sunviking90

Norwaygirl, I wish you both a wonderful continuation of your vacation! I agree with Middlehaitch, we would love to see continuing updates.

Yes, you can use it for tips onboard. We also use it to buy coffee cards.

I’ll be following for sure! We were off the Millennium on the 24th and had a wonderful time. It may not be very full because they added another week in Alaska to her schedule about 4 months ago and this threw off the schedules of the subsequent cruises. I know ours was less than half full. I would think a lot of people prefer the ease of ending a Panama Canal cruise in Florida too (rather than PR). Enjoy!

The Polynesian shows are always my favorite. The keikis are adorable!

Milk is for the tea. 🫖

That’s what I love about Cafe Al Bacio. A proper pot of tea and none of this teabag in a cup nonsense. At home we buy (or order) loose tea from Murchies which is very old (over 100 years I think) company here in BC with locations still in Vancouver and Victoria. If anyone is ever in Victoria and wants a budget “afternoon tea” without Fairmont prices, their shop in town has a lovely little area for tea and scones or other treats.

Yes, as in the case of the OP some cruises at times will only let you book a guarantee. I know a lot of people are anti-guarantee, but we have actually almost always been happy with our guarantee assignments and in some cases very pleased. They are not necessarily bad locations, but often released group space previously held by TA’s that hasn’t sold. One time I did call as I was concerned with the location and they moved us to another open cabin I selected in the same category.

Hopefully they will still be in the staterooms for our transatlantic leaving from Southampton. 🤞🏻. I’d love to have easy access to tea at all times!

Tea Forte was served at Al Bacio last week on the Millenium. Sorry if I used it all up.

Looking forward to following along. We really enjoyed your reports from the Majestic earlier in the year as we were boarding her soon after. Our first Princess cruise 20 years ago was on the Sapphire Princess. She was a beautiful ship then. Hopefully she has stood up well.

We remembered Dive In being SO good on previous HAL cruises including the last prepandemic in fall of 2019. I loved the fries and would sometimes order them alone. On our recent Zuiderdam cruise we went there first thing and I was very disappointed. Burger seemed to lack flavour, fries were soggy, and bland. Not at all as we remembered. Thank you to OP for an interesting comparison. We bounce around between the 3 and they all have their strengths and weaknesses for sure.

Thank you for taking the time to do this trip report! We are really enjoying your positive spirit and emoji’s 😃! We just finished a wonderful Alaska cruise on the Millennium in Aquaclass, and considered staying on for the next (very empty coastal) leg, but the rate for Aqua was more than we wanted to pay. We decided to get off because Blu was such a fantastic experience, we didn’t think we continue on the ship and not be in there. Too sad! Another time yes, but not on the same ship when we know what we’d be missing with the great team in Blu. It sounds like you are enjoying the menu in the MDR (and the ice cream like a good Norwegian!)and that’s too bad about the seating. I agree about the smoking areas on Celebrity. On Millenium they also had it on the corner of the walking/exercise track. Not what we want to breath in while trying to get exercise! I think you said originally that your trip was going to be about 6 weeks(?). Are you staying on in Hawaii after the cruise? If so, I hope you make it to Kauai. Celebrity doesn’t stop there and the last time we did this itinerary we added a stay there. It now our favorite island.

I would think a closed loop short cruise would be a more jovial atmosphere for sure, particularly with the current push on all inclusive pricing. We’ve taken many short coastal cruises, but they were one way only and a pretty reserved crowd as a rule.

Very cool! I love the east coast cruises. 🙏 for all our friends in the maritimes.

Well, this morning I received another email saying I will be refunded and an apology. So, that’s good news. The bitter taste remains though. Thank you for everyone’s supportive messages.

Not to worry. I’m like a dog with a bone at this point. I’m so angry and insulted by the situation. I’ll see if I get a reply today from my response to yesterday’s email. I’ll take a break from the situation tomorrow as we’re leaving on our Celebrity Cruise. The first thing I’ll do is have clean out the minibar. interstingly, before this happened as I’m newly retired we were looking at world cruises for 2024 with HAL. That is not happening now. For $35.

So sorry to hear this! Your situation sounds worse than mine. Have you tried the chat function on the website? I’m not sure if that works, but people suggested it to me after the fact. I’d also put the brakes on the future cruise with them if I were you. I’m certainly not booking anything with them again, after almost 30 years of cruising with HAL.

I think we had this happen once about 10 years ago. A call to them easily fixed it. That’s the only time I ever questioned a bill. After that we started to request to have it cleared when we got to the cabin, but first HAL cruise since the pandemic and my guard was down I guess.

Thank you. It really does add insult to injury that they think I’m lying. I wasn’t expecting that at all.

I’ve sent a reply and cc’d it to Michael Stendebach, Vice president, food, beverage and guest services. Thank you to those who mentioned Elliot.org in other threads. A great resource to get things to the right people. We’ll see what happens.

So, I called again yesterday, was on hold for 4 hours and this was the result: Dear Ms. …….. Thank you for contacting us regarding your sailing on ms Zuiderdam. We are grateful that you have given us this opportunity to review your concerns regarding your onboard final statement. Concerning the charges for the minibar, we have reached out to the ship. They have forwarded the below itemized receipt showing the min bar consumption as reported by Stateroom steward during final check after debarkation. As per Holland America Line set standard, the charges show as accurate and will remain on your bill. Thank you again for contacting us with your concerns, and please feel free to follow up with any additional comments or questions. Sincerely, Dana Oliver Special Advisor Office of the President

Me too. Less than 5 minutes. The easiest of the hoops we have to go through these days.

Afternoon tea is usually at 3 pm daily in the dining room.

I was told by a family member in the travel industry that the many of the cruise lines are using consolidated call centres, so the agent you speak to may not be specifically an HAL agent. They may be taking calls for many different lines. Explains a lot.

Thanks *Miss G*!