cbr663

The Pinnacle Grill unfortunately suffers from HAL's reputation of being consistently inconsistent. We have enjoyed wonderful meals at the PG in the past and some less than wonderful. Our most recent was lunch on the Koningsdam last November that was so poor we promptly cancelled our second lunch reservation. Both food and service were lacking on that cruise.

My guess is the butts blew out of the ashtrays and were not the result of people throwing them overboard.

Ah, Birthday celebrations. Some years ago we were sailing on HAL for my birthday and DH arranged for a birthday cake to be delivered to our suite as a surprise for our own private celebrations. It didn't arrive and we were so disappointed. The next year we decided to sail on Celebrity for my DW's birthday. I tried again, ordered a birthday cake for our suite for a private celebration and again, no cake arrived. On both lines instead of a private celebration in our suites we spent the time in Guest Services trying to find out why we experienced such poor service. Now, we never rely on cruise lines for special occasions. Fool me once....

We were later leaving the ship. We were asked to not show up at the World Stage with any luggage (lots of people did, which slowed things down even more) so after we had breakfast in CO we went and got in line and then went back to our cabin to grab our things and leave. If I remember it was after 9:30 when we left the ship. We had an early afternoon flight so we had lots of time. The clearance went a lot quicker once all the hurry up and wait passengers got through. lol

I have never verified this information with an airline and I suggest that you reach out to an airline for confirmation. As someone who suffers from motion sickness and needs to take drugs to fly and also sail on ships, it has always been my understanding that you are never to take anything when flying that will knock you out entirely. In the case of an emergency the flight crew have to have the ability to awaken you.

Last year we sailed on the Koningsdam from San Diego with Ensenada being the port prior to disembarking in San Diego the next morning. We had to all present ourselves to US Customs in the World Stage in the morning for clearance prior to leaving the ship. Even though we were provided a time to attend to the World Stage many, many, if not most, passengers ignored this and simply started a line up for the World Stage. The line up was from the World Stage, down the hallway through the entire ship back to the Main Dining Room and then snaking around again up past the Club Orange dining room. We said no way and went for breakfast in the CO dining room to allow the lineup to reduce. When we finally joined the lineup it was still from the World Stage to half way down the ship.

I echo the previous posters' advice to try and prepare yourself as much as possible prior to taking your cruise. We took a train from Basel to Lucerne during our recent Avalon cruise and we had placed our faith in our Cruise Director. That faith was a mistake. When we arrived at the train station several of us in our group saw the CD struggling with determining which platform to take and we had to tell her which it was. She then tried to lead us to the platform and it was obvious this was her first time at the train station and she didn't know her way. We had to go underground in order to reach the platform and the CD would stop us as a group and run ahead to try and figure out the way. This created problems for other passengers to have this large group just stop in the underground hallways. Once we eventually got to the platform it is important to understand that your group will be sharing the platform with all the other passengers. Public announcements notifying us of delays were difficult to hear with many in our group refusing to stop talking and refusing to pay attention. The CD had no idea how we could determine our train number until the train actually arrived and then it was a mad dash as we discovered that we should not all be together as a group and had to quickly move up and down the platform to board the correct train car. And if you are not use to boarding trains, you have to do this quickly as everyone else is trying to get off.

Your description doesn't build much confidence in the event of an actual abandon ship incident. This lack of confidence was always my takeaway from previous muster drills when we had to gather as a group at our assigned life boat. I always left thinking what an absolute gong show it will be if we have to abandon ship. I never left a muster drill feeling confident that the crew can effectively handle such a situation.

That must be one heck of an allergy to manage as polyester is so widely used on a cruise ship. Tablecloths, napkins, bedding, draperies, bed scarves, seating throughout the ship. How does carpeting affect your allergy? Cruise ships are also filled with flame retardant materials and most of those are polyester based also.

We completed the Romantic Rhine cruise with the Lake Como and Lucerne add on and overnight in Amsterdam in June. We stayed in the Hotel Barchetta Excelsior in Como. Logistically staying in Milan would be a nightmare. We flew into Milan and drove to Como. Depending on where you are staying in Milan you are looking at about an hour and a half drive to Como. That would most likely be by bus and would really negatively impact your time in Como and on Lake Como and places like Bellagio. One of the things that we enjoyed so much about our time in Como was that it didn't involve any buses like the rest of the cruise and we were able to walk and sightsee.

Because Carnival has sent the signal that it is investing in its most profitable brands. If HAL was one of its more profitable brands then Carnival would have signalled that by investing in a new build for HAL.

This is why I posted earlier in this thread to another poster inquiring about river cruises that I found that there wasn't a lot of flexibility with river cruising. Privately arranged tours, for instance, can be quite the challenge when river cruising as you don't know where you will dock until the last minute. I realize that the same cruise at a different time of the year can have very different docking locations. The challenge is you won't know until you actually sail and that is a dice I won't roll again. Add to that all the rafting issues (we were rafted 4 times) and I think it's important that new cruisers know what to expect.

I wish you good luck. We did the same route with Avalon in June and the only port where we could walk and not have a bus was Cologne. Every other port was a bus tour.

Our bus tours were never 5 - 10 mins either. Most were about 45 mins and some were even longer closer to 2 hours.

It's very difficult. On our Rhine cruise I wasn't expecting so many bus rides. I didn't like it and I remember one day thinking if you have to take transportation to these towns then the bus isn't the worst way to do it so I made the best of it. I was surprised that even with an overnight in Amsterdam we were docked so far outside that we had to take a bus into the city. This limited the value of what we could do during our overnight in the city. We had previously visited Amsterdam for an ocean cruise and stayed overnight in a hotel in the centre of the city. We walked all over the city and had a great time exploring. That was what we were hoping to do on our river cruise also but couldn't as the cruise line only arranged for a bus to take us back to the city for early in the afternoon. I believe the bus rides are there because of over tourism on the rivers. Most of these rivers are major shipping rivers and shipping goods trumps moving tourists.

One thing that river cruising has going for it is the fact that there isn't a lot of planning. It's very, very much like group bus tours in that everything is planned out for you and your options are to essentially take it or leave it. There really isn't much opportunity to deviate from the planned schedule. A typical day is wake up and go for breakfast. Morning tours start early - typically between 8:00 - 8:30 am. The Cruise Directors are quite good at getting the message across that you must be on time or they will leave without you. So it's off the ship, climb aboard a bus to join your group and drive to your tour destination where you walk around with a tour guide. Depending on the tour you may have some free time to yourself or it is simply back on the bus to return to the ship for lunch. Return to the ship for a quick lunch as afternoon tours will typically start 1:00 - 1:30 and the afternoon tours are essentially a repeat of the morning, just to a different tour location. So a typical day is Rise, Eat, Bus, Tour, Bus, Eat, Bus, Tour, Bus, Happy Hour, Dinner, Evening Social and Sleep. Repeat every day. Of course you don't have to sign up for all the tours. You can go out on your own. A couple of things to keep in mind though is that you have paid for the tours whether you take them or not. Another is that the ships are not always docked in the centre of the towns such that you can readily walk off and be in the action. On our Rhine river cruise we had only one port where we had a walking tour from the ship, all other ports were accessed by bus.

I don't think that a river cruise is a great fit for you. River cruises operate by a very regimented time line and process. It really is about you adhering to what the cruise line offers with very little flexibility. Our dinner experience was we couldn't speed up the dinner time by not ordering certain courses and I don't think that you will be able to slow it down either. There are very few options outside of the main dining room. On Avalon you can order room service, but it isn't served course by course. It all arrives at the same time by a dining room wait staff. Avalon also opens up a casual fare in the Lounge after the main dining room opens. It's a smaller version of the main dining room menu and is offered buffet style. The main dining room opened at 7:00 and the lounge dining opened at 7:15 and will close at 9:00 as that is when the main dining room closes and people are directed to the lounge for after dinner drinks. At 9:00 you could take your plates and beverages out of the lounge to the small outside area that is adjacent to it. This of course is less than satisfactory with you interrupting your meal to move to a different location and the location is impacted by weather. Being outside it is obviously very casual.

Our Avalon Rhine cruise was in June. We were actually looking for travel in 2025 and when researching saw that there were options for June in 2024 and decided why wait for 2025.

Love following your Live Threads Lisa as you always share as you find things. I laughed at the half potato. We sailed on a Rhine River cruise in June and for the Captain's Gala Dinner were served half a rock lobster tail and my immediate thought when I saw it was how cheap. But half a potato? That takes the cake. HAL doesn't have bean counters anymore, they are now potato counters. 🤣. Hopefully the MDR will provide a much better experience for you.

Thanks for sharing your recent experience on Scenic and the sailing's occupancy. Our Avalon sailing in June was also at low occupancy. I wonder if river cruising hasn't fully recovered or if it's a case of softening demand?

Yours is a perfect example of why I suggested that the OPs TA contact a Pricing Specialist as HAL continues to demonstrate that it is consistently inconsistent.

Yes, unfortunately with HAL this is the process when a passenger requests a change in cabin category. It requires cancelling the original booking and creating a new booking. For some strange reason if HAL wants to upgrade you from an Inside to an Oceanview it doesn't require the cancel/rebook process, but when it is a passenger request it does. Adding Club Orange to the mix can really complicate the matter. Club Orange is managed by Ship Inventory and not the PCC so it isn't simple to just cancel and then re-apply it to another booking. It should be, but it isn't as the minute a PCC cancels it on a booking it then becomes available for someone else to book. I experienced this last year when I had a PCC call Ship Inventory to verify that CO was available only to tell me that it was no longer available at the end of the booking when the PCC called back to Ship Inventory to add the CO. I cancelled the booking. In addition, HAL treats CO as an addition to your fare and the charge for CO is captured as part of your deposit. This means that should you book with a nonrefundable deposit and you wish to cancel the deposit that you will forfeit will include the CO charge. Your options now are to stay put with the original booking or cancel and roll the dice with the understanding that with the new booking you may not be able to secure CO. Personally, I find this utter nonsense and I wonder if your TA spoke to a HAL Pricing Specialist whether this can easily be resolved.

We've been noticing that also for some time. HAL used to have a competitive advantage with its itineraries but that seems to have been disregarded by HAL. A nine day cruise with only 4 port days basically means the ship is the destination. More sea days means more onboard spending and as others have mentioned, lower fuel costs as the ships can sail at a much lower speed.

This reality, that as a cruise traveller I am part of the problem, really hit home for me last year in Alaska. This past June we sailed on our first European River Cruise and experienced the same thing - over crowded ports with multiple cruise ships' tour groups all on the same tours and crowding the alleyways and walkways of the small, picturesque medieval towns. It's one of the reasons my DW has said she hasn't any interest in getting on another cruise ship of any type.

Yet another European city pushing back against cruise ships and cruise passengers and over tourism in general. Amsterdam has announced it is gradually limiting ocean and river cruise ships until 2035 when all will be banned. When we were on our Rhine river cruise in June every tour guide and the cruise director would remind us constantly of the need to be respectful during the tours and to remember that the town's residents were simply trying to get to work and live their lives. It was easy to understand when you are in a tour group walking around these medieval towns and you are joined by multiple tour groups from other river cruise ships. So many groups at times. It's one of the reasons why I believe rafting is so common. There are simply too many ships on the rivers.