OlsSalt

My HallMark singing Penguins - Rocking Around the Christmas Tree - are getting ready to receive their Silver Medallion, after being cabin decorations for a few HAL Christmas cruises. Whatever makes it feel like your own personal Christmas tradition and does not interfere with cabin safety or cabin steward operations will be fine.

Thanks. Good thing our included cruise stop in Victoria on our way back down the Pacific Coast........ will be by ship .......... wave when the Noordam toots by. Such a lovely city.

I'ms packing light for our upcoming 21-Day Alaska/Calif Coastal. I am taking only one 50# suitcase, instead of two.

The thread I posted from the first Maasdam In Depth got pretty ugly and was closed down. It was not a cruise review, just a query about HAL's "new policy"? But you might find it as "Over the Top on the Maasdam" - the infamous rogue Adults Only Deck debacle that directly impacted our our mini-aft wrap cabin location. Reactions to this were .........mixed.

Any reasons for the delayed flight to Vancouver - we are heading that way from SF in a few more days for the Noordam 14 day Alaska.

Hard to beat the very first Maasdam In Depth: FLL to Papeete, French Polynesia via Easter Island and remote places in between. Incredible group of speakers. Naturalists, a South Pacific anthropologist, noted UK travel photographer..... Great camaraderie among them. They put on fascinating extra panels and discussions after visiting the ports, sharing how they saw things through their unique perspectives.

Ceilings are magnetic (so far) so we can hang some things from a magnet with a hook on it. Plus using "rare earth" magnets are super strong. We also hang things from the bathroom ceiling with rare earth hook magnets - toiletry bag, etc. Hang things to dry in front of the ceiling ventilation outlet. We have had good luck with 3M Command hooks on the walls. DH has had good luck using rare earth button magnets for hanging maps - even on the mirror??? (Did I remember this correctly?)

Does Princess have the 360 wrap around deck and the sliding glass dome Lido pool area, for toasting viewing the passing scene that either HAL ship offers? One other consideration is the timing of cruise ship schedules - who will you be sharing ports with - lots of other ships or fewer other ships. Do both run Sunday to Sunday? Takes a little work to find this port schedule information, but can make or break a close selection of ships or cruise lines.

Was it Perfect Writer? - the CPM option before Gates even arrived on the scene. Perfect Writer figured most people made letter transposition spelling errors, so they had a special program key that flipped the letters for you.

We had two port changes on an upcoming cruise with no excursions offered (LA San Pedro and Avalon Catalina), then a few were offered for LA. None of them were very good, and just last week we started getting some better LA choices. So good advice, hang in there. Plus the roll call for this cruise got creative and came up with many splendid private options. But the general feeling is LA-San Pedro might be a good embarkation port, it is a lousy day tripper mid-cruise port stop. The process of trying to figure out what to do, was interesting. Hope we can compare notes what each of us ended up doing that day, or hope the spa has some really terrific port day specials.

Correction - first Kaypro was in the 1980's - and I forced myself to learn tin commands from a crude mimeographed print out to connect with some user groups. WYSIWYG was just a dream at that point. Before the 1980's one had to build their own home computer from HeathKit, if you had a space big enough for it. CPM was state of art. I will never forget my first "flaming" on the user group -opera.net. The question was asked - what is the most over-rated opera? Saucily I replied to this group of anonymous strangers - "anything by Mozart". This triggered a few days of "flaming" and a timid note from one of the other opera.net members .....I think you just got flamed. Calling me online a "philistine nimrod" made me run for my dictionary.

On one of the last Maasdam In Depth cruises, which traversed from SF to Alaska to Russia Far East and on to 2 weeks circling Japan, we were on the first tender to Nome. We got to the Nome dock - just seconds away from landing, but we were sent back to the ship. The swells around the ship had started to exceed safe tender landing limits. So while were were literally a few foot steps away from Nome, we had to turn back and look at it only from a distance. Such are the ways of sea travel. The gold mining equipment along the beaches, the vast empty tundra - that was Nome. But we had to miss the goal posts across the main street marking the end of the Iditarod race. That extended Alaska itinerary looks fabulous. I hope you get to go.

Cut my teeth on technology with a 'suitcase" Kaypro in the 1970's. Compuserve connected us to that "internet thing" through a dial up. Have been a participant on both personal and business levels with "technology" ever since. Today, it has become too glitchy and too time consuming to even be worth the time it takes to scroll through photos of other people's grand children. I have been a long observer of how it has changed fundamental human communication patterns. Often incoherent brevity combined with curious urgency, on top of endless seeking and scrolling no longer cuts it as "communication". It has become annoying work. Since I am in your alleged HAL demographics, I can still remember when there was not even television. I miss a lot of the good old days, because much of it was good. Also currently reading Josh Hawley's "The Tyranny of Big Tech". The world does need to hit the pause button.

My sympathies for HAL and CCL - they do have a massive "covid" debt burden to still overcome. But destroying a brand in the process, may be penny wise and pound foolish. HAL ships are not really "gambling ships". In fact on the first Maasdam In-depth Cruise the casino was entirely empty throughout the entire first segment. Loneliest people in the room - the smiling attendants who still held their stations, day and night. But maybe that is also why HAL In-Depth cruises were abandoned. Not enough side money earned,

Paying for "reserved" spaces onboard a ship, allowing exclusive use only for those who pay for them. A leap from what is happening on HAL ships - cabanas included -- and ships that have dedicated reserved spaces. One can create a quasi-ship within a ship on HAL now too. But it still requires general passenger mingling in the hallways. Is that the appeal of the ships designed to be ships within a ship, like days of yore on the strictly-classed ships?

Port over-saturation is a built -in and now self-inflicted cruise industry problem. Perhaps the mega ships with all their onboard entertainment should all become "cruises to no where" and leave the travel destination-oriented smaller ships to the currently available ports. Or confine the mega ships to their own port entertainment landside resorts only. Just thinking out loud here.

Often times ...........

Looks like they are competing with the Chinese passenger gambling ships - big business in the Far East. Malaysian Star Cruise lines built their own docks and port attractions.

WSJ today addresses this issue of many ports starting to restrict both size and numbers of cruise ships- a global issue. I blame the behemoth ships for being the last straw. But it was brewing even before the 6000 passengers ships started showing up. Bigger is simply not better in cruise world.

How much money does the casino pull in that supports all these "free cruises"? How much is just from the routine slots etc, and how much is high stakes going on somewhere less obvious?

Some people pay to dine at the Pinnacle every night too. Or get spa passes. Take spinning classes.

Love to learn more from the casino franchise about their expectations of winnings, that supports giving out their "free cruises". There must be some math that works in favor of the house, so they can keep making these "free" offers. What does HAL get in enhanced revenues from these "free" offers?

Always thought men's black velvet dress slippers would be a good packing option - Macy's has these on sale for $55, design choices optional! Cheers, and thanks for your reporting.

Trying to game 100 shares will probably be a fool's errand. Just keep them and harvest the credits.

I hope you enjoy your down time vacation days. Zero-waste demands now made on cruise ships has radically changed prior cruise expectation. When did you last sail Celebrity or Princess?