CruisinHarvey

We've been on a number of HAL cruises. The last 3 have been offers from the them since we're "valued casino players". They are good offers. The last 2 cruises were in Neptune suites for almost nothing. We just booked another 10 day offer, but just a balcony cabin this time. They don't indicate that's even club 21. They just say from Holland America line. Does anyone know club 21 and Ocean Players club works?

following along again. Don't forget to say hi the Cowboy this week.

The Koningsdam also has the Pinnacle Bar with a more extensive wine list but it does change. They also have a "wine making" experience across from the Culinary Arts Center restaurant called The Blend. You create your own wine using St Michele winery products. The wine list aboard the King is more extensive than the other ship. At times however the premium wines are by the bottle only.

Great thanks! I looked at the deck plans and it's nowhere to be found. The only bar found close to the Pinnacle Grill was the Ocean bar. I thought they'd have someplace where they could sell wine that's available in the specialty dining venues. Just wish they had wine list. Thanks for your help.

Booked the Koningsdam for fall. We really enjoy the Pinnacle bar on the Nieuw Amsterdam. They have more wines by the glass than other bars. DW really enjoys Poully Fuisse, and we could get it by the glass at that bar. I'd like to know if they have a wine type bar on the Koningsdam, and a price list. The HAL site is terrible.

TIA

On the Escape 4 times and Getaway 3 times. Escape is just a newer improved Getaway. They added District Brew house and Food Republic. Both venues get rave revues. The only draw back is that they added more retail to the Escape so they reduced the Mojito bar to the point where is just a stop off, rather than a destination. Big difference for us, even though the cubic feet difference is small, is the balconies have increased in size enough you can actually sit on standard balcony comfortably pointed toward the the water, more like the older ships. We also like the Supper club, much better than Cirque shows. As far as the crew goes, Escape had the best of the best, since it was the newest ship. Now that the Joy is cruising, that has been deluded a bit, but the service is still really good.

let me state my baseline.

still new to cruising. 4 on Celebrity, 1 on Princess & 1 on NCL.

I see NCL in 3rd place. X in 1st with Princess a close 2nd.

Our NCL cruise was a family cruise on Breakaway in Dec 2014.

Disappointed that it didn't offer FREE nightly shows in the main theater. I did like the club entertainment. Dueling Pianos being my fav. NOT a fan of free style dining. Not having the same wait-staff each night drops the quality. Balcony's were very small.

So after all that, one would think I would never sail NCL again. Not so. We just booked a Transatlantic on Breakaway for April. Leaving from NYC is easy for us. Sunday departure / commute is a breeze. If Bliss would have arrived on a weekend we would have done the West bound TA on Bliss. IMVHO Breakaway's TA has better port calls than Bliss. Why is it sailing to Nova Scotia (too far North) that time of year? Bermuda would have been better.

Our last cruise was a TA on Celebrity Eclipse in April. Great way to relax with the long leg of sea days. If Celebrity was leaving out of NYC for a TA I would have booked with them. Living in Patriots Nation (Go Tom Brady) not having to fly to Florida made the difference to me.

Just read your comments. I'm a little confused about the Free shows in the theater. While they repeat Broadway shows, so everyone gets a chance to see them, all the shows in the theater are free. You also didn't like the balconies.You sailed on one of the two NCL ships with balconies that small. The Getaway is the other.

If you're booking dinner reservations at a specialty restaurant, you can do that when you board the ship. They have kiosks set up in Headliners, on the left hand side. We never book our reservations online. They only give out 35% of the available reservations online anyway. So, we go to Headliners( deck 6 midship) when we board. We make our dining reservations Then we go to lunch at Taste or Savor( both deck 6 aft), for a nice quiet relaxing meal.

For shows reservations you can also use any of the screens located by the stairs on most decks. You'll also find that a lot of people don't to pre-plan but do anyway. As a result. If you show for a theater show, 10 minutes before the show, without a reservations, there are usually a good number of seats still open. .

Belize has a lot of shopping to do. But don't leave the touristy areas.

I'm surprised there's a lot of shopping in Placencia. I thought it was just a little town that until recently didn't even have a public restroom in town. What is there now?

Been on both multiple times. Can't speak to the classes you mentioned, although most all of them cost on both. Both have multiple main dining rooms, and both will serve breakfast in least one of them. Much nicer atmosphere in the morning, although you need to check the dailies, since they do close fairly early, like 9 or 9:30. Escape is newer so they've worked out of lot kinks from the Epic. If you're traveling solo on the Epic , the bathroom, or lack of bathroom, configuration in the cabins, won't effect you. If you're traveling with others, then it's worth a look at the configuration to see if it fits your party. People either love it or hate it. The Escape was traditional bathroom set up. Entertainment on both ships will be better than the Sun. They have Broadway shows on both. They both also have Headliners comedy club, where they'll have either comics, or Howl at the Moon dueling piano's every night. The Escape has the waterfront on deck 8, which is very popular. There are bars the dinner venues outside to be close to the water.

Why is it so big an issue to you of what other people do with their own money? The next time someone posts about pending CC holds from their pre-cruise stay making the available balance insufficient to pay their bill on board are you going to get snarky with them for NOT getting OBC ahead of time?

 

There are advantages and disadvantages to both buying OBC and not doing so. Enough said.

No!!!! Not enough said. If those charges make it impossible to pay your bills, why in world are you cruising? Wake up! I would never have thought about cruising if I had to worry about paying my bills. We didn't cruise for decades, for that exact reason.

This is a classic case of refundable OBC being more trouble than it's worth. If a TA gives it to you, great! Spend it. Otherwise, it's of no added value. You'll get your money back. But, now you've spent time buying it, tracking it, questioning it here, and finally getting some back. Just pay your charges when you get off the ship. It's so much easier, obviously.

Those that know about and thoroughly enjoy participating in shot o'clock, especially the consumption of "mini beers" shots.

 

 

 

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No need to spend.$99. Sheesh! . We get mini beers at the atrium bar.They make it every time we're on. We're booked for the 5th time in just a couple of months. All they need is a little liquor 43 and heavy cream.

Are you looking at Epic studio on 3/07-03/11 2019?

 

 

You would also have to factor in the DSC cost (currently $13.99 per person per day) which you can prepay or have removed from your on-board account on a daily basis.

 

Carnival is within a dollar of that per day in DSC. I really don't think that's an issue with the OP.

You should know -

 

1. its a beautiful ship

2. the crew is wonderful and always smiling

3. you will enjoy yourself

4. there are gorgeous live flower arrangements everywhere

5. the berry panna cotta is yummy

6. you will feel relaxed

7. it doesn't feel crowded

8. it is easy to navigate around

9. the Tamarind is excellent

etc., etc., etc....

 

Can you tell I love the ship?:D

I specifically agree with 9#. The food there is wonderful. The problem is, you would never pass it during a cruise, since it's really out of the way. As a result, most people don't even know it's there. We eat there at least twice every cruise.

Cruise lines will continue to charge additional fees for service because they can. All major market cruise lines do it. I cruise both NCL and HAL. Some NCL cruisers were up in arms because they raised the service fees again. Then RCI raised theirs, etc etc. etc. It's not going away. Why not use your time and talents to impact something you can control. You can't control this one.

Since Stakeout wanted us to search. LOL. I did find this thread they are saying prices are up significantly. I can't believe HAL hates that.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2511079

We choose both perks. Question. If I have an outstanding wait or or great bar tender.... do I need to carry extra cash to give extra tip if warranted? Or do they give a receipt I can add to?

They don't give receipts on the drinks with UBP. Which makes it quicker. We always keep a few bucks in our pockets for tips.

HAL'S OK it's based on what you're looking for. The service is much better than NCL. Unfortunately the entertainment is worse than my local theater group. The food is a little better on HAL. Mostly it's the demographic you need to consider(OLD, OLD then Older.) If being in bed by 11:00 is your thing, then HAL is for you. Our last cruise on HAL they had to close the main pool because there was an "accident" in it. They had drain and clean it. It was closed for 2 days. There were no children in the pool at the time. If go by the lounge where they play chamber music in the evening it reminds you of a retirement home. Half the people are asleep. Again. the food is good and service is great. It's really based on what you're looking for in a cruise. We were on the Nieuw Amsterdam our last 2 HAL cruises in a Neptune suite. Here's an example: A video is worth a 10,000 thousand words?.

Assuming this won't apply to U.K. Guests as all our cruises are AI now anyway?

 

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I understand it's against the law there to charge it. It's all baked into your cruise prices.

I'd be less worried about the white space than the open space in front of your cabin door. You're right next to the stairs and the elevators with no wall to dampen the sound from those 2 places. But, I did have a friend who was on the Epic recently, in a mini suite in that location. He and his wife had no noise problems on that cruise. It's just based on how many loud people you have using the stairs and the elevators at various times of day and night.

Hi!

 

By the way, Latitudes points have become virtually worthless.

 

Boo

With the recent changes they've added to the perks for latitudes. In addition, the new tier levels mirror those of who they think is their closest competitor, tier for tier, and that's Royal Caribbean. As far as priority boarding goes, that too was added to the latitudes tiers of platinum and above. So, more latitudes cruisers get priority boarding now. So while you may have completely valid reasons for moving to another line, it's surely not those.

If you really want to sell those certificates, how much do you want?

I had read a while back there was really litle or nothing in Placencia. At that time they didn't even have any public restrooms. Has all that changed?

Just cruise on the cruise line you want. NCL is setting pricing based on demand. MSC is setting pricing based on demand. Obviously, MSC is trying expand their footprint in the US market. If that's successful, their prices will go up. You can't blame NCL for reacting to the market. As a stock holder, I'd be mad if they didn't.

Huge Huge Huge Thumbs Up in agreement with your statement. Do not understand why people who want to dress up feel others around them need to do the same? If you want to dress up, then dress up. I don't care. It's FREESTYLE!

You're exactly right. People who complain about NCL dress code, don't want to able to dress up. They want everyone else to be forced to dress up with them. With every other mass market cruise line( Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Princess, P&O. Cunard, Disney, MSC, AIDA, Costa, even Carnival) having formal dress codes, at some point, during a cruise, you'd think they could leave the one cruise line that doesn't have one, alone.

We've never booked ahead. As a result, we have a routine we follow for every cruise. Once on board, and I'll talk about the Escape now, we go to Headliners( deck 6) just below the chandelier. They have multiple manned kiosks set up( left hand side) to make reservations. We just walk in, and make our dining reservations for the week. We then head directly to the Taste/Savor for lunch, which is just aft of Headliners. We've used this process 4 times now. We've never been given a reservations more than 15 minutes from our desired time each night.

Happy Cruising.