maraena

Hope you're feeling better, Norris. It took me awhile to get over my first bout of Covid. The other 2 weren't nearly as long. The joys of (previously) working in schools. If you haven't seen it yet, ParoDeeJay has a whole playlist on their AMA river cruise. It wasn't the Danube but gives you a good idea of what to expect. I watched their summary and agree with much of what they say about river cruises: limited entertainment, excellent food, and intense itineraries.

Thanks for the v-log suggestion. Our trip is in late April into mid-May. Hopefully we'll miss much of the pollen season here though I suspect it'll be early again with all this warm weather. Our previous river cruise was with Avalon and we enjoyed it. Not too over the top but good quality food and decent wine. Things were just starting back up so entertainment was pretty negligible - you still had to wear masks in a lot of places for reference. We'd definitely take Avalon again but I doubt you could go wrong on a river cruise. The ships are pretty much all the same due to size limitations and the fact that most are on lease. The key differences are alcohol inclusions beyond lunch and dinner and maybe a specialty restaurant on the upper end lines. You spend so much time off the ship on provided tours that we'd likely not pay a premium for those inclusions. Timing is a huge issue on the Danube, from what I understand, as river levels can greatly impact whether you take a river cruise or a bus tour. I think I mostly saw Indian food up at the lido buffet and I believe there were dishes there daily. At one point, I believe you were able to request an Indian meal/menu in the MDR but I'm not sure if that's still a possibility. You might ask the maitre'd at Club Orange when you board since you'll have a suite. I think POA, one of the big picture reviewers, is taking a Rotterdam cruise in March and will probably do a live review. It might even be the same itinerary as you're planning for December. I'd keep an eye on that review as he always does a fantastic job and will check things out for folks if there are questions.

Ha! You had a great, likely inadvertent guess. It's the Dawn. From what I can tell, we're on the first sailing post dry dock so that'll be interesting. I haven't been much of a reviewer but maybe I'll rethink that. I don't believe Dawn has the waterfront and, with absolutely no sea days, we're likely to use it as a floating hotel with maybe a couple of half days for some downtime. Prior to switching into HAL and Celebrity, we had sailed the Spirit (love that ship), the Star out of NOLA, and the Sky (big nope-on-a-rope) but it's been well over a decade since we've been on NCL so it's a testing phase. We're bracketing the cruise with an additional 10 days split between Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid so the cruise is just part of the trip. Typically, in a new port city, I build on at the front end when we're excited and fresh since we're often ready to get home to our dogs (and in spring/summer, my vegetable garden) at the end. This will be the first time that I'm adding to both ends so we'll see how that works. We also get to try out business class on a couple of new, to us, airlines on the way there and back. I'm a bit of a reward point hound so we're leveraging those for a more comfortable trip. Hopefully it works for my husband and my clingy male dog since I'm hoping to build a long stay bookending a Danube river cruise in a couple of years. There's been some posts on the HAL boards recently about an Indonesian dinner that takes place in Tamarind. From what I can gather, it's often on a night that will show no reservations available for booking and the menu looks quite interesting. It seems like it's getting high marks from diners as well so you may want to look out for it. Based on the menu and reviews, it seems like you get all of the items so go hungry!

I think the food on HAL is a step above Princess. We haven't cruised Celebrity since 2017 or so but I would've put HAL ahead on some things and Celebrity ahead on others. Again, I think HAL's strengths are beef and lamb but some of that may be our midwest-bred preference to order beef. Definitely much thicker cuts of beef than we had on Princess. If I were doing Club Orange, I'd probably always order the Club Orange special item as our shared plate with my choice of entree since that's just how we roll. I hear the Club Orange extra meals are quite good. The breakfast menu is far more varied on HAL and even the buffet does all eggs to order including eggs benedict. I believe the contract with BBKings was ended but I don't know what that means for the blues portion of the shows. On Nieuw Amsterdam, they changed the signage from BBKings to Rolling Stone so I'd guess that the rock band is playing there now and Billboard is totally for the piano. I also understand they've starting bringing back classical groups in the main theater but the Lincoln Center contract is over. I suspect things are in flux still but the daily programs for next fall should give a good idea of how things will settle out. I will say that the Rolling Stones groups are typically very good and play a range of music from the 60s-early 90s though most of the songs seemed like late 70s to 80s to me. The Crow's Nest area is very nice from our times on HAL. We would wander in there to grab coffee at the Explorations Cafe that's up at the bar area there on our way to our cabanas. (That was often at the start of the cruise before the cabana boys had figured out when we would arrive and had coffees in our cabana ready for us.) There's always a lot of folks there. Some reading, some sleeping, some playing cards, some gazing out the bow. Dutch Cafe isn't too bad but it isn't Al Bacio. Coffee seemed better than Princess at Dutch Cafe/Explorations, but I couldn't get a freshly brewed iced tea like I could at Al Bacio. That's ok, though, because with some hot water and ice, I can make my own! 😁 I don't want to turn you away from HAL. We really do like them and enjoy our time on ship. We just have to remember their quirks and adjust appropriately. I do think their service is excellent and, most of the time, quite polished. I also like the size of their ships and the general relaxing feel I get when I'm aboard. And, unlike Celebrity, they haven't priced themselves out of my budget. If I'm going to pay Celebrity prices, then I'm going on Oceania for what's touted as the best food. But, for us, the itinerary is first and then we start working the pricing angles particularly since we now have lots of time and many Caribbean cruises under our belt necessitating more creativity in our vacation planning to stave off boredom. So, oddly enough, our next cruise is a port-intensive southern Mediterranean on NCL. Haven't been on them since 2013 or so and I'd wager it'll be eye-opening. They are the only line we've sailed that actually does Anytime Dining well. If the food is too bad, we've got a new port everyday to sustain ourselves. We're not terribly picky eaters so I'm sure we'll find something to eat. From our experience, most of the ocean lines are more alike than different any more. And river cruising is a whole other beast that we also enjoy with high expectations for food and tempered expectations for entertainment. Happy to answer any other questions and thank you to you both for doing these great reviews/GSJs.

Good afternoon, Sir Norris! I've followed just about all your reviews and enjoyed your outlook on your travels. We've been trying to determine if a partial or full transit of the PC is in our future. Probably a partial since we're not too sure about the smaller ships (i.e., Zaandam, Coral Princess, etc.) that typically do the canal during the winter. Thanks for this write-up to help with our decision making. We enjoyed our recent 10 day aboard the Caribbean Princess so may have to look to the Emerald for a partial. We have cruised HAL multiple times and enjoy the line a lot. I do think their food is slightly more to our taste than Princess though I will say that Princess excels with seafood and pasta. HAL is great with beef and lamb. Based on our Feb 2023 cruise, their foray into Mexican-type foods has also been successful to our palates. We enjoyed their tacos at lunch (ordered 2 apps to make up a main), the chile rellenos at dinner, and their chimichurri steak. I hope they continue to delve into the use of spice. Due to the nature of cooking for large swaths of people, I suspect most cruise lines veer to the side of bland so as to not offend sensitive taste buds or bellies. A few HAL tips for you based on our experiences: The retreat cabanas may be worth investigating. They significantly raised their prices quite recently so it may not be the value it once was. We love the cabanas and often book the lowest level stateroom in anticipation of having one. We pretty much spent all day up there, only going to the MDR for tacos once we discovered those. You both book differently so it may not be a priority. Since you have a big balcony, consider ordering in room service for dinner one night. You can order off the MDR menus. There's no charge for this, to my knowledge, and your room steward will provide you with menus upon request though I think you can also find them on the app. The evening buffet mirrors the MDR menu. Want to have all you can eat lamb chops? Go hit the buffet. Need more chile rellenos? They've got it. Husband got into the habit of 'pre-gaming' the main dining room by hitting the buffet early once we got him trained to HAL's dining hours. Be really mindful of the buffet hours. HAL runs some really short (to us) buffet hours. It's probably our primary quibble cruising with them as we tend to eat late. If it's 8:02PM, you better get in line for pizza because the buffet is closed. You won't even find a cookie. The same issue can apply when you return mid afternoon from an excursion. HAL is really the only line we've found this on. The first thing my husband asked when I started looking at Princess was: What's their buffet hours? It really annoyed him. We started hoarding cookies, cheese, and other snacks in our room because he was afraid he wouldn't find anything when he wanted it. Dutch Cafe alleviates this some but doesn't have the variety that International Cafe has. We've never been big on the big theater productions. It works out for us since HAL doesn't do many of them. I've seen a lot of folks complaining about the entertainment on HAL being limited to BB Kings, Rolling Stone, and Billboard. Pre-covid, we loved wandering between BB Kings and Rolling Stone and didn't find the crowds overwhelming. (Ah, sweet summer child!) Now that BB Kings is gone, it's going to be down to Rolling Stone and Billboard. Our last cruise, BB Kings and Rolling stone areas were absolutely packed (SRO and spilling into the nearby hallways making them nearly impassable) and we weren't comfortable with crowds so didn't stick around. We definitely liked the smaller, more intimate sets on Princess at the Wheelhouse and Crooners. Hopefully HAL works this issue out soon. Eat at Tamarind. Then maybe eat there again. We really enjoy it every time we go. The dessert fruit bowl is excellent. Most go for the Mango Cloud or other items, but I'm telling you that the mix of fruits (e.g., pomegranate arils, passionfruit, kiwi) they have in that dessert is just so good. They will spice up their curry, too, upon request. We haven't eaten at Pinnacle Grill as I have yet to see a steak house beat my husband in preparation technique. No need to face another round of disappointment. We ate at Canaletto once when it first opened and weren't impressed but the menu has changed and the reviews are quite good. It may be a try on our next trip but Tamarind will always be number one in our hearts. From my understanding (given I've never had it), Club Orange uses the same menu as the MDR with one additional changing main dish each night. You can probably skip testing out the MDR one night unless you'd like a lesson in aggravation with HAL's implementation of Anytime dining. We avoid it and stick to set dining. HAL, much like Princess, uses the "we'll seat you anytime we feel like it" implementation philosophy. It's a gong show. I wish Princess would have one set dining room. We'd be more likely to choose them over HAL on similar itineraries if they did, all other things equal. Good grief, I'm long-winded! I hope you have a great trip on Rotterdam. We haven't been on her but did sail on Nieuw Statendam pre-Covid. I'm sure you've been all over Roger Jett's site with menus/activities and HalFacts for various pictures so I won't belabor those. Oh, and next time you're in FLL, you might check out Greek Islands Taverna down near Fort Lauderdale by the Sea. They don't take reservations and have some serious lines if you wait until typical dining hours, but they have incredible lamb chops and grilled octopus. I see folks eating other things and they look good, too, but I know what I'm ordering anytime I go and it's going to be horiatiki and lamb chops. Funny thing is, I don't typically like lamb (I find it overwhelmingly gamey) but I love theirs. It's a very casual, family-owned place with limited ambiance but excellent food.