sunviking90

Bon Voyage! 🛳️

It was a reference to @Roz saying she didn’t want to be “stuck” on the Volendam or Zaandam. I could have used quotes for clarity I guess. I am happy to be “stuck” on either ship anytime. edited: I read through and see this has already been clarified.

As far as I know they have pickle ball courts. They are the “official” pickle ball cruise line aren’t they? Volendam had 2 new pickle ball courts.

We just finished being stuck on the Volendam for 18 days and after quite a few cruises on larger Princess ships post pandemic as well as the Zuiderdam, we LOVED the friendly small ship feel of the Volendam. The recent refurbishment left the ship feeling fresh, while keeping anll the classic things we love like the huge library and she’s now our favorite. We had only 1200 passengers and it was great! We all have different tastes and that’s fine. I’m trying out my first Pinnacle class in January on Koningsdam. I know I’ll miss the wide promenade, but aside from that I may love it. Who knows?

That menu looks delicious. We aren’t vegetarian, but do centre our meals around vegetables, and I would love most things in there, except the “beyond meat”. I’d rather go without than have manufactured imitations.

Thank you for your review. We had almost booked this cruise and decided on a different one. Our best Princess cruises in recent years were also the early pandemic restart ones, such as yours in January 2022. Those of us who were able to take these sailings experienced great personalized service and Princess really pulled out the stops to make things good for returning passengers. It sounds like the buffet has really gone downhill. Hopefully it is just a one off for this ship. I agree about the Piazza. It has become a horrible, noisy, chaotic environment. We avoid it completely. We just returned from a Holland America cruise, and while I prefer many things about Princess, I loved the peaceful and quiet environment on HAL.

Agree. Not a favorite of mine. It seems like they just sprinkle topping on cooked fruit filling and quickly torch it. The topping has an odd taste to me. I prefer Princess’s version.

I started asking for broccoli with no salt in it on the side as we noticed there were few veggies too. The ones that showed up were either stewed, in some type of ragout, or bits of turnip, carrot etc and salted. The first time I ordered extra steamed veggies on the side they were very salty so I learned my lesson and asked for no salt in them. We are finding it hard to avoid the heavy salt in everything. It’s the same on Celebrity and Princess. There were fruit crisps almost daily in the dining room on our recent Volendam cruise.

This is right. I booked our recent cruise with a TA, but called myself 2 days before sailing for upsells and took one. I also want to clarify that TA’s DO make additional commission on upsells. My TA previously forwarded me an email from HAL with upsell offers that I thought were too high so I waited. This is a quote from the email: “Enhance your clients' cruise and increase your commission by taking advantage of a reduced rate to upgrade their accommodations. Here is your offer:…….”

That’s what we do. Lock any valuables in the safe, put carry on in the corner of the closet and off we go.

I agree. That’s what I have and I would find pizza or a burger to be much heavier.

There really isn’t. Onboard now and when I went through a mock booking the AARP automatically shows up, but I went down to actually book a cruise with the future cruise agent and he could not get my AARP to attach. I used a TA for this cruise, so I had it credited to her and I’ll have her chase it down when we get home.

I went in to see what it showed for our 7 day January cruise, and it reads as $16 day, but the total is in CAD even though it doesn’t say that. It works out to $1.30 exchange rate still.

My booking was through a TA, but I went in myself and paid the tips.

We were able to prepay gratuities in CAD for our cruise leaving tomorrow. Paid them about 3 weeks ago. The exchange rate they used when I calculated it was 1.30, so much better than waiting. Oddly enough buying OBC is in USD so would cost much more. Consistently inconsistent is HAL. @electro’s experience sounds unusual but I don’t doubt it.

I don’t miss the bags. They were the flimsiest of the cruise line bags we have received and I don’t think we ever took them home with us.

Bon Voyage!🛳️

They’re wrong. It is clear if I do a mock booking:

Bon Voyage!🛳️

Bon Voyage! 🛳️

The sale is live now.

Wow, I’m glad I screen shot ours for next week.

Haha, I believe it. I had a book recommended to me and it was very, very good. I then read another couple of books by the same author, and thought hold on! These characters are all so young! I had unwittingly stumbled into YA fiction.

Thank you @kazu! Getting very excited to join the beautiful Volendam in San Diego next week! It will be wonderful to sail towards Hawaii as the dark winter rains start to hit Vancouver.

I was wondering this too. I looked high and low on the website to find the terms, but it appears to be a secret.🤐