JJPacer

Thanks.  That's disappointing, but perhaps I'll try the hot tub.     

Does anyone recall the daily rate for the thermal pool?  We're on the Zaadam in February.  I assume  there is a Thermal pool on the Zaandam.   I have never used it, but I'm seriously considering it.  Thanks.  

On 5/15/2019 at 5:19 PM, cruisinginmay said:

I am on the NCL Getaway docking in Copenhagen on a Wednesday morning.  Scheduled arrival is 7:00 am. If I walk off with my luggage, is it safe to book a 10:25 am flight, or would that be cutting it too close?

We are in a similar situation.  Originally, we were booked a flight on a Norwegian Airlines flight from Copehagen to Dublin which was suppose to depart at 12:30 PM.    Unfotunately, that flight was cancelled and we were placed on a 8:00 AM flight on June 24th.   Our only choices was to change it to a 10:00 AM departure or an evening departure that day.

We decided to try for the 10:00 AM departure on Norwegian Airlines as we would not reach our Hotel in Southwest Ireland until the next day if we took the evening flight.

I figure we have no better than a 50 percent chance of making that 10 AM flight after athe cruise.  So we booked a 15:35 flight on Ryan Air for insurance in case we case we cannot make the 10:00 AM time with Norwegian air.

Thus we now have 2 flights to the same destianation that day.  I only did that because the Ryan Air flight was a low cost alternative.

We will first try to catch the 10:00 AM flight with Norwegian Air.   But if we can't make it, we will take the 15:35 Ryan Air flight instead.

All of this makes it quite confusing as when we should arrive in Dublin to pick up our rental car. 

Thank you everyone.  We'll get in line and wait our turn & hopefully get off quickly.  I was talking about a port, not when leaving the ship on the last day.  Appreciate your answers.     

This is our first cruise since becoming 4 star Mariners.  How does the priority disembarkation work?   There is one port we have plans, and have a very short window to make our non ship tour connection. Any other port is not an issue.  We want to be respectful of other passengers.  So how do we use this perk? 

Isn't having to carry your glass with you onboard for the freestyle option a pain in the neck? That's what stopped me from using that option.

Good Company Tours https://www.goodcompanytours.co.nz/cruise-ship-shore offers excellent options to take the Taieri Gorge Train. If your ship arrives at 8:30 AM or earlier, they'll pick you up at the pier and take you to the train station for the round trip train ride. $140.00 NZD pp. This includes the train fare. If your ship arrives 9:00 or later, they will drive you to Pukerangi where you can take a one way train ride back to Dunedin. Since you see the same scenery on the round trip, 2 times (once going and once returning) vs. one time on the one way trip, it's a good option, and about half the cost of the ship excursion.

They have other interesting options for shore excursions in Dunedin too. They offer a tour to see all the major tourist attractions in the city of Dunedin and the surrounding area.

We were very pleased to have found this company.

We will be getting off the Maasdam in Auckland,

NZ and flying American Airlines back to Indianapolis, IN via a plane change at LAX. American changed the flight times and we have a 2 hour layover - we have the Global Entry certification which should help.

 

Question #1 Will our luggage be checked all the way from Auckland to Indianapolis or do we need to collect it at LAX and check to Indy?

 

Question #2 Will 2 hours work for this turn around? It will be at 6:40am on Friday Dec 2.

 

We have only flown back into the USA a couple times and don't remember how the luggage was handled.

 

Appreciate all input.

We're from Carmel. We are doing the Westerdam Sidney to Auckland sailing that ends Dec 6, 2017. When we recently returned from an international flight and landed in Washington DC, 2 hours would not have been a enough time to make a connecting flight. I would imagine LAX is similar to DC as far as the number of flights landing etc. Many flights are overnight flights and arrive in the morning at LAX. If you can arrange at least a 3 hour layover, it would be good to do simply for your own peace of mind. In DC it took us 3 hours to get through custums, security etc. as others have described. By the time we got to our gate for the connecting flight, they were already boarding. Good luck.

What is the intinerary of the Atlantic Adventurer?

Are you looking for a copy of the original itinerary with times? Or the revised one...

Does it have to be from the HAL website? You can go to Cruisecal.com and print out a copy of the original itinerary with port times. Though it is a member site, you can use Itinerary Lookup from the menu bar, choose your ship, then your dates. I just did it without logging in. Easy. EM

Yes, we wanted a clean copy of the original itinerary. I was not aware of this site, so thank you for sharing. I included the copy of the itinerary I had, as well as the letter the captain sent advising of the change. We were supposed to be in Flam from 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM. The change made the last tender at 3:00PM. Yes there are many times available for the train ride. But we were not informed of the change in itinerary until the evening before our arrival in Flam. By that time every time slot was sold out. We booked ahead of time so we could be guaranteed a spot. I thought e-mailing a copy of the itinerary would be as quick as typing in our e-mail address. She pulled up the itinerary when I gave her our reservation number and said it'd be sent right away. It seemed like such a simple request. It took us by surprise that a simple request would become so complicated. We didn't ask for anything other than a copy of the original itinerary. They didn't have to compose a reply. We're moving on. From now on, we'll be sure to keep a copy of the itinerary in the file we use for all documents pertaining to that particular trip. We've never made a trip insurance claim. So now we know.

We returned from our latest cruise. We missed a pre-paid private excursion because the ship left port early and we were unable to do the excursion and return to the ship before the new sailing time. It was the Flam Railway and they do not offer refunds. We have trip insurance through a provider not associated with HAL. The coverage allows for missed excursions due to a change in itinerary. I have a copy of the itinerary, but I had written some "notes to self" on it and wanted a fresh copy. I needed to send a copy of the itinerary to the trip insurance company as part of the documentation they required to process the claim.

I called HAL guest relations for past sailings and asked them to e-mail me a copy of the itinerary. They said they'd send it out right away. I waited 4 hours, called again, and got the same response - right away. By the evening of the next day I still had not received it. I called again. This time I was told the e-mail with the itinerary was ready to be sent but first had to be reviewed and approved by a supervisor. What.....Why? They did not give me a reason. Only that it would be sent after a supervisor reviewed the e-mail and it could be a couple of days or more before I received it. All I asked for was the itinerary. I was courteous etc. It makes no sense. Does it?

We had a short window of time to make a claim with the travel insurance Co. So we sent the copy with my notes on it. We did not complain about the shortened port time while on the ship or after we got off the ship. We knew we had insurance and would be reimbursed. So why? I don't know. Do you?

We returned from our latest cruise. We missed a pre-paid private excursion because the ship left port early and we were unable to do the excursion and return to the ship before the new sailing time. It was the Flam Railway and they do not offer refunds. We have trip insurance through a provider not associated with HAL. The coverage allows for missed excursions due to a change in itinerary. I have a copy of the itinerary, but I had written some "notes to self" on it and wanted a fresh copy. I needed to send a copy of the itinerary to the trip insurance company as part of the documentation they required to process the claim.

I called HAL guest relations for past sailings and asked them to e-mail me a copy of the itinerary. They said they'd send it out right away. I waited 4 hours, called again, and got the same response - right away. By the evening of the next day I still had not received it. I called again. This time I was told the e-mail with the itinerary was ready to be sent but first had to be reviewed and approved by a supervisor. What.....Why? They did not give me a reason. Only that it would be sent after a supervisor reviewed the e-mail and it could be a couple of days or more before I received it. All I asked for was the itinerary. I was courteous etc. It makes no sense. Does it?

We had a short window of time to make a claim with the travel insurance Co. So we sent the copy with my notes on it. We did not complain about the shortened port time while on the ship or after we got off the ship. We knew we had insurance and would be reimbursed. So why? I don't know. Do you?

It's hard for me to believe that people are still discussing this topic. Each side has made their point(s) many times over and said it many different ways.

This is a topic each side should agree to disagree, and move on.

HAL has not created a suite only dining room, and the only chatter I hear about it is on this 'what if.... hypothetical thread.'

The thing we enjoy most on cruises and traveling is meeting and talking with people from different age groups, backgrounds, countries, cultures, and religions. Anything that excludes our ability to do that will be very sad and diminish our enjoyment of traveling.

HMC has large tender boats they keep at the island. I wouldn't think there would be an issue there. However, I didn't think there would be an issue on our cruise, so who knows. But I think you'll be OK. The HMC tenders are at least 3 - 4 times larger than the life boats they use as tenders.

I don't know about the 4 & 5 star tendering, as we are only 3 star. Hopefully someone else can answer that question.

The 14 day cruise began and ended in Amsterdam and the ports were in Norway. The Daily Navigator has the opening time for the dining room evening meal beginning at 5:15. It does not specify if this is for Anytime Dining or first seating or both.

Dining Room 8:00-9:30, 5:15-9:30

Lido Market: 6:30- 10:00, 12:00-2:00, 2:00-4:400, 6:00-8:30, 10:30-11:30NY Deli & Pizza Also has salads 7:30 AM -11:00, 11:30 - 12:00mn

Dive-In 11:30-8:00PM. I heard another passenger say you can order Dive In food from Room Service, but I did not try it.

Grand Dutch Café 8:00 AM-10:00 PM

Something was off, while I enjoyed the cruise, I had a lot of bumps in the road - not sure if it was teething problems due to Koningsdam being new or just a new culture at HAL. I know their focus is on the younger traveler, I'm 35 and did not find most of the changes all that wonderful. I really felt there was a break in the communication chain, this included other departments. I unfortunately got the Freestyle Beverage Soda Plan which was handled very poorly. I may make a post about it not to complain but as a heads up to others.

I agree with you. Communication was very poor. Not only about the tender situation. They used the ships' life boats as tenders. 3 of our independent tours were placed in jeopardy because of HAL's failure to communicate. Two of the three worked out, but not without a great deal of angst for us. The Flam Railroad did not. HAL released some Flam railroad excursion times in Geirganger, because they could not sell them or they knew the ship was leaving early from Flam & wanted to dump them. We didn't know about it until we'd already left Geirganger. So I don't really know what the choices were. Geiranger was the port the day before we docked at Flam. If we knew there were earlier ticket times for the Flam Railroad to be had while in Geiranger and the ship was leaving Flam 4 hours early, we could of possibly gotten earlier tickets and had the Railroad trip done before the ship left. Instead, our pre-purchased tickets had us return from the railroad ride after the ship departed at 3:30. So, we didn't do the Flam Railway. Customer service told me the ship was leaving Flam at 3:30 because that was when all the ship excursions were complete. No thought at all about the other 2K passengers.

Speaking of beverage packages...On the first day of the cruise, we asked at 2 bars to buy the soda card where you pay $25.00 and get $50.00 of soda. We were told this card was not being sold, and their computer system was not compatible with this card. They were pushing the $8.00/day Coca Cola Freestyle beverage package but we did not want that because they give you a plastic drinking bottle to fill up/reuse/carry around with you to get the refills. Could they have possibly have created a more inconvenient system? We went to the Customer service desk and asked about the soda card. They sold us the soda card we wanted, and we had no problem using it anywhere on the ship. We were charged slightly more on our soda card when we used it in the lido buffet and in the Dutch Café. For some reason, they considered it part of the Coca Cola Freestyle package and charged approximately 50 cents more, even though we weren’t using that package. Yes there were a lot of bumps in the road.

Thanks for this info. Is this something new on your sailing, or have they been doing it on other Koningsdam sailings?

Nothing was mentioned regarding what happened on earlier sailings. So I cannot comment. Perhaps someone who was on an earlier sailings can tell us what happened on their cruise. Our assumption was that since the Koningsdam is a larger ship than any other HAL ship, they thought it was a "good idea". Even with more passengers to tender, it does not seem possible it would take as long as "they" thought it would.

We just returned from the July 17-31 Voyage of the Midnight Sun on the Koningsdam. There is an announcement in the Daily Navigator the day before tender ports. They offer tender tickets on a first come first serve basis with a specific time for you to board the tender. The first session to get the tender tickets was at 8:00 AM and then another session is in the afternoon around 4:00. (not positive about this time. Check for correct time.) People were lining up an hour before the start time for the tender ticket. This is important., because if you have booked an independent excursion, you’ll want to get off the ship in time for your excursion. At the first tender port, we thought tendering wouldn’t be a long drawn out process, so we didn’t go to the 8:00 session. When we went to the afternoon session, the only times being offered were 2:30PM – 3:30PM (4 hours after the ship arrived at that port). After 3:30 all passengers could get off, no tender ticket required. It was shocking that they felt they had to allow 4 hours to get all the passengers tendered to shore. 2:30 -3:30 was too late for us to make our independent shore excursion. THERE WAS NO ANNOUNCEMENT MADE THAT IF YOU WAITED FOR THE AFTERNOON SESSION TO GET YOUR TENDER TICKETS, ONLY MID AFTERNOON TIMES WOULD BE AVAILABLE. We went to the customer service desk and they were helpful and gave us an earlier tender time ticket. We didn’t tender after all at that port. We were able to dock. But the same thing happened at the other tender ports. From that point on we were in line by 7:00 AM along with a lot of other folks. Be aware of this and plan accordingly.

WOW! Thanks so much for doing all that research and taking the time to share the info with the rest of us. That'll be a pass for us as well. We have great credit cards that give us points to use on our travel expenses, and I don't see a need to enter into that convoluted mess!

We are getting on the 21 day cruise leaving next Sunday. Just a quick question about local currency... Did you find that you needed any local currency in Norway for smaller items, shops, or bathrooms?

Thanks for your thoughts about your cruise. We are doing the same itinerary the last 7 days.

We did not take any Norwegian Krone. We took Euros. Euros were widely accepted. We got a debit card with a pin number that had no foreign transaction fees and no currency exchange fees and used it wherever it was accepted. The debit card was accepted everywhere in Norway. We spent 4 days in Amsterdam after the cruise. The debit card was accepted just about everywhere. The smaller non chain restaurants wanted to be paid in Euros. We used our debit card at a bank ATM machine to get more Euros, and there was no fee for that transaction. As far as the bathroom goes...we just walked into a hotel. Every hotel has a bathroom off the lobby area, and used that restroom. You'll have a great trip.

We found a local travel agent who provided a small break on the room price of the Sheridan (which is the only hotel inside the falls) and included transportation to and from the airport, breakfast at the Sheridan, and an English speaking guide to the falls. The total price we paid for the travel agent tour was a significant savings compared to the cruise line price. The guide was useful in calling ahead and getting us reservations for the boat ride. A must do. And in helping us get on the right train to Devils Throat. You will want a rain poncho when visiting Devils Throat and on the boat ride. You will get wet. We did not do the Brazilian side, because the visa fee was more than we cared to spend for a couple of hours. We told the travel agent what flight times we wanted to fly to Iguazu and return to Buenos Aires. he was very cooperative in getting us what we wanted. We too left the majority of our luggage at the hotel in Buenos Aires. We also paid for a full moon tour of the falls through the travel agent. However, it was cloudy while we were there, and the tour was cancelled. When we checked in at the Sheridan, all the full moon tours were booked. We were happy we had it booked through the travel agent. We had no trouble at all getting a refund for the full moon tour from the TA. What wasn't included in our tour price was the entrance fee to the Iguazu Park, lunch and dinner, & a tip for the guide. There's a bus that goes to the town of Iguazu. You get on very close to the Sheridan. I don't remember what they charged for the bus ride. It was an minimal amount. We took the bus to town and had a delicious lunch, and did a little shopping for things we needed. The bus system was very convenient and on time. We showed our receipt for our entrance fee to the park, for which we already paid, and passed through easily when returning. We went to Iguazu prior to our cruise. It was a must do visit, and by doing it through a local TA we saved a significant amount of money. We booked early because the Sheridan booked up quickly. I suggest you do the same. Here's a tip...sit on the right side of the plan, facing the front of the plane, and have your camera ready. When you fly over the falls, you can get an areal view of the falls. Reverse sides for the flight out of Iguazu. The falls come up quickly as you leave, so have your camera ready. We spent 2 nights at the falls, which we thought was the perfect amount of time.

For Vicd1969 the people who want to buy one laundry package and use it for 2 cabins....what about the sizes of the people in the two cabins. If there is a difference in sizes (let's say adults in one cabin, kids in the other) don't you think that will be noticed? Or if it's all women, but there are 4 different sizes of underwear, don't you think it'll be noticed?

Your best bet, is to pay $20.00 by the bag as needed for the people in each cabin.

Everybody is entitled to their own preferences. We prefer to load up an MP3 player with audio library books while traveling. It is the most compact way to transport books. It fits into a pocket. We can download audio books from our local library for free. We listen to them while doing other activities, like walking on the promenade or relaxing on the verandah. Very convenient on the long airplane rides, and "reading" in bed without disturbing your partner. Once they are on the MP3, they stay there until you delete them. They never expire. At home I get engrossed in a good story, and time flies while I'm doing chores. Thus, if the library on the ship is good, bad, or books I'd like to read are otherwise engaged, it matters not to us. We enjoy the listening mode. :)

You can use Euros in Norway. From my research, it seems to be the preferred currency.