Moriah

You won't be out any money, but you won't be able to go. Port fees and taxes will be refunded if you cancel. Hope they feel better and you'll be able to sail. Bummer.

I cruised with my daughter on Rotterdam in the family ocean view on deck one and it was awesome!! You will love it. I love the lower decks. It was very quiet and that extra shower and sink was wonderful!

Ah, coffee... a subject near and dear to my heart! Over the many years I've been sailing on HAL ships, the coffee story has written itself in many chapters. First, there was literally NO decent coffee to be found on board. I had to content myself with pretending that room service and Lido and diningroom offerings were actually "coffee" at all... and find decent stuff when on shore. Then, slowly things changed. The dining room and specialty restaurant coffee became borderline "acceptable", as did room service coffee, and following that at some point, Lido coffee became borderline (important word) acceptable as well. THEN, we got "Explorations Cafe"... and espresso was now served on board. MUCH better, although certainly not to the level of excellence of some good coffee houses on land. Still, big improvement. My drink there is Americano with one or two extra shots. The situation NOW is, IMHO, that when you are on a ship that has no Dutch cafe, the dedicated Explorations cafe will have good coffee, because the crew baristas working there will have a lot of practice, presumably. When you are on a ship that DOES have Dutch cafe, this will mean that Explorations doesn't actually exist - it's just a coffee maker stuck into the Crows Nest bar, and while the potential is there, the bar-tenders are not baristas... There are exceptions to this. My last cruise on Rotterdam I was the first one in the crows nest every morning and Dexter made me a great coffee... but in general, the good coffee on those ships with the Dutch cafe is AT the Dutch cafe. Very good coffee. So now, if you are on a ship that has it all, coffee quality IMHO is as follows, from least good to best: 1. Lido 2. Dining room 3. Room service 4. Specialty restaurants 5. "Explorations cafe" 6. Grand Dutch Cafe

No, please don't confuse Turtles06. He was asking specifically about taking one's own luggage off, in which case what you have said is not correct. They will be assigned the earliest time regardless of when their flight is, because of the self-removal of luggage. Being "patient" has nothing to do with it in this case. The reason I mentioned that the alternative is to wait until the END is that people getting off as you described will be LINED UP, sometimes the lines are long, and it would NOT be appropriate to be dragging your luggage off at that time, in addition to the fact that your assigned time will be first thing in the morning. So if you are taking your own luggage off, even if you have a "later flight" you will be assigned disembarkation at 7:30 or so, but as I have said several times, there is no harm if you simply WAIT until embarkation is almost over and then take your luggage off.

I agree with Ruth, however, that said, if you have an early flight I would get to the gangway as early as possible, just be respectful of the issues she mentioned. And as I said, if you don't, just wait until the line is over and get off later (my preferred scenario always :))

Yes, you can take your own luggage off, I do that all the time. Best to get off VERY EARLY or VERY LATE. You will be given a particular time based on your giving them the form filled in stating you will be taking off your own luggage, but my advice would be to ignore that and just wait until a little after 9 AM when the announcement comes GET OFF OR ELSE (just kidding, but you know what I mean). But I hate waiting in lines and there WILL be lines to disembark. So if you have an early flight, line up as soon as you can figure out where the gangway will be. If not, go have breakfast in the Lido (don't stay in your room - the stewards have to do the turnaround, and it's just rude to hang onto the room so they can't do that - relax, eat, and then get off at the very tail end of disembarkation.

When I sailed in November on Rotterdam there was the usual mariner lunch in the MDR, and the Lido, as well as (my choice) the Dive In at the Lido pool. We ordered on the app as soon as we got on board and were eating hamburgers by the pool before noon.

This was exactly my point. What you have said is simply NOT TRUE! Lots of people who are NOT high star mariners, do NOT play in the casino, and do NOT buy jewelry also get these offers. So I repeat, there have been theories like you have listed abounding for years, and none of them pan out.

I went on three free stateroom cruises on HAL between November 2022 and May 2023. All three offers gave me a long list of cruises to choose from and apparently I could have taken more than one from each list. It was great while it lasted, but since March (the offer I took them up on for a cruise in May) I haven't received any more of those offers. I am a 4 star mariner, play in the casino very frugally, and sometimes play bingo. Not a big spender in any other way. All the offers were from the casino, which I thought was strange, but was happy to take them up on it! What I wanted to say here is, for as long as I've been cruising (many, many years) and reading posts on CC, there has been speculation about why/how/when these offers arrive. NOBODY as far as I can tell, has been able to crack this question. There are many, many theories as to who gets the offers, when, and why. None of them end up holding water as there is always someone saying, "No, it's not just for mariners with high status, no, it's not just for high rollers, no it's not just for big spenders," and on and on and on. I've long since stopped trying to figure it out. If an offer comes and I want to take it, I do. There just seems to be NO way to predict or figure out who gets them. On the last free cruise I brought a friend along and she made sure to play in the casino to "get her name on the list." I just smiled and said "whatever." Because, not to beat a dead horse, there just is NO way to figure this out. 🙂

No, Koningsdam will not go into the "arm". There are excursions you can book that take you in there. And the excursion will return you to the Kdam which will already be docked in Juneau. Well worth it if you can book it.

Usually they come around with it out on the bow, assuming weather is good enough to have the bow open. It's usually late morning, if I remember correctly.

Holland America usually gets the BEST berths in Alaska, due to being "grandfathered in" so to speak, so it would be a very very strange occurrence to have to tender from a HAL ship - if there are so many ships in port that one of them has to anchor off shore, it likely will NOT be a HAL ship. Sitka used to be a tender port, but no more, and Ketchikan and Juneau - you'll be docked right downtown, as said, in the best spot in town! Get off the ship and hop, skip, or jump right into the Red Dog Saloon!

Absolutely. Both pools will be heated. If there are kids jumping around on the Lido pool you can always go outside to the supposedly adults only pool, since even when the air is frigid, the water is nice and warm!

you should still use the sheet - fill it out as normal but just ignore the prices and state you are "filling a bag". I always keep a copy just to remember what I sent out. Have never been missing anything yet, happily.

16.50 per day for non-suite cabins. Yes, you can request to "opt out", on the last day of sailing by going to Guest Services and asking them to remove your "Crew Appreciation" charges from your final bill. And yes, you can, as you put it "pay" servers directly, which I take to mean "tip" them directly. Yes, you can, but why not consider that something extra for "extra" service and still give the "Crew Appreciatoin" daily gratuities, since those ALSO go to ALL THE UNSEEN and incredibly hard-working crew such as laundry experts, Cleaners and polishers and fixers of all descriptions - and etc. etc.

For me a "problem" with these offers is you have to decide relatively quickly. The last offer I got said "book by March 8" and it was well into February when I got it. Sometimes that works out great, but the cruise that looked best to me on that offer doesn't take place until November and I don't normally book anything that far in advance. Life is too unpredictable! 🙂

Nope. I am a four star mariner. (very close to 5) and I received several offers in the last 6 months. Both of the free cruises I took recently were on well-filled ships. As I mentioned before, people have been speculating for years on what the heck triggers these offers, who gets them, etc. and nobody can figure it out. Fun to try to guess, but it's all just guessing.

Everybody is assigned a time, but as has been oft-repeated, these times are not enforced. If you are in a Neptune suite you'll get priority boarding. You can board as soon as boarding begins.

There is no rhyme or reason that anyone has been able to definitively figure out for when and why these offers come. I am going on my third free casino offer cruise next week.I received 6 offers in the past 6 months. But the last offer I received was not for a free cabin, but rather for a very reduced rate, and even though it was a casino offer it did not have any "free play" included in it! So like you, I'm hoping the free ones will start up again, but from what I can see, as said, nobody has really been able to figure out what prompts these offers. There are high-rollers, low-rollers, drinkers, non-drinkers, and everybody else receiving these... it's a secret algorithm only the casino company knows. All else is speculation and theories. 😉

I feel you. For many, many years I worked on all "vacations" including over 40 cruises on HAL on all ship types. It was always a source of stress for me "will the wifi really work?"... I have found, and I know you're not going to want to hear this... that you have to allow for at least the possibility that you will not be able to take one or more of those meetings. The wifi might be absolutely stellar and fast as lightning on one day, and non-existent the next. Testimonials from people saying "wifi on Zaandam is great" or "wifi on Zaandam is terrible" are actually meaningless, since there is no way to predict how it will be behaving on the day and time of your meeting. All that said, overall, wifi on all the ships is really pretty good. I'd say you have a very good chance of being able to take those video meetings and all being fine. I'm just saying be aware there is no guarantee. Also, the entire fleet is going over to Starlink internet, which will be a whole new world of great as far as connectivity at sea. Perhaps someone knows when Zaandam will be connected and can comment. Good luck! I'm also going on Zaandam to Canada in a couple of weeks and really looking forward to it. Now that I'm retired, that whole internet question is behind me, but as said, I definitely feel you...

I always pack bar soap - I love Elemis products, but for some reason the shower gel is kind of drying for me, and anyway I've never been a "gel" person. When they had the round Elemis bar soap, it was just as drying as the gel, thus my years long habit of packing bar soap for cruises. If I don't have a small bar I've saved from some hotel or other (and as someone mentioned even those are going extinct) I bring a half or more "used" bar from home and just toss it after my last onboard shower.

I highly doubt it will be a problem. You'll have priority boarding and can just say these people are with me. The worst that can happen is they will say only those with actual boarding passes that say "priority" on them can board right away, but right after those people board they will start regular boarding and you can all just get on together.

Will do! The last time I did this itinerary it was on Maasdam, a ship I adored... I am intending to love Zaandam just as much! 🙂

Nope, just 7 day one way Boston-Montreal. But.. you could still be on to something since this is a popular route for B2Bers who do the round trip Boston-Boston or Montreal-Montreal. So they may have been juggling for that reason, and we got lucky.

Wow, I really wasn't expecting to get our cabin assigned so early. Other guarantees I've had we've had to wait until at least 10 days before the cruise, and in a couple of cases until only 48 hours before. So the good news is I've got the cabin number almost 3 weeks in advance, and the bad new is, it's the first time we haven't received an upgrade from our guarantee category. Oh well, we've been SO lucky in the past, it was time to get just what we paid for. Oh wait. We paid nothing. It's a casino offer that came with a free inside cabin. I've had these offers before and the last two times we got an OV, and this past November we got an OV FAMILY (two bathrooms!) on Rotterdam. So, I've been very blessed and lucky, AND while this one is "only" an inside cabin, it's a great location near an exit on deck 3 (Zaandam) so I can zip in and out which I LOVE. I know many people don't like guarantees. I kind of like the element of surprise and I'm not terribly picky about location on the ship. When I've paid for expensive Neptune suites I've been sure to choose my location (right across from the lounge please), but other than that, in any other category, I'm really not fussed about where it is, so that if the guarantee is much cheaper (or in this case, free) I'm happy to wait for the surprise and have always been pleasantly surprised! So, anyway, no real point to this post except I have no place else to gush about these things except CC ! 🙂 sort of blank bored looks from anyone else, even the person I'm cruising with LOL