sandiego1

Thank you so much for all the photos of the daily presentations! I now have a much better understanding of what to expect on our upcoming trip. Much appreciation for the time you are taking out of your vacation to post everything!

Fantastic photos!!

BTW what time is dinner served?

Awesome photos! Thanks for the menus - I can download them 🙂 much appreciated.

I love seeing the photos of the lecture too.

Hope you are enjoying your trip!

Great photos! We are doing the southern loop in Jan so I’m excited to follow your journey.

If possible, could you please post photos of the dinner menus when you are on the ship? I have numerous food limitations and am concerned about the dinner choices. I have contacted the Special Needs dept, but seeing the menus would be a huge help and I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Enjoy your trip!

I find that the website works better when I am on my laptop vs my phone or iPad. I also change browsers sometimes. On a mobile device, websites sometimes don’t display all info on a page so perhaps the complimentary dining box is missing.

2 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

not every one is tech savvy. Using a computer at my age in mid 80s is reaer than most people know because most people  in this age group do not use computers 

I know many 85+ people that are very tech savvy. For all you know, I may be one of them! 😀

And if you aren’t tech savvy, perhaps you shouldn’t be giving advise to others about their browsers and cookies?

Password managers are extremely easy to use and you only need to remember 1 password.

in any event, you are free to disregard the advice I wrote above and take your chances with a tech savvy hacker 😀 

8 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

When removing cookies need to be super careful you do not loose your pass words stored to otther web sites  .I my self will not tacj=kle that job with out professional help 

One should NEVER allow a browser to store your user ids or passwords - so easy to hack!! Use a password manager if you can’t remember them. 

Too bad about the coral and fish. I snorkeled a fantastic coral wall very close to the ship during the 2023 WC. It was a bit of a walk from the ship’s dock to another partially destroyed dock. The coral there was gorgeous and there were many, many fish. A deep wall made for one of the best snorkel adventures I’ve ever had. I was able to follow the wall nearly back to the ship. However there was no way to get out of the water at that end.

I wouldn’t assume it will be quiet at night. They often clean the decks a night or early in the morning. I hate being directly under the Lido deck as it was extremely noisy at very early hours which disturbed our sleep.

Despite my long list of favorite chocolate desserts, I forgot to mention the brownie dessert at lunch in the Pinnacle Grill! Decadent chocolate brownie with coffee gelato. It is super creamy and delicious! It’s worth the price of lunch alone 😀

Hi Jo,

I subscribed to your blog and am thoroughly enjoying it! While on the WC, we signed up for the 2025 P2P. I’m saving all of your emailed blog entries since we’ll be doing many of the same SA ports. They will be a good reference as I plan our excursions.

Glad your knee is all healed and you are back to your healthy self! Hope to see you on a future cruise.

Ellen

On the World Cruise this year, I kept a note on my phone listing the desserts I liked and which ones I didn’t. I didn’t want to waste calories (or food) ordering something I didn’t enjoy. I love chocolate. That coffee ice cream, chocolate cake and banana would have been a 5* desert for me if they had served it on the WC. 
 

I didn’t bother listing any of the non-chocolate desserts 🙂 However, I did enjoy the various berry crisps. None of my friends like the banana or pineapple crisps. Unfortunately, those were served more often than the berry or apple crisps.

Here’s my list:

Favorites;

Chocolate delight (round chocolate on cracker, like fudge)

Chocolate cake with carmelized popcorn 

Chocolate soufflé 

Flourless chocolate cake

Double chocolate tart

Chocolate raspberry tart

Maybe:

Chocolate brownie stack

Chocolate Paris Brest (good choc mousse, bad crust)

No:

Chocolate croqant praline

Opera cake with coffee buttercream 

Chocolate caramel tart

Sachet torte

Linzer torte

I thought the new library unveiled during the WC on the Zuiderdam was awful. It looked like a bookstore. No comfortable chairs to sit and enjoy a book. 
 

I don’t read printed books and prefer to read on my iPad. It’s much lighter and as others have already stated, it can store all my books.

34 minutes ago, mawvkysc said:

So not necessarily a given on a TA. It’s not considered a GV is it?

Nope.

The watercolor classes are free on the Grand Voyages and World Cruises. They are extremely popular and one must arrive early on the 1st day to ensure a seat.

The private island is named Ni’ihau.

In April 2022, we had no line to board the Zuiderdam. The Disney Wonder was there too and there was a very long line to board that ship

Does anyone know if the deck 2 cabins on the Volendam have renovated bathrooms with showers (not tubs)?

10 hours ago, dchip said:

Yup! The entire Dolphin Deck has showers only. 

What about deck 2? Are they all showers too?

Internet speed varies greatly depending on the ship’s location and how many people are using it. I haven’t been on a ship with Starlink yet. However on both the 2019 and 2023 WC, there were times when it didn’t work at all and I couldn’t send email or upload photos. Other times, it was super fast.

The MDR hostess, the wonderful Josephine,  on the 2023 WC remembered my name from the 2019 WC. Not only that, she said she could hear me talking with my friends in the hallway and she recognized my voice!

On 10/1/2023 at 10:03 PM, canadianbear said:

I loved the printed stationary on our first cruise ever and was in a Neptune suite.  I also remember in the MDR where they’d use a utensil to “scrape” off any crumbs before the next dish was served.  

Multiple waiters did this on the 2023 WC. Maybe we are just messy eaters??!! 😀

52 minutes ago, BVILady said:

I take small bills in US-$ and everyone accepted them, we were even able to buy souvenirs in Madagaskar. As long as it is bills, they are able to exchange it at a bank. To many currencies for a World Cruise to carry. The only place I wasn't able to use US$ to purchase something was in Japan. I wouldn't try to use US$ in Europe, but most of these Asian, Pacific or South American countries I would also not be able to get the currency here from any bank.

Also, we were told to bring newer bills without any tears or writing on them. In Chile, our guide asked us to swap out a $5 bill he received in the past that had a corner missing. His bank wouldn’t accept it to exchange. 
 

I also found that in some West African countries, they wouldn’t accept $1 bills. They said the exchange rate was lower than on $5 bills. Of course the item I wanted was $13 so they wanted me to give them a five and a ten. I combined my purchase with a friend’s purchase so we didn’t have to pay extra. The guide told me the story about the exchange rate was true so I didn’t think the vendor was trying to rip me off.

We found that most street vendors in West Africa will take US or Euro. HAL ships typically have foreign currency that you can buy. Their rate is less than the bank rate but it was handy. Before our WC, we got about $50 per port per day in the major foreign currencies. We had too much cash as most places took credit cards. I won’t bother to get as much for our next cruise. Many of our tour guides accepted tips in US or Euros too.

21 minutes ago, Reagan0712 said:

If you pay for them with a Target MasterCard they deduct 5% at checkout.

What’s the AARP discount?

Ahh, I don’t have a Target cc.

You don’t need to be a member of AARP to purchase HAL gift cards. You can buy up to 5/month  with a 10% discount. You can buy $500 GC for $450 each.