NapTown Jim

Looking forward to boarding the Nieuw Statendam on December 10!.  Our check-in time has just been assigned for 1:40pm, Group C.  That's super late!  What would happen if we showed up at 10:30 or 11am?  Will they make us wait until the Group C passengers may board?

September 10, 2022.  The day we disembark.

On 6/19/2022 at 4:18 PM, RedneckBob said:

How does RickieBob sound.

"You're either first, or your last!"  Thanks for the report Rickie Bobby.  Looking forward to boarding the Eurodam in 5 weeks.

I'm loving this!  Thanks for sharing it

1 hour ago, TheEmerson said:

I have done this cruse on the Massdam a number of years ago.  It was awesome.   If you can goto Notre-Dame Basilica, religion beside, is worth a visit.

 

 

Same here!  We loved that cruise and will dearly miss Maasdam.  We spent two days in Montreal before the cruise and could have spent 3 or 4.  Marvelous city.

I'm vaccinated and have no problem sitting next to someone who is not.  

10 hours ago, twodjs said:

Seth Wayne is the Holland America brand ambassador and is very active on facebook with weekly trivia, virtual tours, guest speakers, etc. and is very engaging. Now you know where to find social media activity for HAL. Funny that we are Elite + on Celebrity and we've never received any communications from Celebrity about trivia, games, or anything else. To say HAL is doing nothing is very unfair. Sounds like they simply need to expand their reach.

My wife and I enjoy playing his trivia every week.  I hope when this mess is over that they continue this with Seth or someone else if he's busy.  Maybe put their cruise directors on a rotation to take turns running trivia.

1 hour ago, Indianadaytripper said:

 That is one reason for cruise operators to create there own ports of call.

Actually I think the cruise line operated ports of call are for the financial benefit of the cruise lines.  Control the port, you control the excursions and your profit margin is larger.  

On 2/7/2021 at 8:05 AM, Mary229 said:

There is a strong likelihood that the ban will be overturned.  

I certainly hope so!  I'd love to re-book the Tropical Caribbean cruise that got cancelled but I won't until I know for sure the Key West stop is going to happen.

This has been a good discussion.  My last cruise that was cancelled was the "Tropical Caribbean".  A big reason I didn't re-book it for the fall (apart from COVID uncertainty) was that Key West was an appealing stop for us.  I expected it to be removed and I didn't want to re-book it until I saw what HAL replaced it with. 

I certainly hope they still go but I can see the side of the residents who don't want their small island overrun with tourists during the day.  These cruise ships are getting obscenely big.

I'm a little confused why HAL still lists Key West as a stop on many of their itineraries.  I thought Key West voted to ban cruise visits 3 months ago.  Is HAL hoping that referendum will be overturned?

15 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

This is not necessarily a negative.  Particularly for a new Alaska visitor; what one misses on one segment can be visited on the following segment.  

 

There are some Alaskan ports that I could visit over and over again and never tire of them.  Juneau is one.  

Agreed!  Alaska is marvelous and there are some tours (nevermind ports) that I wouldn't mind doing twice.

Thanks for that!  Now I have something to look forward to if our March Nieuw Amsterdam cruise gets cancelled.

I first learned about the Carnival data breach in August, although they did not disclose what cruise lines were affected.  I did have a weak password for my HAL account and that was changed 2 months ago to something stronger.  

Mandatory masks are a deal breaker for us.  The restricted cruiseline-only tours is another problem.  If these are in place before our March HAL cruise, we'll be cancelling.

1 hour ago, ABoatNerd said:

 

Agree. My 32 year old niece has had 1 cruise on Oasis. She enjoyed it. But.....she will not set foot on a cruise ship until it returns to the same experience. She is starting out and cruises and air are expensive. She said no way would she pay more $ for a lesser experience - and - the "floating petri dish" is well established in her mind.

 

She is the future of cruising and she is not interested in any compromise of the cruise experience. A bell weather.

 

 

I'm in almost exactly the same position.  I have 7 cruises under my belt and I love cruising....BUT I work hard, and I want to relax on a cruise.  Masks, restricted tours, and all the rest of the COVID safety protocols diminish the cruise experience for us and we don't want to cruise so bad that we'll wear a mask to do it.  

mid-march 2021.  I get less optimistic and more depressed with every new delay in operations.  

If it appears masks will be required, I'll pull the plug myself.

I have received no such offer.  Our Alaskan cruise was cancelled and we booked a Caribbean cruise next March to roll the FCC and all the extra goodies into it.  I wonder if that's why we didn't get this offer?  Even if we did, we're not paying anything more until we see HAL cruise again.

We booked the March 13 Tropical Caribbean cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Looking forward to it!!

Thank you for posting this review.  It was interesting and I really liked the pictures.

We are looking at booking this itinerary on the Nieuw Amsterdam next year.  We'll probably pull the trigger on it in a few weeks.  Thanks for sharing your experience.

Its sad to hear, but it makes sense.  If the company is not allowed to operate for the next 2 1/2 months, they can't afford to keep all their staff on the payroll during the shut-down.

I hope there's a place for them to return to when this mess is over.

Ultimately it comes down to whatever your personal risk tolerance is.  I personally don't believe things will be as dire as he presents in his video, but that's just me.  We certainly can't take for granted that there will be no problems (extreme weather notwithstanding).  You, and only you can evaluate what risk you are willing to tolerate.

We're looking hard at some HAL cruises in March of 2021 and I feel pretty good that things will be more-or-less back to normal by then.  

What if HAL (and many other cruise lines) was talking to law makers about making a temporary waiver to the 130 year old law that requires ships of foreign flags to visit a foreign port.  If they can swing that, the Canadian port closures will not close the Alaskan cruise season.

On 3/13/2020 at 5:36 AM, sam73 said:

We are booked for Alaska,but not till September. Im thinking (hoping) this will be all done. we havent bought air yet. Holdin off on that for a minute

We're on the September 13 sailing on the Oosterdam.  We already made our travel arrangements with Amtrak a few months ago....so I'm really hoping that they cruise doesn't get scrubbed.

I've sailed Holland 5 times and I've never heard of assigned boarding times.  I don't think you'll have any problems getting on board at 11 for lunch.