joekerstef

Bon voyage Bill & Mary Ann! Looking forward to following your adventures. Thank you for sharing with us armchair travelers!

No, you just punch out (but not completely remove) the numbers called.

This is correct, but I did see people using daubers on our cruise, and honestly I might've preferred to have one. When you're playing coverall and you start having a lot of numbers punched out on a sheet of six boards, punching out numbers can be a pain.

Happy New Year to you and yours, Jacqui, and to all of the CC HAL fans as well! Wishing everyone a dam good 2017! :D

how many waterslides does one cruise ship need? :confused:

i'm here patiently waiting for any of these ships to leave, but especially indy so i can see e-dam. have a great cruise, GoProCruiser!

thank you lais and euro cruiser for your veendam reviews. I too have read of past problems with this ship on the CC boards with a little trepidation, so it's good to hear of more recent positive experiences. I'll be on Veendam in May, and I'm a wee bit sad that we'll be in port in Boston with Maasdam just because I think I'd rather be on her with her nice wide open back end and good memories from our cruise on her earlier this year. But I'll get over it because heck we'll be on another dam cruise.... :D

When we left SeaTac on a Thursday in June this year, the TSA line was HORRIBLE. You couldn't even tell where it began, and it snaked all over the terminal. We had TSA pre-check and it was the one time I was really glad that my mother asked for a wheelchair because we zipped right into line and then got to cut right to the front. It just took forever to get to the stupid line. So beware of that. Also traffic going into the airport was pretty bad.

Was on this itinerary this year, departed 6 June. The weather was perfect (maybe an hour of rain right after we left Icy Strait Point), never saw a mosquito, did get a nice sunburn in Homer. There were very few children and the ones that were there pretty much stuck together and were well-behaved. The only (minor) negative is that we were too early to see the salmon spawning. We also didn't get to go up Tracy's Arm because of ice; we did Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier instead, lots of seals. Also no port was crowded; think there were three ships in at Ketchikan and Juneau but neither were overrun with tourists. Doing it again, and given relatively equal costs, I might at least try the July 3 departure to have a better chance for the salmon, but I think you'll be happy with any of those dates. Enjoy!

edited to add that grabbing a cab to Pier 91 in Seattle is very easy. and i found the check-in at Seattle to be very easy.

We got this on the last cruise and instead of two cards (as listed on our reservation), only one. Actually, this was easier for us to use.

That actually would be good for us too. I'd happily give my mother $25 to do whatever with to have just one $50 beverage card for me as she's not likely to get much use out of hers for booze or anything else.

Can someone remind me please... was it one beverage card ($50) or one per person?

of course it's not on my confirmation.

 

Thanks.

Page 2 of our confirmation shows two $25 beverage cards. This info is listed on our conf. as "Special Services" and is under the cancellation fees matrix.

well this seems like a much better explanation than the cruise critic article that was posted as a sticky. seems to me like they're trying to combine the crow's nest, library, explorations cafe, FCC, excursion desk, and maybe the local guides presentations into one arena. i'm sort of intrigued and not very. i'm in the does a lot of research beforehand crowd, and when HAL introduced their new location guides on their website within the last year, i wasn't terribly impressed. don't really want to use my cruise time looking things up. presentations, maybe. sales pitches, no thanks. but boy did i love sitting up in the crow's nest with a beverage staring out the windows and looking for whales or chatting with people. dunno. we'll see i guess when it rolls out.

so is this the "big announcement" that people were speculating about?

i don't get it.

The cruise ships are missing the point of the library if they are closing them down because of e-books.

 

A library area is an area with very comfy chairs with a view of the ocean, a sanctuary for people to go to relax & do relaxing, peaceful, on-the-quiet side things such as reading (hardcovers, softcovers, paperbooks, kindles, nooks, e-readers, or 'whatever'), knitting, jigsaw puzzles, journal writing, research reference books for up coming ports, etc.

It's area where the people in the inside cabins (and anyone else too of course) can go and quietly read and watch the ocean go by. We always get a balcony for pretty well just that purpose, but not every one wants to spend the money on that.

 

It's not just to borrow books. It also LOOKS and feels like days gone by just having a quiet secluded area with lots of books on display. They can still do all of this by having the reference books open under 'somewhat' supervision at certain times of the day in order to check out reference books combined with 'Take a Book, Leave a Book' shelves for the other times.

 

(snip)

THIS, so.much.this. I'm actually surprised by what I'm hearing about the libraries on this thread. When I was on Maasdam in June, the library was almost always packed with people reading and doing puzzles and the like. There was a librarian too (a very nice one). The only thing I didn't like about it was that the cigarette smell from the casino wafted into the side of the library that I preferred to sit in. I can see them maybe not buying so many books in the future, but it's nice to have a place to chill indoors that is not infused with "bar culture" however one conceives it (live music, trivia, booze, dancing, whatever). I would be very disappointed to not find such a place on the ship, particularly on a longer (two weeks or more) voyage. But it's also a bummer to hear that some of the bar areas are being under/not utilized too. Hopefully HAL takes note of the comments and reconsiders for future renovations.

Happy to add both of them for you :)

 

they both sound great:). May I add the in lieu of on the FCL description? I LOVE it :)

Of course! I've done enough graduations in my life (this'll be my second master's degree). I'd much rather be on a dam ship having some dam fun than sit through any more "inspiring" go conquer the world graduation speeches.

Hi Jacqui- I have two cruises to add (yay!)

Veendam - 20 May 2017 - 7 Day Bermuda - cruise in lieu of grad school graduation :D

Maasdam - 22 April 2018 - 20 Day Panama Canal

The Plan A Cruise section of HAL website now includes dates well into 2018. The last sailing listed for Maasdam is in April 2018 from San Diego to Boston.

I am currently booked on the 22 April 2018 San Diego--->Boston Panama Canal Cruise. As far as I know, that's Maasdam's last listed cruise *currently* but there isn't too much else posted into May 2018 yet either.

I was on Maasdam earlier this year, and as someone else on this thread mentioned, Capt. Smit said at the Mariner Luncheon not to believe the rumors about Maadam's relegation to the dustbin or whatever. He said she has *at least* two more years left with HAL.

And even if our cruise ends up being her last or near last with HAL, I highly doubt they'll let her waste away. Doesn't benefit HAL in any way to do so. And again, as others have mentioned, people who sailed on both Ryndam and Statendam before they went to P&O thought those ships were in good condition at the end. I'm just not gonna worry about it. :)

I believe we purchased HAL's cancellation insurance when we made final payment, which was a day or two before the due date.

Many thanks @StLouisCruisers for pointing out this sale! I was able to convince my mother to call and rebook our Panama Canal cruise. Cut $550 pp off of the fare (which is the cost of our port fees), got the prepaid hotel service charges, and the $25 beverage card and somehow kept all of our $125 OBC. Lost E4, but that didn't really benefit us that much so I'm very pleased with the outcome!

I know everyone raves about the poached eggs, but I'm a big fan of the made-to-order omelet station in the Lido. Had that every morning with a bagel and oh yes one of those sticky raisin buns.

In the dining room, can't go wrong with lamb or duck and I had an oxtail dish (something completely new to me) that was delicious. Try any of the fruit soups too; listed as an appetizer, but they make a great dessert too. Someone mentioned the made-to-order pasta station in the Lido--I discovered that very late in my cruise and wish I'd known about it earlier. I liked checking out the late night buffet even if not partaking.

I really enjoyed hanging out in the Crow's Nest (when quiet) or even better the open sea deck above it (it's open on Maasdam, newer ships I believe have the paneling so less wind but not the same experience) and looking for whales and dolphins.

Falling asleep in a lounger in the library. comfy, and I was hardly the only one. :)

I wish I had spent more time walking around the promenade deck and checking out some of the talks. Also wish I'd ordered room service for something other than breakfast (which as others have stated is inferior in quality to what you'd get in the Lido or MDR). Also wish I'd gotten to play trivia, always seemed to miss it.

Veendam's serious overbite.

i'm sure the aft cabins are nice, but much prefer maasdam's look. :)

oh heck, the last two cruise ships are on the way out and there's a tanker waiting to come in. I may as well stick around. ;)

some dam long toots from Nieuw Amsterdam! Great parade after the lull there, and still two more ships to go. Not sure I'm going to stick around for the finale though.

Veendam is very toot happy this afternoon! Then again, I would be too if I were headed to the PanCan for turkey day.... :)

tgeonetta, have a great cruise! watching you back out now! :D

looks like the slightly smaller behemoth of the seas will sneak out before Veendam, but at least we'll finally get to see NA at the pier.

edit: whoops, that the celebrity ship. other behemoth is behind NA.