crunchii

Hi Kazu,

Sorry to dump these on you all at once, but I have one removal and three additions.

Remove:
AUGUST 2021
Oosterdam - 22-Aug-21 - 7 day Alaskan Explorer
crunchii & Zarmengar

Add:

AUGUST 2021
N Amsterdam - 21-Aug-21 - 7 day Alaskan Explorer
crunchii & Zarmengar

SEPTEMBER 2022
N Statendam - 17-Sep-22 - 7 day Canada & New England Discovery

crunchii & Zarmengar

JANUARY 2023
Seabourn Venture - 04-Jan-23 - Antarctica Exploration
crunchii & Zarmengar - Celebrating 35th anniversary
(Note: This cruise actually starts on 03-Jan-23 with an overnight hotel stay in Buenos Aires. We sail away on 04-Jan-23 from Ushuaia.)

Thank you!
crunchii

7 hours ago, TrulyBlonde said:

OP....Did you check out Ponant? We used them for S Georgia and Antarctica combined. Personally, too many sea days when doing both. If I had to choose again, I would just opt for the Antarctica cruise.

Yep, we've been looking at Ponant too, waiting for them to publish their 2023 itineraries...

Thanks to everyone's tips and suggestions posted here, we decided to do just Antarctica this time and hope to do S. Georgia and Falklands some other time. When we do, we'll be sure to look for itineraries that spend more than a day in each place. Thanks all!

Good to know that the screen didn't have speakers! And thank you for the great tip about going to their Norway site!

Your Fram trip would be a great second trip, if we end up doing just Antarctic Peninsula this time. (If I can convince my husband to do the second trip...)

Thanks again for all your tips and suggestions!

Roald Amundsen was actually our third choice. We dropped it for various reasons (500 passenger ship was a tad too big even for us), but we'll take another look. Thank you for the recommendation!

So you mentioned that you did a cruise on Roald Amundsen? Can I ask you a question? Does that giant screen in the atrium have speakers? If so, how loud are they? We were considering one of the rooms near that thing, and I was wondering if there would be a noise problem.

Thank you all for your suggestions and advices!

We're not that active, so I think we'll be fine with just one landing per day. We would prefer a bigger ship (but not too big) with more creature comfort and stability. 🙂

3 hours ago, donaldsc said:

How many days each do you spend on the Falklands, S Georgia and Antarctica and how many of your 21 days are sea days.  That would affect my answer to your question.  I have been to all 3 places but not on one cruise.

 

DON

It'll be just one day in Stanley, 2 days in South Georgia, 9 days in Antarctica, and 6 sea days.

The itinerary shows "at anchor" for Stanley and South Georgia, so it's possible that we'd just have zodiac rides to the landing sites of their choice...?

We're planning to book a cruise to Antarctica in 2023. We've narrowed it down to two possible cruises, but having a difficult time making the final decision.

We're considering the following two:

21-day Hapag-Lloyd Hanseatic Inspiration cruise that includes Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Antarctic Peninsula, and Antarctic Circle.

13-day Viking Octantis or Polaris cruise that includes just Antarctic Peninsula.

This will probably be our one and only cruise to Antarctica, so the Hapag-Lloyd cruise that includes everything would be preferable, but it would add $20K (for two) and an extra week off from work to the Viking one.

I know Falkland Islands and South Georgia are highly recommended, and I would LOVE to see the king penguins, but I'm not quite sure if it's worth the extra expense and time to see one (or two?) beach full of king penguins.

Are there any other must see things in Falkland Islands and South Georgia?

I'm also feeling a bit nervous about Hapag-Lloyd, as I know very little about them.

Any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you

We were in 7151 on Westerdam a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it!

I understand the cabin is smaller than the mid-ship Neptune Suites, (can't compare, as we've only been in aft-Neptunes) but it was big enough for us.

And you can kinda see where the door is in this picture:

And the veranda!!

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, please let me know!

6 hours ago, Cruising-along said:

Hi!  I think maybe you meant to post this on our Sept. 26 roll call? 

LOL! I sure did! How embarrassing! 😳

I'm hoping they would open the booking for next fall's Pacific Coast cruise soon so we can just switch to that. But if they don't, we'll just cancel by the end of June as well.

Hope they'll have the exact same itinerary next year (and there's vaccine by then...)! And I hope I'll be able to see some of you!

When you purchase the Beverage Card onboard, can you use the non-refundable OBC? And will the remaining balance still be refundable at the end of the cruise?

We're in our 50's, but we prefer peace and quiet and go to our room at 9 pm to relax, so HAL is a perfect fit for us. We've only been on 2 HAL cruises since 2018, so we don't know what it used to be like. Maybe that's why, but we're VERY happy with HAL so far and have two more cruises booked (and one unused FCD).

What we love about HAL:
- Smaller ships with fewer passengers.
- Not too many children.
- Older and mellower fellow passengers. (Yes, it's POSITIVE for us.)
- Quiet, relaxed, and elegant atmosphere without any pool parties, silly game shows, vulgar comedians, loud and obnoxious music in public areas, etc.
- Affordable (meaning, not owner's suite-level price) aft-corner suites.
- Lincoln Center Stage. 

Lack of entertainment doesn't bother us, since we cruise to see and feel the ocean, so we'll happily spend hours on our aft-wrap balcony watching the wake, instead of sitting in dark, window-less main theater.

We'll probably start looking for other lines when they start playing hip hop and rap to attract the generations younger than us, but for now, we're happy with HAL and don't feel any need to try other lines.

OP, you don't have to wait and see.

Explorer4 deal is fully refundable until final payment, so you can go ahead and book now, and if you find a better price/promo later, you can just refare.

We were on this cruise also and dave.s's experience is very similar to ours.

Tracy Arm boat tour was great, and we also did the train ride to Bennett Lake in Skagway (Bennett Lake was beautiful!)

Glacier Bay was great also, but Margerie Glacier felt a bit anticlimactic after seeing South Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm. I thought Sawyer Glacier was prettier.

South Sawyer Glacier

Margerie Glacier

For me, the best entertainment was Lincoln Center Stage, but I enjoyed Leon Etienne's show as well.

I also got sick (cold) toward the end of the cruise and missed Ketchikan.

This was our second HAL cruise, and there was one unwelcome change that I noticed. I'm pretty sure that the special in-room breakfast items (smoked salmon benedict, steak and eggs, etc.) were free for suite passengers on our last cruise in 2018, but they were not free this time. At first, I thought we got the non-suite menu by mistake, but the menu said SIG/NEP/PIN/CLUB O, so it was the correct menu. So it looks like the only free item suite passengers get now is just mimosa (which we don't drink).

Definitely not a big deal, but slightly annoying. Oh, and we had our breakfast in Pinnacle Grill when we didn't do room service. It was wonderful!

Overall, we had a GREAT time and can't wait for our next cruises, Pacific Coastal on Koningsdam in 2020 and another Alaska cruise on Oosterdam in 2021.

We just got off Nieuw Amsterdam this morning, and I don't think they had Club Orange yet.

I think someone posted a list of when they start Club Orange on each ship a while back, and I recall seeing it's starting on the cruise after ours, so people who are on the ship right now might have the answer.

FYI, we had Anytime Dining and ate in main dining room twice (both on Gala Night). We eat early (between 5 pm and 5:30 pm), so we had no trouble making reservations (table for 2).

Thank you!! So looking forward to trying Nieuw Amsterdam and Tamarind!

Looks like it's going to rain the whole time, but oh well, we're from Seattle, so we're used to it ;)

Hi kazu,

We decided to cancel our NE/Canada cruise and booked something else. And while we were at it, we booked a cruise for 2021 too :)

Please remove:

SEPTEMBER 2020
Zuiderdam - 07-Sep-20 - 10 day Colors of Canada & New England
crunchii & Zarmengar - 3rd HAL cruise

And add:

SEPTEMBER 2020

Koningsdam - 26-Sep-20 - 7-Day Wine Country & Pacific Northwest
crunchii & Zarmengar
(Not sure if we'll like Koningsdam, but we'll give it a try.)

and

AUGUST 2021
Oosterdam - 22-Aug-21 - 7-Day Alaskan Explorer
crunchii & Zarmengar

Thank you!

Just reporting back to say we booked 5196. According to our PCC, aft-Neptune Suites on Deck 5 is 30 sqft. larger than the ones on Deck 6, and the balcony is slightly bigger too.

We'll be sure to take some photos and send them over to hal facts to be posted. (It won't be till Oct. 2020 though )

The new Zuiderdam Fall 2020 cruises are available to book now.

I'm still debating whether to keep this cruise or cancel. I looked into these new ports and they do sound wonderful, and we would LOVE to visit them someday, but we're not sure if we want to go there next year...

7 hours ago, kazu said:

 

What appeals to me might not appeal to you so it’s probably best you check to see what appeals to you.  I think you might be VERY surprised to see what these 3 ports offer.

 

 

Yeah, I think I'll do a little more research on those ports before I cancel. Thanks!

Here is the map that was included in the email.

Yeah, I thought it looked smaller than those LARGE Category-K Insides on Vista class...

We'll be booking it for the verandah, but if we're going to pay the Neptune price, we want Neptune-sized room...

I think I'll go with the one on Deck 5 and hope the people that booked one the rooms on Deck 7 will cancel ;)

I'm currently on the Sept. 7, 2020 cruise and thinking of canceling it, since they removed the three ports we were most interested in (NY, Charlottetown, and Saguenay).

But you all think it's a great itinerary? I'm not familiar with St Johns, St Anthony, Harre-Saint-Pierre, and Baie-Comeau. What's there to see?

We're looking at a cruise on Koningsdam and trying to decide on the cabin. We like the aft-wrap Neptunes and always try to get the ones on Deck 7, but unfortunately, both of those are taken.  I thought we'd go down to Deck 6, but looking at the deck plan, the aft-Neptunes on Deck 6 look smaller than the ones on other decks. There are some photos of SB6229 on HAL facts, and it looks tiny and cramped in the photos too.

Has anyone stayed in SB6210 or 6229? Are they as small as they look in the deck plan? Would the ones on Deck 5 be bigger?

4 hours ago, asebastian said:

Yes, the 10-day New England cruise on Sep 7 from NYC to Quebec City has also been re-routed to start from Boston to Quebec City with changes to the ports. I have posted the detailed itinerary changes in the roll call.

We're on this 10-day NE/Canada cruise on 9/7/2020 also. They removed the three ports we booked this cruise for (NY, Charlottetown, and Saguenay), so we're going to cancel it and book something else... I hope they bring this itinerary back someday, because it was perfect.