tpwolfe

We are going to be on the Sideside May 2018 and would to do the Thermal Suite. Went to enhance your cruise section and found this:

$90.00 per person for a week's pass sounds like a good price so I called MSC to find out what was included. I ended up calling 3 times and got 3 different answers. The first was it only included the Turkish bath and sauna. The second time it included everything in the thermal suite and the third call she told me when she toured the ship she was told that the pass on the internet only covered the sauna. To say the least I'm confused. Have anyone purchase this pass on the internet? I would rather pay $180.00 before the cruise then $280.00 on the ship but we want all of the thermal suite and not part of it. Can anyone help?

Also this pass is for the thermal area and if you purchase a massage it said you get entrance to thermal spa for the duration of the cruise. Is there a different between the thermal area and the thermal spa? All the other packages say thermal spa.

Thanks.

I called ship services before about the cost of the thermal suite on the Noordam in 2013 and they told me the cost was over $600.00 and on the ship the price was $299.00. That is why I want to hear what people paid for these things on the ship.

We are going to be on the Koningsdam next March for 21days. Does anyone know how much the Thermal Suites cost for a 21 day cruise on the Koningsdam? When we were on the Noordam for 21 days and it was $299.00. But that was 2013. Also what does a sea day pass to the retreat cost? Thanks

We are looking at this company in Naples to go to Herculaneum and Pompeii but we can't find any review on them. Has anyone used this company?

http://guidedtourspompeii.com

Are you sure you are tendering? Most HAL ships use the docks a few miles outside of town. If you do dock you need to take the shuttle into town. Once in town walk towards the marina about 10 minutes. It will be at the pier. Its pretty easy to find. If it helps, here are the GPS numbers, put them in Google maps and it will show you the pier.

 

37.44771, 25.32755

Here is what HAL has on it's itinerary Mykonos, Greece TR.

We are going to be in Mykonos Town in Oct 2016 on HAL and are wanting to go to Delos on our own. I read that the tender boats come into town near where the Delos excursion boats are located. Is this true and are the Delos excursion boats within walking distance from where the tender drop you off? Or are there a better suggestion on seeing Delos?

Looking for an excursion that would go to Pompeii and Herculaneum on the same day. We will be in port for 11 hours. Any help?

Thanks. The underwater images were taken with a old Nikon AW100 point and shoot camera.

Here are some images of our cruise to Hawaii on the Zaandam leaving Vancouver on 9/20/2015. It was a very good cruise. I put a book together of each cruise we take and these are the pages of the book.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/30345366@N02/albums/72157660420387401

The cruise with the most "mobility impaired" passengers that I've ever taken was on Princess, a Mexican Riviera cruise. By contrast, most HAL cruises have barely noticeable scooter brigades.

I agree. We took a Hawaii cruise out of San Francisco on Princess and it was loaded with mobility impaired passengers. Did Hawaii with HAL there was some but not half the ship.

Great photos especially the turtle pics. Beautiful clear waters.

Thanks. It was a fun cruise.

I have 2 older Nikon aw100. I like them because there is a lock you turn into place to lock it.

It took some nice underwater images.

Thank you for the quick response.

We are going to be on the Zaandam in Sept. and was wondering when we are overnight in Honolulu what time can you get off the ship on the second day or can you come and go anytime? Hal told me 6:00 am on the second day but my TA said anytime.

Our ship arrives on a Sunday morning. Per your suggestions, we will take a taxi to the Arizona Memorial. We are going to buy advance tickets and we need to be at the memorial an hour in advance to pick up the tickets. Are 10 AM advance tickets, (arriving at 9 AM), a safe bet to buy? Or should we aim for a later arrival time? Are there plenty of taxis at the pier?

We had advance tickets for 9:00am and made it at 8:00am. We got off the ship at around 7:20am and got a taxi and was at the ticket office at 8:00am. This was during a weekday. I got up to the window and said "We just made it in time" and the Park Ranger said it me "They just put to get there a hour early to make sure people get here for their scheduled time". Then he said do you want to go in earlier and gave us 2 tickets for 8:15am instead of 9:00am.

If I were you I would still get the tickets an hour early and walk around the grounds. There is a lot to see at PH.

I would take a cab to PH, and TheBus back.

That's what we did in Feb. We shared a cab with other cruise passengers to PH and took the bus back to the ship. A lot of people from the ship will be heading over to the taxis so it's easy to find someone to share a ride with. I think it cost after dividing it between 5 passengers it was $7.50 a person one way. And then we took the bus back to the ship but the bus took about twice as long to get back but was a lot cheaper. When you get on the bus tell the bus driver you need to get off at the nearest stop for the cruise port and they will let you know when they get to that stop.

We are doing the same thing. If you go to http://www.kauai.com/ they have the gps numbers under directions for each area. I checked them out on google maps and they put you close to each area. Here is an example for Waimea Canyon State Park 22.103787,-159.675778 You go to bottom of each page and it said "direction to" click on it and the gps setting will be there. Here is a link to Waimea Canyon page. http://www.kauai.com/waimea-canyon Hope this helps.

1. Ice Cream (cinnamon)

2. The beds

3. Lido pasta bar

4. Slower pace

5. Thermal Spa on newer larger ships

6. price

7. cooking classes (my wife's favorite)

We are about as budget as it gets. We always book an lowest priced inside cabin We only sleep and shower in the room and the rest of the time we spend on shore or out enjoying the ship. We are trying something new for our next cruise we purchased our airfare for the cruise first when the price was low and waiting to book the cruise after the final payment is due and when the price should drop. It a gamble but we think it's a good gamble. We are paying $558.00 for airfare for the both of us. When I check the price a week later the price jumped to $640.00 a person. If the cruise doesn't drop to a price we like then we will be out a $400.00 airline change fee for our next cruise but if the cruise fare does drop to what we want then we can book the cruise without worrying about what the airfare will cost. We can also be patience when booking the cruise because the airfare is already taken care of.

We just got off the Star Princess to Hawaii and they didn't enforce the dress code on formal night other than no shorts.

Here are some images I took with a Nikon AW100.

I had a tough also and the same thing happened to me.

How are some images I took in 2008 in Alaska. I put the focal length on each image. You can also click on the image the information on what lens I used is below the image. Hope this helps.

I took these with a 17 to 55 f2.8 zoom on a D7000. A zoom works best for me.

 

Here are other non food and food images from our cruise last year.

When I go on a cruise I take a lot of images too. With digital why not?

We do open dining on all our cruises. The first night we go to the dining room we observe the wait staff to see how they handle the people and then we check the table numbers of the staff we think we would like and make a reservation for one of those tables the following morning. It's works out great for us. Our last cruise we turned open dining into early dining by having the same wait staff and table for the 21 day cruise.