Lady Chew

On 12/17/2019 at 7:29 AM, palolake said:

 

Those look tiny.

Ok, I've got it.  Solid for the pool and striped to go ashore!

Except we don't ever use the stripes outside of our cabin.  We take the solid ones when we need to take towels ashore.  That way, IF we misplace them or forget them (neither of which has ever happened) we aren't charged for them.  We HAVE seen people take towels that other people have left on their chairs at various beaches.  People come back to their spot and their towels are gone … 

One of the advantages of doing a small, private tour at Ephesus is that your guide can take you off onto the small side paths that are all over Ephesus that are too narrow for the large groups.  It was unbelievable how much more we saw on that tour (our third, the first two were ship tours)

6 hours ago, Seasick Sailor said:

We like to stay at The Inn at The Market, but OP asked for a motel close to the airport with shuttle to cruise port. Pretty much anywhere you stay in Seattle can get you to the cruise port in a short period of time.

Except from the airport; it's much further out, and traffic can be horrendous.  But perhaps not on weekends?

 we briefly considered this, but we'll just wait and see … 

Very disappointed to see this.  We hope to take the Voyage of the Vikings in 2021, but this would run us about $600 per day for each of us.  We don't need the airfare or the beverage package.  Like Taters, we'll be waiting until later this year to book our 2021 European cruise.  If VoV sells out with this promotion, we'll find something else.  

I was on the website earlier today … and there it was!   BUt they are only offering "restricted" (non-refundable deposits) or bundled fares.  It's part of their 2021 European Launch, or something to that effect.  I did not explore deeply on the website, just contacted my TA and she talked to HAL.

We just want a cabin, not air fare or drink packages, and right now you can only book one of those two options.  

We'll wait until they offer the regular fares, in a few more months.  And we'll hope they don't sell out with just these two options.

14 hours ago, chemmo said:

 

Never seen this, we have seen many guests carrying towels back over their shoulders, however, as they are too damp and sandy to put in your beach bag with other items.

 

Taking an empty plastic bag with you for end of day towels is a good idea.

We have seen the used towels literally littering any beach we have been to on a day off the ship.  If there are multiple ships in port, there are towels from multiple ships.

8 hours ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

I agree 100%, I don't want to take the chance that someone else takes my towels during the shore excursion.   I take the towels from the pool area and I return them.  Sometimes the towels by the pool are covered early during the port days so you may need to get your towels the previous day or lift the cover and grab a couple of towels.  If you don't want to lift the cover, you usually I can get towels in the Solarium.

That's exactly why we take the pool towels.  If someone else takes them (which has happened!), or we lose them (which has never happened) or were to forget them (which I can't imagine; we don't leave things like that) we don't get charged.  We try to get them the night before we need them.  

We never take the "special" beach towels provided in our room.  We take the regular pool towels and have always returned them to the poolside bins.  We've always been amazed to see all of the ship towels left on the beach at the end of the day … 

19 hours ago, teansea said:

We are sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam with our 5 and 2 year olds.  Neither is good about staying in bed.  

Does that mean they fall out of bed, or that they climb out of bed?  When my sons were around 2 or 3, they could easily climb out of bed, and often did.  Railings of any kind would not have kept them any bed.  Shackles might have worked, though.

I have my own mask, and I also have my own VEST!!  It's a little more substantial than the ones usually provided by the operators, and it gives me a little more confidence/security in the water.  I don't need a noodle or other flotation device so my hands & arms are free.  I can stay in the water much longer than I used to without it.

My diabetic hubby also enjoys the no sugar added desserts in the WJ.  They've usually got a pretty good variety.   I imagine that it varies from ship to ship

On 11/9/2019 at 5:25 PM, Mtn2Sea said:

While on this year’s world cruise, we did HAL’s excursion to Mont St. Michel from Cherbough.  Although it was a long day, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.  We would have liked a little more time there, but only because we were on our own for lunch.  The time allotted to touring the Abbey itself was sufficient.

We were also on the WC, and booked the HAL excursion as our freebie excursion.  It was long day, but totally worth it (even if we had paid for it).  We had an excellent guide, so we had good & very interesting info about the countryside as we drove back & forth.  We had plenty of time to go ALL OVER the Abbey & grounds & town (people do live there; there is even a cemetery for them) … we didn't take the time for lunch, we just bought a fresh (yum!) loaf of bread from one of the bakeries, and did a little bit of shopping before going back to meet the shuttles back to the bus parking.

For the stop in Cherbourg, we had originally planned to go to the Normandy beaches, but when we saw this excursion listed in our excursion booklet, we immediately changed our plans.  Very glad we did!

If you want to leave a candy bar in addition to an actual monetary tip, then you should.  If you want to leave candy during the cruise, then you should.  If you want to leave holiday-related candy for your steward/whomever, then you should.

We have seen crew members coming back from port stops with BAGS FULL of candy, soda & chips, cookies & crackers.  Crew members from all over the world doing so all around the world.  On just about every cruise we've ever taken.  BAGS full of candy, soda & chips.  All kinds of candy, some brands we recognize, others we don't.  

We sometimes buy local sweet treats and bring them to share with our cruising buddies at dinner.  The stewards ALWAYS want to know what they are, where we got them, how do they taste.  Not just the waiters for our table.  So we've learned to buy extras.

On 10/21/2019 at 1:22 PM, JennyB1977 said:

@SRF I have tried Kindle, my phone, and some other e-reader. I just can't. I have been an avid reader most of my life. I love the feel of turning pages. I keep one in my carry on and a few more in my checked bag 🙂 I used to live closer to a used book store (Manassas) and miss it. Now when I'm done I donate to the library.

 

I've been in the area since 2000. Quick detour in Richmond from 05 - 08.

McKay's ???  We love that place!! … we buy books by the dozens to take on our trips.  We leave them behind when we're done.

We like 'em all!!

In the winter, we cruise for 3-4 weeks to get away from the cold.  For those cruises, we prefer the larger ships.  We loved our cruises on the Oasis class ships.  We pick & choose what activities/entertainment we attend, spend a lot of time on our balconies, don't really care about the ports, as long as the weather is HOT HOT HOT.  Our main consideration for this type of cruise is $$$.  Our next cruise on a big ship is on the Nieuw Statendam (big for HAL, that is, not necessarily Royal or Princess or Carnival!).  We're curious to see how HAL handles a big ship, and hopefully there will be a younger demographic.  For the Caribbean, we like the overall vibe that a good mix of ages provides.

When we cruise to explore, as we usually do once or twice a year, we prefer the smaller ships.  As mentioned several times, they can get into some very interesting & wonderful ports around the world that the larger ships simply cannot.  Itinerary is our most important consideration for these cruises, then size, then $$$.  Next fall we'll be on Serenade of the Seas in Australia & New Zealand.

18 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

I’m still trying to figure out what background composition she was trying to get a shot of.  None of it makes any sense to me.

When I first saw the picture a few days ago and read about these idiots, I thought that maybe she was going to turn around on the railing once she got up there so that the ocean would be in the background … as she was falling … 😈

Right now there are very similar threads on the Holland America and Royal Caribbean threads, although this one has by far the most well-thought out & comprehensive poll.  

We cruise in balconies, an occasional suite, on Celebrity, Royal & HAL.  One cruise on Oceania, we did not really like the ship, and there were way too many of the "let me tell you how important/rich/wonderful I am" types on board.  So, no more Oceania for us, unless the perfect itinerary at the perfect price comes along at the perfect time.  We are not interested in any of the luxury lines at this time.

We pick our cruises based on a combination of price & itinerary.  We find Celebrity & HAL to be roughly interchangeable, with Royal a notch below.  None of the individual items on this poll would be enough to make us change lines, especially since we think they're pretty much the same anyway.  If enough of them ever occurred that they impacted our enjoyment of cruising, that's when we'd have to look at Viking or Oceania again.

I don't jog, but I do walk for miles around the Promenade deck on our cruises.  I think the sports deck lanes are pretty useless for serious walking, let alone jogging.  

13 hours ago, whogo said:

I never thought the cruise director was one of the busiest people on the ship. The ones I have seen have only introduced the shows (and told us to applaud afterwards), made a daily announcement or two or three and ran an occasional trivia game.

The cruise directors do many things that you do not see, mainly involved with supervision/coordination of all activities for passengers.  

We were on the WC this year.  Mr Chew attended a Q&A session with Orlando and members of senior management.

They made it quite clear that they cannot build any more 1500-passenger class ships and meet their financial objectives at current pricing for their market.  That is why they are building the pinnacle class ships.  They are a different model for cruising.  

The focus, as stated by Ashford & his team, is on food, music and itineraries as the core elements for their new construction.  How that all will play out remains to be seen.  Things are going to be different as they replace the older ships with newer ships.  They also need to replace their older demographic with one that has different interests & expectations of cruising.  

We are planning to book a cruise on the Nieuw Statendam in the near future and are looking forward to a new, different experience on HAL.  

We were on this year's WC.  In Mumbai, we took the ferry to see the Elephanta Caves (very interesting).  There is a long docking pier jutting out from land for the ferries, and you take a train on to the actual island.  There were several old HAL tenders sitting there in the mudflats. 

I guess old tenders get sold? and end up in various places … 

We've had some good tours booking through them, and some not-so-good tours.  

So now I try much harder to find the local tour companies/guides so I can book directly with them.  If that's not possible, I still use Shore Excursions.  

We've taken many cruises, most of them long (as in, 3 weeks or more), on four different cruise lines.  We try not to fall in the "been there, done that" camp but we do get excited & love to talk about our cruises when the conversation goes in that direction.  We are very experienced cruisers, we love to share our stories & tips and hear others' stories & tips

We hate hearing people say they've been to Port Whatever so many times they want the cruise line to change the itinerary.  We can always find something new to do in a port, no matter how often we've been there, and we have developed certain traditions for different ports.  And there are always people on the ship who have never been there and are looking forward to their first time.  There have been changes on all of the lines over the years we've been cruising, we don't like all of them, but we don't lose sleep over any of them.  Life is too short!

Most of our longer cruises have been on Holland America.  We just took our first (and probably only, but never say never) World Cruise this year.  Most of the people on that cruise were repeat world cruisers.  3 times, 5 times, 10 times, 15 (not kidding) times.  The sense of entitlement that most of those folks had was incredible.  "MY seat in the theater, MY table for trivia, MY bartender, MY place in line, MY this, MY that, MY MY MY MY MY"   We did meet some wonderful folks and overall had a wonderful time, but listening to all of the MYs every day was a major bummer. 

It's almost as bad on their shorter cruises.  Much worse on HAL than X or Royal.  

We've also had them placed on the outside back cover.  We remove them when we get back home.

37 minutes ago, kazu said:

 

Just in case this is of help - I wrapped an envelope with my note and cash in it with my laundry form in the bag.

 

got a note back from the laundry guys thanking me so I think they got it 😉 

 

 

what a great idea!!