silvercruiser

What ship presently has Mario as its CD? He's the best!

Mario was the best CD I've ever had in hundreds of days of cruising. He kept us happy through the constant rainy weather last spring in the South Pacific and made it less painful to be missing several islands.

i use an old library card, works just fine

Sorry, don't remember the name, but it's been changed, used to be a Holiday Inn, I think. I had a room overlooking the port and was able to see the ship arrive early in the morning. I think the name Bayside is in there somewhere.

I used Luggage Free last April for the S Pacific cruise on Westerdam. Stayed in the hotel across the street from the terminal and just walked across with my carryon and got on the ship really fast. Luggage arrived in my cabin shortly after that.

Does the waiter who delivers my room service get to keep the tip I give him or does it have to be deposited into the 'pool'?

I haven't looked at the Princess website for a long time, so today I tried to find out how many FCC's I had and couldn't even find the place where they're listed. I used to find them in My Princess somehow. Where do I look? I know I have a few left that are still good.

I have a couple of cruises booked on Oosterdam, so I'm happy to hear they already have the upgraded tv's. Thanks for the replies.

Loved the interactive ty with the huge 42" screen up on the wall that we had on the Nieuw Amsterdam recently. What other HAL ships have this system? On the Westerdam last spring the tv was so small I could hardly see what was on and the choices were few.

I think they probably do have several alternate plans ready to use, since this happens fairly frequently.

I was told to come down the last night and they'd give me a check for the $3000. When I got there, though, she started peeling off $100 bils, 30 of them! I felt like I'd won the lottery. This was 8 years ago on Caribbean Princess and we gave up our balcony cabin for an inside on Lido Decik. Free cruises are the best~!

If you have access to Amazon Prime Video you can download movies and tv shows to your iPad or iPhone before you leave home. You have to be the one who pays for the Amazon Prime, tho, not one of the four people you can share the free shipping with.

Thanks for all the replies. I had asked because I noticed that repeat musters haven't been necessary for the South Pacific cruise that's being reported on a couple of blogs. Sounds like it's not a fleetwide practice. Wonder why.

Has HAL done away with making continuing passengers go to each and every new muster drill on a b2b2b2b cruise? Two years ago I sailed on the Amsterdam from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle on a combination that included a one-day cruise, an Alaska cruise and a couple of other stops and had to attend muster drills each time new passengers boarded.

When was this changed? Princess has always done it this way and I'm happy if HAL is doing it too.

I wonder what kind of cabin he books for such long voyages.

Just remember that if you're 4* you already get a 50% discount at the Exploratons Café and also the mini bar stuff in your cabin. When I used the card to get a cappuccino at Explorations Café I did NOT get the discount.

On my b2b cruises on Amsterdam a few years ago I dropped the Explore 4 when that promotion ended and saved over $1000 for the 5 weeks I sailed. I already get 50% off on special coffees and sure wouldn't have spent $1000 on wines, etc.

I was thrilled with my upsell to a rear Vista cabin on Voyage of the Vikings in 2013. Even though, as a solo, I paid double the upgrade cost, it was still several thousand dollars less than what it would have cost if booked initially. I understood that I wouldn't get double points, so was surprised when at the end of the cruise I got a nice note from Captain Peter Bos (one of my alltime faves) welcoming me to 4* status and including a 4* pin. When I got home I called HAL to ask what the deal was and was told that it was a mistake and that I still had a few more days to reach 4*. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny.

RomeCabs, most definitely. Stefano is super reliable, also does wonderful all-day tours of Rome if you're there a few days early. Have used him several times.

On my April cruise I just went down to the front desk the night before we disembarked and asked for my OBC that was left. No problem. They just peeled off the bills and gave them to me, about $300.

I stayed right across the street at the Wyndam, watched my ship come in early in the morning and later, when I saw people getting off the ship I just walked down to the stoplight, crossed the street and was on the ship quickly. I'd shipped my huge bag ahead of time, so just had my carry-on to deal with.

Go down to the front desk the night before you disembark and ask them for cash for the amount of money left in your onboard credit. They'll gladly give you the money. Or maybe they automatically put the credit on your credit card? I imagine that if you phone HAL for the answer maybe you'd get different answers each time you called.

On the Oasis last year I ended up buying lots of stuff to use up my OBC because the front desk told me I had to spend it or lose it. (I'd forgotten that I had prepaid gratuities, so had about $150 left in OBC.) Not true, as I found out when I got my credit card statement and found a credit for the unused OBC.

Tampa Girl, I think you're the first person who ever even hinted that I'm a patient person. Thank you!!! Actually, I stayed up late last night checking out cruises on the West Coast and wondering if I really want to fly to Seattle to do a b2b that hits some of the California and Oregon spots.

I guess I was patient on the South Seas Westerdam cruise in April, because the weather was out of our control and the captain was such a cutie pie that he made it seem not so bad. But this is just plain sneaky, springing big groups on us. And I wonder if the specialty dining rooms will be tied up too.

One more thing....once you see the list of groups you have to click on each one to find out what ship it's on, when it's sailing, etc.

Yes, you can check for groups on any cruise line you want. This website was posted on this thread awhile back, but here it is again.

http://themecruisefinder.com/index.html

Choose "advanced search" and on the next page keep the "all categories" option and then put in either the name of the ship or just the name of the cruiseline in the search field.