whogo

Marine Traffic lists ICS Allegiance as an oil products tanker. https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:731476/mmsi:311000480/imo:9587427/vessel:ICS_ALLEGIANCE

Hot tubs are disgusting as soon as a stranger steps into it, you won't find me in one. Ever.

Medical insurance is another item to check. In USA, many policies limit you to 72 days of travel. Medical evacuation insurance is another thing to consider. I have dreamed of an Africa circumnavigation (Holland America has a roundtrip from Fort Lauderdale this fall) or world cruise. I would choose a small number of long cruises over a large number of short cruises any day. This guy spends most of year at sea and is just finishing up numerous back to backs on the same ship: https://amazingvoyages2.blogspot.com/ Interesting reading is available on the world cruise board: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/674-world-cruising/

Holland America does a good job with breakfast in both the dining room and the Lido buffet. I enjoy a calm, solo breakfast in the MDR, reading an ebook, happy to have someone wait on me. They were awful slow to bring coffee on my last cruise, previous cruises had messed up breakfast orders. I don't have to watch the buffet people grab things without using the tongs or lick their fingers as they use the sticky serving spoons..

That is a beautifully written review. Thanks, ejincali.

Here are the last 28 days to Seattle: Monday, April 10 Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan 8:00pm Tuesday, April 11 Omaezaki, Japan 7:00am 4:00pm Wednesday, April 12 Kobe, Japan 9:00am 9:00pm Thursday, April 13 Kochi, Japan 10:00am 5:00pm Friday, April 14 Kanmon Strait (Cruising) Friday, April 14 Fukuoka, Japan Noon 11:00pm Saturday, April 15 At Sea Sunday, April 16 Kanazawa, Japan 8:00am 8:00pm Monday, April 17 At Sea Tuesday, April 18 Busan, South Korea 10:00am 5:00pm Wednesday, April 19 At Sea Thursday, April 20 Otaru, Japan Noon 5:00pm Friday, April 21 Aomori, Japan 9:00am 7:00pm Saturday, April 22 Hakodate, Japan 7:00am 6:00pm Sunday, April 23 At Sea Monday, April 24 Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan 6:30am 7:00pm Tuesday, April 25 At Sea Wednesday, April 26 Kushiro, Japan 8:00am 5:00pm Thursday, April 27 Cross International Dateline (Cruising) Friday, April 28 At Sea Saturday, April 29 At Sea Sunday, April 30 At Sea Monday, May 1 At Sea Tuesday, May 2 Kodiak, AK 8:00am 5:00pm Wednesday, May 3 At Sea Thursday, May 4 Sitka, AK 8:00am 5:00pm Friday, May 5 Ketchikan, AK 10:00am 6:00pm Saturday, May 6 Inside Passage, AK (Cruising) Sunday, May 7 Seattle, WA 7:00am

I am smiling thinking of the '37 Buick, three owners, never restored. I had a nice chat with the owner on the Napier dock almost five years ago.

The overcharges are so widespread that I suspect they are deliberate. After 150 years HAL could bill guests properly. If they wanted to.

No casino, no bingo, no acupuncture, no aromatherapy, no sound meditation, no yoga, no drink of the day, no chair hogging, no footprint analysis, no lgbtq get together, no friends of Bill W, no detox seminars, no smoking, no Tanzanite seminars, no gaming lessons, no spa, no needlepoint socials, no blackjack tournaments, no sabbath services, no Russelite seminars, no puffy ankle seminars, no jewelry showcases, no herbal medicine seminars, no mass, no service club meetings, no watch seminars, no veteran meetings, no supplements seminars, no Morganite seminars, no slot pulls, no pearl seminars, no passenger led religious services.

You will have a great cruise. I hope to hear more from you. We did the reverse, Vancouver to Aukland, in 2018. Noordam was great, thought we'd be disappointed in her after sailing Prinsendam.

We booked an OB for our Quest sailing in January 2020 and received a V1 stateroom, low and forward, no upgrade, had a wonderful cruise. All cabins may have been occupied, 418 passengers reported aboard.

I prefer paper towels from a dispenser, people have a tendency to drip water on a stack of cloth towels. Seabourn cruisers were a notch above others in the hygiene department. The Colonnade on our Quest cruise was the only buffet that I have used that did not have a sticky serving utensil. I never caught anyone licking his fingers there, either.

You did well, Hank. I, on the other hand, seem to just miss transportation connections. There is something to be said for a good guide. On a DIY trip to London, where we almost speak the same language, I welcome a docent led museum tour or a guided walk. I do much better with a good guide than I do with a good guidebook. We did the same thing, abandoned one of our tweens on a tube platform.

If you rely on your cell phone to tell time, learn how to adjust for time changes when you have no cell connection.

"Circular breathing is a technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. It is accomplished by breathing in through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth using air stored in the cheeks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_breathing

The benefits of a hosted voyage should be spelled out; cocktail party, pre- or post- cruise hotel, included excursion, canapes, or whatever. At the worst, "hosted" means that the travel agency booked enough cabins to earn the agent a free cabin and the benefits are his and his alone.

There usually is a King Neptune ceremony where polliwogs become shellbacks through some minor hazing of willing passengers. I swam a length of the pool, kissed the fish and received a certificate suitable for framing. Crew members were slathered with food gunk before going into the pool.

If you start looking for an open bar on a HAL ship at 2:00 AM, you're not going to find one, can post the experience here, get lots of comments about HAL cruisers and HAL staffing issues. If you're drinking in an open HAL bar and want to drink until 3:00 AM, the bar will stay open, no news there, no Cruise Critic thread.

They had a few Chilean beers on our Antarctica cruise, maybe because I requested local beers before hand. They selected the worst, although I found tasty beers in ports. I would think that Seabourn would pick up a few local beers en route, if you asked. I will pick up a couple of obscure beers in foreign lands to bring home, it's about the only shopping I do.

Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm were additional favorites of mine. Keep up the excellent reporting, shark b8.

Yes. I expect to see the bottle when I order a bottle of beer. Sometimes the barman will pour it, sometimes just uncap it. On the Quest in 2020 the bartender uncapped bottles with the rim of his stainless steel shaker.

I don't find anything online about Sandnes, Norway cruise facilities. Will you be tendering instead of docking there?

Fifteen is an unmanageable number for the family and for the staff. The kids want to eat early, Gramps needs to eat later because of his medication, Uncle Jem is on a streak in the casino, and Aunt Beatrice is "napping" after attempting to hit the limit on her drinks passage. Ordering takes twenty-five minutes while one couple tries to decide between a red wine and a white wine and what did Shirley want before she took the kid to the bathroom? There is nothing the kids love more than a two hour meal.

Seven kids and eight adults, you're already over run with kids, what's a few hundred more? Is there someone who wants to buy groceries, cook, clean, and do laundry at a rental house? Can you do so and split the bill without starting a family feud? Then go ahead and rent a beach house. Otherwise have each branch of the family book whatever cruise you decide upon. Decide what activities you want to do together. Hint: You do not want a table for fifteen in the dining room. Any cruise line with a kiddie club for three year olds will do. Let us know what you decide and how it all turns out.

The-Inside-Cabin is posting all the Daily Programs from Holland America's Zuiderdam world Cruise: https://www.theinsidecabin.com/2023-world-cruise-itinerary/