jlawrence01

if the dog is a legitimate service dog, the dog accompanies the passenger everywhere. And if the HAL ship has a dog on board, the crew rolls out a small pallet with grass and a "fire hydrant" for the dog out onto the Promenade deck in the aft portion of the ship.

On the last cruise, I had $200 in HAL gift cards that I purchased from Krogers. I went up during the middle of the night when there were no customers at Guest Services. The clerk took the cards and immediately applied them to my account. At the end of the cruise, I had only spent $125 and they applied the credit balance to the CREDIT CARD that was associated with the account.

For years, I purchased foreign currency contracts on the Euros as a hedge to currency fluctuations as my company had significant exposure to Euros as we had a lot of sales in the EU. It is NOT something that I would really recommend speculating on as you have NO control over the events that will happen in Europe. Having said that, there is nothing keeping you from buying currency and holding it for later trips. Do realize that you may come out ahead and look like a genius OR maybe not. The ONLY currency that I have been able to predict with a small amount of certainty is the Canadian dollar which generally is pretty much tied to the price of cruse oil.

We paid $760pp for 14 days for an Oceanview cabin on the Nieuw Amsterdam leaving from Vancouver on September 8th. It is a great deal in that we are scheduled on the 7 day Inside Passage on Celebrity Solstice the week before. By no means is that the BEST deal that I have seen. I have seen B2B & day cruises from Vancouver to Seward in May on NCL for closer to $500. You are right in saying that port fees are as much as the cruise fares. Sine we live in Arizona and airfare to MOST cruise ports other than LA and San Diego are so expensive, we try to book back to back cruises OR one cruise plus 1-2 weeks in a port PLUS another cruise

Random thoughts: 1) On my first (and last) NCL cruise, they were pretty adamant as to what time that the ship would be leaving and the time you needed to get back. However, time after time, that was ignored and you could see 50-75 strolling casually through the cruise port 30 minutes after departure time. 2) I nearly always take 3rd party excursions from very reputable operators using companies that have several vehicles in the area. And I schedule them very early in the port stop. If you head out at 8 am on a two hour excursion and your return time is 5 pm, I do not think I have much to worry about. 3) A lot of ports have fleets of taxis or have attractions that are within two miles of the port. Again, there is pretty limited risk.

I was on the Carnival Splendor in February 2019 on a seven day Mexican Riviera cruise. It was our first cruise since 1992 and we had low expectations. We thought the food was very good and the service was excellent. In all fairness, we ate almost all of our meals in the MDR as we had great and attentive service. We also liked the included casual restaurants - Indian and BBQ a lot also. We really did not stop at the buffet as it was so busy. We did not like the "frat boy" entertainment but we would occasionally head to the main theatre and would watch a lot of the movies on deck, We were happy enough that we started to plan to do a repositioning cruise on the ship as it was heading over to Singapore. However, the week before booking, I received an invite to a family wedding that I had to attend. I think that the cruise lasted as long as the marriage. My biggest reservation about booking another Carnival Cruise is that we did not like the fact that there was more drunkenness on that ship. Also, some of the patrons just do not know how to behave in public. The crowd is very loud and can be aggressive. I will not be any more specific. Since then, we have done six more cruises on HAL, Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean, and NCL. We have enjoyed the Konigsdam and the Eurodam overall with very few issues. The only line that we will not consider again is NCL.

1992 Costa Riviera - Alaska Inside Passage Honestly, it was a cruise ship designed for the Mediterranean and sent to Alaska. There was so little to do on the ship Swore off cruising until 2019.

The whole process was done online and took me no more than about ten minutes. Celebrity got back to me in about 24 hours. I did the same process with HAL and it took about three days to get back with me.

I would agree that NCL has better entertainment options, especially in the main theatre. However, the difficulty is ever getting a seat especially in the smaller venues. I have found that the entertainment venues on the Epic which carries 4000-4500 passengers are no larger than the ones on HAL ships that carry 2800-3000. Also, since there is no staff at the smaller venues, many people show up an hour early and reserve 20-30% of the seats. In other words, you show up 30 minutes early and there are no seats.

I was on the Norwegian Epic last year for a seven day cruise. While the ship was satisfactory, we found the service to be very lacking, the food to be very limited in selection and that MOST employees appeared to be unhappy. That is right after they cut their entertainment and housekeeping staff. We have been on two HAL cruises in the past 18 months on the Konigsdam and the Eurodam. We thought that the entertainment was very good on the Konigsdam but very average on the Eurodam. The major difference is that BB King is NOT on the Eurodam. I am a foodie and have run commercial kitchens for 15 years. I have found the HAL food in the MDR to be above average and very consistent between ships. I have never felt the need to use specialty dining as I have been very happy with the food and its presentation. The services in all food venues have been very good. Overall, the entire ship crew has been very good and service is very attentive and the morale is excellent. I have come to believe that we can ask for anything and the staff will do their best to make it happen. The officers are out and around the ship interacting with the guests. I just purchased a 14 day cruise to Alaska on the HAL Nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska. That cruise will be sandwiches between two week long cruises on the Celebrity Solstice which will end in Hawaii. I know that some will disagree BUT if you are comfortable with Princess and Celebrity, I do not think that you will be displeased with HAL. They are all very similar, each with their strong points. I will say that I really like a lot of the itineraries that HAL has and some of their prices are a great value, especially if you are retired and can travel during the off-seasons.

Since I am the only one of my friends who have been on a cruise in recent years, I get a lot of questions. Most of them are pretty easy to answer. However, this is one that I have not been able to. Assume that a married couple book a cruise 6-18 months out. If one partner dies in the interim, I know that travel insurance will cover that. However, can the widow maintain the reservation and invite a friend or family member to accompany her? Is there any additional charges or fees?

When we were on the HAL Eurodam in January, the cruise exercise director led a one mile march around the ship every morning starting at 7 am. I think we made it up there on 10 of the 11 days. Maybe that is one of the reasons we did not gain much weight on the ship ... other than all those stairs !

Thank you for your replies. What we would like to do is to walk over to Chinatown and stop at T&T Supermarket which is one of our favorites. We really love different supermarkets and that one is one of the best. They are now in the US but nowhere close to us at this point

We are on three straight cruises. The first is a seven day inside passage cruise on the Celebrity Solstice. The second is a a 14 day RT cruise on HAL Niuew Amsterdam to Seward. The third is a nine day cruise to Honolulu again on the Solstice. What started as a one week cruise to Alaska for our 40th Anniversary has morphed into a month long trip. Thanks for your response. That means that we should have no problems walking between ships. I was just thinking that ports like Fort Lauderdale have piers that are quite a distance apart from each other which would require a cab ride.

We are doing three back to back cruises out of Vancouver. I thought that this information would be on the Vancouver Cruise Port website but it is not. Our first cruise will be on Celebrity; our second on Holland America. When we get off of the Celebrity ship to board on the Holland American ship, roughly, how far is the walk? Is it a mile requiring a cab or is it a couple hundred yards which would be a relatively easy walk. Thanks in advance for all your help.

One of the strengths of the Holland America baked products is that nearly all of it from basic hamburger buns and breads to cakes are made on board. I think that the only thing that I have seen that is purchased are some gluten free products.

You told them what cakes you wanted to try and they would give a large slice. They were NOT cheap with the portions.

I am sure there was ... But I wasn't going to try it ...

We were on the Eurodam back in January and they had about 20 cakes, ALL well labeled, and yes, it was really popular with everyone. Fortunately, we were there early and had a large choice. They had a list of cakes posted and being handed around It was great I do NOT remember it on the Konigsdam in December 2022.

That has NOT been my experience whether it be in Roatan or St. Lucia among others. There is nothing better than buying a fish that was caught last night over buying one that was caught 14 days ago by a Chinese trawler

The resort owners and many of the business owners in the resort towns that we vacationed in PREFERRED US dollars as they spent all winter in Southern Florida or Arizona. My business in Detroit always accepted Canadian currency. Why? I made about 2% on the exchange. Some of my customers were in healthcare and were Canadian nationals. Also, I used to make significant purchases in Windsor and carrying $C was helpful.

I have traveled all over Ontario as my father had a cabin north of Belleville, ON. We could US currency and all of the businesses accepted it and gave a decent exchange rate. Ditto on the western provinces . The only place where they only gave us par was in Halifax. It was also the ONLY place where a bank hassled us when we tried to exchange US currency.

We have been on eight cruises on seven lines. When we started this endeavor, we purchased 100 shares of Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and NCL to capture the shareholder benefits. We sold the NCL stock as we won't be cruising with them again. Last week, my DW asked me how our investment was doing. We had an unrealized gain of $7500. WOW! And $650 in on board credits.

Usually TWO.

I signed up for the shareholder benefit through the app tonight. When I tried it last month, I did NOT try it because I thought that the app required me to enter my passwords for my brokerage account. This time, all I had to do was to take a photo of my latest brokerage statement showing that I owned Carnival Corp. stock. It took all of about 10 minutes total and was quite easy.