MarKandi

I go with Business Casual. I’ve worn Jeans with no issues, only been turned away wearing shorts. I would not worry about offending others by dressing down, you have enough to pack and bag drag to the ship. It’s your cruise, you paid for it so unless someone else wants to pitching $$$ to supplement your cruise fair, I’m taking it casual. This used to be a VERY heated subject but has cooled down in recent years ( thank god).

Only 1 King Neptune Celebration per cruise if it is the same ship. Our 1st crossing was San Diego-Lima-San Diego. No party on the return portion. Our second was a 28 day French Polynesia cruise San Diego-Bora Bora-San Diego. Same scenario, no party on the return portion.

 Our upcoming cruise is Auckland - Singapore so only 1 crossing. So according to RuthC, it sound like we will be having a king Neptune party on that crossing.

THANKS RuthC ! (Been enjoying your replies since we started cruising in the early 2000’s)

22 hours ago, SH55 said:

There is only one category for sailing across the equator and doing such a crossing gives you the honored title of Shellback and puts you in good standing with King Neptune.  Someone was pulling your leg about the purple thing.  Once you are a Shellback and as you cross the equator multiple times you can always give a small offering to King Neptune as you cross, I hear he likes a nice shot of an adult beverage like a good friend you meet in the pub.  If you are sad that subsequent crossings are not including a proper ceremony for those Pollywogs to be properly inducted to the Shellback society and the hilarity that ensues then King Neptune would always approve of a joyous get together and self organized event at a place where adult beverages are served.  All Hail King Neptune!

We got Purple Porpoise Certificates! If we got the Certificate, it’s gotta be true…right 😆

Does anyone know if there is a ceremonial King Neptune party for northbound sailings?
We have been to 2 equatorial crossings southbound but only 1 northbound but there was no celebration. Common sense says once you become a Shellback, your at the highest level. On our last crossing, it was during the spring equinox on a full moon. It was said we are considered to be a Purple Porpoise. IDK

We’re on the Westerdam sailing from Auckland to Singapore

On 3/24/2022 at 12:14 PM, aa7yy said:

Dave here is the quote from the HAL web site, FAQ, US cruises.

 

Testing: : All guests who are up to date with their vaccines may take their test within 3 days prior to sailing. Up to date means a person has received all recommended COVID-19 vaccinations, including any booster dose(s), when eligible. If a guest is fully vaccinated but not up to date with their vaccines (i.e., is eligible for a booster but has not received one), they must take their pre-cruise COVID-19 test within 2 days prior to sailing.

 

That's what I am working with but having gone thru 5 email exchanges with VeriFly I consider the possibility that they have not recognized my Booster. So I have started the email exchange early as I am testing on Thursday and preparing for a failure of VeriFly to accept.

Any of you trying to play the VeriFly game might check and see what it says for testing time. If everyone has two days VeriFly has a problem.

 

I previously uploaded our vaccine info into VeriFLY and tested Thursday 24Mar for a Sunday 27Mar sailing. VeriFLY only gave me a 2 day option even though we are fully vaccinated and compliant with CDC and rejected our results so, YES, VeriFLY has a problem. 

Having retired from the Airline industry, airlines are very secretive about passenger loads on aircraft due to heavy competition. When money is being made hand over fist on a certain route between two cities, another carrier will open the same route to “steal” the revenue away. It can be a dog-eat-dog situation.

In the old days of flying our management would hand someone a counter and have us click each deplaning passenger off an arrival in a specific market.

I would not bounties cruise lines follow the same practice of keeping passenger loads on a ship as privileged information.

Nice to ask this question as I had an adjustment on our Tamerind meal at the end of the cruise. Never asked but Always wondered why.

Good question on dining at the Tamerind bar. My guess is no as it doesn’t appear to be restaurant protocol. I’d think your service level would be significantly reduced 

August 2022

N Statendam- 03-Aug-22 - 24 day Canada, New England & Iceland

MarKandi

8 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

Just like in real life and venues all over, I've never once seen 100% compliance on mask wearing WITH properly fitted masks. You'd be hard pressed to find a hospital with 100% compliance, most simply don't get their mask fitted properly to create a nice seal. A lot of Dr's use full forced air respirators for a reason. That said, do I think they can help somewhat? Sure. At the percentages you state and that are tossed around on TV? Absolutely not. It's simply not comfortable and people will choose comfort eventually. The best defense remains vaccines and boosters to keep folks from getting hospitalized or dying.

 

Masks are mostly theater and folks that want to wear well fitting N95's to protect themselves (as always intended with them), should do so but let's stop this forced mask charade. It doesn't work, people won't comply if they don't want to or will find away around it (fake compliance mask, mesh mask, fake docs, exemptions etc) and it just clouds up issues and replaces the problem with a new one that is further reaching and escalates tensions and divisions. Trying to control everyone and staying mad when it doesn't work has got to be exhausting. 

Evidently, you just DON’T get it (and won’t). Stubbornness rules in your head. Do us all a favor and STAY HOME!

The Tahiti cruise is one of my favorites! Have a great time!

7 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

If you previously registered on the website, then when you log in it will give you your default language and pricing.

BINGO! That did the trick!

First I deleted my cookies and browsing history then rebooted, but after I logged in and it changed in English.

thx Vmax1700

3 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Not a HAL problem. 

I figured that out since some other cruise websites do the same thing

36 minutes ago, FLACRUISER99 said:

Are you sure it's not in Portuguese?

Could be...the two appear similar to me.

Having trouble with HAL website. Every time I launch the website it displays in Spanish.

We are currently sitting in Buenos Aires scheduled to board ship tomorrow but it displays the Argentina website across all my devices.

Anyone ever had this issue and know of a resolution?

Emailed HAL for poss resolution but no reply yet. 

TIA

Tri Rail would be the best and most cost effective But not sure where or if the train comes close to the Port of Miami.

It does depart from Miami Int’l Airport, cost to Fort Lauderdale is about $15 owpp and has a shuttle bus that runs from its drop off point to the airport.

2 hours ago, RuthC said:

Pinnacle dinner is $39 per person now, and has been for a while. The package is such a slight saving as to be meaningless. 

Thanks RuthC! For over 15+ years now I’ve  looked up to you for your experience, expertise, and replies! You’ve been on CC for quite sometime. 🙂

So with all that has been said, I’m going to cxl the dinner package and go with my own reservations once I get onboard.

want to use the 4* bene’s to the max!

Interesting because the package does not reserve a place in the Pinnacle, I have to do that once onboard. 

We depart in 17 days and booked a room at the Tango de Mayo. I took the suggestion of another CC’er on our Roll Call board who had more experience in the area than I do. He stated it was close to the port and the hotel is arranging transportation to the ship for AR$500 which equates to about US$8.35.

Its about 3.5 mi (5.6km) to the port.

Is the $70pp Evenings at the Pinnacle package price offered online adjusted for 4* Mariner discount?
Seems like it would be a better value to wait to book dining onboard.

I just bought 2 of the packages....Forgot about the discount.

10 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One lesson we learned was to put the travel router in the closet closest to the door so it could maintain a solid connection to the HAL router in the hallway. Our devices were able to then select our TR listed in their active connection list as long as they were within 50 ft of the TR. 

 

At least it worked great for us.

Curious how you got power to the device in the closet? I’m thinking of doing this but leave in 2 weeks on a 22 day.

23 hours ago, Krazy Kruizers said:

Most of the time when this has happened to us, it was because too many ships were scheduled for a port.  And it seems that HAL always volunteers to switch their itinerary the most as compared to other cruise lines.

There may be Financial incentives from the port(s) in question for them to change their schedule at the last minute.

17 hours ago, volfan22701 said:

we are on this Saturdays cruise as well. it will be our fifth time on the Sunshine. it is one of our favorites, and I think you will like the ship. whether we get to do our itinerary is the big question now, and how rough the seas will be. we cruise the atlantic a lot and it can be rough at times. we will have lots of fun no matter what.

Thanx volfan22701. It’s also our 2nd carnival Cruise. Usually cruise on HollandAmerica but are taking friends who live in NC.

i would have asked on the roll call board but thought it might a bit be off topic as everyone discusses the weather scenario.

Now back to studying the deck plans!

Quick question

Sailing on the Sunshine for the first time this Saturday and am studying deck plans.

What deck do they usually board on in Charleston?

I’m guessing deck 3 (Lobby) or Deck 4 (Mezzanine).

TIA