angelbearmom

Hi! I'm leaving on the Konigsdam from Vancouver Thursday. I have a cpap machine so need distilled water. Last time I went on a cruise one of my party ordered jugs ahead of time. That was 2017.  I haven't figured out how to do that this time. What I read tonight on HAL was only a sealed jug as long as it's with the device and included with checked baggage. I'm not checking my cpap machine. Is it something I can order and have brought to the stateroom? On the previous cruise I brought a couple of packs of small size coke tins. It says that is no longer allowed. Is that accurate? Thanks

Is this a new development? My mom and I are both doing the same cruise  (circle Hawaii in April). She paid the prepay gratuities about a month ago. I remember seeing that option but when I wanted to do it I couldn't see the option. 

Thanks for all the information on gf foods. I figured that HAL would probably have some food adaptations. My favorite breakfast is waffles. I'm happy to hear they are available gf. One question is whether I should fill out the SRI form. My major symptom is a severe migraine. It's not life threatening but the effects certainly interfere with my well being on the cruise. Thanks

Hi! I'm sailing on the Konigsdam on April 13. Since my last cruise I have been diagnosed with celiac disease and have to be very careful about gluten food. What is available for those needing no  gluten. Will there be gluten free bread, waffles, pasta? How easy difficult is it to get items in the main dining room to get gluten free items. Do we get to see the next days entrees to choose what will/won't? How about desserts? I know it will be great anyways but just want a preview of what to expect Thanks

sunset

I am booked on a HAL circle hawaii trip in April. I am interested in the haleakala crater sunset. On the listing it says it leaves at 8:30 am. It's only a 6 hour trip. Is this correct? Thanks

My mom and I booked a 18 day circle Hawaii cruise from Vancouver to Vancouver over a year ago leaving on April 8. Recently when we wanted to look at excursions we discovered the cruise was now leaving April 13. Our itinerary has almost totally changed. /And there are also no shore excursions available at most ports. Our 2 day port which was Honolulu is now Hilo. Our travel agent wasn't notified and I found another page today with the same dates and itineraries. Has this happened to anyone else? Anything we can do about it?

We were told that the only things that will be done during the dry dock are on the entertainment areas of the ship-decks 2 and/or 3. Nothing will be done on the staterooms or the restaurants from what we were told in a talk by the captain. I think it's the music walk that will be added. I didn't like that the Explorers Cafe was way up next to the crows nest lounge. We were in mid ship so to go up there meant walking awhile and then different elevators. I was too lazy to figure it out a lot of the time. We did try the Tamarind and loved it too. Especially the servers. They were great. We got to know a few more of the servers and their personal lives this time which was nice. Problem with the Tamarind for us was that there were limited options for a couple of us in our group.

I've now been home a week and thought I'd share a few things from our trip.

My mom, a friend and I were in what is termed a triple deluxe ocean view verandah cabin, It's the 1st level of verandah cabins. It was tiny. All of us had been on smaller HAL ships with way more room. We managed but it was very hard to get around in the cabin.

Previously on CC it had been stated that all newer HAL ships had usb charging ports around the lamps. We had none. We did find one behind the tv on our last day. The cabin only had 2 outlets; both had the international and US outlets.The 2 of us in the twin beds needed cpap machines. Fortunately I'd brought an extension cord which worked. It just barely reached our machines but stuck out in between my bed and the hide a bed so that my mom frequently tripped over it at night.

Overall everything related to food was great. We especially enjoyed the Pinnacle and had 3 meals there. In the Canaletto as there were 3 of us we were told I think to order for 3 rather than 2. That gave us way too much food. I can't remember how many of the different plates we were told to order but ordering for 2 would have been better.

One complaint was that some items ran out a week before the end of the cruise. Apparently a new person had come aboard at some point but it came down to them not realizing how much was needed for a 21 day cruise rather than 14 days. The most frustrating was with the wine package my mom had prepurchased before the cruise. It had 1 specific wine that she really wanted and couldn't get any other way. One week before the end of the cruise she went to order a new bottle and was told there weren't any more. 4 other red wines on that package were also not available. They also ran out of the souvenir cordial glasses that came with the after dinner drinks. But on the last day at the deck sale there were complete boxes of them. We had a lovely wine steward most nights and she found me one of the ones I'd wanted so I did end up with only 2 duplicates. And, for my mom, they ran out of skim milk 2 or 3 days before the end of the cruise.

Chocolate parade was good. Not well organized. Definitely come prepared with a plate or napkins for if you don't want to eat all of the wonderful chocolate goodies at 10 pm. We had 2 of the parades and when we came prepared with a plate at the 2nd we got lots of teasing. But, we had unmelted and unsquished chocolates to enjoy back in the cabin. On the NA the chocolate parade was on deck 2. Everyone started to gather near the glass steps at the Atrium. It started with a cart of trays with chocolate goodies on them along with crew. Then they started to bring the trays around starting near the elevators and then down the hall towards the Pinnacle. The problem was that they all started from the same end and by the time they'd gotten very far their trays were empty. There was always more but as they kept coming out the same area some had a hard time getting anything. But, if you really want the chocolate stand near the elevator up to the beginning of the stairs ready with a plate. .

More on food: the asian foods in the Lido Market tended to be quite spicy but most of the dishes in the main dining room that you'd think of as spicy weren't that bad. The menu changed with our locations so during our Mexican ports there were more mexican style dishes, same with the Caribbean period. The waiters when asked told us that they try to keep the dishes in the mdr not very spicy. I loved the variety of food. I think I had shrimp daily sometimes in multiple courses of one meal. The Lido was by far the nicest place for breakfast. Lunch was ok. There were a lot of choices. I just didn't like most of them. But my travel companions always were happy with what they got. I didn't like the hamburgers at Dive In but loved the pizza. We didn't quite get to try all of them. But we loved what we got. Tribeca I think was quite spicy.

We had hoped to spend a lot of time listening to the Adagio strings-only 2 players as mentioned for another ship. But that part of the ship was freezing. Just walking by it on the way to the dining room we could feel it.

As I've mentioned previously we had the one emergency while in Huatulco. In my opinion the captain and crew did a wonderful job both on shore and on the ship. They made sure everyone was well informed of what was going on. There was another issue at the port in Costa Rica which wasn't handled as well with people on excursions returning very late. We had canceled our excursion for that day and it sounded like it was good that we had as the people on that excursion got back around 10 pm.

Ports:

Huatulco; that was the first port we experienced really agressive sales/tour operators. They were really quite obnoxious. That was at the shopping area near the dock. The one a little farther away-across a parking lot was much better although the sales people at each stand were quite agressive too. Just not as bad as out in the main area. Their agressiveness made passengers not trust when we were told to go to a hotel while waiting for the ship to be ready for us. We all thought they were just sales people trying to get us into their shops and businesses. Finally someone from HAL got our attention and assured us that we were being told the truth.

Nicaragua;Not much shopping in the little market just outside the pier area-very industrial area.

The best shopping port (my main purpose in getting off the ship) was at Puerto Quetzal (Quatemala). It was larger, shaded and very full of nice shops. It was in a circle though so I did get lost. But I got lovely things there.

Going through the canal was amazing. We'd been shown a couple of videos about the making of the canal which helped us understand the process. The bow end was open by 6 am on several decks. We all moved around different areas both inside and out to watch what was going on. By the time the ship went into the last set of locks in the afternoon those in my cabin and I just sat and watched on the tv. It was better than fighting for a spot to stand. It showed everything from the bow camera.

Over all the trip was wonderful.

Totally different aspect of this post: On our recent Panama Cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam we saw clearly another reason to take a ship cruise. 3 days in a row we had to wait for passengers on excursions that had traffic issues. The last day was the worst-Puntarenas where there were several recent landslides not repaired or cleared as well as traffic accidents. The ship was due to leave port at 6:30. At 8 they were still waiting for 260 passengers. The last passengers returned at 10 pm. There was another cruise ship docked next to us and it looked like they were waiting still after we had left port.

I too got off the NA last Saturday. It was a wonderful cruise. For our last chocolate parade my mom and I went holding plates. We sure got teased but hay we were able to get back to our cabins with unsquished chocolates. They could organize the parade a little better but no matter what the chocolate was great.

I don't mean to hijack your thread but I am sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam in November and I was wondering how the library is in the explorations café area. I know that HAL has been cutting back on some ships and I am hopeful that the NA is not one of them. The libraries are one reason I enjoy HAL as I do read a lot when I am aboard ship. Any opinions on the NA library would be appreciated.

 

I usually bring a few books along but if the library is not the best, I will want to bring extras. I am a book person as I don't care for the Kindles, Nooks, or Ipads. Thank you.

There's a wide variety of books. We've all brought our own books. But there are a lot there.

Sorry we're not great people to ask about shows. There are 3 of us in our cabin and only 1 of us has been to 1 show. We like our balcony too much. The little my friends have seen in the lounges they feel is too loud. They do like the adagio strings in the explorers lounge but it's very cold there. Apparently they're doing a major overhaul of the entertainment venues at their dry dock in December.

a sudden strong storm with high winds hit this morning while the NA was docked in Huatulco. The front mooring lines came loose from the pier & the ship swung out. It was still held on by other lines. I was on shore when it hit & found shelter in a cantina on the shore. They brought people table cloths to dry off with. I was concerned because my mom was on a fishing boat. But they came back & were safe. HALwas great. They put us up in a hotel while they figured things out. Everyone made sure all 1200 on shore & 800 on board knew what was going on. They're having divers checking the hull so we'll be late out of port. That's our day

We're having a lovely time on the NA on our way to the Panama Canal. So far the weather has been great but I think that's over and done with. We're in Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. When looking at a weather screen in one of the lounges it said that tomorrow's temperature was going to be 0 degrees Celsius and -18 degrees Fahrenheit. That will be interesting. Our one complaint is the size of our cabin. It's very tiny for 3 people. We thought as this was a newer larger ship the veranda cabins would be at least the size of non verandah cabins on smaller ships. We sort of do a ballet to move around the cabin once the couch is out for the night. But everything has been wonderful.

I'm currently on the nieuw Amsterdam on our way to the Panama Canal. We've had 1 chocolate parade. A few tips: before you go get yourself one or more plates & bring napkins. It was wonderful but our hands got rather full.

I remember seeing a thread here at some point in the last few months about HAL and their scented hair and body wash products. I'm travelling (tomorrow!!!!!) with someone who has extreme scent allergies. In March our travel agent put in a request that we have no scented products such as shampoo, body wash in our cabin. Everything seemed to be good. They were agreeable. But then, yesterday-2 days before we sail our travel agent got a letter saying they couldn't provide unscented products. We've had to scramble finding unscented products for the 2 of us who are ok. She'd also requested no scented cleaning products for our cabin and to refrain from any painting or varnishing near our cabin especially on our balcony. Hopefully they won't go back on their word for those too. Scented products could severely hamper my friend.

Thanks for the info. We'll take whatever comes. Our last cruise was the Norwegian Fjords going up into the Arctic Circle. We had little sun, but no sunset and very cold. We all thought it was a heat wave when the temp got up to 11C. This was mid July. But we had a great time no matter the weather. I was just curious as I know that often in tropical areas there is rain daily but not for that long each day.

I leave on a Panama canal cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam on Saturday. When I look at the weather in the places we're going starting from Puerto Vallarta it's all listed as thunder storms and rain. The temperatures are warm. Are we likely going to see constant rain and storms or will the weather variate over the day? I've asked this on the Mexican Riviera board but gotten no replies. Will the land storms affect how rough or smooth it when we're out at sea? Thanks

Hi! I leave in 3 days (actually 2 1/2) from Vancouver going to the Panama Canal and then ending up in Florida. I've been looking at the forecasts for all of the ports we will stop at. From Puerto Vallarta down to the canal all I see are clouds and thunder and in some cases rain. Realistically what can we expect in weather at this time of year. I notice that the temperatures are all pretty warm. Will it rain and thunder and be cloudy most of the time or will the weather change through the days. We're in Puerto Vallarta October 8. We're all packing rain gear but it would be nice to know if it will be daily all day downpours or intermittent better weather. Thanks,

Since I don't know the area at all I haven't a clue when I look at a store locator map as to where it is. Either in San Francisco or San Diego. I need more specific info as to where to find what I want-name of area where port is would help.

Just wondering if anyone knows of a walmart or a similar type store in either San Francisco or San Diego. I'm needing some things that are best gotten in that store. Thanks

9 sleeps to go. I've been looking at the entertainment page on HAL I like classical music mostly. Is the Lincoln Center stage on the NA? Opinions? I also see the Explorers lounge and the Ocean Bar. Are they likely to have music I'd like? Just wondering.

I've only had a balcony once and it was on the Circle Hawaii cruise with all it's lovely sea days. There's just nothing like sitting out on a balcony especially at night just enjoying the air and water. It it's chilly you can just put on a sweater. I loved sitting on the balcony reading in my pajamas. I'm going on a Panama Canal cruise in 11 days!!!!!! (I'm not excited or anything). We have a balcony this time and I'm looking forward to it even if the weather is pretty lousy.

Thanks everyone for the info. I had thought of packing it in my checked luggage. Now I know I can't do that. The juice I like is grape and I know it's hard to find. A couple of packs of 5 juice boxes isn't going to add much weight to my carry on which has wheels. And, I have horrible headaches right now and sometimes caffeine helps. Coke is best. And, I'd prefer smaller tins so again it won't add much to my carry on. $2 per can is a bit much if I can bring it on my own. Thanks, again.