Danni3ll3

I certainly do not believe that. There is no such thing as delicious liver. In fact, there is no such thing as edible liver. It should only be served to cats. My wife likes it thought.

I agree except for liver pâté or foie gras. Call me strange but I hate liver but love pâté and foie gras.

An option would be to exchange the money for USD on the ship, then tip in USD. That way, there are no issues.

The only issue is that there may be a charge to them for changing the USD into whatever currency they wish. I would ask what nationality they are and and tip in their own currency if appropriate.

My daughter had a shellac pedicure on the NA and she loved it. It also lasted a long time. However, I don't recommend an acrylic fill done over gel nails. My manicure looked awful after about a week. It also took over an hour for my regular nail lady to file down the acrylic to redo my gel nails. This was in no way the fault of the technician. I believe the products they are obligated to use were at fault. After a week, I understood why the technician was so curious about gel nails. They look as good one month later as the day they were done. That was not my experience with acrylics. So I do recommend the shellac mani/pedi but not the acrylics.

We did exactly what you are planning to do. We chose to disembark at 9 am and had the tour guide meet us at 9.

We picked up our luggage in the holding area just off the ship. Then we waited just outside the terminal for the tour guide. It worked perfectly!

Hope this helps.

Would someone confirm please whether the OBC that you buy online prior to embarking is in US dollars only?

 

On Celebrity, we were able to purchase OBC with CAD $ with a very attractive exchange rate. With the exchange rate currently north of 30%, I couldn't remember whether HAL offered a similar program.

 

I did notice though that when we booked the clamshell for HMC that it was in US $. Just wondering whether everything on HAL's site under your cruise excursions is indeed in US $?

Yes, OBC and excursion fees are all in USD only. When you book your cruise through HAL, the cruise, the taxes, fees and port expenses, as well as insurance are in CAD but anything after that is in USD.

Call HAL and ask for the price. If they quote you $7 per day for your cruise, either pay for it right there and then or ask to have a copy of that in writing. I got that price in June on the NA In Europe because I had it in writing otherwise the price would have been $9 per day. I was asked to keep it to myself and not share with the other passengers. Now that I am off the ship... ;)

And since this is a HAL forum, I thought the poster was referring to HAL. Guess I need to read more carefully.

I don't take pics, but I write a description on the laundry sheet so I don't forget. I did lose one piece a long, long time ago. They turned everything trying to find it and they did. It was part of a formal attire so it WAS important.

 

 

 

If they didn't find your top, it is not going to sit on the ship forever. Unless it went to the wrong cabin and they "chose" to keep it, then once you do the lost form on board, if it doesn't turn up before your cruise ends, you need to go to HAL's website and fill out the lost and found email that is available there. You might be surprised at the results. The lost and found form ends when you get off the ship.

I believe that it did go to a wrong cabin since I got an empty hanger back among my other clothes. Thank you for letting me know about the lost and found email. I really did not know how to address this and will give it a shot.

One thing I learned many years ago -- take pictures of everything you send out to the laundry.

When our laundry was delivered back to the cabin, one of DH's golf shirt was missing. I was asked to describe it. I couldn't as he has so many different colors, stripes, etc. He was fortunate that they did find it before the end of the cruise.

Good idea but that is if they are willing to work with you. I lost a top and although my stewart bent over backwards trying to find it, the service desk seemed totally disinterested. I never did get the top back, nor did they offer replacement value as indicated on the laundry sheet. I filled out a lost form and never heard a thing back so I have no idea on how to even go about putting in a claim. The top was not an expensive one so it isn't a big deal to me, however, I just wanted to note that taking a picture is no guarantee that it will turn up, nor that you will be offered replacement value.

On our last cruise, there was a woman who made sandwiches and then put them in the sanitary napkin disposal bags from the ladies' room. [emoji33] I am sorry but that is the image that comes to mind when people talk about taking sandwiches off the ship.

That aside, I would never take the risk. You never know which country is going to nail you with a fine at best or a jail term at worse. I can find food on shore or wait to get back to the ship.

Although I would typically not ever try to book those forward cabins as choice, this is something I'd consider crucial to know in case I ever ended up getting one in a random assignment...because if I had a veranda cabin and found out after the cruise started that I wasn't allowed to have a light on outside, I'd request a room reassignment or a refund - because that would very much ruin a big part of my cruise pleasure. As much as I've cruised, I admit I've never heard this before that there were veranda cabins that were not allowed to have their light on at night...and I wouldn't want those cabins for anything above free.

It was a non issue for us. To each his or her own I guess.

Who knows what the rules are these days!?!? I was also on the N. Amsterdam a few weeks ago and one passenger was told to put on pants at the Mariners lunch. Then I saw someone else get into the dining room wearing jeans and a t-shirt on Gala night. Either one didn't bother me but it was interesting watching how the same staff enforced rules at one time but not another.

I had my roots done on the N. Amsterdam and the lady did a very nice job. Mind you, the cost was as much for just the roots and a blow dry as what I get at home with roots, highlights, cut and style. And I have been told that my salon is expensive compared to others so beware of the cost.

On the N. Amsterdam, the lights for the forward balconies can be controlled by the bridge so they can shut them off at night so not to interfere with navigation.

What did you do in Ephesus. Not sure whether to take a ship tour or can we do it on our own??

Book a private tour of Ephesus. The place is very crowded and it is worse with the tour groups. We booked with Levent Solmaz Guiding Services. By the way, this stop was the highlight of our 24 day cruise. Be sure not to miss it!

I've been a little concerned about the ease in getting a taxi in Marseille. We have a reservation for a boat/swim trip at 9:30am leaving from Vieux Port.

 

 

Julia in Woodinville, WA

We took a taxi to Aix-en-Provence and had no problem finding one as they were lined up right outside the ship.

You were very fortunate to not be bothered by smokers.

I know. I was expecting otherwise.

Check your boarding pass. The number of nights is printed on there.

Our Gala nights were on the sea days except for one that was pushed back because it was too close to the other. By the way, we had 4 Gala nights on our Magic of the Mediterranean trip in June.

We just came back from this cruise. It was amazing!! We did most of our excursions with people from our roll call and made fast friends with them. The three excursions we took with HAL were Livorno, Rome and Naples since they generally were at quite a distance from the port and we wanted to do something other that what our roll call group was doing.

Be sure to attend the roll call meet and greet. If no one sets it up, volunteer to do it. Follow the stickie at the top of the roll call threads.

We attended the Master Chef's Dinner and also had dinner at the Tamarind. Both were amazing.

Bring good walking shoes, a hat and an umbrella. The umbrella is for shade.

One excursion not to miss is Ephesus. Take a private tour and be sure it includes the Terrace Houses.

One more tip we got was to make sure we took Euros with us into Greece because of the situation there. Hopefully next year, this will be a moot point.

If you get on in Venice, be aware that you can't take a land taxi to the port if you stay on the island. We stayed in Mestre right across the train station and a land taxi can take you to the port from there.

You are going to have a fantastic experience.

I have another question about formal night. We are on a 3 week Mediterranean cruise in August. Edocs said 4 formal nights. From reading different posts the consensus was that the formal nights are usually held on sea days. Our itinerary has been changed to replace Tunis with Olbia. The first Le Cirque for the cruise was the night we left Tunis. With the change of itinerary what was a a sea day is now Olbia and what was Tunis is now a sea day - resulting with Le Cirque now being held on a sea day! My question is - will they change Le Cirque to a different night or hold it the same night as a formal night? Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

We just got back from a 24 day Mediterranean cruise. Three of our Gala nights were on sea days, however, because two sea days were separated by only one port day, they changed one of the Gala nights to later in the cruise. They chose a night with an early all aboard.

As to your answer about the Cirque, I have no idea what they are going to do about it. I suspect they will move the Gala night.

We were on the starboard side this April in the Med. I loved the sail into Venice. I would not have missed it for anything.

 

There were quite a few tender ports and we docked port or starboard probably equal number of times.

We were on the Port side and I agree that we were docked port or starboard roughly an equal number as well.

Very happy for you. I see posts all the time saying "I never smell smoke" . That doesn't mean no one else has. It seems that some think if it doesn't happen to them it happens to no one.

I am not saying that no one will smell nor has ever smelled smoke. I just stated that in my case, I didn't. I was scared out of my wits by this thread stating that all smokers were migrating to HAL and I was very worried that I had made a huge and very expensive mistake by booking with HAL. As it turned out, we had an amazing experience and I will definitely book with HAL again. Yes, I may end up getting smoked out of my balcony next time, but I am not going to worry about it until it happens (and hopefully, by then HAL will have implemented a non-smoking policy on the balconies).

I am one of those that can smell cigarette smoke a mile away even outdoors. I hate the smell of it and can't stand being around it since my clothes and hair absorb it. If this happens, I have to shower as soon as possible since the stench really bothers me. So I am definitely not a smoker and I truly never smelled cig smoke on our balcony. I believe I saw one person smoking on their balcony several cabins over and below us but the odour didn't reach us. And trust me, I took one big sniff to try and smell it.

For those who reassured me that HAL is not the "Ashtray of the Seas", I want to thank you! Your prediction of not being bothered by smokers was absolutely true. We had no issues at all on our balcony, nor was walking through the casino a problem. I was very pleasantly surprised as I did expect a large number of smokers especially since we were cruising in Europe. This thread certainly gives one a very skewed view of the reality out there.

 

So anyone had less than 2/week?

Yes, on our recent 24 day trip in the Mediterranean, we only had one Gala night per week for a total of 4.