selling. Often times the original stateroom that was reserved is still there but at a lower price. This was a practice being done by Princess prior to the shut down but has now trickled down to HAL.