donandmelissa

Jan 17. So, could have changed.

FWIW, I did not even try to use stockperks and had zero problems getting my OBC. I sent an email to World_Cruise_Reservations@hollandamerica.com and attached my brokerage statement along with my booking #, passenger names, ship and sail date. Four days later I received an email indicating that my $250 OBC was approved and would be credited to my account upon embarkation. There was no mention of stockperks at all. Your mileage my vary, but this was what worked for me.

So, I am a big time Diet Dew fan. I can add a tiny ray of sunshine for the original poster. The freestyle machines with Coke products (at least the one on Nieuw Statendam) dispensed Mello Yellow Zero. Not an exact match, but I enjoyed it! When you purchase the fountain soda package, you get a special tumbler that has a chip in it and that is the only way fountain soda is dispensed. You will have to ask for one if you purchased HIA and I do not know whether or not they will provide one if you did not purchase the fountain package in a stand alone way. Maybe someone else here knows the answer to that from experience?

For long cruises, we rent a car at the Tampa airport (would work the same at Orlando) and drop it off at Fort Lauderdale International and Uber from there. One way rentals between those airports rarely charge an extra one way fee. For short cruises, we drive our own car and park at the port. Parking there is really easy.

Recently did a 7 day Western Caribbean on Nieuw Amsterdam in which we had HIA. Our on board expenditures that were not included in HIA were $553. We received 14 credits. HIA must earn on board spending credits, else we would have received 8 or 9 credits.

Pre-Covid, I felt like Celebrity and HAL were pretty much similar in quality and value. Post-Covid, HAL has been much better for us than Celebrity. HAL has better service, better food, and better music, and you don’t need to book a suite to get them. Loved our last TA on Nieuw Statendam and we are doing two more TA in 2924 and 2025. Don’t get me wrong. Celebrity is fine. It just isn’t as good as HAL. YMMV.

Was on Nieuw Statendam TA in April. There were many dead WiFi periods during the 6 consecutive sea days at the beginning of the cruise. It didn’t matter what package you bought. There just wasn’t a signal for long periods of time. If you need to work remotely during that period, you likely will not be successful.

We did a TA from Ft Lauderdale to Barcelona in April on Nieuw Statendam. We had a fantastic time. It is a beautiful ship with a fantastic crew. The music venues were excellent. We blogged about the trip (the blog site is listed in our signature). You can get a good feel for what we did by checking out the blog. Also, there are photos of the Daily Programs for each day of the cruise. That will give you an idea of how many formal days, what there is to do on the ship, etc. We had so much fun that we are booked on the Rotterdam TA next April. The ship will arrive in Rotterdam on Kings Day, so that should be quite the port experience!

We recently had the Coca Cola package on a 14 day transatlantic on Nieuw Statendam. There is one machine. It is just outside of the Lido. It dispenses both ice and soda, and has many different flavors to add to the staples (Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Mellow Yellow, Ginger Ale, etc). It was working for most of the cruise, but was down occasionally. When down, the bars happily provided soda. There is a trade off between having lots of flavors available and having to lug around the tumbler everywhere you go. I liked it. Some people don't like it. Your mileage may vary.

I don't mind them asking. The request almost always comes after I have thanked them personally for going above and beyond what I expected. The staff works long, long hours. My understanding is that positive comments in the app result in extra time off. I am happy to provide that for someone who has gone the extra mile for me or my family.

I did the Coca Cola package on the Nieuw Statendam in April. Here is the good and the bad. First, the good. It really is unlimited fountain soda. There is no cap on it. There is one of those flavor fountain machines outside of the Lido where you may fill your special computer chipped tumbler. Lots of choices, including many zero sugar options. The bad? That is the only machine on the ship and when it isn't working, you have to go to the bar, which has far fewer options. Additionally, getting a can without paying extra for it is not allowed and was mostly enforced. However, they will give you two fountain sodas at once. I often did just that.

We are arriving in Rotterdam on a HAL Transatlantic on 4-27-24, which is Kingsday in the Netherlands. Will the trains be running on this national holiday? Will we be able to get a train to Paris from Rotterdam? Our plan was to do just that, and spend a week in Paris post cruise. Will we have to stay in Rotterdam for a day or two before we do that? Thanks in advance for responses from people with first hand knowledge of what goes on in Rotterdam on Kingsday!

Agree. The best savings come from non refundable fares. We are good with that. We are not interested in paying a premium for a refundable fare, mainly because we don’t see the value of it. We are good with having an FCC if we need to cancel. Indeed, we sometimes change plans and our agent has always been able to transfer our deposit to the new cruise.

I have been using an agent I found via that site for years. The agent I used prior to him also became known to me from that website. I guess we definitely have a “your mileage may vary” situation. I’ve saved thousands of dollars using these two agents. Perhaps you are willing to forego savings for the convenience of dealing directly with the cruise line. I have many friends who would agree with you. However, I am kind of partial to getting the savings, provided that the account servicing is up to snuff. What I learned from the first agent I used from the website is that when you use that website, the agents have to pay the website. That limits what they can afford to kick back to you. But once you have identified an agent you like, you no longer need to go to the website for future cruises. That is where the real savings began. Couple of recent examples: We booked an aft balcony on a TA on the Rotterdam for 2024. We saved $500 on the fare and got an additional $75 in OBC. We booked a balcony on a Western Caribbean in October and saved $250 and got an additional $50 in OBC. These are calculated by getting the online quote from HAL and comparing it to what our travel agent gave us on the very same day.

My experience is very similar to Hank's experience. I book with the same agent every time and I ALWAYS get a better deal than booking directly with the cruise line. Generally speaking, I either get a reduced fare or an OBC equal to about 10% of the fare, excluding port fees and taxes. Sometimes, I get more. Whenever I need something addressed, I call my agent and it gets done. This includes changing dining times, upgrading rooms and other similar tasks. Want to have some fun with this? There is a website out there where travel agents compete for your business. I can't put the name here but if you run an internet search for "travel agencies bid for your cruise business", you will quickly find the site. You submit a request for a quote and you will get multiple quotes from multiple agents. Some are no better than booking directly with the line, but most will give you some kind of additional benefit, either extra OBC or throw in perks (upgraded drink package, internet, etc. This is how I found my current agent, but now I call him directly without going through the other site. The agent values me as a repeat customer and gives me his best pricing, which he can do because he is not sharing his commission with the bidding website.

Not a dumb question at all. The short answer to your question is "yes". There are tables just outside of the Lido and you often see people bring their food there. Also, in our experience, most people are happy to share their table with you during crowded periods. It is one of our favorite ways to meet people.

Just did a TA on sister ship Nieuw Statendam. The only time the crowd had any real effect was waiting for an elevator on embarkation day. No matter which bank you tried, there was a mass of people waiting. After trying all banks and waiting for 20 minutes, we opted to lug our carry on bags up 4 flights of stairs so that we could kick our vacation into full gear. Full disclosure, we are a little younger than most of the crowd (57 and 61) and a little unplanned cardio wasn't a true hardship. Other than the first day, crowding wasn't really a factor. Will you have to wait to have an omelet cooked to order or have a salad prepared in the LIdo? No doubt. I don't see how that can be avoided. But the staff was happy and motivated and really hustled. When there was a line, it moved fast. i agree with the people who noted that there are less areas on the Pinnacle class ships to sit and read on comfortable furniture in relative quiet. Because so many of us don't have the same hearing we once did, any place where people are chatting is loud. If often seemed like half the crowd was hard of hearing and the other half was shouting so that they could be heard. Not a complaint, just an observation.

So, our experience last month (April 8 through 22) on the Nieuw Statendam 14 day TA from Port Everglades to Barcelona was very different from most of what is posted here. The cruise was fabulous. The crew was fantastic. The food was excellent. The live music was so, so good! There were no supply issues. No maintenance issues. There were few issues of any kind worthy of mentioning. The ship did fail to announce that we had been cleared in Malaga, which resulted in a lot of people scrambling to get to their outside vendor excursions. We quickly got over that. We loved our experience so much that we already booked a TA for next year. Has HAL cut back on expenses? Definitely, but that has been our experience with every other line we have sailed post pandemic. We did a TA on Celebrity in October and the HAL TA was better in every important way. Celebrity was fine, but every aspect of the cruise from the food, to the service, to the entertainment was just not as good as before and we really got perspective when we sailed on Nieuw Statendam. Based on those 2 cruises, HAL was a full step up from Celebrity, whereas prior to COVID, I would have said they were comparable. Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary.

Short answer is 'yes'. Just got off the Nieuw Statendam TA going the other way. Pool was active the entire time. Also, did a Celebrity TA from Rome last year. Pool was active there, too. Closing the roof makes a big difference.

Thank you for a very helpful review. We are taking a transatlantic on the NS in April and can't wait!

Nancy, you are probably right but it likely won’t change anytime soon. The economy is driving the prices down. The alternative is sailing at far less than capacity. They can’t afford not to fill the cabins. Quite frankly, long term, they can’t afford to deliver mediocre service either. The other reality is that HAL’s traditional niche type cruisers won’t live forever. They seem to be courting a younger demographic. The younger cruisers may have different preferences as to dining and entertainment. They will make plenty of $ on my cabin. Alcohol, gambling, specialty dining, etc. By the way, we also booked a 14 day transatlantic in 2024 with an aft facing balcony for &2400 pp with tips, elite beverage, $276 OBC, premium internet, 2 nights specialty dining, and $200 each towards excursions. Deals are out there to be had.

So, we have only cruised HAL once, right before the pandemic on the Nieuw Amsterdam. We didn't experience any of these issues. We have cruised Celebrity and Carnival post pandemic and their service and quality was definitely down. I suspect this is the case on all of the middle tier and economy lines. But we still find cruising to be one of our best use of our vacation dollars, even with the service decline. We are taking a HAL transatlantic in April and we will be fine if we experience the issues noted in this thread. Why? Because we are paying Carnival prices for a HAL cruise. It is a sweet deal! Less than $100 per day each for a V category stateroom on the Nieuw Statendam. So, if we have to wait a little bit for dinner, or spend every night dancing in a night club instead of at a show, no problem! It still beats the heck out of everyday life.

Thanks for the clarification. Our question was definitely directed to people who had experience with HAL’s open seating dining.

Thanks for the great information! We appreciate that you took the time to share your experience with us.

On our 14 day Transatlantic in April on the Nieuw Statendam we are trying "As You Wish Dining" for the first time. We recently did this on Celebrity and were pretty disappointed, but our friends who have done this on Holland America urged us to give it a shot. On Celebrity, we were never able to make a reservation in advance, almost always had to wait at least 20 minutes and were largely unsuccessful in being seated with a larger group. We chalked it up to post pandemic staffing problems (most of the crew appeared to be really inexperienced). We still had a fantastic time on the cruise, even if the experience was less than what it had been before the pandemic. We love meeting new people on a cruise and having different dinner partners each night would be fun. We would love it if you would share your "As You Wish Dining" experiences with us to give us an idea of what to expect. Thanks in advance for your help!