OlsSalt

When sights or events are really spectacular, the ship often maneuvers around so both sides get the views. We had an extraordinary whale watching event in one of the Antarctic lagoon areas and even there the captain maneuvered the ship so both sides could see them circling, bubbling and breaching. The whales apparently paid no attention to us, and kept up their massive krill feast in those secluded waters. Captain reported the krill was so dense it interfered with their navigation equipment.

I like cruises with no more than three port days in a row. Prefer a nice balance between ports and at sea days. Otherwise a cruise is becomes "work". The other preference is duplicating a cruise often enough, so that one feels less obligation to go ashore at each port. Or just pick a single place, shop or restaurant to re-visit. Some itineraries demand long stretches of at sea days so there is no choice, except for the choice to pick them for that very reason- trans-Atlantics and trans-Pacifics. HAL in the past included many onboard enrichment options on those one at-sea cruises - 2-4 special lecturers - may they long continue. Long stretches of at-sea days are when HAL's sliding glass roof Lido area and 360 promenade are especially appreciated.

Pros: Views and vistas Cons: Noise, bumps and long hikes

1. Tie: Rotterdam - Grand Asia-Indonesia - London to Singapore plus 2 weeks in Indonesia; & Rotterdam RT Voyage of the Vikings 2 . Tie: Maasdam - first In Depth - FLL - Papeete - via Easter Island; & Maasdam last In Depth (for us) - SF to Tokyo across Alaska, Russia Far East - 2 weeks Japan 3. Tie: Zaandam Antartica & Prinsendam Black Sea-Barcelona to Athens (I honestly tried to pick just three, but my fingers would not let me. Nor do my amazing memories of other grand HAL cruises, who whimper to also be included. Thank you, HAL.)

Even if you don't attend any of the activities or even purchase special orange colored drinks, it is just festive to see how others are wearing "orange". Having cruised from the beginning of "Orange Parties" with lesser or greater degrees of participation early on, it was fun to see the high degree of participation on our last holiday Konigsdam cruise. It becomes festive, since it is an ice-breaker among those showing their colors - one way or another.

The vaccines available in the US were never FDA approved; still under Emergency Use Authorization only in the US. Pays your money and takes your chances status still.

Bring rain gear and a sturdy umbrella - much of the Retreat Cabana area is exposed to the elements. Just the side units are covered and enclosed. Rain and wind splashing into your cabana when you try to open the heavy curtains will limit the cabana viewing enjoyment too. Your Cabana steward will need to brave those same elements too crossing the open deck areas to serve your cabana ...if/when it rains in Alaska. Be prepared.

You can do like we did, roll the dice until you finally get such a bad cabin you finally say never again. Being right over the Ocean Bar on the old Maasdam finally made us a believer in paying more, but choosing what we learned were our own location preferences over time. But it is less about getting the occasional "bad cabin", but more about learning our own preferences about location. Which includes one location that does not bother us, but many others do reject: being under the Lido deck, because we really like just being just one flight of stairs to everything the Lido deck offers.

Quebec: Chez Ashton for poutine - done right. No one did it as well. We got hooked on the stuff, but this was the only place where it properly squeaked and was super fresh: https://chezashton.order-online.ai/#/

Hobbiton in New Zealand. Yes! Caught us by surprise how much we enjoyed that crazy little site. We had been to NZ before and had seen the more obvious highlights so picking Hobbiton was a throw away choice. What a dear winner that turned out to be. We were their shortly after it opened, a bit rough around the edges with limited offering other than walking tours through the original movie site and a cup of tea and cake in a rather modest tourist center up the hill..

Link to US National Library of Health "Pub Med" research data base for Paxlovid. It is not a covid panacea. It is a drug with potentially serious complications, including early reports of "Paxlovid rebound". https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=paxlovid

Thank you martincath, for your updated details getting from Canada Place (Pan Pacific Hotel) cruise terminal to Waterfront Station (blue train symbol) and link to airport Skytrain.

We like Grand Turk for its very low-key appeal. But there is little there to capture your attention there that would make you late for a 6pm onboard dinner. Good to pre-plan, but this should be no problem.

Have you looked at the Sky Train to the Vancouver airport from the Canada Place Waterfront Station - pretty easy with lots of walk through videos to show you what to do. But you do have to cross the busy street in front of the cruise terminal to get to the Waterfront station.

Would have been easy to simply add the word "paté" in the interests of full disclosure. Particularly when HAL main dining room has served whole piece "foie" in the past.

The covered pool area on HAL ships would be the deal breaker against Princess for me. It is warm toasty, and a great way to see the passing scenery on HAL ships to Alaska and be only a few steps away from the Lido refreshments.

I suspect the only way "HAL can make things better" in San Diego or Vancouver is to stop using those ports. Why do you think HAL wants their embarking customers to have a bad experience?

Beware the "foie gras" appetizer is a big slab of tinned paté au foie gras, which they also use on their Tournados Rossini entree. Heavy, dense, fatty and tasteless. Even the MDR used to have real foie gras, when offered as an appetizer. Just one in the string of disappointments at our first Sel de Mer experience on the Konigsdam. We cancelled our later second reservation, and stuck with Canaletto which was remarkably good.

Pick Princess, so you can have the gorgeous HAL ships in the foreground of your killer photo shots when you visit Glacier Bay. 🤭 (Tired old joke of mine, I know) But honestly, I think you would prefer Princess ships for their more varied onboard life. Though HAL does Alaska best.

' Thank you for all these details about connecting from the train station to the Waterfront station and on to the ship at Canada Place. We will need to also do this in reverse from the ship to Waterfront to the Train station, for our upcoming cruise leaving Vancouver and going to Seattle to pick up the Coast Starlight train to California. We got totally mixed up at the Waterfront Station the first time taking the wrong exit coming in from the Airport on the Skyway and hope to never make that mistake again. When you say ......watch the signs carefully ..... I know we did not and just blindly took an exit to who knows where, and that was our error. So we had to roll our suitcases across streets, plazas and intersections to finally get to the Fairmount Hotel. What exactly do we "watch for" on the exit signs when trying get from Waterfront station to get to the ship. Thanks so much. Your report is encouraging that making this connections is doable ---if we do it right!

Did your cruise leave from San Diego? If so, this port can be notorious for embarkation/security back ups depending on day of departure and how many other ships are in port. We have had both experiences depending on outside factors, including the numbers of security agents that are available for service that day. Your unfortunate pre-boarding experience as I understand it, is are under the total control of the port agency and HAL has no say in this now almost predictable back up problem. When we faced one at San Diego before a HAL cruise, HAL offered a free drink to everyone as their way or recognizing and compensating for what they had no way to avoid. Other less impacted departure times in San Diego, we did not have this problem. Happy to see a later poster update those chairs did get re-upholstrered after finally getting delivery of the new material. I find myself being more forgiving of the occasional wear and tear knowing supply issues and missing parts, or even unavailability of parts on older ships can keep them from being 100% pristine, 100% of the time. Though of course, this NEVER happens on other ships, right? (Even Crystal ships had the occasional tatty defect.) Unswept crumbs overnight are gross. No excuses there. Except for a staff impacted still with "covid cleaning", on top of regular ship maintenance. No one likes a dirty ship and HAL does pride itself on running clean ships. A one-off experience, we hope. Agree strongly with your recommendation for the "sun rise clock" if booking an inside room. That is the sole moment I know I miss if I use an inside cabin - which is hard to justify the extra cost for the few moments to wake up to sunrise. The rest of the time in an inside cabin really does not really warrant paying for a window or verandah - sleeping, getting ready to be outside the cabin or quiet down time when low lights are perfectly okay. Can you give us more information where you found your "sunrise clock"? Thanks.

She went to such wonderful places. Even with her silly aft deck splash pool, she was wonderful on the long haul cruises. Thanks for the photos. Glad Fred loves her now too.

The last HAL survey we got asked a lot of questions are charging for special services ,especially poolside, including rentals of loungers, running a sunscreen kiosk. ......and their real kicker - paying a fee for staffers to apply sunscreen. Some bean-counters must have had had a field day coming up with some of these ideas. The pool area uses seems to have the most focus. Other questions were mainly about additional fees for dining times, reserved theater seats, priority tendering etc. Basically, what aspects about onboard life would we be willing to pay for special access for what is now all inclusive and/or part of the Mariner loyalty perks, but also parts of shipboard life being impacted by excessive demand.

On an Alaska cruise, a smaller ships lets you move around a lot more easily when wildlife sightings are announced -from side to side and front to back. The wide open promenade decks and the open front bow for glacier viewing makes the smaller Zandam my choice too, plus the midweek departure getting you away from the Sunday-Sunday crowds. Having the Tamarind and Dutch Cafe on Konigsdam would never tip the balance for me. The ship was just too big and hard to get around, and simply did not shine as special in anyway - except for the terrific extra cost gelato. I like the closer intimacy of the smaller ships, when the views of Alaska itself are part of the experience.

We did a day bus trip to Malacca from Singapore once, which was more low key but interesting. Not sure it would be worth it to go all the way to Kuala Lumpur on an overnight bus trip, but you know your travel comfort level. There is also a train that goes up the Malay Peninsula from the Singapore area, which I believe is fashioned somewhat on the Orient Express luxury trains. Lots of green tropical and commercial vegetation country side along the way. https://www.nomadicnotes.com/jungle-railway-malaysia/ However, KL is a very interesting but spread out city, so that would make a very densely packed trip. I spent two weeks back in the 1980's there once attending a summer law program - How about Fundamentals of of Islamic Constitutional Law - back when the profile of Islam was still relatively unknown in the west. That was eye-opening. Their famous Petronas Towers were just starting construction as a local bank's over kill pipe dream on what was at the time the remote outskirts of town - this unique building definitely put Malaysia on the map as one of the Asian tigers. Now these towers are the bustling center of the new Kuala Lumpur - again a former British colonial city that has roared into modern life in the past few decades. It is an important Asian city, so since you have extra time before your cruise, and you don't mind the challenges of a long bus ride and packed day, sure why not? KL is a long bus ride from its alleged cruise port too. So there you have it. One will struggle one way or the other, in order to see Kuala Lumpur. You also must go through border formalities so that adds some down time to the trip. And remember how close you are to the equator - hot and humid much of the year.