oaktreerb

Confirmed. No need for tender ticket if you purchased Club Orange, just show room key when you are ready to go ashore. You still have to get in line with everybody else to board the tender.

yes, in San Diego. Non HAL staff were very aware and acknowledged 4*+ priority but not CO.

I have noticed that teens will find other teens and make their own fun, play board games, and just hang out and talk a lot! Go for it. They probably don’t need organized entertainment.

You can put in your booking number closer to your embarkation date and it will tell you if you need to test. The requirements are fluid!

HIA Also covers specialty coffees, sodas, specialty waters, mocktails (nonalcoholic). It doesn’t cover the minibar in your room or larger water bottles. You really have to “add it up”. Maybe wait until they also include gratuities with HIA.

We had shrimp available in the dining room on our recent cruises on the k-dam. We don’t eat in the Lido except for the salad bar (you choose what you want in your salad) for lunch). The Lido is not a serve yourself buffet except for a few items. Cruise passengers come from all across the US/Canada and many countries so we each have our dining preferences. I’ll agree that the Lido hours are too limited. Staffing has not come back to HAL stated ratios. Many experienced HAL cruisers prefer fixed dining in the dining room for the evening meal so they always have the same table and wait staff.

We like the Grand Dutch Cafe, the Club Orange Dining Option, and the World Stage.

If you are on a Holland America cruise tour and you have two nights in Fairbanks HAL has probably planned for you to see the Alaska Pipeline, panning for gold, and the steamboat on the Chena River which are usually a combined activity. You will be staying at the Westmark which is an easy walk to a museum along the riverfront. Look online for the Fairbanks visitor center information. Look on the HAL excursion site for other convenient activities.

In the past it has been available on public screens around the ship, it should be easy to add it to the in-room TV offerings. The forward camera, the aft camera, and the route and miles we’ve traveled, and where we are going. I looked for the information on our recent cruise and didn’t find it.

We did Seabourn in the Caribbean a few years ago. The dining room service was really slow but the wine glass was kept filled. The excursions staff was not very helpful since they had locals come onboard to educate us on the day in port. Most of us felt like we needed the local input ahead of docking so we could make plans. The staterooms are big with a walk in closet! We did Azamara in New Zealand and the feel of the ships was more like HAL. The rooms are considerably smaller than Seabourn. The staff was wonderful and the food and service were very good. Azamara was somewhat more casual. They have new owners now but I suspect they haven’t changed much. In Alaska I would be concerned about the smaller ships like Seabourn having to tender while the bigger ships will dock. We were on the Maasdam (small ship) in Juneau a few years ago and had to tender. Not a happy experience and it was cold and rainy which made it worse. You may also have to tender in Sitka but not so bad there (very scenic). Holland generally has the best dock locations because they have been in Alaska for a long time.

With the crowds outside the MDR for early open dining recently unless you have fixed dining it would be worth $70 to have a dedicated line for dining room seating! I have not seen any special CO event since Covid. You can have your jewelry cleaned in the shops but you could probably have that done anyway. I’m not sure if you can get mimosas and fresh orange juice in the MDR. It is available for room service breakfast. Haven’t seen the sparkling wine. The CO priority line at the service desk is nice to have if you have issues.

Not according to Club Orange stated amenities. Your room key shows that you are in Club Orange if you bought CO or are in a NS/PS. If 4* and above have priority at the CO line it would negate priority access since a lot of HAL cruisers are 4* and above. What ship were you on when the GSM told you the CO line was for 4 and 5 star?

@kazuI’m sorry to hear of your issue with the Club Orange line at the front desk. There should be a roped off area at the far end of the CS desk indicating Club Orange and if no one is waiting there the desk clerk will assist others. If you stand in the Club Orange roped off area you become priority and someone will come to assist you. Even if they are short of personnel at the desk, you are priority. It sounds like there are too many “guests” onboard, compounded by too many issues and inexperience of staff. The K will soon be sailing to Hawaii, hopefully fewer kids will be onboard and the crew will have time to adhere to a “tight ship” service mentality. I’ll be on the second of the Hawaii sailings. I sure hope they get their act together before I get there!

If you had J2619 booked and they gave it to someone else, you had it first. I’d take this issue up the “chain” starting with the TA. The TA needs to call HAL and get your stateroom back.

You pay the deposit. HAL will contact you through your TA or PCC. You ask which stateroom is available and either accept or reject. If you don’t want the stateroom you can stay on the waitlist to see if something better shows up.

If you fax: It’s best to have everything on one page so there is no danger of separation of multiple pages. My shareholder proxy has the number of shares at the bottom so I fold it so the names and number of shares take up half and my name, dates and booking number along with my contact information are on the other half of my request. Be sure the number of shares is evident on your paperwork, it’s now at the bottom of the proxy.

@erin78 I have recently begun to try to remove cheese from my diet. Melted cheese holds the pizza together. What would you expect to have included on a pizza without cheese?

You need to call them. I faxed mine on 12/5 and asked for confirmation. I finally called 12/27 and HAL rep said that they hadn’t received it so I e-mailed the request and received confirmation the same day. She said that more people are e-mailing the requests these days.

Ships are sailing full so the dining room is more crowded. If you prefer a table for two and always dine early you can ask the maitre’d to assign you a table in open dining. If you don’t show up on time they will hold it for about 15 minutes.

@kazuRE: the food desert on the Nieuw Amsterdam in Alaska. We got back on the ship, probably around 3 pm. The steward removing the food from the Neptune Lounge went back to the cart and gave us each a plate of rolls. I asked the concierge why the NS didn’t have fruit in the room like in the past and she said HAL decided too much fruit was wasted but we could order fruit delivered to our room. I told her how much I had enjoyed the grapes that had been refreshed in our room everyday on the previous cruise. (The next afternoon she had grapes delivered to our room.). Because I was curious about the situation we walked the whole ship looking for food. Maybe I missed something but I’ve been on a lot of ships and went all the way to the Crows Nest looking for food. I did “Let Us Know” but didn’t get a response. We only had a couple of days left. I almost always have cookies in the room but not that day! I think one station in the Lido should be open in the afternoon for a quick snack. There weren’t even any cookies out. RE: Sel de Mer. I also ordered the Calamari and was disappointed and our waiter noticed I wasn’t eating it and offered to bring me something else. The salad was very good!

@hues of blueHave you looked on halfacts.com to see if your cabin or another in the same area is reviewed?

We came back from an excursion in Alaska in August and every place to get food was closed. We headed to the Neptune Lounge for a snack and the steward was removing all the food items and not replacing them until later in the day. We discovered that HAL is a food desert at times. We walked to every food venue on the Nieuw Amsterdam and none of them had food available. The bars, however, were serving drinks. We could have asked for peanuts, maybe. At least one venue needs to be open for hungry people returning from excursions!

The dining room opens about 5:15. Early seating or late seating can be assigned in fixed seating dining room prior to the cruise. It’s easier to get late fixed seating. Talk to the dining room manager on your first day if you want to make reservations. At 5:15 there will probably a “sea” of people trying to get into the “any time dining”. The dining room may be open for lunch on the day you board and they won’t be busy because most people go to the Lido.

Did you book with a TA? If so, since you have booked the Pinnacle Suite, your TA may be able to contact HAL with your request. Crew News has diagrams of the dining room set up on his website. If that doesn’t work, ask the Neptune Lounge concierge to reserve a table for you. If all else fails the dining room manager can provide you a designated table in open dining if you choose the early dining option. You paid a lot of money for the most expensive stateroom on the ship, you deserve to have a preferred seat in the dining room. Club Orange is not able to make that concession and they don’t have ocean view dining anyway.

I decided to try the drink but would not order it again. I’ve been saving them for a non HIA cruise someday. I hadn’t thought of using it for something nonalcoholic. Good idea.