Altamira

Yeah, Real NHDOC, but wouldn’t it be great, and doable, for HAL to offer better and more fun entertainment along with its terrific itineraries/destinations cruises? Chamber music and talented instrumentalists and daytime lectures are all great, but what about a popular music piano sing-along venue after dinner? Or more of the music we danced to in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s? Or more and more creative old/new games for daytime or anytime. We may be oldies, of ‘60s and 70’s vintage…but not yet ready to settle into a staid nursing home atmosphere, especially on a cruise ship for heavens’ sake. Nor the opposite either of course, a Carnival type “rager” cruise with belly-flopping, and constant screaming…In between…😁 We’re currently hesitating booking a great itinerary Zaandam cruise. It has a bunch of sea days and we know on those it will be…😴 😅 PS. And PLEASE, comedians: Bathroom and old people jokes…No Más!

So nice to have so many wonderful choices. We consistently love all the big shows on Disney, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. (Our favorite cruise lines for entertainment.) We’ve spent more on good orchestra seats to see a single musical on Broadway than we’ve occasionally paid for a 7-nts cruise on the Harmony OTS and enjoyed fantastic, in our opinion, entertainment every night.

If what you say about the Lincoln Center Stage attendance during your cruise was typical of most cruises, rather than what we observed in ours, you can indeed look forward to more, not less beautiful classical music played in all your future cruising. Happy sailings to you!

Of course that people have different preferences. On this website the only thing we are all likely to have in common is our liking of cruising. We have almost 600 nights at sea on 11 different cruise lines. Until very recently we’ve cruised on HAL only twice before, in 2013 and 2014, on the Maasdam (49nts), and on the Amsterdam (78nts). Both were great cruises with fantastic itineraries, great food, great service. However, every night we’d struggle to stay awake during the after-dinner entertainment. A couple of months ago we returned to HAL, a port intensive back-to-back Boston/Quebec City, on the Nieuw Statendam. And only a couple of weeks later we had signed on for two more HAL cruises, on the Rotterdam to the Caribbean. To the Caribbean!…practically our backyard, where we typically cruise several times a year…on boring HAL? Yep, because our expectation is that we will find our upcoming Rotterdam cruise to be as much fun as was our experience on the NS. The phenomenal Step One dancers at the World Stage, the BBC Earth in Concert, the Billboard on Board with Gabe and Meghan at the pianos, the entire Music Walk atmosphere…the Rolling Stones, B.B. King Blues…We would eat earlier than our usual time and then go from one venue to the next, not at all sleepy…the music must have been exactly loud enough in each venue to please the crowds of people packed in them to standing room only. Because otherwise they would have left. The Lincoln Center Stage, featuring music virtuosos performing favorite classics at a much lower volume, was never crowded that we saw during our cruise, but a very small minority of people preferred it. There are lots of options on Caribbean cruising. To maximize their profits all the cruise lines competing there have to appeal to the greatest number of potential customers. I’m sure they study and compare and evaluate all those factors very carefully. What we get is what their well paid consultants on the subject recommend. We may be in it for the fun, but they’re in it for the money. Obviously.

Thank you. Not what I would have preferred to hear, but it makes sense.

Are beverages consumed out of the “no host mini-bar” deducted from the suite occupants 15 beverages daily total? Or are those beverages not included in the HIA deal?

We’re back2backing Boston to Quebec City and back to Boston. Does anyone know how the back2back cruisers’ requisites (such as issuing of new sail cards, etc) are handled by HAL? I hope we’re not going to be held onboard for the time we would prefer to be off ship on our last day in Quebec City.

We’re back2backing Boston to Quebec City and back to Boston. Does anyone know how the back2back cruisers’ requisites (such as issuing of new sail cards, etc) are handled by HAL? I hope we’re not going to be held onboard for the time we would prefer to be off ship on our last day in Quebec City.

What are the current evening show times on the Nieuw Statendam? Do they vary by itinerary? Or by the passenger loads on a given sailing? I’m trying to get a picture of what might be a typical evening entertainment lineup of shows or music venues for the purpose of making reservations at the various restaurants. I would prefer not to have to scramble, the day of, to try and change a reservation so we don’t miss anything else happening...😊 Thanks in advance for sharing.

What are the current evening show times on the Nieuw Statendam? Do they vary by itinerary? Or by the passenger loads on a given sailing? I’m trying to get a picture of what might be a typical evening entertainment lineup of shows or music venues for the purpose of making reservations at the various restaurants. I would prefer not to have to scramble, the day of, to try and change a reservation so we don’t miss anything else happening...😊 Thanks in advance for sharing.

We were on a back2back disembarking the Vista this past Sat, May 7th also. We had many (not all) of the same experiences that have already been mentioned here, and a few others. 1. Carnival needs to do better. We are fully vaccinated and boostered. We tested Covid positive on Sat, along with lots of other people reporting the same on the other social media website. Post pandemic we’ve taken a NCL cruise in Dec ‘21 and a RCCL cruise this past March. Of those three only Carnival was not enforcing the sanitizing/hand washing outside the Lido buffet despite having these very cool hand washing machines installed at the entrance. The vast majority of people, with only very rare exceptions, ignored both. Once inside there was mostly self-service, and widespread coughing, Lots of people talking about their bad “allergies”. We ate only at venues where crew were serving the food. Of course the crew can also be sick, and in fact we lost one of our great dining room servers for a week because he came down with Covid. But obviously the odds are much in your favor being served, if only because a fewer number of people are touching the serving utensils. 2. The sound. We were stunned by all the yelling into the microphones. At times you could barely understand what was being said because of the sound distortion. The second of our back2back cruises was a bit better and we wondered if there had been complaints. Also relentless was the pressure on people, on audiences, to perform, to show we were having fun by making NOISE. To act like we were wannabe, obnoxious, “Spring Breakers”. 3. Galveston is our home port and our first cruise 10 years ago was on the Conquest. We want to love Carnival, but with the fantastic Allure of the Seas coming in Nov, and the new NCL Prima, and the Ruby Princess coming to Galveston next year, Carnival is going to need to make more an effort to broaden its appeal to people like us who are retired and cruise 50 or more nights a year. Because we all like more, not fewer options. And right now I’d have to say that out of the ten cruise lines we know, that we don’t have a favorite. But we have a least favorite.

Off the Vista from a back2back ending on May 7. Masks not required. Very, very few people wore them, Hand washing/sanitizing available, but not monitored or enforced despite very cool hand washing machines at Lido restaurant entrance. We very rarely saw anybody washing or sanitizing. People were then self-serving with gusto at the buffet. Frankly it was gross. We are vaccinated and boosted and nevertheless tested positive on debarkation day, along with a ton of others reporting the same experience on social media. We’re home self-isolating now. Carnival was our third cruise line (after NCL and RCCL) since Dec 2021, post pandemic. It needs to do better.

If you’re a diver/snorkeler, the Vista itinerary gives you one more port on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. On the down side, we just got back from a back2back on the Vista on Sat, May 7, and besides testing Covid positive that day, our ears were thankful to get away from all the yelling into the mikes by the entertainment staff. It was a bruising. 😱Recommend ear plugs for that one.

It baffles me why people scoff at comments made here that are critical of a cruise or a cruise line. Seems like specifically Carnival cruisers are prone to jump in as if they were personally offended. This site is called cruise CRITIC. Its for sharing one’s experiences both good, but even more helpfully, the bad ones. So weird.

We were on the Vista back2back April 23 to May 7. Port arrival delays throughout. People missing flight connections in Houston. Multiple apologies, no explanations given. Secret stuff.