POA1

Thanks. I found the folio in the Navigator app, so I'm fine there. I'll still like to move off the 250 days we've been stuck at got years, but I can wait a bit for that.

Not only can you use it different card from booking, but you can split the cost among multiple cards when you book an excursion.

If you never set foot in the casino but still get a free stateroom offer, it's a different, non-casino promo. It could be that you spent a lot on extras. Or, maybe you are a brilliant conversationalist, or your smile brightens up the room. It's probably the money thing, though.

Yes. 6:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific or 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM Eastern. They changed the prompts around and you can't "zero out" easily. I think prompt 3 gets you to the general queue. If you know the extension, it's easier and you can follow the prompts.

The 800# for PCCs should get you to the phone queue where you can put in their extension. If you get anything else, it's probably the wrong number. The PCC department is likely closed until Tuesday.

As I was scanning the Daily programs, it occurred to us that we really paid no attention to the dailies on this cruise. In olden times, we each had a highlighter that we'd use to mark up the program as we ate breakfast each day. We'd plan out our activities and check them off as we completed them. We did none of that this trip. I'd like to say that it's because we were trying to keep our programs pristine for scanning, but the real reason is that we are out of practice. We were so thrilled to be back cruising that we just sort of winged it.

Here is the Daily program for Monday, December 11th. It was a sea day and our first formal / gala / dressy night. Daily-Program-2023-12-11-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

OK...But I mix with ice, and my wife mixes with a splash of plain soda water and a lime. It doesn't get much more neutral than that. I think you'll be fine with the $11 limit.

When you travel, you sometimes have to change the mail server settings on your email program. If the person has access to the webmail version of their email, that's usually a workaround.

The Daily Program for embarkation day, Sunday, December 10, 2023. The programs will be both PNG images as well as PDFs. Daily-Program-2023-12-10-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

This is the Club Orange version of the breakfast card. The standard version is similar except that it doesn't have the fresh OJ and complimentary mimosa. HAL's room service breakfast menu has a nice selection of no charge items. A tip from Michelle is to write in "chocolate croissant." And a PDF of the scan. Room_Svc_Card_Club_Orange_2023-12.pdf

As I mentioned many pages ago, we gave The Department of Scanning Things off for this cruise. So much is digital now, and, to be honest, scanning all the paper with a wand scanner is a pain. When I said that I'd scan the paper stuff post-cruise, I did not get any objection. I have some software on my phone that does a nice job of converting the PDFs from Navigator into PNG files. They're easier read than screen caps. For scanning and editing here at the National Institute of Cheer's office, we have a lot of software and hardware. First up: The room service breakfast card.

Thanks for the.tip! We have some folding cubes that we bought back in 2017. We took an NCL cruise on the Escape and people told us that there was not adequate drawer space. There was not. We used a few of these cubes in lieuw of drawers, and gave it few to my father-in-law who was also on the Norwegian trip. They're in the top of one of our closets, folded flat, just waiting to be pressed into service. We really appreciate the suggestion! That little share link is from a screen shot. It won't do anything. I can post a link if anyone wants it.

No, but most issues can be fixed by clearing the cache and data. It will log you out and you will have to login again, but it's fixed every issue we've had.

You get 1 star Mariner benefits, but you need to have it manually added. Your PCC or TA can take care of it. It's basically for the tile.

A little context for the L.L. Bean toiletry bag. We've had ours for more than 35 years.

You do not need to install DropBox for this. Just open in a web page and download the file. It was on my 😄 drive of all places. I was expecting to find it on once of my archive drives. Here you go: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/96heotncc9c6kqz5frcxz/Oosterdam-Art-Tour.mp3?rlkey=cdbv0d0knolw8175arb3q99fa&dl=0 I think that @The-Inside-Cabin has the full set in both the Apple and MP# formats on his site, here: https://www.theinsidecabin.com/holland-america-audio-art-tours/

It was not me, but I do have them. They're on one of my hard drives. I'll look later and post a link.

The shower floor is a non-slip surface. And, more importantly, the shower door keeps the water in the shower where it belongs. There are quite a few hotel brands that could learn from this. (I'm looking at you, Hilton & Marriott family.) I do wish that there was a night light in the bathroom. We travel with two automatic LED night lights, but they would not play nice with the outlet cover in the bathroom. I wound up plugging the night light in by the desk. There is an auto-sensing light under the closets, which is a nice feature. You do have to make it past the cube table to activate it though.

Speaking of bathrooms.. The bathroom is a pretty standard set up with a single sink, corner commode, and walk-in, glass door shower. The shower is a good size and we prefer this to the tub version. Not that there's an issue with the tubs, but this configuration seems to work better for us. I could see where this might work better than a tub if a person had an issue stepping over the tub wall. We're still pretty spritely, so the preference for the shower is simply a matter of what we favor. Water pressure and temperature were good throughout the cruise. The shower head comes out of its holder for your rinsing convenience. There are two knobs. The left controls the water pressure. The right adjusts temperature. A note of caution: The water "mixes" via the horizontal handle and it can be a little hot if you use it as a grab rail. As mentioned by the lovely @Huskerchick counter space is at a premium and will be until you get into the Signature Suite category. As former MaIners, we are legally required to use L.L. Bean toiletry bags. I have a medium, and she has a large. (I hope you know what these are. I did not think to take a picture.) My bag fit on the left side of the sink. Hers fit on the right. It didn't leave a lot of spare room, but it's workable.

I think that is the case. That's why I suggested calling after the New Year's break when the stateside office would be in.

Jumping back in... Moving from the balcony and bed toward the cabin door, you have the desk and storage for glasses. Your ice bucket goes on that little silver tray. There are three drawers in the desk. We used them to store socks and underwear. You can feel free to use them as you wish. I won't judge. There are plenty of outlets behind the desk: USB, 120V North America, and 240V Europe. The mirror has backlighting, but there is no magnifying mirror. The sleeper sofa is opposite the desk. There are cabinets over the couch. That's where you'll find your life jackets and some extra pillows and blankets. There is a cube table in front of the sofa. Its primary function is to be in the way when two people are trying to pass one another. I miss the tables they had on the Ryndam, Maasdam and the older ships. It was an oval, so no pointy edges. It had a glass top, which is way classier than this vinyl, adhesive, wood grain surface. To top things off, those tables had gas lift struts which allowed you to raise the tables to dining height. Despite its amazing powers, the Bubble of Awesome cannot deliver unto us, a decent coffee table. If you are thinking that the sofa looks good, it's because there's a Club Orange tote bag sitting on it. Poohby Joe, sporting his classic HAL logo shirt, poses with his new Club Orange tote bag. There are outlets on either side of the bed, including USB. Very handy for keeping your phone charged while you send random words and phrases out into cyberspace while your spouse is asleep. (At least the ones on the right side were good for that. Michelle does not do that. Her outlets were fine, but she just slept happily on all night.)

Without the cabin upgrade, it's hard to justify the cost, no matter how magnificent the tote bag is.

I just looked at my booking, which has Club Orange and Have It All. Probably should have done that two hours ago, but... coffee. It has a final payment date of 12/30/2023. (Why, it as if I made this reservation just so I could answer this question! 😃) I paid for the cruise in full on 9/28/2023. I had them add HIA in October, before the price went up from $50 pp/day to $55. I waited until the 28th of December to pay for Have It All. I used HAL gift cards to pay for oue HIA. The cruise was paid on our Platinum Amex, because it's stupidly expensive annual fee includes travel insurance coverage. I had to call HAL to get the gift cards to process because the website does not want to properly process gift cards. (Motto: If Bad User Interface Design & Broken Functionality had a baby, you'd be looking at it.™) My cancelation penalties kick in tomorrow, New Year's Eve. For the whole shebang, including HIA and CO. We have no intention of canceling, and my wife has already informed me that if I can't go, she has plenty of friends who would be happy to go, because she has a Retreat Cabana. The paperwork, anonymized to protect my secret identity. These images should be quite zoomable if you click on them.

If you call on Saturday or Sunday, there's a high likelihood that you are going to reach a non-US call center. I'd wait until January 2nd,if I were you. If you added Club Orange and did not upgrade, it's probably easy to remove. I'd give that a shot. If you played the CO upgrade game, it's more complicated. If you had booked with a PCC or TA, you'd have someone to shepherd this through the process. I know that's water under the bridge, though. I assume this is a 7 day cruise for 2 people and you paid your CO in two parts? That is the only way I can make the math work. (Of course, it's 6:30 AM on a Saturday and coffee is in the future, so I could be wrong.) If possible, see if you can remove CO and leave the money on the booking as additional deposit. You may be told that you are in cancel penalty fee, because technically you are. If you can remove CO without penalty, do that. Then, call back to cancel the booking later and get the whole deposit refunded. Or, just tell the person you talk to that you want to know if there are cancelation fees on booking now. They can look, and maybe you'll get good news.