shipmesomewhere

It sounds like Club O on the two new ships is generally considered a plus from those who have experienced it.  Those of us sailing on other ships will have to wait to see how well they execute on Club O for the rest of the fleet.  Color me skeptical, as I've never been a fan of Canaletto being a section of the Lido deck, and making Club O a section of the main dining room sounds similar, but I agree with someone's point above that we shouldn't slam it until we experience it. I just hope HAL pilots the program on one of the non-Pinnacle ships and sees how well it works before rolling it out to the rest of the fleet willy-nilly.    

I'm willing to pay for the size of the cabin, and I'm willing to pay for priority services, but maybe I should think about just paying to be on the small ships where the perks don't matter as much because they're not needed.  Choices, choices!

The Orange Club really dilutes the value of getting a Neptune Suite - basically, on a 12-day cruise someone in a standard cabin can buy most of the perks I get for only $600 while I am paying thousands more.  One of the best NS perks is the prioritized embarkation and if this shifts a lot of people into my line, I’ll start looking at other cruise lines. (If everyone can get a FAST pass, none of them are very fast - so, the only value we are getting for the NS now is really the larger cabin size.)  Not a good move, HAL.

They'll be posted in March. I called HAL last week to ask about the 2019 Med cruises, and was told that Venice is having a big meeting in early March about cruise ships, and the outcome will affect all the Mediterranean itineraries. There's been talk for years that Venice is not going to allow cruise ships to sail into Venice any more, sad because it's one of the most fabulous sail-ins in the world. Apparently Italy has already voted that cruise ships will have to go to a nearby industrial port instead and take a bus/boat into Venice, but it's unclear whether the dredging necessary for cruise ships to use the new port will be done by next year and apparently port taxes are part of the vote. Anyway, we'll find out soon!

Here's a recent article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/world/europe/venice-cruise-ships.html

I agree, it's a very good deal - particularly as we were booking a suite anyway! We figured out the hotel value for us (we know which hotel) is about $650, we'd save about $70 on taxis and $30 on tips, so the total value for us is about $750. We're doing a Baltic cruise, and the special event is to go see the castle where Hamlet was set, a nice excursion that we probably wouldn't have done otherwise since it's a 45-minute trip out of town. I'm noticing lots of nice changes at HAL these days. We were looking at another cruise line for a Med cruise next year with the kiddos, but may book HAL to get the signature experience. Smart marketing, HAL!

My husband and I have take multiple cruises, but this is our first with HAL. We are cruising with another couple and are really looking forward to the adventure. Any details on the shore excursions for the Baltic ports would be helpful, good, not so good...etc. Also, I would be interested in any updates/info related to the refurbishing of the Zuiderdam. Pretty excited about this adventure!

It looks like others replied with great advice for info on the Baltic ports, but I wanted to respond to your question about refurbishing the Z. We just booked this cruise, and having sailed on the Z in 2005, knew it was an older ship which needed refurbishing, so we called HAL to ask about it. It went into drydock in November, 2017, and they updated a lot of the ship and all of the suites. Gone are the red naugahyde sofas and the suites are in lovely neutral tones, but thankfully they didn't remodel the cabins, only update furniture, surfaces, fabrics, and add USB ports. We travel with another couple and like to gather for cocktails in our room or veranda, and the original suite configurations are great for that - the new ones are not. I didn't ask about the rest of the cabins but I suspect that they redid those as well, as the Z was in drydock for 2 weeks. So we'll be enjoying a refreshed ship! It should be great fun.