RuthC

Your itinerary should list out the ports, with times in port, whether it's an overnight, and other assorted info. Tender ports will have a 'TR' next to the port.

Not always.

Not in the dining room.

Or, you bring a baby monitor. Place the 'baby's' portion by the TV speakers, and take the 'parents'' speaker out on the balcony with you. The monitor doesn't take up a lot of space in your suitcase.

You can still go to lunch in the dining room on every day it is open. Meet all the people you want. No loss here.

To answer your question about VeriFLY, no, you don't have to do it at all. It may shorten your time to check in, but it may increase your frustration level in the meantime as a trade-off.

My feeling is if HAL can't get its IT Dept. to provide the tools they want us to use for embarkation, they can't insist we use them. I give it one shot, in the correct timeframes. If it works, fine. If not, also fine. Not my problem---it's theirs. I see no reason to frustrate myself, nor use my time to load, remove, reload, or keep printing until HAL decides to provide what they want me to have. Somehow, they let me board anyway.

The OP is the same person you quoted in your post.

I would be FURIOUS to come back to that. I usually am dashing in to the restroom, with no time to spare to push that out of the way! I always tell my stewards to leave the bathroom door open just for the extra time.

Even though you are no longer positive for Covid, you will be tired for a while (I was needing naps and extra sleep at night for 2-3 weeks). This might not be a good time for very long tours, or tours very early in the morning.

Freedom! Halleluiah! Enjoy it (and stay away from germs).

The bigger question, at least to me, is why wouldn't HAL, if they did implement this new changed policy fleetwide not publicize it? They sure made an announcement several years ago when they attempted to change the wine policy from bringing all you want for in-cabin consumption to no wine allowed. (that lasted what, two days?) Oh, yeah, that's right. They didn't want to hear the screaming and yelling, and have to backtrack like they did with the wine policy. At the very least this change in policy should have been made known on the ship before passengers spent money to purchase flowers for their cabins.

They should have it onboard. I say 'should' because on my last cruise I ordered one bottle, but needed a second during the cruise; there weren't any more bottles on board, so I had to make do with tap water. Order it in advance, and order as many bottles as you think you will need for the entire cruise.

My HAL hotel package in Athens included a transfer from the airport to the hotel (in a car, not a bus), and a bus transfer to the pier the next day. The transfer to the pier included a tour of the city and the Acropolis Museum. Since I travel alone, schlepping my own luggage and being somewhat disabled, I find having a HAL hotel and transfers worth any extra cost for the service I get out of it.

Before that, it was buy one---get one free. And that, also, wasn't very long ago. I remember that rule on a 2019 cruise, obviously before the covid shutdown.

I don't know anything about the size of the ship or its desirability for a cruise, but this is a fabulous itinerary. Better than either of the two HAL itineraries you posted above.

Each time was a HAL tour. I don't remember if I did the tour two times or three. It's an easy tour for me, which I do enjoy. Changes in the weather changes the experience, too.

That's possible. I am sure that was done on the Prinsendam as I used to see a parking lot of them near the aft elevator. But there was a large area there that was out of the lanes of anyone walking. There was also good reason to need a parking lot for scooters on that ship as cabins were at the end of a short passage which ran off the main passageway; one on each side of the corridor about half the length of the cabin (made for very quiet cabins). There was no way to turn into the cabin even if you could turn in to your semi-private passageway.

Someday you may find out the hard way that not all passageways have the same width. A little consideration of others goes a long way. I know on the Pinnacle ship I was on my scooter cleared the stewards' cart with very little room to spare. His cart was much narrower than a wheelchair. I have had trouble getting past a parked wheelchair on other classes, too.

What a shame the bathroom hairdryers were disconnected. They came in handy for clearing off the mirror after a steamy shower. I also used them to help dry my knit gloves in Alaska. Hope you continue to feel all right, and pass the next covid test on the first try.

However, you can purchase the HAL plan, and then purchase a separate medical and repatriation only policy. It's wise to compare the price of the HAL plus the separate policy (determining what else you may be giving up, too) compared to a full coverage policy without the HAL plan.

Those mirrors were in the inside cabins with tubs, too. Weird? I would say closer to horrifying.

It may depend on which class of ship a scooter is left outside whether or not there is room. On one cruise there was someone a few cabins down who routinely left a wheelchair outside their door during the day. I could not get by in my scooter, as there wasn't enough room. Same is true when people leave their meal trays in the passageway---not enough room to get by in a scooter. You may not have heard any complaints, but that doesn't necessarily mean no one was inconvenienced.

Yes, the 18% service charge is included in the price of the Pinnacle meal. Also, your drink under the Signature Beverage Package (or the Elite Package), whether under Have It All or purchased separately, includes the service charge.

I've done that excursion a few times, and enjoyed it each time, under different weather conditions. It was in an excursion type boat, similar to ones I have taken in Alaska. On each cruise the ship also did the cruise up the fjord, and it gave a very different perspective than the smaller boat did; I was glad to have the different views. The boat stopped at a waterfall, and collected water we could take a drink of. There was also a spot where some mountain goats came down to the boat to check us out. Fun! The boat stopped and let us off for a break where we got some of the Norwegian thin waffles, with jam--- a frequent snack on tours in Norway. One time was a sheltered spot in the woods, another time was more like a rest stop on the highway kind of place. You will get a good perspective of Pulpit Rock, just from below.