Analog187

I'll try to do that when I get home. The internet here isn't the best and we are really busy this trip. I have a lot of blog stuff to get caught up on still.

Day 6 - Flam What an amazing place. Once again, I'm happy we have a balcony for this cruise. Waking up to that view is incredible. After breakfast we walked around for a bit and checked out the shops. There's really not much of a town here as it's mostly tourist stuff. There is a waterfall you can walk to but it's a bit of a hike. We walked about halfway there to get a decent pic and headed back. We went back on the ship to have lunch. With most people off the ship, it was so much easier to get some food and actually get some service. Huge difference from breakfast which is just a disaster. The big thing to do in Flam is to take the train up to the top of the mountain. I did see a bunch of people get on a boat to cruise up the fjord but the ship literally does that on the way out so I don't see the point of that. The train ride is just amazing from the get go. You get a better shot of that waterfall we walked to and then as you ascend up the mountain the views just keep coming one after another. The train hugs the one side of the mountain which gives you amazing views into the valley. There's so many waterfalls. It's impossible to keep count. Some are massive, some are skinny. You want to sit on the right side of the train as that's where most of the views are. There are some views on the other side but you can catch them on the way down by standing up and going over to the door. There's not a ton on that side and you'll know when to get up. No need to switch seats. The only boring part was when we had to wait for the other train to pass. It took about 10 minutes. Other than that, it was great. There was a 5 minute stop at the waterfall which is really cool. The train literally stops right there. Everyone gets right back on the train to get to the end just a few minutes away. We didn't bother to get off the train so in a few minutes, it was time to head back down. We stopped at the waterfall again but there was really no reason to get out since we just saw it. The views were great going down as well. I sat at a window that I could pull down which really helped with the pictures. I highly recommend that. We didn't have to wait where the trains pass but we did stop there briefly as it's a station. Before I know it, we were back at the ship. The whole thing took 2 hours. It was really incredible and I can't suggest it enough. We bought our tickets from vy(dot)no. If I had to nitpick anything it is that some people from other cultures have no concept of indoor voices or that singing in public is just not acceptable (yes, they were singing). So we couldn't always hear the announcements which were helpful since they were about the history of the area and stuff like that. Back on the ship we relaxed for a bit in the room and then went to MDR at 5pm for an early dinner. Decent amount of people at that time. When we did that on our last cruise there was no one there. Service was good but the food just seems cheap. Had the chicken again which was low quality as were the mashed potatoes. Cafeteria type stuff really. Hopefully the prime rib tomorrow is better. We ate early because we wanted to watch the sail out of the fjord. We started to pull away around 6:45 so we headed for the bow. This was probably the best experience of the cruise so far. The fjord is like another planet. Just amazing. This is the whole point of this cruise and the weather was perfect although it does get cold on the bow. We stayed on there for about a half hour until we made a turn and the wind really hit us. From there we went up to the Crow's Nest and we're surprised to find two seats right by the starboard side window (where the good views were). We stayed there for two hours just watching the fjord go by. The pictures don't even look real. I'm sure people think I photoshopped them or something even though I don't even have photoshop. We then went to the 9:30 show which was the dancers again. The bass was still up too high which is annoying. Guess they're not gonna fix that. The dancing was good but it wasn't the style that I like from the other day. There was a singer this time for some songs and we weren't into that so we bailed about halfway through. The wife went upstairs and I went to the casino for a bit. Didn't do so well this time but I suppose my luck had to end. Pretty sure we are still ahead though. It's now 11pm and it looks more like 6pm. We are still sailing by the fjords with snow-capped mountains so I've been typing this and glancing out the windows to watch the scenery at the same time. If you are looking to do a Norway cruise, make sure Flam is on the itinerary.

Day 5 - Alesund We woke up to a cold, cloudy day but the town still looked more exciting than Molde. We got off the ship after breakfast and there was a ticket window for the hop on, hop off bus so we bought our tickets. We were told the bus was coming at 10. It was 9:30 so we walked around a bit and then as we were coming back, we saw the bus pull up - at 9:50. There was already a line and only a few people got off so most people in line couldn't get on. We were hoping that there was another bus coming at 10. By 10:05 we realized this probably wasn't going to happen. At this point, the line was over 60 people deep. I went to go speak with one of the workers to find out what's going on. They were very rude and the guy said "I didn't go on the ship and tell all 10,000 of you to buy tickets". Of course, the ship doesn't hold 10,000 people but "it sucks to be you" was the message. We would just have to wait for the next bus whenever that is. The next bus finally came at 10:35. We wanted to take the bus to the viking village but this bus doesn't go there despite the website showing otherwise. We really shouldn't have done this but lesson learned to look at the map first. Besides them selling too many tickets for the busses that they had, it really only went two places - up a hill for a great view and an aquarium, which we didn't have an interest in. The other stops are about a 5 minute walk from the ship. Kinda pointless. A lot of the commentary on the recording repeats itself. I cannot recommend this at all. There's a little fake train thing that goes up to the viewpoint that is probably much cheaper. We were able to get out at the viewpoint, take some pictures and then get on the same bus. We then just took it back to the beginning. Took over an hour. We then went back to the ship and had lunch. After that, we got back off the ship and walked around for a while and checked out some shops. At this point it was sunny so we got some good pictures. Nice easy port stop but there wasn't a million things to do. This is fine with us because there will be more to do in other ports and we don't want to be that tired. Much like yesterday, we took a nap. Dinner tonight was Pinnacle Grill. The candied bacon was great. We were not impressed with our steaks at all. Mine was cold and her's was cooked too much. The taste was OK and we didn't think that was going to improve so we didn't bother having them remake it. Cagney's on NCL is better. The show tonight was the comedy magician again and again, he was a lot of fun. None of his magic is that incredible but he's very funny so it's a really nice show. I forgot to mention that the rock band on the ship sounds really good. The only issue is that they are usually on when were are doing something else so we never get a chance to really sit down and listen to them. They are very popular so seating can be hard to come by. Hopefully we can see them at least once or twice this cruise. After that we hit up the casino and after losing some money very quickly, we both found good machines and did pretty good. My wife won $88 which was nice. I now have enough points to get an entry into the slot tournament. I'd have to do the math but I'm very sure that we are ahead so far. One other thing I should mention is that it doesn't seem to really get dark here. It's almost 10pm and it looks more like 6pm. Midnight last night looked more like 8pm. It's pretty wild. The scenery is great so having a balcony is really nice. We don't hang out there a lot because it's so cold but we like watching the scenery as we go by.

If you want a table for 2, the wait is long. If you don't mind sharing, there's no real wait.

Ok, so it's not just me. I feel like this ship just wasn't designed for this many people and they aren't staffed up to handle the crowd.

Day 4 - Molde We woke up to very cloudy weather as we were pulling it but it really didn't matter because this town is just not exciting so I don't think there would have been much to see. I'm sure there are nice places if you take a tour but we wanted to keep it simple this cruise since it was going to be a long trip. Glad we did. We had breakfast at the NY Deli. I ordered a plain bagel and an egg and cheese bagel. They were pretty good for a ship so that was a nice change of pace. The OJ they have up there doesn't taste watered down like the stuff downstairs. Kind of odd that it would be different. We went to explore Molde and it was pretty boring. We walked several blocks on the main street and there really wasn't much to see. The entire city burned down about 70 years ago or somewhere around there so the buildings are somewhat modern. Looks like a generic small European town with not a lot of touristy stuff. We went in a store or two and that was about it. It was fine though because we can't have 10 amazing ports in a row. We would just be too worn out. Back on the ship, I went back and forth between the sauna and the hot tub for a few hours which was nice and relaxing. I then took a nap for an hour which was awesome. Nothing in the MDR excited us and we wanted to keep the theme of the day being relaxing so we went to the buffet for dinner. It was mobbed. These people really like to eat on this ship. I don't remember another ship where the buffet was mobbed for dinner. Usually not a lot of people are there since most are in the MDR. The pasta was pretty good and I had to have more of those fries. I also had some fruit and pretzel bread. Good stuff. We walked around a little bit and checked out the art which seems to have been recently moved to deck 1 as all the maps says its on 3. That's now a part of the casino. There's not much there but they had some nice Picasso stuff. We tried to win a raffle but we always lose of course. We don't like singing so we didn't even bother with the show tonight but there was a hidden identity game show. That was fun. After that we finished the night with some drinks and more time in the casino. I'd have to check the room bill but I think we are still ahead by a little. I've almost qualified for the slot tournament. Pretty chill day which we needed. It's hard to believe that we'll be on this ship for another week.

Glad to here someone is enjoying it. Feel free to check out my pics on my FB page. Info is in my profile

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Day 3 - Eidfjord We woke up just as we were pulling into port and the views were amazing. It felt like another world. Breakfast was at the buffet again and while I suppose it's a little better than NCL (at least the food is hot) it just doesn't do it for me. The orange juice tastes watered down. No one cleared our plates so we had to do that ourselves. They really seem understaffed sometimes. We got off the ship around 9 and went to the tourist office. It's a tiny little building and way too many people were trying to crowd in there. There was lot of line cutting and complaints which seems to be the standard on this cruise. I don't know what the deal is but the number of rude of people seems to be higher on this ship than usual. Despite a sign advertising different times to the waterfall that would not work with our ship, they had a bus to the waterfall that would. It was about $66 per couple which was pretty good. We walked around to check out some shops and the amazing scenery until it was time to get on the bus. The bus ride was about a half hour up the mountains and through some tunnels. Nice scenery. The waterfall was pretty nice but you're looking down at it for the most part. There is another area where the views might be better but that doesn't open until next year. Either way, still good. We were there for about 45 minutes or so and we got back on the bus. Speaking of rude people, I thought a brawl was going to break out. I've been on a million bus tours and the unspoken rule is that you pick a seat and stick with it through the tour. Well this elderly woman decided to change her seat and the woman in front of her advised that her friend was sitting there. The elderly woman was not happy about that and started going off on the other woman who started going off on her. It turned into a whole thing that went on for over 10 minutes. Adults acting like children over a seat. Sad. Anyway, I slept on the way back cause I was exhausted. I used the wifi at the tourist office since the ship's system was out and then we went and got lunch. Went to Dive In and could not use the app since the system was off. Burger was better than the first day. One of the best burgers I've had on a ship. The milkshake was pretty good too. I then came back to the cabin to nap. Passed out pretty quickly. Got up to watch us sail away. The views were amazing. We went under a bridge that we didn't even fit under unless they took a light down. Once they did that we had just a little bit of clearance. Cool stuff. Then went back to the cabin to watch the scenery from there. Went to dinner at the MDR at 5:45 and they did not have any tables for 2 and would not have any for quite some time so we had to share a table which is the worst thing for me. I guess HAL doesn't really have a ton of tables for 2 unlike NCL. Our table mates were really nice but the menu didn't really blow me away. I had the chicken and crab cake. Both were fine, not amazing. The show tonight was a magic and comedy show. Standard cruise stuff but I enjoyed it. Guy was good. I'll go see his other show. Since I didn't have a big dinner we went back to the buffet to grab some food. They were closing almost everything up at 8:30 so my only real option was fries. They were amazing. Much better than the fries at Dive In although those fries are good too, just different. Still on the search for food, I went to the NY Deli. Really didn't want a whole pizza so I got a slice. It was awful. Can't believe they would serve that. So the place that makes pretty good pizza to order makes horrible pizza by the slice. Go figure. Since it was movie night, they had pretzels. I was told they had a caramel pretzel. Thought that was interesting. Turned out to be a caramel apple pretzel which I didn't want. So I went back and got plain. It was ice cold. Sigh. My wife went up and got the cheese pretzel. It was the same ice old plain pretzel but with a little bit of sliced cheese put on it. lol. I gave up. I ordered a Miami Vice from the bar right there and it was one of the better ones I've had on a cruise in a while. I'll have to try some other frozen drinks to see if they will also be good since the drinks are hit or miss here. Really great day and I hope we continue to have amazing scenery like this. A lot of people on this ship have been on HAL many times and quite a number of them either came from another ship right before this one or are going on another ship right after. That's about 21 days of cruising on average for these people. The universal feedback from the people I've talked to have said that the quality on HAL (like some other lines) has really gone down in a number of areas. I have no frame of reference since this is my first HAL cruise but I'm sure things were certainly better prior to 2020. Either way, I'm here for the fjords and anything else is just a bonus really.

Today I went to Dive and could not use the app at all. Had to stand in line. I guess it just varies for whatever reason.

Nope, that's not it. My wife agrees and she's lived in Mexico and Spain. Either way, I'll stick to lemonade

Day 2 One thing I forgot about day 1 is that I went to the buffet at 10:30pm to see what snacks they had. There must have been 300 people there. The line was over 20 deep and they didn't have much open. Again, they either did not anticipate how hungry people would be on this cruise or they do not have proper staff. Probably both. For breakfast we went to the buffet. I was hoping things would have cleared out by 9am but it was mobbed. Almost nowhere to sit. In about 20 minutes, there was pretty much nowhere to sit. Lines were pretty long but the wait for the omelet station wasn't that long. Not sure what the deal is but these were the worst omelets we've ever had on a cruise. Not sure if it was the type of egg but they were a different color. I'll have to try something different tomorrow but breakfast did not impress. For most of the day we hung out by the pool. We were on the second floor on this big chair thing. I was surprised to see a lot of chairs available around 9:45ish but by about 10:15, a lot were taken. Didn't go in the pool but from what I could feel, it seemed like a good temp. Spent some time in the hot tub and the sauna. Despite being somewhat hidden, a lot of people somehow found it. It's a little cramped and there's nowhere to really put your stuff but free saunas are hard to come by on cruises now so I cannot complain. It was really nice to relax there and sweat. For lunch we had pizza at the NY Deli. Kind of an odd system where you can order some things on the app but not everything. For example, you cannot order a plain pizza. Don't know why that is, but that's how the app is set up. You can order it at the deli itself and they give you a buzzer. Took about 15 minutes but it was worth the wait. For a cruise ship, it's pretty good pizza. Really nice. One thing my wife noticed was the complete lack of service by the pool. We were there for half the day and not once did someone ask us for a drink order. I'm not a massive NCL fan but I never had to wait more than 10 minutes for someone to come around to ask me for a drink on the last few NCL cruises we went on. We headed out to get ready for afternoon tea. I guess I was thinking of high tea and perhaps a lot of other people were thinking the same thing as it drew a crowd of at least a few hundred. They were doing a port talk at the same time we wanted to go to but this was the only tea on the schedule so we wanted to check it out. I realize high tea is British and not Dutch, but I don't know much about Dutch afternoon tea but it's not that exciting. The tea they served was good but it was probably just the basic tea they serve anywhere. You couldn't choose anything. They brought you a little thing of pastries and that was really it. Not worth it IMO. Went back to the sauna to sweat and relax a little more and then hung out on the balcony. We also Dinner tonight was Canaletto. The menu isn't really my idea of Italian but the good thing is that you can order off menu. I put together a pasta dish that was pretty good. My wife had steak which was nice too. There was a great chocolate tart for dessert. I tried the cappacuhino and that was just like the latte at the Dutch cafe. Not that great. The service here was really good. Some of the only good service we've really had so far. We then went to the Crow's nest to relax a little bit. This is a great spot on the ship. Deck 12 all the way forward. They have these chairs where you can put your feet up and watch the waves. I could sit there all day. Just a really nice space. While other ships have (or had) spaces like this, HAL has a better set up with these awesome chairs. The show tonight was a modern dance show called Humanity. It was great. The choreography was awesome. Not sure if I can explain this the right way but they were dancing in sync with the videos that would be on the screen and the floor. Very high quality and they used most of the theater as the screen. It was kind of like a 260 degree thing where the video projection would not just be in front but go all the way down the walls on the side. The only slight downside was the person mixing the audio had the bass up way too high and it took away from the music. It rattled the walls like when someone has big speakers in their car but they don't set it up properly so the car just rattles. Can't believe no one fixed that the whole show. The theater is also nice as we sat all the way in the back but it was still a great view. The game show after that was the Majority Rules gameshow. Always a lot of fun and the guy from the music trivia did this one too. His name is Jose and I forget his actual title but he's basically the assistant cruise director. Really fun guy. This was a lot of fun and we had a lot of laughs. It was a struggle to get a drink here and we had to really flag the servers down to get them to come over to us. I don't know if we were just spoiled by NCL or what but this is kind of odd. The drinks have been hit or miss, mostly miss which is par for the course over the last few years. We hit the casino after that so I could use our free play. We won more money and then called it a night. Nice relaxing day. Eidfjord tomorrow. We'll get off the ship and see if there's any last minute tours or if we are just going to walk around for a bit.

I tried to walk up at Dive and they said no, app only.

The dance show tonight was good if you're into that. The game shows are fun. We're here for the amazing scenery more than anything else.

no idea

This is somewhere around my 35th cruise. Been on RCL, NCL, X, Princess and Carnival. I don't really have a favorite but the bulk of my experience is with NCL and RCL. So this is my first HAL cruise. Read and saw a lot about it so I was looking forward to a more premium experience. We are both in our mid-40s, together for 9 years, live in Florida and we are both retired although I'm not a travel blogger but I wouldn't consider that a job, more of a fun hobby. My reviews are a little different I guess because I talk about the good and the bad. Some of it may sound like nitpicking or that I'm difficult but I'm actually really easy going. Some issues are more important to others so I just like to put it all out there. I'm sure plenty of people on this same cruise would disagree with my opinions so take them as just one of many data points. With that out of the way.... Day 1 We spent 3 days in Amsterdam as my wife has never been there. We had a good time and I think 3 days is the perfect amount of time there unless you're gonna do some day trips. Our checkout time was 11am and our boarding time was 12:10 so we figured we'd just go to the port with all of our luggage and wait for our time. When we got there, no one cared about check in time so they just told us to get online. Everything went really smooth and we were on the ship in 25 minutes. One of the faster times that I can ever remember. We were able to go right to our room which was really nice. We got a standard balcony cabin and it's fairly standard. It wasn't fully cleaned so we had to call to get that taken care of. Our room steward told us that turn down service was by request only which was fine since we don't really need that anyway. The actual balcony feels larger than others we've had. While we don't have loungers (not that I would expect that) there are these ottoman type things that you can put your feet on so it's kind of like having a lounger. It's a nice touch. The shower has a door which is really nice so that the bathroom doesn't flood. The shower has great water pressure. There's a good amount of storage too. So while the room is mostly standard, it's probably a little better than average. Robes are included in the room. The bed is not great which is the standard for cruises it seems. We ever got an egg crate put on it and that didn't really help too much. But this is probably personal preference. If you like a firm bed, you probably won't have an issue. Another standard problem we have is that the room does not get cold enough at night. We had trouble sleeping because it was so warm but again, this is a problem for us on just about every ship. On this cruise, we'll try to leave our balcony door open like we did in Alaska. That should help. We then went up to lunch and while nothing blew me away, the food was a little better than other cruises. It seems like most cruise burgers (although I haven't tried the ones on Carnival in many years) are pretty bad. These were good, nothing amazing but not horrible. Everything else I had was fine. The presentation at the buffet is really nice but it doesn't quite match the food for us at least. For the two other free restaurants, Dive In and New York Deli and Pizza, you have to order on the app. That's a lot better than standing around. You are supposed to get a notification when your food is ready but when I exited the app, I didn't get it. Don't know if that is just my phone or what. Great concept though and it was easy to use. I should probably mention the demographics. I'd say the average age was 60 with 55 to 65 probably being the biggest group. There's only about a dozen kids, mostly younger. Didn't see any teenagers. There was one 22 year old guy. I didn't see a lot of people that were our age. Lots of different languages but I assume that other than English, Dutch is the most common language. We then explored the ship. It's a decent size, not too big, not too small. Pool area is really nice. I like that you can just grab a towel instead of looking for someone at a towel desk. I relaxed in the hot tub which was nice but like most hot tubs on cruises, it was more warm than hot. We then got ready for sail away. They opened the bow which was really nice. It was cold and windy up there but it was great to watch us sail out of Amsterdam. That takes hours to do so we went and got dinner at the buffet. We didn't want to deal with the MDR since that would take up too much time. The buffet for dinner was very chaotic and they probably underestimated how many people would be eating around 5:30. It was a mobscene especially because the big thing was mussels. The line was probably over 20 people deep which blocked access to other food. Very bad set up on HALs part. Other sides of the buffet were not open which would have reduced crowding. Don't know if this is a staffing issue or what. Was not really impressed with the food. Pretty standard and I thought it would be better. By about 7:15 we hid the locks. Not nearly as exciting as the Panama Canal of course but it was still cool to see. It was the first time my wife has ever gone through a lock and that was nice to watch from the bow. By the time we were through the show in the theater (Cantare) had already started. We popped in to see if it was anything we were interested in and nope, it wasn't our thing so we bailed on that. We're not into those singing shows. My wife is into trivia so we went to music trivia. Not really my thing at all but the guy running it was awesome. He made it so much fun. She drags me to a lot of trivia on ships and they are usually very boring (for me anyway) as it's usually someone just reading questions and answers. This guy was dancing and everything. He'd made a good cruise director some day because he has the personality for it. We then went to the casino. After you spend $50 you get $25 in free play which was nice. My wife didn't do so great but I had a really nice winning streak. I have never gambled on a ship before but I figured I'd gamble a little on this ship to get on their radar for cruise offers. The smoke wasn't horrible for the most part which was nice. There was only a few minutes where someone close to me was smoking and it was pretty bad. I was there for an hour and a half and for the most of that time, it was tolerable. I couldn't even walk through casinos in other ships. Other than that, I have nothing else to really compare this to but I thought it was nice and the casino host (I assume that's who she was) was always available. Overall impression on day 1 is that HAL does some stuff different which is nice but I'm really feeling the premium experience. I wasn't expecting a luxury cruise experience but I was expecting something better than NCL and RCL. I'm not really feeling that yet but it's early. I do like the unlimited internet though. That's a nice touch and was included as part of the have it all package. Have not been impressed by the drinks and the coke is horrible. The cans are from South Africa so I don't know if they make it different there or what but it's really, really bad. Not sure what's up with that.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. We don't have a lot of free time with all the ports but I'll do the best I can and see what happens.

It seems like Carnival doesn't require too much to comped with them as I already got a comped cruise without even playing anything. I have a HAL cruise coming up and I was thinking about making a casino donation in the hopes of getting on HALs radar. Wondering if I should bother if I'm not prepared to sink a ton of money into the slots or if a few hundred would do the trick?

Going on a cruise around Norway on HA in May. I don't know much about these ports so I'd like to know for each of these ports if I should book an excursion, stay on the ship or just walk around myself. If there's a specific excursion you recommend, please let me know. The ports are: Ulvik Molde Flam Alesund Bergen Haugesund Sandness (Stavanger) Kristiansand Arhus Thanks in advance.

Hoping to book my first SD cruise in the next few days. I was wondering if the price of the cruise is the same no matter where you book or if the prices can change if you have a TA, use a website, book direct, etc. Thanks

We decided to go with HAL especially since the flights were a lot easier for us.

Thanks, I did read that Flam should be a port so between that and me not being a fan of Carnival, I was leaning towards HAL.

They don't have anything that matches what I'm looking for. I'm limited to the options listed.

I'm trying to book a norwegian fjords cruise for around June but I could leave the last week of May. I don't want a very long cruise or a very expensive one. I narrowed down my options to the following: Hal 11 days Ulvik, Cruising Hardangerfjord, Molde, cruising Sognefjord, Flam, Alesund, Bergen, Haugesund ,Sandness, Kristiansand, Arhus Leaning heavily towards this one Cunard 7 days Stavanger, Olden, cruising Innvikfjorden, cruising Nordfjord, Andalsnes, cruising Romsdalsfjord, Bergen Carnival 9 days Bergen, Alesund, Molde, Olden, Skjolden and Haugesund Prices and dates are close enough to not be a factor. I guess my question is whether there's any reason to choose one of the other two cruises over the HAL cruise. Thanks in advance.

Conclusion This was an amazing cruise mostly because of the itinerary and the entertainment. The food left a lot to be desired but I'm used to that with NCL by now. The bed on this ship was horrible. My back feels really messed up and it was very difficult to get a good nights sleep. On top of that, the cabin got very, very warm at night. I am convinced that they shut off the AC from 11 to 7 each night because during the day the cabin does get cold. We were just on the Sun 2 months ago and while the ships are close in size and age, I prefer the Sun for some reason. Can't really put my finger on it but I just wasn't a huge fan of this ship. I did like the size of it though. The Stardust theater needs to be worked on. A lot of the seats are broken. The ones that aren't are very uncomfortable. If you are going on this ship, I highly suggest the balcony seats all the way in the front on the right hand side. Comfortable and a good view. I'm sure I'll cruise with NCL again but it certainly won't be my first choice or probably even the second.