*Miss G*

1 minute ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I agree. Plus isn't there some rule about when they have to finalize the passenger manifest? 

Yes.  Passengers are required to check in no less than 90 minutes prior to sailing.  Passenger manifest goes out no later than 60 minutes prior to sailing.

My last few sailings on Holland America there was a section in the Lido Market reserved for staff.  It had a sign saying “Crew Area Only”.  I like that they are doing that, now, instead of them having to spend their little time off searching for seating.

Wow, a Windstar journey!  That is so awesome!  I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us.  Ever since I watched them silently gliding into port in Montenegro I’ve been fascinated with them.  Can’t wait to read along!

3 hours ago, deeeeeeem said:

Hi all! First time cruiser here. I was just looking around at the website and found that you can pre pay the crew appreciation fee online. I saw that it was actually cheaper to do it online. Is this correct? At first, it said it was $16 pppd and later on it translated to €17 pppd. However, it shows €185,92 per person as a total for a 14 night cruise, which equals to €13,28 per day instead of the $16/€17. Is this normal? 

Welcome to Cruise Critic and Holland America!

@VMax1700 might be a good person to address this, if he can, as I see you are in euros.

8 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

My heating system (hot air) has a humidifier on it, and I have to be careful about the setting when it's at or below freezing because I get condensation on the inside of the windows. But I'm not asking for tropical humidity on a ship, just not the Sahara!

Yes, this.^^

There was a humidifier on the HVAC on one of my former homes (for the winter months).  I currently have a smart home with humidity sensors (one for upstairs; one for main level) and the device lets you know to add humidity (when the heating is on) for eco+ savings.  I run portable humidifiers, both upstairs and main level, during the winter months.  When the AC is on they are no longer required so they are put away for the season.

On 7/24/2023 at 9:55 PM, *Miss G* said:

 

You know, it’s interesting you ask that question.  I had read that it would be automatically applied going forward but I have no experience to know if that is correct or not.  Hopefully someone will post with their experience but my gut tells me we will have to resubmit with each booking.  

 

On 7/26/2023 at 7:47 PM, Infi said:

 

Also curious about this. I have shareholder OBC as well, and always take along the confirmation email as a backup in case it doesn't get added. It doesn't seem like there's any proof/confirmation of this OBC, so was hoping others could share their experiences with ensuring it was added onto their account. 

On 7/24/2023 at 9:17 PM, bennybear said:

Thanks for your encouragement! I tried again and it went through,  now to try and add the credit.  Is it good for just one cruise?  

Just thought I would follow up on this.  I just did an online courtesy hold because it is after hours and I wanted to lock in the price.  My PCC’s voicemail said to do the courtesy hold so he could address it when he comes in tomorrow… so I did.

Anyway, the question as to whether it would automatically be applied going forward has been answered:

10 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

Whenever I have purchased Club Orange it has been through a PCC at HAL.  If you are booking through a TA you can have them do it.

 

8 hours ago, Crew News said:

After booking your cruise, you can add Club Orange by contacting Holland America Line Ship Inventory at 1-888-628-8107 . 

 

Reading over the above two statements, I think I would like to add clarification:

—>  When making the initial booking through your TA or PCC, let them know you would like Club Orange when they ask about the stateroom category.  That will trigger the lower price and they will then let you pick from the higher available cabins within that category. 

—>  If you are adding Club Orange after you have already booked, call the number in @Crew News post, above.

1 hour ago, gizmodog said:

Is there a charge for food in the Grand Dutch Cafe? 
also, on an 18:day cruise how do you purchase club orange? I cannot find it on their web site.

Here is the menu for the GDC.  Everything without a price is free.  There will also be a few types of fresh cookies which aren’t listed.  (Which are also free.)

Grand Dutch Cafe Menu

Whenever I have purchased Club Orange it has been through a PCC at HAL.  If you are booking through a TA you can have them do it.

1 hour ago, YourWorldWithBill said:

Has anyone ever taken a small humidifier? On our last cruise I got some weird sinus attack, and the dry air made it worse day by day. Since humidifiers use much less electricity than kettles, irons, etc., I would think they'd be okay. I might try and see what happens.

My husband gave me a small travel humidifier in December.  So far I have only used it in my hotel rooms but I will be bringing it on my next cruise.  I connect it to the usb port on the night stand and it works great.  I also use a saline mist spray and that helps too.

7 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

PS- for the life of me I can’t remember the saying on the shirt we talked about. Care to enlighten? 

5 hours ago, crystalspin said:

I would have worn it to the M&M!

Here’s mine:

18 minutes ago, amandas friend said:

Is that really true? The HAL website says the upgrade is only in the category you have. Thank you 

The category (known as the meta-category) is Ocean-View.  It is then broken down into lettered sub-categories, ie C, D, DD, E, F, etc.  You can choose any of those lettered sub-categories (C, D, etc) within the meta category (Ocean-View).

2 hours ago, jlawrence01 said:

On one particular hike, a guy appeared with a rifle pointed at me and my wife telling us to get lost.

Are you sure they weren’t American?  It’s hard to tell until there’s a gun in your face.  🙃

Here’s what I think really happened:  You came upon a homicide-in-progress and they didn’t want to dig a bigger hole to bury the evidence so they gave you a chance to escape.

See?  Easily explained.  😃  (And polite.)

57 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Yes, a bus tour would have been disappointing, but at least we would have got to see the ports, ports that we wanted to experience.

In our case, we wanted to experience a river cruise.  I’ve been on a bus!  😂

31 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

We have a river cruise booked and there is a disclaimer that if the water levels are too low, busses will be substituted. I think this is a standard disclaimer. How are ships supposed to sail if the water level is too low? 

13 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

I believe the class action was actually based on a couple of thousand people being bused around because of high water levels.  In any event, I think the judgement was more about Scenic's failure to deliver on a luxury cruise experience and their unwillingness to compensate passengers.  Really, would you sanguinely accept being bused around with no hint of compensation, disclaimers or not?

I think it had more to do with this statement:

8 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Passengers had not been notified and they only found out on arrival. 

 

In other words, the extreme conditions and changes to itinerary were known well in advance but the cruise line chose not to inform the passengers.

I wouldn’t do it either.  The walk to your gate, alone, will take an hour!  😂  Okay, well maybe not that long.  But it was the longest walk I’ve ever had in an airport.  I sure wouldn’t want to have to run it!

A great turnout and that’s very nice of Best Western to accommodate you like that.  Enjoy Coronado!  

One caveat:  We weren’t able to get into the outer harbour, to dock, due to marine conditions.  The wind and the waves kept preventing us, even though we tried a number of times throughout the day.  Next stop:  Vancouver.

You’ll need to get permission and make the arrangements with Cunard.  Don’t call HAL!  😂

9 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

I've been happy tracking with my AirTags, but if there are airline apps available too, redundancy never hurts. Do you know which airlines offer this service? 

United, American, and Delta, and I believe Southwest has just introduced one too.  I fly mainly Delta (and United when I have to).  I googled Air Canada and they’ve just announced one too.

3 minutes ago, Toad said:

Well, I waited all day, and the promised call never came. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Sorry to hear that.  I see a couple of mentions of an accomplished PCC in this thread.  Maybe you could take advantage of that information.

Editing to add:  If your PCC is located on the west coast, it’s only 4:00pm there so they still have a couple of hours.  Also thought I’d mention that my PCC has been known to call me up until 9:00pm EST (he’s based in Seattle) when he’s busy.

This is why — in all our relocations — we have made sure we are near an international airport.  It also helps to know we are within a few hours flight to family in case of emergency.  Every time I read about the hoops and issues some on the board have, I get stressed along with you!  😂

I like that some of the new airline apps allow you to track your checked bags.  I am happy to let that anxiety go when I’m onboard and I can see my bag is too.  Not sure if I’ll invest in an AirTag or not.  Maybe.

I have had only one experience where my bag didn’t make it to my destination.  That was a pain in the you-know-what.

The Navigator app notifies you if there is a chat message, a new charge has been applied to your account, or it’s time for dinner or an excursion.  There is no cost to use it; just download it before you board, set your phone to airplane mode, then connect.

It’s not specific in its notifications, as yet, so you have to figure that one out for yourself.  For example, if there’s a new chat message you will be able to see it in your inbox on the top right-hand side of the screen.  But if it’s for something else you will have to use intuition, like noticing an additional charge on your statement. 

Three screenshots of how I see notifications on an iPad. I haven’t used it on my iPhone and don’t use an android phone so not sure how the notifications appear on those.

On the home page:

On the app icon:

Notification when logged into the app:

48 minutes ago, NotADopey1 said:

Oh,  we tried Princess which was a total disaster. Will not do that line again.

I am wondering if you were on the same itinerary with Princess that I was!  We all said exactly the same thing.

@DarrenM, we love Holland America’s Pinnacle-class ships; the Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam; and the Rotterdam, which is their flagship.  All are music-themed, which is our preference over performance theatre and forced fun.

I will take a lot of heat from the HAL-haters, but I think the above ships fulfill all your stated criteria.

21 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that our condo shares privileges with the R-C pool only 200 yards away :). 

ps- we eat breakfast at the plantation house every Sunday. 

Oh my gosh.  I know exactly where you are!  And brekkie at Plantation!  I can taste the pineapple spears and dip as we speak.  Yum.

Do you know, it’s funny and purely coincidental, but I was saying to my husband not two days ago that the best spa I’ve ever been to was at that R-C!!

Thank you for the pictures.  Just ❤️.  You are so right that it’s a centering and spiritual place.  I know you’ll have an amazing time.

Ditto regarding the random calls!  They very rarely come at a convenient time.  And I just received my first email with the new scheduling system yesterday!  “Strangely” enough…. not long after I had to ignore a call from Seattle.  Guess he noticed my activity.  lol

I find a good way to get your PCC’s attention is to click on email links and view specific itineraries.  That alerts the bot to generate offers and notifications.

@Toad, I hope your PCC experience turns around and they turn out to be great. When my old PCC left, and I was assigned a new one, I wasn’t too thrilled with him at first.  Now I think he’s awesome.  Good luck!

5 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I am incredibly blessed to call it my winter home.

You certainly are!  We spent an amazing week at the R-C following a business trip to HNL.  (Where we had the good fortune to stay at The Four Seasons, Ko Olina.)

In Kapalua, my favorite breakfast place was The Plantation Course.  We were scheduled to do it all again when covid hit.  Broke my heart making all those cancellations.  💔  

I hope you post pics after your arrival!