*Miss G*

It’s always been mid ship, for me, on Pinnacle-class Deck 2*. There is a dining reservations kiosk next to the Ocean Bar (on the way to the dining room) on that deck. There is also one on the Lido Deck*, by the Greenhouse Spa, but that one will pack up at a set time so you need to get there early. *YMMV

I’m going to make a wild guess that a pre-payment will give you that amount of OBC and the new charges will be applied against that set amount. If the crew appreciation was part of a package, it should cover the increased amount. As @kazu says, we won’t know for certain until first-hand experiences start coming in when the increase kicks in.

Haha. So true. I would like to clarify my post in that the Med experience was 33’ waves and the Bay of Biscay was 40’. The kind where you get thrown out of bed and everything falls off the counters and shelves. Everything lesser than that was just rocky. 😂

I feel bad for saying this, but I was living in Florida at the time I got my first pass. I was a frequent traveler between the two countries. Still am, although I am now in the Washington, DC area.

From the Know Before You Go, it’s 90 minutes for the info and 60 minutes to submit.

NEXUS is available to US and Canadian citizens, as well as legal permanent residents of both countries. Living close to the border is not a prerequisite. The NEXUS Pass includes Global Entry; so you get two for the price of one.

Hi Moxie. If you visit your Roll Call (linked below) you can chat with your fellow passengers as they will know which ports you are visiting. Also check the Canada/New England Board for additional information. Have a great trip!

Oooooooohhhh. The penny just dropped. 😂 Thank you.

I don’t think my post was disagreeing with weather being a primary factor, but underwater terrain also contributes to sea conditions. Eg, the Bay of Biscay, where the public areas of the ship were practically deserted. It was like I had a cruise to myself! It was fascinating watching the waves pass over the windows while dining. (To others; not so much.) The 2nd most rocky marine conditions I’ve experienced was in the Med, which I think falls into the OP’s category of “sheltered by land”. Other times in the Med it’s always been smooth. As everyone says: unpredictable. 🤷‍♀️

Now I’m wondering what the travel group “R” is! 😂 I think a better location for this format would be the “Need Help” forum. But there’s probably a lot less traffic over there for testing. Clearly, though, this forum isn’t the place as it’s more of a conversational board than a best practice board.

Quick answer: It depends. On oh so many things. I’ve done both eastbound and westbound. Westbounds were in the Fall; we followed a southerly route, and seas were smooth as glass. Eastbound was in the late Winter following a southerly route. Huge winter storm to the north and a howling gale with rain the first few days out of Port Everglades. Seas were rough for about the first 5 days. They calmed down a bit, picked up a bit, calmed down a bit. Departure was 3 hours late due to 200+ passengers with delayed flights. Even then, a lot of people missed the ship. Others were being flown to meet us at our first port stop in the Azores, but that got cancelled due to bad weather. Then our next port stop in Morocco was cancelled due to bureaucracy. I have no idea if anyone caught up to us or not. I doubt it, though. I have to add… in bad weather you are better off at sea than “sheltered by land” because weather doesn’t really care where it hits. Location and underwater terrain can play a huge part too. The Captain can plan a route for the least impact… including canceling ports.

I forgot about the Hare Krishnas!! 🤣🤣🤣

Put your cursor into the “Search” box and the drop-down list will appear, greyed out. It will default to “This Forum” if you are on the HAL board. Conversely, it will default to “This Topic” if you click on the search whilst in a thread. (See pic 1) If you click on/touch the down-arrow, it allows you to choose from the drop-down list:

Back when you could more readily access PEV, you could purchase unsold cabins on the day of sailing. My Dad would “go for a drive” then come back and tell my Mum to pack up; they were going on a cruise. I imagine this is their target passenger. $50 per day, times the number of cruise days, plus port fees and taxes, plus daily crew appreciation charges, times two, doesn’t really scream “backpacker” to me.

Great memory. Here is the thread:

When I was a teenager, I used to take advantage of the student standby rate of $50 per flight to fly anywhere in Canada. I would show up at the terminal, get checked in, and then sit at the gate waiting to be cleared for the flight. There was only one time where I couldn’t board and had to wait for the next flight. (I was pretty nomadic so I took advantage of that fare a lot.) HAL’s program sounds more like the above experience than “approximately 7 days”, which would be great for a last-minute traveler. That is a HUGE difference, and works better for a nomadic traveler than someone who just wants to catch a last-minute (7 day) cancellation. HAL definitely needs to be clear in their terms and conditions.

I think if it was limited to a select few volunteers who were willing to test it out and provide thoughtful feedback, it would allow those who were involuntarily thrown into the mix to continue to post without having to grapple with the changes. It doesn’t appear as though the upvote tally feature has been turned on for public viewing; at least that I can see.

Yes, this is true and would require moderation to keep it clean. Right now, it is all very vague in terms of rules and expectations. The sandbox has been opened for play and they’re looking for feedback.

I very rarely visit the “Ask a Cruise Question” section of the board. Now that I see a new feature I will visit more often to better familiarize myself with it in order to provide thoughtful feedback. I like the tabs which section off “Questions With No Best Answer” and “Popular Questions…”. No Best Answer allows me to see at a glance whether I can be of any help, however this is only useful if someone really is looking for help or if they’re just wanting to ask a question to start a new thread and chat. (Which seems to be the most popular use of this sub-forum; hence why I don’t visit this section very often.) Up-voting is useful for when you’re genuinely searching for an answer, but not so useful when the question is just for chat purposes.

Well, I guess I am in the minority in that I like it. I don’t often visit this section of the board but this new feature will keep me coming back so that I can test it thoroughly. Most people don’t like change but I didn’t think I’d see such sweeping dislike for it. Or maybe the people who don’t mind, just aren’t chiming in as yet. I didn’t notice an explanation announcement so maybe the hate is for the surprise of it all. So far, I like it. 👍

I take GRAVOL, which is only available through Amazon in the US. (In Canada you can get it anywhere.) I find I don’t react well to the US anti-nauseants. Those give me terrible headaches and/or make me loopy. Also, with Gravol I can bite off a small section if I only need to take the edge off. Having said that, however, I can’t recall ever having to take an anti-nauseant on a Caribbean/Panama Canal cruise as the seas have never been rough enough to affect me.

Phew. Thought I was having a déjà vu moment.

So as not to confuse things for the OP (per Shippy’s comments, above), I was recently in a Koningsdam Neptune Suite which had a separate water closet from the main bathroom area (two sinks, separate glassed-in shower; and a jetted tub with shower). The bathroom in our mini suite on Sky Princess was not as nice as a lower category pinnacle-class HAL bathroom.

Our last port stop in Bar Harbor was a nightmare. Although we were the only ship in port, it was a Sunday of a long weekend and there were five tourist coaches and myriad day-trippers all visiting the area along with us. Sidewalks, shops, and restaurants were jam packed. I lasted long enough for my husband to get his lobster roll (a half hour wait) before beating it back to the ship. The Zaandam has a max passenger capacity of 1432, however I would say that the majority of those passengers were out of town on various tours. I haven’t read of anyone wanting to limit the number of tour busses so I guess they’re not as seductive as angst against the cruise ships.

Rather than retype previous posts, here are a couple of links to my thoughts on HAL vs Princess: POST #1 POST #2