ScottishMaid

35 minutes ago, lissie said:

Have they been to East Timor before? That is really quite a difficult country to get to and I've never seen  it on even an expedition style cruise itinerary? 

It was on a Maasdam itinerary just before Covid. I think Singapore to Sydney.

32 minutes ago, Pickalily, Wilts said:

My wish is quite selfish and a little harder to fulfil.  I wish HAL would sail occasionally from one of the southern UK ports while still keeping the international mix of passengers which we so like.  (We live around 45 minutes' drive from Southampton and that would be ideal.)  Flying has become very tedious and not a little stressful with last minute cancellations and it would be great to be able to take it out of the equation once in a while.

 

We did one of our best HAL cruises from Southampton in 2013 on the old Rotterdam - 88 days, with 14 of them around Indonesia and 6 in India. Suez Canal twice, Dubai, Petra, Luxor, Tunisia, Morocco and much more. Not a Grand Cruise and many sections were available. They ran that itinerary for 3 years.

Blog just updated. Hoping the plans to get home work out.

Great to follow your cruise especially as we met you years ago.. Where does your portable chest of drawers fit in the cabin and what kind of cabin?  I've being trying to visualize going for a long cruise on a Vista class ship. Please comment as you go along on the pluses and minuses compared to the Amsterdam. Thanks!

Maybe about 10:30. We could drive our car in then.

I used it frequently with family on our recent cruise. Just like texting but no need to pay for ship internet.

There was on the Koningsdam two weeks ago. It was very quiet there because everyone was being directed to th Lido as they got on. I firmly asked if the Dining Room was open and the staff member said yes somewhat reluctantly. That was about 12:15.

On the Koningsdam last week I had CCL OBC and the gratuities were deducted from it.

The Koningsdam had 2900 passengers last week. On the sea days the inside pool area was totally full at lunch with lots of (happy) noise and lines for NY Pizza, Dive In, and Gelato.The back pool area has tables on the smoking side and only a few tables on the other side. Otherwise sofas and coffee tables plus lots of people. Also very busy on sea days. The Lido itself had lines and crowds and the Dutch Cafe tables were filled (some just sitting there not eating). So the options were to eat no lunch, eat very late lunch, take your lunch to the room or use room service, which was surprisingly quick. The MDR had lines too.

1 hour ago, DAllenTCY said:

There has been a huge change at the port of San Diego in the past 3 weeks.

 

Facial recognition is now used for disembarkation......long overdue!

 

Yesterday, everyone had exited the ship and been cleared by CBP by 9:35 am.

 

That allows the embarking groups to begin entering at 10 am.....not 11 or 11:30 am.

 

Groups A thru D were onboard by noon and open boarding was sometime just a bit later.

 

Improvements have been made, those of us who work there are pleased for the changes.

 

The only downside is that disembarkation colors and numbers are called earlier than you expect.

 

 

David

Thanks for the great information. We board next Saturday the 17th and will be taking our own cars to parking. Will it work to drive into the port to drop off the luggage then get the cars parked and return by shuttle or Uber? If so about what time would we be able to drive in? Or should we have a better plan?

Out of the 2917 passengers do you know how many will be children? We will have a restless 5 year old with our group.

Thanks again.

8 minutes ago, SilvertoGold said:

Go when you want!  This happened to a friend in FtL, they didn't even look at the Check-in time. We haven't seen anyone but disabled (and probably Pres Club) allowed to skip the actual line.

Lunch is usually noon to 1 pm. Show up by maybe 10 to 1 and you will be fine.

Verifly is not used now, apparently.

 

Have a super cruise!!!

Thanks. I've been reading recent threads on the Koningsdam (Thanksgiving etc.) in San Diego where they are saying people are being lined up by boarding time outside the dock gate. I have boarded at San Diego many times and never encountered this.

17 hours ago, san diego spartan said:

Board the beautiful Koningsdam today and lunch in the MDR was available! Delicious.   Cobb salad with grilled salmon, a starter of spicy Roasted cauliflower and a yummy chocolate tart.  Excellent with a glass of white wine.  Great start to the cruise! Relaxed and not hectic.   Did walk through the craziness of the Lido buffet which confirmed my choice. 

 

Also as an aside easy and quick check in and boarding at San Diego port! Arrived at 11:30 am and was on board at 11:50am and in the cabin before noon.

 

Beautiful day and hopefully start to fantastic cruise!

We will be boarding on Saturday and have an assigned check in time of 12:10  group C.

Do you know when the MDR closes for embarkation lunch? 

Also do you know if 5 star Mariners can go to the head of the check in line?

And lastly we had an email saying to fill in Verifly. Was anyone checking this?

I realize that the ship is likely not full this week whereas it is next week. 

Thanks!

It doesn't look very rough at Nome. Maybe there was a problem with the dock.

2 hours ago, RedneckBob said:

Did you see when the ship is in Nome, Alaska, June 21, 2024, the longest daylight of the year. Wear your sunglasses to bed. 😎

Nome was on the itinerary for the Massdam July 2019. We sailed the two days north from Dutch Harbor. At Nome it was too windy and rough to tender so we sailed back south in grey weather. From what we could see it is very flat around Nome and the port is exposed  to weather. I say I went to "Nearly Nome". It was disappointing as there is nothing to see on the way. Maybe the Westerdam will be lucky. We had a beautiful day at Dutch Harbor where the weather can be bad.

Your blog has brought back memories of our cruises from the US to Australia in 2015 and around New Zealand in early 2020. Your comments on the Westerdam are encouraging but do you miss a smaller ship such as the Massdam? 

Thanks for writing the blog and Happy Holidays

Jill

Please be aware that the Indonesian crew are not Christians so don't celebrate Christmas.

The Filipinos are Catholic.

7 hours ago, cruisegirl06 said:

It seemed to change…the first night I think they let everyone in and it was chaotic, then apparently corporate said they had to limit it to 20 in 7-12s and 10 in 3-6s at a time…

 

At first you could sign up for any sessions the next day (e.g. on Monday you could sign up for Tuesday). This resulted in me going down every day at 9AM to try to sign my 5YO up for the next day.

 

Midweek I head them confirm to some other man that his kid was signed up for future days, and they let me sign up for future days then too (not sure if this was then standard protocol?)

 

I did go try to get her to drop in for a session where we didn’t have a space - they had 4 no shows in her age group and it was about 1.5 hours into the session. They hesitated to let her in, but eventually did.

 

In short - I think they were figuring it out as they went and it could be totally different, but I would ask at the kids club early and often to know what’s going on. Also be advised that they may be mixing age groups…

 

We sailed a holiday cruise that had a KSF in 2018 and had no issues getting kids into the club at that time. They may have alluded to that the club could be full, but there were no signups and we were never turned away. They also were running separate clubs then for 3-6 and 7-12.

Thank you so much for all your comments. Now I know what to expect but will hope the Koningsdam has learned from Thanksgiving and is more organized for the two/three cruises over the Christmas school break. We are two grandparents and two parents traveling with one 5 year old in connecting balcony cabins so we can take turns to do things with him if necessary.

On 11/27/2022 at 8:15 AM, cruisegirl06 said:

Club HAL was not up to usual par this past week on Koningsdam. It was thanksgiving week so there were 400+ kids, but they were only allowing ten 3-6 year olds And twenty 7-12s in at a time.  It was sign up only.

 

Please can you give as much information as possible about sign up. Is it embarkation day for the week? or on embarkation day for certain sessions? or? Our grandson is 5 and looking forward to Club HAL.

We are on the Koningsdam for the 17-22 December cruise and it has been booked out for weeks. Kids cruise free and it is school vacation for most. The cheapest fare of $299 per adult totals to $1098 for a family of 4 for 5 days, including port taxes, and for a while there was a private fare of $209 making a total of $918.

We are wondering what the capacity is of Club HAL, especially for the youngest kids. Can we can sign up in advance or is it first come first served for every three hour session? We are traveling with our 5 year old grandson for the fist time, and also son and DIL on December 17th Koningsdam.

We usually cruise during school time so any other comments re cruising with hordes of kids are welcome. For example do you see kids in the MDR and in the show lounge?

Thanks!

Great photos! We went to all three of these places when on the Maasdam in January/February 2020. The Gallipoli exhibit was very moving. My Scottish grandfather fought there.

Sorry you missed Kaikoura. We did visit it on the Maasdam. The 7.8 earthquake in 2016 was devastating to the area. It is described well in the museum and also as you tender in you can see the rocks of the uplifted seabed.

Of course in the good old days of the Maasdam there were biology and geology speakers onboard to explain everything.

We are going on the 5 day Koningsdam to Mexico just before Christmas. We have adjoining balcony cabins with our son, DIL and very lively 5 year old grandson. It will be an "interesting" experience and all new to our curious grandson.

Kids cruise free, school vacation, and the inside cabins, in fact most of the ship, is sold out. We are accustomed to no kids and smaller ships on long cruises. So keeping an open mind. 

All inside cabins for the Koningsdam 17 December 5 day Mexico cruise are sold out.

It looks balconies are sold out too and only outsides are left. 

The insides were selling for $209 per person plus $145 tax at one stage and kids cruise free (taxes only). That would attract many people who normally cruise with other lines to try HAL.

6 hours ago, Sososailer said:

I am curious as what was the last HAL voyage of the Maasdam. It was part of one of the distinct voyages between Sydney and Singapore. I see there was an active Roll Call for the cruises and a very nicely done Google Docs spreadsheet. But was the very last HAL voyage it did? 

 

 

The last voyage was Auckland NZ to San Diego. Some passengers were supposed to leave or board the ship at Tahiti but that was not allowed. Ports were missed.

We left the ship at Auckland on March 1 2020, coming from Sydney, so we were on the last voyage where all the ports were visited as in the itinerary.

I've really enjoyed reading your posts and have saved them in case we go next year.

It's a good cruise to take to get away from the summer heat.

Thanks for posting!

Sue from Canada and Btimmer thanks for your comments on Prince Christian Sound.