ANSalberg

PURE unadulterated HEAVEN!!!!!!!!

Yes, as long as you leave the hotel service charge in place, the employees to whom you give extra tips can keep them.

What we do is -YES; leave the daily in place [ It will be used also by people who DO wait on you but normally unseen/kitchen/laundry etc] but there still are extra envelopes you can ask for - I normally leave a small thank you note as well and extra $$$ -maybe with a SHARED joke] for diningroom help plus room stewards. Those are "Just" for the ones you've earmarked!

We've been on several 70 day cruises [ HAL's "Grand" cruises] and they are spectacular. The "learning" lectures are great; you have time to make -and KEEP -friends with similar interests; The activities ON board are fun -and, of course the ports amazing [ funnily enough -on the longer cruises into more exotic ports[ for us; Asia] these ports are unique enough you DON'T get port A mixed up with port D! You learn more about everything.....if there is a downside its that it is HARD to go back to 7 or 10 or even 2 week cruises; They just aren't long enough to "plan" for!

NOW; whether YOU will like it is up to YOU- sarcasm aside -EACH person is different. We CHOSE at retirement to 'SEE the WORLD" and that is what we've done; I would not trade that experience for anything; you look at the whole world differently [ I think with MORE tolerance] AND you see headlines for what they are worth; They are to GET your attention! GOOD luck in making YOUR choices!;)

Agree with others about packing as for about a 10 day cruise, plus a few other things depending on the expected weather. (By the way, Hello to rkacruiser and ANSalberg!)

 

It is WONDERFUL to hear from YOU! Always! XXXXXXXXXXX A

We've done a World cruise & 4 of HAL'S" Grand" cruises to Asia etc - What I try to do is plan around a wardrobe based on color; I have both dressy and casual long pants in black and navy or denin or light blue [ so about 6 or 7 pair various fabrics] Then I have a variety of tops/tunics or T-shirts.blouses that CAN mix andmatch - I never take high heels; BECAUSE the the danger of floor levels etc -but "nice" flats] Add a lighteight jacket for "just in case' and underwear -and you're good to go.

I NEVER pack for my DH -he's used to packing for himself and does a good job; then its HIS problem if something is forgotten ;)

Most Grand cruises are over 65 days [ We've also done Eu Grand] The World is in the neighborhood of 110 days. AND we send out laundry about every 3 days/ HAL laundries are TERRIFIC-We've never [knock wood] had a problem.

ONE thing you might add; "IF you find at least ONE predicted mess -AND it isn't anywhere NEAR as bad as you feared AND you [suddenly] are thoroughly enjoying yourself -Then ALL bad things are canceled; PERIOD" AND enjoy NEW friends -AND find you've learned a lot painlessly.....AND that you can't wait until the NEXT cruise!

You're just NORMAL!!!!!! ;)

Hello - this is our first post! We are joining the Volendam in Hong Kong on 13th April and have booked an excursion with China Highlights which includes 2-day tours from Shanghai and again in Beijing with an overnight in a hotel there. We would like to know if anyone else is doing this tour who we could meet ahead of time. By the way, we are Australians, from Noosa in Queensland.

Grahwen :)

You should have a WONDERFUL trip- Shanghai and Beijing and HongKong are FAVORITE places to visit

Because of cruising/Holland America - one of my DEAREST friends for many years -is from Australia -just outside Sydney!!!!!!!!

Make new friends but keep the old- one is silver; the other gold!:) Anne

We don't know your friend - but with 1000 days on HAL -we FEEL as if we've made MANY friends and truely enjoy our cruises on HAL BECAUSE of the crew.

Now/retired/15 years into more intense cruises [ of longer than 30+ days] we OFTEN are greeted warmly by past friends in the crew. THAT is what brings us back to HAL often/yearly; our "friends"

BTW Have you SEEN Burt Reynolds LATELY???????????? He is NO LONGER a Hollywood Sex Object!.....I hope your friend still IS one!!!!! ;) Anne

Did you return to your favorite/other cruise line after sailing HAL and did your view of that line change? Is HAL your new favorite cruise line or is that still to be determined? We will be looking at RCL (Jewel of the Seas) and Princess (Crown) with fresh eyes when we sail them in June and December respectively. We know we will sail HAL again (Westerdam in September).

HAL IS our favorite line; on one other line we saw abuses of crew thaty made us crazy; we've NEVER seen that on HAL. on another line the ships are WAY too big for us-HAL ships are easier for us. We don't "HATE" other lines we just think HAL is the BEST for us! ;)

I'm glad to see THESE comparrisons because the ones that "matter" are the ones that matter TO YOU!

For YEARS the thing that mattered most was $$$$$$$$ -and we made our choices accordingly. after we both retired we made a master-plan of actually doing WORLD travel and outlined what each of us really wanted to see [ irony; 'The truth' -vs the News/TV] and for us that meant WORLD destinations [ yes, I know- we are exceptionally LUCKY]

We are now 15 years into our travels and I would NEVER trade so much as one day -the days and even weeks were SO spectacular AND so enlightening!

I NEVER criticize what other choices are that other people make -there are TOO many variables [a good thing, actually] but I do find myself shaking my head at some of the trivialities and some of the self-centerness.

GO into these travels with an open mind and an open HEART and you can LEARN so much. LIFE has its lessons and cruising ads SUCH a dimention to your travels -IF you USE it! LEARN all you can and you will look back and say "THIS was SOOOOOO worth it!"

We are there!!!!!

1. HAL is our favorite line[ MOSTLY the itineraries AND the crew from Indonesia; THAT/they made a difference]

2. Asia and Europe are our MOST favorite desinations -and length of cruise; about 70 +/- our favorite [ we are at the point where flights are a problem -NEVER cruising]

3. Looking back I wouldn't change or complain about a thing! IF it happened - so be it!

JERRY -if you are staying for a while on Oahu -be sure to drive up to the north shore- Its SO different from Honolulu. Also -directly EAST of honolulu on the EAST end of the Island -is a huge bay PERFECT for snorkling because its a bay; protected. Enjoy

I REALLY enjoyed ALL you pics/comments about Viking-We go on our first; Bucharest to Amsterdam -in September. We have 1000+ days on HAL and have done much OCEAN cruising- This Viking is our first River cruise and we have a LOT of enthusiasm after see/reading YOURS =THANK you

At 11:15 p.m. on Tues Feb. 10th my beloved Virgil passed away. He did not go quietly into that dark night, but he did indeed go.

 

He went on this last adventure without me, but never fear, I will catch up with him later.

 

Thanks to each and every one of you for all your warm wishes, prayers and support.

Trisha

My heart goes out to you Anne

[quote

What I remember is more that strangers became friends over bottles of wine at dinner...... certainly friends enjoyed many a lovely evening with each other with wine, as well. :)

[/b]

I understand what you are saying; over the years we've cruise our "Bucket List" [15 years AND longer cruises] we've made some WONDERFUL friends who understand how/why you wait until you are retired to DO the "Grand" cruises; That said -we seldom shared either wine OR responsibility for same - BUT we've made some VERY solid friendships. One of my DEAREST friends [ ours/couple] lives in Australia as seldom does a month go by that we DON'T Email each other!

THAT is ultimately -for us- WHAT cruising "is"

The other important thing is visiting FOREIGN countries AND learning ABOUT them [MUCH more concentrated than what we read in the News/See on TV/THINK we 'know' about. YES- _MAYBE over a glass of wine - WE'VE visited the WORLD.

Anne in Colorado ;)

Thanks everyone. I appreciate your sharing the efforts some go to in order to cruise. I respect when people are willing to tolerate inconvenience so they can do what they enjoy so much. I won't complain about my travel from Boston to FLL anymore. :o I've got it easy by comparison but hate air travel so much. Sigh...... :D

 

I am at the point where flying is getting to be difficult enough that we have REtought cruise desires; That said -FLYING to a port in USA is MUCH preferrable that overseas; [i remember 2002/newly retired/ flying to Singapore for an HAL cruise. We left home midday/DEnver/ Los Angeles/ 3AM flight out -stop in Taipei -THEN another 4 HOUR flight into Singapore from there!!!!!!!!! We now do HAL Grand cruises in/out of USA ...WHEN WE CAN!

#1 we were a LOT younger in 2002

#2 we were LEARNING a lot and seeing SPECTACULAR things/places.

#3 We would do it again in a HEARTBEAT if the end result were more easily gotten to NOW![we notice 2016 will not have the Pacific/Asia/Aust -70-80 day cruise in the Fall on the Amsterdam]

#4 THIS whole thing is MUCH more OUR problem [age] than HAL's Problem -They are a BUSINESS and we understand that!

That said -We discussed what we WANTED on our "Bucket List" and WORLD travel was it -AND we've had it MOST on HAL [ over 800 days -actual days] we are 1000+ 5-star cruisers on HAL. THEY [HAL] have fulfilled our GREATEST wishes and then some!!!!

THANK YOU Holland America! from Colorado

I find that now- after almost 1000 days on HAL -the loveliest feeling is the feeling of coming home and seeing old friends [ The crew] and then starting out on the adventures of a lifetime; cruises to Europe and Asia and Australia/NZ/HA/. We've done a World cruise -India and Egypt, the red sea/Suez canal....ALL delightful LESSONS and wonderful memories. The ambiance of any ship, and cruise -is how YOU feel and ESPECIALLY coming BACK!

Anne

If the ship is cruising from Vancouver I'd suggest you look to THERE; The Pan Pacific hotel is literally AT the pier; you walk to the ship-but the fun part is watching the ships sail in and out if you are there for several days. Its a LOVELY hotel and a beautiful city!

I read everybody's answers/HELPFUL answers -Now I'd like to tell you why we've taken some of the much longer cruises.

We both retired about 15 years ago -and our "bucket list" was to see as much of our world as we could and as easily as possible; That meant cruising for the MOST part out of USA/back into USA IF possible. reasoning; we HAVE the time-not necessarily the stamina -for flying world-wide.

NOT knowing Asia at ALL our first TIMID cruise adventure into the Far East was flying into Singapore and cruising into Australia on the Volendam. Several neat conclusion out of that. 1/ HATED the flight; flew into Taiwan and still had another 4 HOURS into Singapore! 2/ we LOVED the length of the cruise and weren't even CLOSE to wanting to get off the ship[to go home] 3/ LOVED what we saw of Asia and wanted more; a LOT more [ We had our 4th Grand Asia cruise 2013/WW2 themed and it was our favorite/HISTORY was amazing. ] 4/ Decided after a WORLD/Grand/Amsterdam- It was simply too long to be away from family for US [this might not be true for anyone else; just OUR emotional response to 110 days] 5/ HAL is our FAVORITE line for anywhere BECAUSE we absolutely LOVE the Filipino/Indonesian crew; THEY make our cruises "spectacular" -no other line even come close 6/ It is/was a good "Bucket List" -I just turned 75 [ today, actually] my DH is 77 and we are finally "feeling" our age; BUT we CERTAINLY have not even ONE regret for the choices we made AND we are glad we made it 15 years ago. Another advantage jumped quickly into my heart as I typed that; We've made some OUTSTANDINGLY LOVING relationships with other couples on the LONGER cruises [ B/cause TIME; you have TIME!] a couple from Sydney, Australia, a couple from Oregon, a couple from Texas[ DALLAS -with exceptionally strong "home" accents from UK/England! and a couple "just like us" from Tenn.

I would NOT change ONE THING about our retirement years. AND we have 2 more cruises already booked -to the delight of our happily-married children who's ONLY remarks have been -"GO for it!!!!!" and "What did you buy me?" and who's grandchildren [now adults] "WOW!!!!!! Gramma/Grampa" .........So if you WANT to try a longer [ 70 day cruise +] I say "GO FOR IT!"

I love formal nights. I don't mind getting dressed up. I dress up for dinner every night anyways, it's just a matter of a fancy dress or regular dress. That part makes no difference to me or my husband. We just got our documents for our 49 day cruise. On the normal schedule for cruising (one formal night for a 7 night cruise) I was expecting anywhere from 10-14 formal nights. On a previous 30 day cruise we had 8 formal nights. On this 49 day cruise we only have 8. That's an average of one every 6 days.

 

The reason I love formal nights is the food. I love the lobster, the filet, and those type of fancy meals. I'm normally a down-home meat and potato type eater so the weird food they serve other nights is often....weird. I love formal night because there's always something on the menu that I'm excited about having.

 

To me, this seems like another way of Holland America saving money. Because this cruise is more of an expensive specialty cruise I wasn't expecting less than status quo. I know some of you would say "great, that's one less night for me to dress up, blah, blah, blah" but please don't turn this into a fashion thread. I'm more concerned that this is another way things are going downhill.

I honestly do NOT believe it has anything to do with HAL saving money -BUT responding to people who are saying they don't appreciate TOO many formal nights when AIRLINES charge what tey charge for extra baggage and responding to people who say "I work/dress up DAILY -lets NOT demand that TOO much"

I honestly believe HAL is very responsive to the MAJORITY......The LONGER cruises on HAL are especially nice; we've done a World and 4 Asia/Australia etc - They are really SPECIAL; Enjoy yours!

Anne ;)

I hope everyone here will take a minute today to remenber the 2300 people who lost their lives on this day 73 years ago during the Japaneese attack on Pearl Harbour. Most were young sailors just beginning their lives. I hope there is a special place in heaven for those who lost their lives trying to protect us.

There are numbers to remember when talking about any war/any loss of lives/ any tragedy. Last year we went on our third Asia/Pacific cruise [Grand] on the Amsterdam -with a focus on World War II events and places and the number that stuck in my mind was the number- TOTAL number -of lives lost -and that was 80 million........If I can suggest anything since you've clicked on this thread -is READ -Read ANYTHING you can get your hands on -From "Diary of Anne Frank" -to anything in the Pacific -to anything in the REbuilding of our world........

I also agree with other posters who said that they disliked folks being rude to crew members. I have witnessed this more than once and I find it very unnecessary. There is no reason I can think of to treat crew members rudely, or order them around and treat them like dirt. I would never treat anyone this way, whether they were crew or not. It is nice to be polite, and a smile and a kind word gets you far when dealing with the crew.

YES!!!!!!!!And to an extreme! We were on a cruise at a large dinner table because we travel by ourselves on longer cruises. On this particular cruise there were 2 couples/friends -who were chronically late for dinner BUT demanded IMMEDIATE attention so that they could leave/play "Trivia" after dinner. Our table crew was marvelous but as this treatment accellerated they became more fearful; the over 6 foot husband would rock his chair back & forth and growl "I"M GETTING PISSED!!!!!" Finally my husband in anger told the man to "can it" because this had gone on for MORE than a week! And the two guys were very frightened of him. The 2 couples decided to move to another table but soon WANTED to come back. In the meantime 4 more people had settled in to our table that we totally enjoyed [ one was one of the entertainers] and they didn't WANT to move on. \

The whole thing was totally unkind AND unnecessary [ Our crew was exceptionally GOOD to us!] It was humiliating because people around us could HEAR him growl unnecessarily. The Dining room officials had given them several MILD warnings they refused to heed. This was BY FAR the worst behavior by grown ADULTS I've EVER seen!!!!!

Later a third couple that had moved with them [they had had a table for 2 a few tables away] decided they had "had" it too and wanted to come back but there wasn't room. The entertainers were OUR life-savers, we felt. because they did NOT "blame" us as the original couple did [ This original couple was just AWFUL] I REALLY appreciated the dining room officers attempting to fix it and stand BEHIND their employees; this was a first time we'd ever seen that kind of behavior be so incredibly awful.

THAT cemented our loyalty to Holland America; That THEY stood behind these gentle people from Indonesia. The perpetrators I HOPE I NEVER ever see again! ;)

A novel I found TOTALLY fascinating. "Eva's Cousin" by Sibylle Knauss. Its a novel [ a translation between German & English] written in the early 1990s but translated in 2002 on Eva Braun's cousin who was 20 in 1944 -and was invited [ by her cousin] to live near Munich as the war was winding down. The viewpoint of a 20 year old [ interviewed in the early 1990s as a much older lady] has all the naivety AND wisdom of a war survivor. Put out by Ballantine Books.

Anne

Our FAVORITE thing on HAL ships is the CREW!!!! So many Indonesian folks have become friends that we WANT to cruise again. Same with Philippino cruise members -and the LOVELY people from Holland or GB.......OPENING up our WORLD.

A favorite destination has always been Asia or Australia...or BOTH. Again; NEW adventures! For us -that is what cruising is all about......

The CREW is the VERY best! You will be "making friends!" Most are from Indonesia and many from Phillippines. DELIGHTFUL young people! The Officers are very professional but are KINDLY/friendly too! MAKES cruising with them all a lovely experience.

Just a thought - can we overthink and overplan every little detail of our trips, so that there is no "magic" and surprise left when we actually take it?

 

You are so right to be concerned about "Over- planning" to the point where the JOY is gone! ONE thing about cruising is that -with the exception of YOUR ship SINKING in the middle of the ocean -most problems are minor OR they aren't your problem anyway! You are "on vacation" and what happens AND how you take it is honestly up to you. We overheard some woman complaing once that "My WHOLE cruise was ruined -My coffee was served luke warm one morning" AT first I laughed thinking it was a joke - it wasn't. On another cruise [on another line] at the M & G one man "found out" that he paid more for his cabin than someone else [ probably common OR mis-represented easily!] the people AT the M & G told him "Forget it -you MAY be comparing the wrong things; location/ add-ons/ star status/ LIES! [ maybe he made it up!] BUT he couldn't put it aside and it ruined his cruise.

Vacations are just that- getting AWAY from "Normal" into "special" -you are seeing OUR world; differently -You are meeting people you never thought to meet; other passengers or crew from another continent! You are being WAITED on hand and foot! AND you don't HAVE to do dishes or vacuum!!!!!!!!!! What could be BETTER?

Plan what you NEED to plan; air fare - packing - mail pick-up - someone to fetch you at an Air-Port........Then relax and enjoy EVERYTHING you are experiencing that is wonderfully DIFFERENT!

And have a GREAT cruise! Anne ;)

Another factor under considerationshould be which cruise?/ How LONG? AND comparing a week's cruise off Florida is hardly comparable to 7 weeks into Asia. HARDLY comparable BECAUSE the clientel will be totally different but so will the "problems" - Its like comparing apples and mosquitos....and its an assumption that "wrong" on ANY cruise line with the possible exception of Disney. [ and frankly I love Disney but not to cruise!]