Glaciers, Eagles, Lost Bags and Food Poisoning - A Review of our 1st HAL Cruise!

[lovely_serenity]

Thank you very much for this awesome report! Following~ :)

[Charleston Lady]

Thanks for your very insightful review. In August we are taking all 8 of our family on the Westerdam itinerary. They range from 5-65 and all are excited about it. My DH and I have been to Alaska several times and took our daughters in '94 on the Regal Princess. It is one of their fondest memories. Going back with son-in-laws and grandchildren will be awesome, I hope!

We have 330 some days on HAL and have been around the world twice on the Amsterdam so we like the way they do things. Looking forward to Sitka and Victoria, as this will be a first visit there. Thanks for your great pictures too. Victoria looks like my kind of place!:)

[Tapi]

In August we are taking all 8 of our family on the Westerdam itinerary. They range from 5-65 and all are excited about it.

 

It was an absolutely wonderful way to get the entire family together! My 74 year old father is extremely happy at the fact that we were able to get all the kids, their spouses, and all grandkids together for this vacation.

 

Hope your cruise is filled with great memories as well!

[duper]

Excellent review great pics, thanks

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for taking us along to Alaska. Loved the pics.

[Keith1010]

Thank you for sharing your review.

 

Keith

[Winters in NZ]

Tapi....the review was exceptional ! The pictures are absolutely beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. Thanks for putting so much effort into this gem.

[mamaofami]

Thank you for the wonderful review and the beautiful pictures. I'm not a fan of pizza, so have only tried it once, but now I think I won't ever do that again.

 

The helicopter, dog sledding ride out of Juneau was one of the most exciting thing I've ever done. It was breath taking and involved every sense at once.

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

Watch what you take to Alaska its not that cold. Usually arounf=d the Glaciers. Its been in 70& 80's in main ports the last couple of weeks

 

 

Mary

[love2learn]

Thanks for this review, we were on the same cruise and for the most part really enjoyed it. It was our first time on HAL and we were a bit nervous hearing many complaints here on CC but it was the itinerary we wanted and the price seemed good. I thought the food was mostly good, I think the Lido needs a better late night selection... but the food there was really quite good.

 

Our biggest complaint about this cruise, and I am curious to know if this is typical of HAL, is the port talks were so empty. We cruised to Alaska once before on Princess and we had Michael Modzelewski for our Alaskan export. His presentations were so incredible. We did the Tracey Arm fjord and he narrated the entire time telling us what to watch for and where to look. I was anticipating something like that at Glacier Bay, and though the Glaciers were beautiful the very slight narration was a lady reading a script written for 4th graders. We went to a couple of "port talks" with Kimberly, but they were just basically telling what kind of shore excursions were available, Very disappointing. The captain did a talk one afternoon that was interesting, we enjoyed that. WE did another cruise with princess and our port specialist was John Lawrence. Again, he was so interesting to listen to and made the Baltic fascinating for us. I'm just wondering if Hal ever has interesting port experts, or if that just isn't their specialty. We did do a cruise with Princess from New Zealand to Australia and the port expert was really disappointing after the others we had experienced, so I'm just wondering for future planning.

 

There were 15 of us in our group and we did have a great time.

[nenfreed]

Awesome review and pictures, thank you. I did this cruise 5 years ago and am going again on June 29th! So excited to see beautiful Alaska again. For those of you going on this cruise in the future I highly recommend a private excursion with Davey Lubin who has a small boat and takes you on a private tour to see whales, wildlife and beautiful scenery. We went on this tour 5 years ago and are going again this year. It was absolutely awesome. He is an amazing man and does a fabulous job at making your time on his boat special. He took us so close to whales we could smell their nasty breath!! His email address is:

alaskadavey@gmail.com

 

Price for 3 hours is 150 and is worth every penny. Also highly

recommend the National park at the end of the island of Sitka.

You can walk there from town. It is so beautiful!

[nenfreed]

The tour with Davey Lubin is in Sitka. His website is http://www.puffinsandwhales.com

 

This was the highlight excursion on our trip 5 years ago........:)

[arzz]

We have been out with Davey Lubin twice over the years. We echo strongly that he is wonderful!

[Tapi]

We cruised to Alaska once before on Princess and we had Michael Modzelewski for our Alaskan expert. His presentations were so incredible. I was anticipating something like that at Glacier Bay, and though the Glaciers were beautiful, the very slight narration was a lady reading a script written for 4th graders. I'm just wondering if Hal ever has interesting port experts.

Keep in mind that I don't have other experience with Alaska port lecturers or experts, but here are my thoughts. :o

 

We went to the presentation on the Crow's Nest as we entered Glacier Bay where we met the young lady that you refer to (a Park Ranger). We then met her again on deck as she walked around answering people's questions (she was actually very knowledgeable and didn't skip a beat when she got bombarded with questions from my teenage nieces). But I agree that her delivery over the loudspeakers was a bit lackluster (I had to laugh when she said something along the lines of: "If you look to your right, you'll see a dot moving. It's a bear. If you have binoculars, you may get a better glimpse of that dot").

 

Even though she might not win any awards for public speaking, we feel that we learned quite a bit about Glacier Bay listening to her and were glad she was onboard.

 

I don't know if its the same Princess expert you refer to, but I do remember watching on You Tube a video of a Princess ship going into Tracy Arm while their expert spoke and It was truly mesmerizing.

[RuthC]

I'm just wondering if Hal ever has interesting port experts, or if that just isn't their specialty.

HAL has some fabulous port speakers, but they tend to be on the longer, more exotic itineraries.

I've been pleased to listen to the speakers' lectures and scenic cruising presentations throughout Europe, especially northern Europe, New Zealand and Australia, Antarctica, and Asian waters.

[jackjoy1]

Thank you for the posting.

[TylerRose]

Great review! Looks like you already have the making of some family digital scrapbooks as christmas gifts!

Alaska always draws more families because of the summer season, briefer length, and scenery focus, as opposed to a destination primarily, say, for beach partying.

We had cruised with our kids yearly from the time they were 7 or so. We waited until they could sit comfortably in a nice restaurant without frustration. And Yes, we did plan our excursions in port around their appropriateness for all ages we traveled with. (Grandmother in WC for us was the most challenging). HAL is not a line for occupying & keeping the kids all day. (In fact, there was no club HAL in those days). But, it is a line that respects families and will do their best for you.

[shrimp56]

Thanks so much for a wonderful report:) I agree Sitka is a charmer. There is also the Sheldon Jackson Museum there, which is well worth the time for local history and artifacts. Unfortunately our recent HAL cruise didn't stop there, but we got Skagway and the rail trip, which is am amazing experience.

 

No cruise line is perfect and not every cruise line will suit everyone. You mentioned a number of the reasons our hearts belong to HAL. Thanks!

[Tapi]

To top it all, they lost one of our checked bags (the BIG one, with most of our clothes). Just for the record, we are back home and the bag is still missing. How an airline looses a bag indefinitely, flying nonstop between two cities, is beyond me.

 

Just a quick update about the lost bag:

 

We returned from our cruise on June 15th. The bag was never returned and was declared lost. We did file a claim directly with Souhwest Airlines and our travel insurance company. Yesterday, we finally received our compensation check. We were pleasantly surprised at the amount, which will cover the lost articles, reimbursement for what we needed to purchase, as well as some extra cash for our aggravation.

 

After this experience I highly recommend to all of you that you save your receipts, boarding passes, baggage claim tickets, (and pretty much any piece of paper, as insignificant as it may be). Itemize everything in your suitcase, and take the time to label your bag, inside and out. Having all of this helped us tremendously when it was time to file this claim which was like filling out a college application! (Not kidding!)

Edited August 3, 2013 by Tapi

[JamesEM]

Concerning an inventory of the contents of your luggage, I lay out all the items that needs to be packed and take a photo, really helpful if you ever have to file a claim.

[abisha]

Great review! Thanks for sharing.

[Watson's aunt]

I put every thing in a zip lock bag or those air squezze bages . On all my bags I put a mail address lable. So if bag is lost they will see who it belongs to. Alos I put a piece of paper where I am going hotel, ship where I am going and when leaving a return lable.

 

 

Mary

[puppycanducruise]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. Your pictures are wonderful.

[themerle]

Thanks for the review. I really enjoyed it. I've been to Alaska 4 times. I've been on Holland twice and Princess twice. I loved all three ships, 2X Coral Princess and once each, the Volendam and the Zuiderdam. I've never sailed out of Seattle. You saying that you sailed on the west side of Vancouver Island and the fact that the seas were rough makes me unsure if I would chose sailing from Seattle. I really enjoy the scenery sailing from and returning to Vancouver. I've never been to Sitka so that town is definitely on my bucket list. If you go back to Alaska definitely go to Denali! It's amazing! Also you mention Skagway. The White Pass RR was so much fun. We did the long trip and would do it again!

[Aruba]

How did this thread get resurrected? I was puzzled to see a review of an Alaska cruise in January -- then I realized the original review was from June of last year. :)