VMax1700

😱 The salary does not cover that amount of research 😉 But, I have rarely seen reports from cruisers regarding groups onboard, nor any indication as to size or intrusion level. It would be a bit like food and difficult to quantify the perception of others.

Not on a BHB yet but boarding on Sunday. Next update was scheduled for end April/early May as there usually is not enough new information to warrant monthly updates. Hope to post the update in Mid May. I am looking to see if I can add a link to my avatar to link to the latest post.

Let's be honest.......if you had asked the question about boarding time a few months ago the general advice on this forum would be to ignore the time given to you by HAL and turn up at 11 am or thereabouts. So, I reckon HAL just cut out the instruction that everyone was telling people to ignore. Now you are told to check in at 12 noon, but boarding is a different story and will only start whenever the ship is ready to receive pax and then boarding will be based on priority or allocated boarding group at the terminal.

Interesting! Perhaps, following the re organisation they have repurposed some of the staff to directly support UK customers.

It is par for the course in North America, but I have not come across it in UK/EU. Out of interest was it a UK contact phone number or dot CO dot UK email address? I also have booked directly and used the UK office for telephone contact until the recent change. Now the UK number goes to a call centre somewhere out in far east/Asia, so I call the Rotterdam office.

For the dining I suggest you go to the desk located on deck 2 opposite Pinnacle Grill and Rudi's Sel de Mer restaurant and ask them to change it. I have successfully done this last year.

I have seen numerous restaurants with signage stating that only one payment card will be accepted. Perhaps when you ask for the table, you could ask the host if they will accept multiple cards for payment, otherwise take turns or transfer payments to each other.

Spandex!

One with sufficient room for comfortable expansion of the owners waistline. It is for a 14 day cruise which starts with 3 sea days and ends with only 2 port days in the last 6 days. Is that Pinnacle lunch and afternoon tea I hear calling? (again!) 😇

Good afternoon from a sunny, wet, windy, hailstones, sleet and sunny again Cork.🙄 We knew we were in trouble when the weatherman gave the forecast that "between the showers there will be rain!" 🙂 Today I went up to the attic to find the suitcases to start packing for our cruise at the weekend. We also went to Blarney Woolen Mills to purchase my 'End of cruise shirt' (clue: it is one size larger than fits me now! 😱). Over the weekend we had a family meal to celebrate our son's 50th birthday. We are constantly amazed at how he can be 50 when we are still so young. 😉 Thoughts are with all who have suffered a loss or are suffering pain. Stay strong. Take care everyone!

No self service laundry on any HAL ship, but an excellent laundry service that is very reasonably priced. Onboard bill is viewable on TV or Navigator App

Purchased and ready to pack!

Plenty of time. Probably a private driver is the best option. Suggest James Falconer https://jamesfalconerchauffeurhire.com/ (I have never used them, but heard good reports) p.s. The town where you are tendering is Dunmore East.

A suggestion for a visit to Katakolo is to visit the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, which is situated at the far end of the short main street and just beyond the railway 'terminal'.

Malaga has wifi ok. Sometimes Cadiz required a bus transfer from ship to the terminal building.

I remember that day! It was a lot of fun. That was our third visit to Aruba out of 5 in total. First was in 2008 on Celebrity Galaxy. Aruba was actually our very first cruise port call ever! Since then we have visited on Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, and Koningsdam twice. I hope we can go back again but DW is anti long distance flights, so we will have to negotiate. @atexsixsorry to read about the loss of your dad. Hope everyone has a great day.

Good morning all! Just a slight course correction 😉Nieuw Statendam is heading towards Europe and her next port of call is Cobh, Cork on Wednesday April 17th. The following ports are St Peters Port on April 18th, Le Havre on April 19th, Dover on April 20th, and Rotterdam on April 21st. We are looking forward to seeing the NSDM in Cobh and meeting with a couple of the CCers currently crossing the Atlantic. Hope the weather improves for them as it has been cold and wet for the past few days, but thankfully the storms have abated. Have a great day everyone!

I sincerely hope that you are now 4 hours ahead of east coast US time or else you are going in the wrong direction! 😉

My apologies too. It was a 'thinking out loud' rhetorical sort of question.

Agreed Jacqui, but that is when purchased as part of a cruise. For the HIA that can be purchased as an optional extra (after purchasing cruise at cheapest (advantage?) price) does not usually include the Elite & Premium internet. That is why I surmised that the OP's HIA was part of a cruise package.

HIA does not usually include grats. Brochure (hard copy?) probably printed prior to grats being recently included in special offer for HIA.

Can you purchase HIA which includes Elite Beverage Pack and Premium wifi? I thought that the purchased HIA only offered the Signature/Surf. If it is packaged in the cruise price it is probably not possible to downgrade?

Residents or those booking through the EU/UK websites.

The £60/€65 HIA 'upgrade offer' usually does not include the gratuities, whereas the HIA offered at time of booking and included in the cruise price usually does include the grats.

@TintoTeam Is this the t&c which you are referring too? Then, the $17/day pp is included. The exclusion refers to upcharge items in the MDR.