Torquer

@TravelBluebirdOne final question from me. How many days did you have warm weather where you could wear short sleeves and maybe even shorts versus cold weather where you needed sweatshirts/sweaters and even winter coats. Our cruise in 3 weeks will be our first with such differences between hot and cold, and we are wondering how two totally different kinds of wardrobe are going to fit in our suitcases. Thanks for all the great info you have provided. Very scary about the safety in Buenos Aires. In a book we have read, it said Buenos Aires is one of the safest large cities in the world, and safer than many US and European cities. It is amazing how things changed so quickly.

I did exactly the same thing. But mine just says: "COMPLIMENTARY SHIPBOARD CREDIT". I do not have the "NCLH SHAREHOLDER" part after it. I pretty have concluded that this really is the stockholder credit for $250 and not OBC from our travel agency or anything else. But it would be nice if it were stated explicitly, or better yet, if O sent an email confirming the credit. Now my next question is the way the credit is assigned with $125 to me and $125 to my wife. Suppose I give my credit card number to charge all our room's expenses and my wife doesn't use her key card to purchase anything on the ship. I hope that doesn't mean we would lose here $125 credit??

The per item prices are indeed in the stratosphere to do all your laundry that way. For our next cruise, we are in a suite so we get 3 bags of laundry for free. But for a 20-day cruise (one single segment) that is not nearly enough for 2 people. Does anyone know if they have a per-bag price after we use the 3 free bags? I could not find this info anywhere.

I just googled the distance and it is 31 km, about 18 miles. By US and European standards, $60 would be very reasonable. But right now things are crazy in Argentina with their currency so maybe the equivalent of 10 USD in their peso would be the going rate, I just don't know. With their hyper-inflation, prices change daily with respect to the currency of other stable countries like the US.

Don't email or try to phone company executives. You need to write a letter and send it via US mail. In my experience with other companies, it is much more likely to get results. So that would be: Frank Del Rio, President Oceania Cruises 7665 Corporate Center Drive Miami, Florida 33126

That's a very interesting question. I suspect HAL would require both of you to buy the insurance, but don't know that for a fact. You might want to look at travel insurance policies from other companies; we find they provide better coverage at cheaper rates than HAL. You may want to ask this question in the general travel insurance forum: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/

In the MDR, if you have fixed seating, you can request that, but they might not be available, in which case you could switch to anytime dining. With anytime dining, there are some different things you can do: Get to the MDR as soon as it opens If you are in a suite or have club orange, you will almost certainly get one Make reservations once you get on the ship, but you are likely to get very early or very late times Wait in line for a table for 2, but the wait might be a while Of course for the specialty restaurants, you should have no problem reserving a table for two.

We sail on Oceania Marina next month on February 14 from San Antonio, through Antarctica, to Buenos Aires. Thanks for the tip about the free trial of Marine Traffic. I will probably do that after our cruise to get detailed map information about our completed cruise route. Keep up your interesting research!

@TravelBluebirdSince you have a good Nikon camera, let me ask you this question. On warm weather cruises, I often have a problem with my lens fogging when I have it in the air conditioned cabin for a while and then take it out on the balcony. Have you had problem, I guess it would be in the reverse direction, coming into the warm cabin from the cold outside? The temperature differential is much larger in Antarctica, but on the other hand the humidity is probably less. Just want to know what to expect and how much lens paper I might need.

Very interesting comparison. However, I think your analysis may be flawed in claiming that the differences in the route is due to the size of the ship. It may be that Princess wanted a shorter cruise. According to Cruisemapper, both ships left Punta Arenas on January 16. The Princess ship goes straight to San Antonio with no further port stops and gets there January 20. The Azamara ship has port stops in Puerto Chacabuco and Puerto Montt and gets to San Antonio on January 22. So there are two extra days of cruising so it makes sense that can get into the fjords more, and in fact the two extra ports are in the fjords. I am following a blog for a similar size Holland America ship to the Princess ship, it takes 6 days to go between those two places and goes to the two extra ports Azamara goes to. All that said, I agree with you that spending time in the fjords is better than cruising the open ocean. We are preparing for a cruise next month on Oceania (about 50% more passengers than Quest), and we spend 7 days between Punta Arenas and San Antonio, so even one more day than Azamara.

@Unhappy campersI fully agree with you. Since the cruise itinerary changed dramatically, such that they had to change the title of the cruise, you should be entitled to a full refund. I would keep complaining, including writing a letter the president of O (use US mail, not email). Now some people will probably state the cruise contract allows them to do this, and legally then can, but it is just not good for their business.

When they process your request for OBC, is it normal to get an email back from them to confirm the credit has been issued? I submitted our request for credit 14 days ago. Other than an initial confirmation email that they received the email request, I have heard nothing from them. On the other hand, when I go to the booking for our upcoming cruise, I do see a $250 credit. But I can't be sure that this is from owning NCL stock, or a credit from our travel agency.

Just curious what you mean by "processing"? Do you mean just some simple cropping, or something else? Most of your photos, especially the ones taken while outside, are excellent.

I think you should ask this question in the general Celebrity forum, since the answer will likely depend on the cruise line. There will be lots more Celebrity cruisers there than here, and although you are thinking of doing this in Ushuaia, it really applies to any tender port with Celebrity.

This topic has been discussed many times on the general HAL forum. Here is one good discussion which talks about chromecast, but the general topic is more about how to use the HDMI ports: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2977566-how-to-get-your-chromecast-connected-and-streaming-on-hal-rotterdam/#comment-66533558

No that is not correct. It was an actual test being done on the Oosterdam. The NL concierge was quite explicit on this point and told us we should write on the survey how much we liked this perk so that it might become a standard fleet-wide perk. See my first post in this thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2872521-oosterdam-testing-new-perk-in-neptune-lounge

Thanks. That will likely to come in very handy for our cruise next month when there are 5 ships in port with us. A general tip for everyone...if there is a long line for anything, don't just get on the line unless you know there is no better option. We always have one person in our party get in the line to hold our spot, while the other members go scouting to the front, sides, etc. to see if there is another entrance or another way around the line. Don't be a lemming! There are often other options.

The only time we have ever seen free alcoholic drinks in the Neptune Lounge was our cruise on Oosterdam in August 2022. It is very unfortunate that this was never propagated to other ships in the fleet. HAL is very much behind other cruise lines in this regard for their upper-level suites.

Thanks...I missed that.

Do you mean you will use your HIA to get cocktails for the two people staying in the other cabin? That is technically not permitted. Now you probably could go to a bar, get a drink with your HIA, then take it back to a seat and give it to someone else to drink, but that is certainly frowned upon and could be quite awkward if you get caught. According to the rules, the HIA drinks are only for the consumption of the person that has HIA.

@LocoLoco1Are all 4 of you staying in the same cabin? You did not make that clear. If so then you all get the 4-star benefits. Otherwise, only the two people in the 4-star cabin would get it and the other two people would get nothing specific to their cabin. You can read the full list of benefits in the link below. One item that no one mentioned so far is the 50% discount on the mini-bar in the room. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/plan-a-cruise/get-ready-for-your-cruise/mariner-society

A link to which TA forum you are referring to would be helpful.

I can certainly see how you would be disappointed by that view. That would bother me as much as it does you and I agree it really detracts from a lot of your photography. On the other hand, I'm not sure it needs to be called an obstructed view cabin. It probably wouldn't bother a lot of people. It really amazes me how few people you see on their balconies for sail-aways from ports. And as for photography, half the people believe taking photos is done by holding their cell phone vertically, and don't even bring a real camera on a cruise. So I guess we both learned that you really need to do your homework when picking a cabin.

Does anyone know of a good cheap sim card (physical card, since my phone doesn't use esim) for Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay? I have looked around on Amazon and other places and can't find one. I really want to be able to get it before I leave home, since I don't want to waste time finding a shop when I am on the cruise. Right now, it looks like I am going to have to use my Verizon plan at $10 per day to use it. We will need it for about 10 days out of the 20 day cruise, so it will cost about $100 for the entire trip.

Can you post a link to the roll call? How are we supposed to even know what cruise line you are talking about.