SilvertoGold

This is going to be a GREAT thread! Thanks for starting, please continue. Love your writing style. Have a lovely FIRST cruise - how exciting!

This is very much what we saw on the Koningsdam. I would add, pretty much every night 5 pm, one hour, sometimes five or six couples, usually fewer, who mostly dressed either very casually (around the ship clothing on a sea day) or normal dinner time clothing. Watch the Daily Program to be sure when and where. Note to Pbranson: are you planning to do some posts or a review after your cruise? I think you would have a lot to say and it would be interesting :)

Not sure of course but our experience is that this is a rare happening! Very nice!

I am late to the game but have caught up and am enjoying your posts! Nice Pinnacle dinner description, much appreciated :) In CND we wouldn't bother with the Pinnacle dinner, but lunch is a decent price and quite enjoyable. Thanks for posting your observations, great info.

Thanks for this excellent post. Very informative suggestion and example. Your job must have been fun!

Noordam, April and May was Ocean Bar and Crows Nest was 50 per cent off any drink twice a day most days.

Thanks for your classy, thoughtful behaviour. If only everyone on HAL were like you.

It was on deck 3 in May this year.

HAL changes check-in times quite a lot. I don't think the change to 3pm for the OP had anything to do with the email to Guest Relations. Just a normal change based on whatever HAL uses to assign chek-in times.

This was fantastic food! We have enjoyed this menu twice, had different items each time and were impressed.

Try Googling "Willemstad at night". Lots of links and the photos are excellent!

This is a huge plus!! Willemstadt is a magical place at night, lots of restaurants and bars, the Queen Emma Bridge is lit up, lovely to walk around in and soak up the atmosphere.

Some ships this year are incluing a daily changing appetizer and entree ("small and large plates"). We found them really good and a nice addition to choose from! Remember: any combination or amount of small and large plates can be ordered per person or shared.

Excellent review, much appreciated. That Express Lunch is hit or miss. We went to 4 last year, 3 this year and all had similar menus which were quite short and boring. Soggy fish and chips was the all-time worst. Enjoyed your review and hope you will post a review of your Japan cruise!

Once had basket of laundry returned, but it was not ours. The cabin steward hadn't delivered it and was in shock. I guess he thought he would be blamed. Within 10 minutes had a visit from the Assistant Housekeeper: "so very sorry, I will find the right basket, pronto". He came back in 15 minutes with our basket, all items accounted for, profuse apologies, a small bag of the dark pillow chocolates we like and a speical HAL bag. Not sure why they went into overdrive, but it was a huge deal to them.

Halfacts.com shows some actual cabins so you can get an idea of what different categories look like. Find a good deck plan and take a long look through the Pinnacle class photos

You were on target! Good for you and good for the Chef! The Multi-stripe officer could have been the Food and Bev Manager or the Restaurnat Ops Manager, neither of which should give that kind of a non-answer and not looked at the situation as a whole, as did the chef.

Excellent, well-balanced review. The negatives are fair judgements and demonstrate some of HAL's long- term failings. Good that there were positives to balance out those negatives. I hope you will try HAL again, a different Pinnacle class ship.

This was the same on the Koningsdam last year. long lines, few servers. One regular, agressive, unfriendly server, one who seemd afraid of the pax. Both could have used some personality training. Officers like their morning coffee and certainly add to the lines sometimes. Overall, the Dutch Cafe had great food except none of the evening goodies (spring rolls, etc).

Thanks for the menus! I am amazed that the MDR dinner menus are almost a carbon copy of the ones we had starting in April 2022 for Hawaii, Alaska, NZ, Australia and South Pacific on the Koningdam and the Noordam. I would love to see the menus change....once a year?

VMax1700: Re: Notices as posted. In all our many days on HAL cruises we have never seen such well done Notices. Concise, well-planned, easy to read, no repetitions, no confusion, each type of info separated and titled, capitalized and underlined. Considering the Notices we have seen and struggled through, these are first rate and whoever is making these up need a huge star and a lot of praise. This deserves some serious praise on the Contact form on the HAL Navigator. Thank you for this very readable thread! Lot of esoteric info! Nice photos. Engaging tone to the writing. You are a star!

Canada Place has ONE large terminal for the usual 3 ships in port, ONE Xray area for all ships, ONE US immigration area for all ships -- that makes for LONG lines at peak times. Ports that have separate teminals, one ship per terminal at a time are the best and most logical. Ft Lauderdale has alwys been great. As a very frequent user of Canad Place, I have to note that the terminal staff there are so-so. Sometimes great, often almost clueless. A few of the older Red Coats retired during Covid and have been replaced with not too well trained peole. Doing 5 back to backs last year was a nightmare for the turn-around day. We had different sets of info on how In Transit pax would proceed and the staff in the terminal did the set-up differently each time. The last turn-around day was finally better handled, but it was an embarassment overall. BTW: if you have "priority" you might have to be a bit pushy as some staff aren't too aware. Have your paperwork handy.

Absolutely looking forward to hearing all about your cruise and your opinions. Having gone through Canada Place so many times and knowing how ineptly boarding can be handled I am interested in your impressions of boarding in Boston. Always fun to compare and contrast. Hope YVR treats you well on your way and you have a good flight :)

Smoking is on the starboard side so if you sit on the port side you may be able to escape fro the smoke. Your plan to be outside and then up to the Cros Nest is likley a good one: move around and see the sights from high, low, forward and aft and grab a seat. Good luck with seeing some wildlife: you never know when and where but the places I amentioned are usually good. For mountain goats look for tiny white dots on the hillsides. Binoculars are mandatory!

Crows Nest will ba packed all day. You would need to get there very early, 8 am? Outside decks will have the regular lounges and you are correct about a lot of pax out on these decks. Possibley the aft decks which have some chairs/lounges would be good for you. Take a look around in the days before Glacier Bay to see what you think is best. Watch for sea lions by the Marble Islands, otters, bears, mountain goats at Gloomy Knob, maybe a humback whale or two.