MISTER 67

Just off Sky Princess, 7 day Eastern Caribbean to Princess Cays, San Juan and St. Thomas. Very nice cruise with almost perfect weather, we had a couple of sprinkles and yesterday morning the seas were a bit rougher, didn’t bother us but some people had some issues. We dis-embarked this AM at 6:30, we live in Punta Gorda Fl and were home by 9:12. That’s the earliest walk off we’ve ever experienced and this was our 72nd cruise. I usually grade our cruises in various categories on a scale of 1 to 10 so here goes. Ship Condition 9.5 Ship Cleanliness 9.9 Cabin service 9.5 MDR food 8.5 MDR Service 9.5 Buffet food 8.0 Buffet service 9.0 Guest services 9.5 Bar and International Cafe service 9.5 Entertainment in main showroom 8.0 Activities 9.5 Cruise director and staff 9.5 Shipboard activities 9.9 My scores might seem a bit high but we are low maintenance people and hardly ever complain. I will try to answer any questions.

Everything I read here with some of it appalling re-affirms our decision not to sail with HAL any longer, we will stay with Celebrity and Princess. We are 4 Star Mariners and we are so disappointed that HAL is not the line it once was, they have lost us as loyal passengers. We love HAL ships with the Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam as our all time favorite ships but that is not enough to become loyal passengers again. Maybe some day things will get back close to who they were at on time.

Since 2019 we have sailed on the Equinox 5 times, the Infinity and Reflection one time each, all of the cruises were excellent with no problems at all with the condition of the ships, I thought for their age they were in great shape with 1 exception, the veranda cabins we occupied needed some work, the interiors were in fine shape but the verandas needed some work as they had some peeling of the paint, the handrails needing some varnish and the decks were sort of worn, not that big of a deal especially since we usually book inside cabins. I wouldn’t hesitate booking again with any of those ships, in fact we are sailing again on the Equinox in February on a 9 day cruise to the ABC islands.

We have seen passengers denied seating in the MDR showing up in shorts and tee shirts.

We’ve worn running shoes many times on smart casual nights, all depends on how our legs and feet are feeling that night.

We sailed twice on her back at start up in Nov and December of 2021 and were extremely pleased with the condition of the Caribbean Princess, in fact the November cruise was her first sailing IIRC in over 600 days, surprised that things have deteriorated a bit in 2 years, We have sailed on her 10 times and the only time she looked worn out was back on a cruise in 2017, she was definitely in need of new carpeting and furniture.

I was sort of joking as we have all 3 plus A Christmas Story in our DVD library, we watch them all right before Christmas. We will be on the Sky Princess this coming week and actually I hope they have Oppenheimer as we haven’t seen it yet.

What? No White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life or Holiday Inn for us old farts.

We started cruising with the Sitmar Line in 1980 and all through the 1980s on that line and the old Costa line the dress code was followed by passengers with Sitmar having semi-formal nights which required coat and tie, on Formal nights you needed to a Tuxedo or a suit. We started cruising with Holland America in the early 90s and the dress code on that line was adhered to by passengers, we started noticing a change in the mid 90s with a turn to more casual wear and now we are at the point where when you see someone in a suit or tux they are really an exception.

Sometimes easier said than done.

We have seen passengers more than a few times wearing shorts turned away at the MDR entrance but then again I’ve seen others in shorts who either slipped by or were ignored.

Probably Renaissance, we sailed with them on the R-1 in 1999 doing a Greek Island cruise from Istanbul to Athens with great 3 day hotel packages in both towns, the rates were great and included round trip air from NYC. 9-11 hurt them badly.

Exactly, we’ve had some really good singers but also had a few cruises were they were just horrible.

IMHO you can never have enough or too much OBC.

The thing to remember is at one time we received some pretty nice canvas bags, if they still have the cheap plastic bags, they can keep them.

Growing up in Chicago in the 1950s I remember Muntz TVs, good analogy.

One thing after another taken away from us, not just Princess, all the lines are nickel and diming us. At one time the policy was that the lines couldn’t do enough for you, now the policy is how can the lines squeeze another dime out of us.

Definitely not as good as in the past, food and entertainment budgets have been cut back and now there is no more Lincoln Center. These cutbacks actually started before Covid as they gave us BBC TV videos in the showroom in the evening and called it entertainment, needless to say we have stopped sailing with them and it hurts because we love HAL ships especially the Signature class ships which are favorites of ours.

This.

Shocking.

We’ve never sailed on the Connie but sailed on her sister the Infinity 13 months ago and if the Connie is anything like the Infinity you should have no worries, our Infinity cruise was one of the best Celebrity cruises we’ve been on, ship was in great shape for her age, service, food and entertainment were all great.

I’m sure one of these days we will give HAL another go as we are also 4 Star Mariners and had some great cruises with HAL but for the time being we continue sailing with Celebrity and Princess.

In comparison to better days when we had a small band and dancing nightly in the Ocean Bar. We are boycotting HAL until the food and entertainment improves to what is was in the past. We are hoping things eventually do improve because HAL still has the best cruise ships on the high seas.

Right before the pandemic hit we made 4 Star on a cruise with 3 days left and were notified with a congratulations note in our cabin along with our new pins.

My favorite HAL ship, unfortunately we had a pretty lousy cruise on her last December with bad food and entertainment.