mcrcruiser

Yes when a person is on a HAL ship the deposits are lower but ,I recall $100 pp as a future cruise credit . what is uninspiring with HAL is we had to cancel a cruise for HJan 2025 due to medical reasons & the TA booked it as a refundable .Now we are hearing HAL is taking $600 in penalties , The cruise was cancelled cthis month of June 20204 7 the cruise is Jan 2025 .This & many other issues soured cus on HAL . They are not the cruise line that does every thing correct all the time imo

In general if this question was asked on the Princess board would they say that Princess service & food are superior to Holland . We had sailed Princess in the past as well as other cruise lines amazing over 200 cruises . Just seems to us that holland had to be pushed into better main sjow room entertainment . imo there is no perfect cruise line . any one could agree or disagree .We did many sailings with Celebrity & truly vwish they had continued sailing from San Diego but alas they no longer sail from SD .At times they will sail from San Pedro . We like Celebrity a lot 7 we get much better perks with them .at Elite Plus level & We sail RCL at Diamond Plus level with many perks .By the same token therec is o=imo no perfect cruise cline unless one can spend the big bucks for total luxury

Sorry it was a mis type .The difference is HAL deposits are $600 each & Princess is $98 each .Less downside with Princess imo

In the future we will focus more on Princess & their longer itineraries .Reason is their deposits are only 598 pp vs Hal's $600 pp .Also , Princess has better entertainment value & the food is very similar . Even though we have to go a further distance to bosrd their ships ,we see more cruising value with Primncess

Thanks however ,my DW can no longer fly due to a medical condition .so we only can cruise from San Diego ,our home port just 30 miles from home or up to the world cruise center in San Pedro Ca ,about 110 miles & board Princess or RCL ships .We do not like Noewegian who also sales from there . If we sail RCL ,we are Diamond plus level with very good perks . Princess on the other hand we are just Ruby . Most od our 100 plus sailings were with Celebrity .who rarely has a ship there os in SD

Hank we can give it a shot . We have booked with a large on line agency many times . It is just that then we are locked in to one agency .Many times we place our cruises out to bid & take the lowest agency bid price on that cruise . Thus ,we are then locking ourselves into one agency . Because we take bids on our cruises we do wind up with thiousands in savings .I would tell who that web site is but it is against the rules of this web sight Cliff

It is not feaseable to count cards from a shoe or where there is automatic shuffling machines . Card counting is only done if the dealer was to deal to the bottom of a deck & that is never done any longer in casinos . What they do in LV i on double decks is deal half way & reshuffle which keeps the odds in favor of the house . When they dealt to the bottom I counted positive & negative cards ,The positive cards are face cards & the negative cards are numbered cards ,when thete are more positive cards in the deck I raised my bets .I always won . I traveled on business in Las Vegas for 30 years mid 60s to mid 90s . The 2 best games for odds are craps & backerat .The rest of the games today are for pardon the pun suckers .If one is a very smart poker player ,that is also a good game but one needs to know both pot & card odds to play well

Thanks I will give it time % see how it works for us

Hank We are not expecting the cruise line just to e-mail us as the only people to take a new cruise .what happens in our case is we must have a fully accessable handicap cabin 7 those go fast ;as soon as a new listing is listed . so if we can not get a fully accessable cabin we just won't cruise with HAL .We may be going on Princess from LA if the cruise is long enough .. or we just take a land trip in stead of a cruise /In fact the Nieuw Amsterdam really has only 2 valcony accessable cabins not suites & they are both forward on deck 6 . A ;ong cruise on the Pacific ocean is bound to get some bad waters & those front cabins are awful in turbulent waters imo tsking the pinnacle class koningsdam back east for awhile or for ever is a bad move las others will not sail on Nieuw Amsterdam as a substitute vessel Cliff

Unfortunately ,neither some HAL reps who answer the phone know that much .My TAs get so busy that I sincerely doubt they be watching for the new releases for us . Just being realistic . Perhaps one day the cruise lines will send that information out to their regular customers by e-mails

Thanks but when I placed Holland in the format it came up Volendam & Zaandam not Nieuw Amsterdam

Where on HAL's web site can I place my preferences? TIA

We phoned the Mariner Society & asked if they would send e-mails to their customer base when they opened a new sailing season .Believe it or not the person did not get it . We have a particular problem & that is with scarce handicap state rooms available ,we need a very early booking . Should we see that they don't service this request ,we will go to other cruise lines by necessity

There are scooters that you can purchase which are very light & even collapsable with a remote switch & you can pull it like luggage . Another possibility is a light scooter weighing only 40 lbs that can be lifted . If this is of interest just look on line for collapsable electri scooters .Scooter rentals can Be several hundred per trip . Taqking several trips they can easily own one

Mary yes we have already been to Zion & Bryce National Parks . Capital Reef is a bit iof a task to get to ,so this tie we will skip it . We are focusing on Arches & Canyon Lands as well as Dead horse State park which we understand is spectacular & much closer . We have 6 nights in a Marriott hotel booked ,so we should get to these 3 for longer looks . We both carry the senior life time National park cards .23 years ago I bought mine is the museum in Ketchican Alaska . National Park service was running it at that time . My wife got hers at Cabrillo National Monument ,end of Point Loma SD .At the time we got ours they were just $10 each .Now we hear they are $80 each .Still a buy for life time entry

Thanks for the information . .We are headed to Arches & Canyon Lands National Parks . Near Moab Utah in early May 2025 . We also know of a State Park there that over looks the Colorado river rapids . We have a off road type SUV 4 wheel drive so we can get closer to the images .for picture taking . We already booked our Marriott Hotel in Moab ;as the hotels are selling out way in advance now . We will be in the parks area for 5 days . We do know that the GypsyApp sells compalete directions for cell phines booth of those National Parks We decided to do the above vs another Alaska cruise ;as we have done 5 prior Alaska cruises , FWIW in May 2025 Coral Princess has a 7 day Repositioning cruise from their San Pedro pier in Los Angeles area that is very comprehensive & gets to Vancouver ,BC on May 2nd ,2025 .what is very nice about that cruise is the long day in Vancouver Island & stopping in Astoria Oredon . both fabulous ports . We had done these many times,so the reason for our land trip vs the cruises . May 3rd or 4th Koningsdam id doing the inside passage & imo \holland does the best Alsaka cruises with Naturalists aboard her ships

Does any one know if there is a web site like cruise critic just for land trips ? TIA

What is the AMX CC that you are getting $350 back from AMX ? We have only the blue AMX CC & would get $260 for $1000 ;but ,we like the $350 AMX credit rebate .Is your AMX CC one of the free ccs or do you pay a yearly fee / Thanks in advance for your reply

The Cash back credit is not on my Hilton Honors AMX credit card . I would say non of the co branded AMX CCs have the offer of cash back

We have 2 AMX CCs .The 0ne that has the offer is the Blue AMX card ,Spend $1000 at HAL intil 8/31/24 & get back $250 .Read all the details

20 years ago we would have done this long cruise when we were in our mid 60s . Just too long now for us to consider in our health Truly a wonderful itinerary

We did find out that the cruise was in the 40K range price wise with 2 deposits one first $5000 & then a 2nd deposit of $10,000 b/4 final payment . This is for s HH category window blocked 201 sq ft handicap cabin . Not going to happen . although the cabin is in back of the ship lower promenade ,so walking outside is easy ,still too high a price for that long cruise . Princess had one March 2026 for 54 days R/T San Pedro World Cruise Center ,LA but not a handicap cabin to be had .That one was in the $20,000 range for a balcony We may re entertain the 35 day cruise of & when Koningsdam or another Pinnacle class comes to SD in the future & book it really early

We are searching for a round trip San Diego to New Zealand or Sydney Australia .Does such a cruise exost & if so when does it sail ? TIA

Packards were excellent cars back then

We knew of that cruise but there are no handicap balcony cabins left on that cruise .We checked months ago