MISTER 67

Yep, HAL needs to get their act together, are they going to go out of business if you get a second appetizer.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. You gotta love hot cocoa, we've been to beautiful St. Lucia a few times but why is there a national holiday for the island. Interesting quote by Poe and I'm sure most of us have experienced love like that. The meal sounds good. We are not happy with HAL right now, I was paying some bills last night and my credit card statement had a charge for 120 dollars from HAL that was posted after we left the ship Sunday morning, after a so-so cruise this is something I don't need as I'm going to spend some time on the phone today with HAL trying to find out what the charge was for. Thanks for the Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day

Glad that the surgery went well.

Great photos which bring back some wonderful memories. I'm Greek Orthodox and our church is very upset that the president of Turkey decided to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque after being a museum for many decades, shame on him.

Glad you are feeling better.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Cool morning, it will sunny with a high of 79 later in the day. Some strange days but a funny quote by Twain. I'd try the meal. We've been to Instanbul and spent 3 days there at the start of a Greek Islands cruise in 1999, fascinating city. We returned yesterday from our Nieuw Amsterdam cruise, I posted a review late yesterday afternoon on The Daily, it was far from the best cruise we've ever had as explained in the review. Off to the golf course in a few minutes. Thanks for The Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day.

It's insane to charge 4.50 for a bottle of water, I bring a 24 ounce bubba thermos and I fill it up at breakfast and again at lunch in the Lido, along with the water I drink at breakfast, lunch and dinner I'm able to get at least my 72 ounces of a water a day.

Probably part of a plan to make the dining room food so bad that they are forcing passengers to go to the specialty restaurants. We tried to get into the Pinnacle but being old geezers all the early times were sold out and we won't eat at 9pm, heck sometimes we go to bed at 9PM. We did have a 5:30 time at Canalletto on Friday and had an excellent dinner. Celebrity Main Dining Room is still very good and they have a outstanding Lido buffet with unbelievable variety. Glad your cruise is going well. We made record time making it to exit 167 in 2 hours and 12 minutes with home only 2 minutes from there.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Just back from our Nieuw Amsterdam cruise, it was a mixed bag and sad to say our worst HAL cruise with 24 of them on BHB's and 69 cruises overall. We sailed to the Eastern Caribbean with stops in Turks and Caicos, San Juan, St. Thomas and HMC. No review on those places as we very seldom get off the ship anymore, we did walk around Havesight in St. Thomas for about an hour. I read my usual 3 books for the cruise and actually started a 4th. I'll do a short review rating certain aspects from 1-10 with 10 being the best. Embarkation -10. We arrived at the PE midport garage at 10:15, started the check-in about 10:30. First gentleman we met asked if we were vaccinated, after replying in the affirmative he sent us to a lady a few yards away who asked for our cabin number, gave it to her and she checked our name and then printed out our boarding passes from a hand held printing machine, the pass looked like a cedit card receipt. No one asked for the boarding passes that we printed out on our home computer, sort of strange. Next stop was a lady who guided us with facial recognition and ask to see our passport. Last stop was a lady that handed out our embarkation number cards, as 4 star Mariners, we had priority boarding and went straight up the escalator to the priorty boarding area and we actually boarded the ship at 10:55, this is the fastest we ever boarded a cruise ship and was as painless as could be. Next stop was our cabin to drop off our carry-ons, the cabin was ready even at that early hour. We booked a large inside cabin on the recommendation from the the gentlemen who we booked this cruise with on the Rotterdam last April. It was cabin 8045 and was about a 1.5 times the size of a standard inside cabin, the cabin gets a 10. We then headed up to the Lido for lunch which started some problems for the week. We both had soup and sandwiches with the sandwiches being the pre-made, they were a joke with 1 slice of ham and wilted lettuce, the soup was good. A tradition for us is to always have HAL's famous bread pudding for dessert on our first day, trust me it was not bread pudding, it was more like bread soup, just terrible. We are not complainers and didn't say a word but only had a spoonful of the pudding as we left the Lido shaking our heads. The bread pudding the next day at lunch was what we have come to expect with HAL bread pudding. The next morning things didn't improve in the Lido, I love Lox and bagels with cream cheese, so I'm looking at the Lox in serving line and instead of the usual fresh looking pink color of lox, this lox was grey, I still tried it and it was terrible with a fish taste and I only had one bite. The next morning I'm waiting for our side of the Lido to open , one of the Lido maitre d's told me that the other side was open but I explained to him that the lox on our side looked nice and fresh and pink while the lox on the other side was the grey garbage. The rest of the week they only had the grey stuff and I never had lox the rest of the week. I think it was Wednesday morning and I decided to have some French Toast with sausage and scrambled eggs, the French Toast and sausage were great but I couldn't believe when I had my first bite of the scrambled eggs, they were just about frozen, someone forgot to heat the eggs up as they had the eggs in a container which I found out when I returned my breakfast to the serving line and the young server who gave me the eggs in the first place. I told her my eggs were frozen and she gave me look like she knew that someone forgot to heat up the eggs. I told her to fry me up a couple of eggs sunny side down. I had 2 omelets during the week and they were both very good. All in all the the meals and desserts in the Lido the rest of the week pretty good but we had some that weren't. My rating for the Lido is 6 The MDR was also a letdown, its obvious the food budget for HAL has been reduced with quality and quantity suffering. We ate 6 nights in the MDR and there was nothing outstanding. Very disappointed when one night I had Dover Sole and it couldn't have been more than a 2.5 ounce serving. 2 nights later I had the broiled haddock and again it was very small serving. The chefs also salted the entrees and soups way too much. Last night was the best meal of the week as we both had the prime rib. Rating for the MDR was 7.5. Entertainment on Holland America ships has been a problem for quite a while now, Music Walk is OK but it's becoming old. The Main Showroom is were things are really bad. I'm sorry but Planet Earth and The History of HAL is not entertainment. We want live singers and bands, not the canned stuff that HAL feed us, we were on 3 Celebrity cruises this past summer and fall and there is just no comparison on how much better entertainment is on Celebrity not only in the showroom but in all the other lounges on the ship. For HAL to not have live entertainment in the beautiful Ocean bar during the evening cocktail hours is a crime. Entertainment -7. Service throughout the ship was as usual outstanding though there was only cabin service in the morning, no evening turndown service and 4 chocolate mints each during the week which was left on the desk in the room. We've been on 7 cruises since Nov of 2022 when we felt it was fairly safe to cruise again and this cruise was the first one we didn't have twice a day cabin service and that includes the Rotterdam last April, and t this is not the fault of the crew. Service gets a 10 The ship was very clean and gets a 10 for cleanliness. The ship is getting older but still in pretty good shape with furniture and the carpeti ng in great shape, some rust and scratches here and there, Shipshape gets a 9. We do the early walkoff and were off the ship at 7:15 this morning and in our car by 7:30 and made it home by 9:45, pretty good time for the 160 mile trip and it was a little on the foggy on Alligator Alley this morning, I usually do 5 over the limit. All in all I'm going to say that will be our last HAL cruise for awhile and we will stay with Celebrity and Princess until there are some changes for the better on HAL. This review is not just me speaking as we talked to quite a few people and they all felt the same was as we do that HAL has cut down a little too much. I'm a little tired and I probably left off some things but i will be happy to answer any questions. Please show me some slack as I'm not the greatest typist and writer on the planet but gave it my best. The good news, I'm back on the golf course tomorrow morning.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Good selection of days and a very thought provoking quote. Patty melts are good. The USA gave it a good try but came up short, this team was young and is going to be a force in the 2026 World Cup. Another nice day as we will be soon hopping in the car for the drive over to Port Everglades for our 12 noon boarding time on the Nieuw Amsterdam. I take a break from computers and WI FI while on a cruise and will touch bases next Sunday with a.short review of the cruise. Thanks for The Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day.

Will be hopping in our car at 8AM and driving over to PE for our 12 Noon boarding time on the NA.

Hoping for only the best with your appointment to remove the lesions.

Go USA!

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Sunny and warm today with a high of 83. Another good selection of days. I'm not sure about the quote, I speak from experience. I'd try the tortilla pie. I have never been to Iceland, just the name makes me shiver. USA VS. Netherlands today in the World Cup round of 16, it's do or die. Off to Bob Evans in a few minutes, I have a taste for the Sunrise Skillet breakfast. Thanks for The Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day.

We hate flying also, we won’t get on an airplane.

Have a great cruise!

If we go early it will be after the US-Netherlands Soccer game but thanks for the offer. Our on/off at I-75 going south is 167, going north we use 170. We are in the Deep Creek subdivision of Punta Gorda that is north of the Peace River, only part of PG that is north of the River.

But it's such a cute dog, just a large Boston Terrier.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Nice day again, sunny and cool right now but low 80s later in the afternoon. The quote makes sense. Good selection of days. I'll have the pork chops. Heading to the course this AM but only to the range, Fridays are Men's Golf Association days with usually a one day tournament but today and next Friday they are having a 2 day tournament and since we will be on the Nieuw Amsterdam next week I had to bow out. I think we will drive over to Fort Lauderdale a day early and leave tomorrow, we feel more refreshed on embarkation day that way. Thanks for The Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day.

Lucky day, I'd go buy some lottery tickets.

When we cruise we don't bother with the internet, we can live without it for 7 days. That being said, the internet should be free on the ships just like it is on hotels all over the World.

We've booked numerous cruises with guaranteed cabins and have always wound up with a cabin, most of the time in a higher category than we expected.

We moved to Bonita in 1993, in the summer in Naples and Bonita a lot of the restaurants had 2 fer dinners. Now it’s a madhouse down there. Bonita has grown leaps and bounds. Traffic in season is insane, that’s why we moved to Sebring but after 10 years we missed the Gulf Coast and moved to Punta Gorda. There’s traffic here but nothing like Naples and Bonita.

Thanks RNB, hope you have a great cruise also. The Punta Gorda area has grown, we lived in Bonita Springs for 17 years and then 10 years in Sebring and now 2 years here but I remember taking a ride from Bonita around 1994 to Punta Gorda and we said to each other "what a waste of time and gas", wasn't much to see and do so we turned around and hightailed it back to civilization.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. A little cooler today with a high of 80 and breezy. Good selection of days. The quote makes sense. I'll pass on the mustard coated meat loaf, that might be as bad as putting ketchup on a Chicago style hot dog which could get you exiled from the Windy City. It was good to get back on the golf course, no problem with the finger but I was rusty and my tempo was off along with being stiff and sore from not playing for a month, I usually shoot from the mid 70s to high 70s and shot 89 yesterday. We are just about all packed for our Nieuw Amsterdam cruise coming up on Sunday, I have 3 books written by some of my favorite authors that I'm looking forward to reading. Thanks for The Daily, everyone stay well and have a great day.