mrmoviezombie

We love the music but yes it's way too loud. So much so that like others we actively avoid those areas of the ship. Otherwise we would be regulars at those venues to drink and listen to the music.

I'm quite sure that it's well into the ear damaging range that wouldn't be permitted on land.

We tip the room attendant (and assistant) about $10-$15 extra per day. They have the most direct effect on our cruise experience, and they are seriously over worked. Especially the ships that are not using assistants.

Most of the other staff we don't interact with regularly enough (or beyond normal service requirements) to warrant tips over the HSC, I assume it covers these folks well enough. We have occasionally handed out a $20 envelope for specific folks that went over and above.

We were on Konigsdam in Oct. The Tamarind there is the first time we thought an up-charge restaurant was worth it. We ended up going three times. 

Watch out for that fortune cookie desert, it's *HUGE* and full of chocolate.

1 hour ago, RuthC said:

Yes. It's the expenditures attributed to your account (minus casino charges) that credit toward Mariner status. It does not matter when they were charged, nor even who paid for them. 

But that are only applied at the end of the cruise. If you are really close to 4* you can call the Mariner folks, I've heard they sometimes allow you to get the perk for your next cruise.

For us the free laundry was the definitely the best perk, completely changed how we pack. The 50% off the wine packages was was also really good, basically it returns the wine prices back to their "normal" land pricing.

On 11/15/2019 at 4:10 PM, cruisehome said:

so everyone on the ship is outside in the same place at one time??

 

celebrity has the drills in the ship in different locations - can't imagine.

 

carol

That is the point of the drill, because that is exactly what will happen if you actual need to get in the lifeboats.

It's not going to be like a normal disembark where you wait comfortably in a lounge waiting for your group to be called.

I was able to get to the HDMI port in 11026, but it was quite a tight squeeze.

You can opt to pay for the flights ahead of final payment. This usually unblocks those airlines that don't allow seat assignments.

On our last cruise, because we wanted to pay for specific seats on a Lufthansa flight, we did this. That got us the airline locator that we could then use to pay for the seats on the Lufthansa web site.

And two screenshots of her coming in around 6:50am

https://www.fremantleports.com.au/the-port/harbourcams/harbourcam-2

Looks like a glorious day for your stop

Bamboo Room Restaurant Haines AK https://binged.it/30Mt01r

Best halibut we have had anywhere

The rail really is good, but save it for a cruise that stops in Skagway, which is just about all of them. You'll be back.

My advice is stay in Hanies. It's a quirky little town that hasn't been overrun with cruise ship tourists yet.

Do the river rafting excursion in the morning, see the town in the afternoon.

Skagway is an over rated tourist trap. (but the rail trip is nice).

Do check with HAL on pricing a pre-cruise hotel, that usually includes the transfers. Both airport to hotel and hotel to ship. When we come in a day or two early to Amsterdam that has always been a very nice private car.

One thing to note, those pre-cruise spending amounts don't count until after the cruise. They don't credit mariner points as you spend. They are only tallied up at the end of a cruise.

15 minutes ago, mcmarya said:

EXC cruises are on the Maasdam.

That's what's confusing people, it's two different things. Read closely for the "in-depth" part.

EXC is the shore excursion program on all ships. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/onboard-activities/cruise-activities/explorations-central.html Discover the connections that unite us across borders and cultures. Explorations Central™ (EXC™) is immersive onboard programing designed to make your journey more engaging, vivid and meaningful. From EXC Talks,™ to EXC Encounters™ to a chat with your EXC Guide™, you’ll feel the spirit of a region come to life.

EXC "in-depth" is the extra enrichment program on Maasdam. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/news/2018-press-releases/news-20180215-MaasdamItineraries18.html 

Quote "From September 2018 through April 2019, EXC In-Depth Voyages expand on Holland America Line’s exciting Explorations Central^TM (EXC^TM) programming by creating a total experience on board and ashore. "

I cannot find it now, but one of the contracts I read said that EXC (and the shore excursion they offer) was a separate company not related to HAL.

We used the public transit. It's been a few years but my memory of it was it being quick and easy to get around. The only issue was getting turned around on a bus to subway switch that had us going away from town until we realized and switched over to the other direction.

We were also on the first 21 day loop.

Outside of the extra talks, and certainly in Alaska, the EXC concept only looks like a lot of branding and nothing else has changed. For example, there wasn't any difference in the excursions that I could tell.

Also, a lot of the talks overlapped with the port days and were not repeated on Sea Days, so it wasn't possible to attend them. On one of the early sea days the geologist only had one 45 min talk. That doesn't seem like an intensive enrichment program to me.

For the new port stops, most were excellent. Port Alberini and Astoria were great, both were big enough to have interesting things going on. And hadn't been overrun with cruiser tourist traps, as the Astoria bus driver said, "No diamonds international here". And we got lucky with weather and visiting when a local market day was setup.

The rest you have to like the sleepy, small town Alaska vibe.

16 hours ago, aliaschief said:

Five more sea days until San Francisco.

And we can't wait for you to get here 🙂

Hmmm... That sounds like just the deposit. Two people at $600 for 21+ day cruise?

Yeah, moving around a full refundable deposit happens all the time.

+2 to Haines. We now pick cruises that stop at Haines rather than Skagway.

We loved the float down the river. It's a nice quiet gentle trip.

Also check out the American Bald Eagle Foundation, it's small but good.

18 hours ago, expectGREATthings said:

There's absolutely no way Holland America Line is going to dilute the alcohol in any way, shape or form.

Of course a profit seeking corp would never do anything that would make it more money...

https://apnews.com/99d1e11177f44ae1b99c14979695ec37

"The court filings said the monitor found that Carnival and its subsidiaries repeatedly falsified records, as recently as September 2018, when an engineer on Holland America’s Westerdam ship falsified maintenance records to make it appear he had cleaned and tested equipment when he had not. The same ship, according to court filings, dumped 26,000 gallons of grey water into Glacier Bay National Park in September 2018."

On 4/9/2019 at 1:37 PM, foodsvcmgr said:

I’m in the business and never felt I was getting a particularly weak drink, frequently just the opposite as some have stated.

Keep in mind that watering down bottles or putting cheap liquor in a high end bottle is not only unethical but highly illegal in most jurisdictions. 

Not worth taking the risk. 

23 hours ago, Peckishpixie said:

Well, it's very illegal and they can be inspected in any port of call so it would be pretty dumb if they were. They already have a 95% markup on their drinks. I cant imagine they would break the law for another 2 or 3 percent 

Just what jurisdiction do you think applies at sea? Do not make the mistake in thinking that most of your home country legal protections apply in international waters, they don't. Especially on ships flying a flag of convivence. And any of the real legal protections you might have are probably waived by the contact you signed to get onboard.

I'm fairly certain that they could serve water and call it alcohol, the only consequence would be bad reviews.

You can actually buy the tickets online ahead of time. https://www.ns.nl/producten/en/meest-gekocht/p/enkele-reis

Just pick the date, start and end of the trip.

And either have them on your phone, or print them out.

Really cheap, We recently did that for our Schiphol to Amsterdam trip. 4.50 euro one-way.

Only had to scan the ticket at the exit gate at Amsterdam Centraal

Make sure you select one-way, it defaults to round-trip (meaning same-day) round trip.

One last thing that no one has mentioned.

At a lot of places now the CC machine asks you for which currency to do the transaction. Always pick the local one, that way your CC or Bank controls the exchange rate. If you pick the USD option then the merchant's bank is doing the exchange, usually at a very poor rate.

Was that just moving a deposit? Or was that the full final payment amount transferred to the new cruise?

I've found the easiest way to find the interesting repositioning cruises is to filter for a specific ship, and then follow them forward or backwards in time.

You will see them do multiple laps in some part of the world, then you see the repositioning cruise to somewhere else, and then the set of laps it does in that new place. And so on.

Following the ship gives you a different perspective.