Halfmoonfan

15 hours ago, Roccaforte said:

Was there a significant charge for the insurance you bought over and above what was covered by the Amex Platinum card.

It was exactly 10% of the cruise fare.  Note, both my wife and I are younger than 65, so that may affect the price.

We have.  We booked a 16 Day Crystal Cruise (Miami to LA) was that planned for May with American Express Platinum Travel and bought the insurance from them at the same time.  The insurance was resold from Generali Global.  When the trip canceled, I was made whole with very little effort on my part.

Scott and Drew,

Thanks for yet another set of videos.  We very much enjoy each one and recognize the amount of effort that it must take to create them.

We kind of agree with you about the Four Seasons Miami.  We are not true beach people, but we thought that the pool deck was amazing.  We did not care for the menu in the restaurant, but at the time we were there, went across the street to Morton’s (now closed), which we did enjoy.

We wanted to share one data point for your consideration.  There is another Four Seasons in the area, Four Seasons Surf Club.  This is on the beach but north of the craziness.  This has the look and feel of “old Florida”.  Great rooms and food, our favorite hotel in South Florida.  We had booked a Crystal Miami to LA cruise for May and had also booked three nights at the Surf Club.  As we all know, that is not to be, but look at the hotel next time you are looking to travel in/out of Miami.

Thanks again for the great videos!

On 1/10/2021 at 9:13 AM, CruiserBruce said:

There are two main dining rooms on ALL HAL ships, one on the Promenade, and one immediately above it on the Upper Promenade deck. Typically the one on Upper Promenade is used for Anytime dining, but it depends on demand for Anytime dining.

Um, kind of, not really.  Hal ships have one two-level dining room.  It is one big room.  I would not call this two dining rooms, like some larger ships in other lines.

We have faced the same choice and went with Seabourn. The Grill cabins and dining are very good,  the Queen’s Grill may be the best restaurant at sea. But the minute you step out of them, you are on a standard cruise line (first world problems).  However, on Seaborne, the whole day, and everywhere you go, you are on a first-class line.  I am sure others will disagree.

Festivale 1983 out of MIA

·      Assigned table/waiter for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  On port days lunch was open seating buffet in the MDR.

·      Lido was only breakfast, lunch and late-night buffet (1:30 AM)

·      Midnight buffet was every night in the MDR

·      Went to the Radio Room if you needed to place a phone call.  No TVs in the cabins

·      Skeet shooting and golf ball driving on the back.  Topless deck above.

·      Cash for bar purchases.  Beck’s Beer was $1.25.  Matches and ashtrays everywhere

·      Cost 4X today’s fares in real $

·      Very good food

·      Rum Swizzle Party

·      Horse racing for money

·      Very good bands everywhere.  “Show Girls” in the shows.

·      Tips were done with cash in the envelope on the last night. Everyone seemed to tip.  Crew loved their jobs.

I am sorry if this has already been posted.

Hate to hear this.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-zaandam-crew-death-broward-20200410-vbhjnpg27fcnplodrwrtokz7fm-story.html

5 hours ago, SumoCitrus said:

From this morning:   

This is the best advice I have seen on this board in some time.  Why not wait until this crisis is over?  The ships an the ports will still be there.

 

 

This is pretty intense. My parents were discussing their upcoming cruises with me this morning and whether they should go.

 

One can see the ships enter and exit the port from any of the beach hotels.  From the south to the north try: The Ritz, Westin, W, Hilton, Conrad, and Atlantic.  Note that there is a big construction project in the block between the Hilton and the  Conrad right now.  We like both the Conrad and the Atlantic very much.  I took this photo of the Zuiderdam sailing into port one morning earlier this year from our room in the Atlantic.

LGA is a total mess, try to use JFK or EWR if you can.  Check out the local news reports of people exiting their cabs to walk the last half mile, etc.

On 9/25/2019 at 8:50 AM, MNmomof4 said:

This is our first time to Tahiti and I decided to fly all the way there in one day.  We are limited for time with the kids at home.  We leave Minneapolis at 7:15 am and go to SFO and a long layover then off to Tahiti and we get there at 8:40 pm.  We are getting a room at Fare Suisse overnight then off to Moorea for 3 days of relaxing before our cruise and getting use to the time difference.   Doing it all in one day home also.  I picked united since I liked the flight times better.  I also wanted all my flights ticketed together with one airline to avoid issues if we have flight delays for weather or any other reason.  We upgraded our flights to premium economy on the Tahiti portion only to have more leg room.  Our flights with the upgrade were each $300 cheaper than the PG allowance just for the LAX to Tahiti fare.

On 9/28/2019 at 6:10 PM, SWFLAOK said:

We use Jetblue whenever possible from Florida to California (as well as to Boston for family on Cape Cod). I used my Jetblue credit card and points (including the 40K when I signed up earlier this year) to fly out a few days earlier to SFO than we had planned when Dorian was headed toward FLL. We were able to get a credit for our original flight (which was also to SFO), and our rental car cost was the same with a weekly rate. We had a great time driving down to LAX for our flight to PPT,  spending time with old friends and exploring the Pacific Coast highway along the way. We'll have no problem using the credit from the 2 day earlier flight that we cancelled.

 

I wish the Jetblue Florida flights from LAX lined up nicely with the return 11pm flights from PPT. We have always rented a car, and explored the LA area until our red eye back to Florida. Two red eyes in a row are hard at our age. On the PG cruise we just came back from, we rented a day room at the LA Airport Holiday Inn instead of renting a car. The cost was about the same.

 

Since we're retired, our time isn't as valuable as those who are still working and using vacation time. Adding a few days on the way there and back to make the trip more comfortable are an easier choice for us than those who have jobs to return to. We've been there and done that.

We live outside Washington DC.  We book two tickets for this trip.  First is round trip DCA to LAX, with two days buffer between the Tahiti flights.  We use either American or United for this leg.  Then Air France round trip to Tahiti.  We spend two days each way in LA.

1 hour ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

A few more considerations from our experience.

Much further to most everything.

Further from the Neptune lounge

More vibration from the screws during higher speeds.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We have not sailed HAL in a few years.  However we did sail in several aft suites in the past.  We very much enjoyed the huge deck.  We never had an issue with smoke or fumes.  Nor did we have pitching issue with the seas.  However, our trips were in the Med and Alaska, so maybe a crossing that may be an issue?

As for the distance from the Neptune Lounge, who cares?  The Neptune is a small, windowless room, with no bar and not great food.  Whereas the Lido is very close to the aft suites.  We got 100X more enjoyment on our aft suite deck that we ever got in the Neptune Lounge.

FYI there are two Hiltons within two miles of each other.  The larger, new one is on the beach.  The other is called the Hilton Marina.  The latter is nice as one always sees some high end white boats docked there.  There is also a fairly active pool bar/restaurant that is busy all day and late into the night.

I travel to Fort Lauderdale several times a month.  As others have said, the towers at Pier 66 are closed.  While it is true one can see the cruise ships coming and going from the Embassy Suites, it is not much of a hotel.  Trust me you are not missing anything if you do not consume the “free” breakfast (think cheap bacon, plastic tray, paper napkins), or the “free” cocktail party. 

If you are going to spend the night(s) in Fort Lauderdale, stay on the beach.  From any hotel on the beach you can see the ships come and go.  I took the attached picture last Tuesday of the Zuiderdam sailing into FLL from the 12^th floor of the Atlantic Hotel. The Atlantic is the farthest north on the beach.  I like the Atlantic, but there are several other options, moving south; The Conrad, Hilton, W, and Ritz.  There is a Westin, but it was the old Sheraton, and is a bit dated.  From any of these hotels you will have great views of the ship traffic.

The Four Seasons Hotel. 

5 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Many ships have separate fish prep and meat prep rooms where the frozen product is thawed and butchered for service.  In some cases, where the cruise line uses a verified supplier, I know that Princess in Alaska does this, they can in fact bring on fresh fish, if the documentation and verification is met.  Molluscan shellfish, naturally comes aboard fresh, and must have the proper verification tags on it, and when serving whole lobster, this comes onboard live as well.

You may be right about Princess, I have never sailed them, nor have I ever taken a galley tour on Princess. I only reported the data points I had from HAL, all  protein comes aboard frozen.  I got that information from both the galley manager leading the tour and two different Pinnacle Grill managers.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, as others have said.

We tend to do a galley tour on most trips.  We have learned that all: seafood, beef, chicken, and lamb is purchased and delivered to the ship frozen, including that used in the Pinnacle Grill.  There is a “thaw room” in the galley.

Yes, you tour the galley and have appertisers there. The meal is served in the Library.

I read a book a few years ago called Cruise Confidential, or something like that. The author was a waiter first, and then got a job as an art auctioneer. He claimed on some cruises the art sales equaled or passed the revenue of both the casino and the bar departments.

No there is not. Just set up credit in advance and then you can sign the marker, no vig. Works like Las Vegas. Simple form to complete online.

It is $525 USD

We rarely go ashore at HMC anymore. Seems like we are always there when there are 2 ships and it is just way too crowded.

 

We liked HMC before they started all those cabanas, Pirate ship, and now the double decker cabanas.

 

So we basically stay on the ship.

We love HMC. It is a beautiful, unspoiled beach in the Bahamas. There are no aggressive vendors to bother us, unlike some beaches in other islands in the Bahamas. I do not understand the math when people here state that it is too crowded on HMC when there are two ships in port. Add up all the deck space and pool space on two Hal ships, then compare and contrast the beach and ocean space on HMC? It seems to me that the space per guest is 100X on HMC compared to the ship.

We have done a lunch in Muranro on a sea day which we thought was very good. Also we did a cooking class in Murano were lunch and a wine paring was included in the cost of the the class which we thought was very good.

Is there really a contract parents have to sign? That's rather off putting. Are un accompanied kids on HAL that awful that their parents have to sign a contract? Do parents know about this contract before they go?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

No there is not. Enjoy your cruise with your children.

Outstanding SIT-REP Commander!