back-to-back questions

[bryanwal]

Hi,

 

We're sailing on 2 back-to-back Ryndam cruises this October: the Oct 7 Vancouver to San Diego cruise followed by the Oct 11 Mexican Riviera-Sea of Cortex cruise. We are in the same stateroom for both.

 

My questions are:

 

1. How soon can we get off the ship when it's between cruises in San Diego?

2. By what time must we be back on the ship (departure 5pm)?

3. When do we get our ID cards for the 2nd cruise? Do we stop at the purser's desk on our way out?

 

Thanks,

[chasetf]

Hi, We're sailing on 2 back-to-back Ryndam cruises this October: the Oct 7 Vancouver to San Diego cruise followed by the Oct 11 Mexican Riviera-Sea of Cortex cruise. We are in the same stateroom for both. My questions are:

1. How soon can we get off the ship when it's between cruises in San Diego?

From our experience - On other lines continuing passengers were gathered in a public area (lounge / casino) escorted off the ship to clear immigration. You should then return to the ship and be free to leave for a day in San Diego. You will clear customs when you return to the US.

2. By what time must we be back on the ship (departure 5pm)?

Same as everyone else.... 1/2 hour before sailing.

3. When do we get our ID cards for the 2nd cruise? Do we stop at the purser's desk on our way out? Thanks,

On other cruise lines they were delivered the day / night before arriving.

[Denn33]

So--if I booked a europe cruise sold by HAL as a 20-day cruise (called "Mediterannean Adventure") that is really the 10-day Roman Empire Cruise followed by the 10-day Mediterranean Enchantment cruise--does that mean that we get new ID cards once we get back to Rome, settle our onboard charges, etc?

[Denn33]

Also--would it be typical to have to change cabins halfway through?

Typical to change tables in the dining room? Have a different cabin steward? Would one ordinarily give out tips to cabin stewards/waiters etc at the mid-point and at the end, or only at the end (if you had the same steward for both legs).

[tjcox9]

Did this fantastic itinerary last year. As I recall, we had the option to close out our shipboard account at end of first leg or let it continue running. Have a great time!!

[Krazy Kruizers]

Have done a couple of back-to-back cruises out of San Diego.

 

We did not have to go through immigration in San Diego like we have had to do in Ft Lauderdale. We could get off the ship anytime we wanted to and do whatever we wanted to.

 

You have to be back on board by 4:15 for lifeboat drill. Yes, you have to go through it again.

 

We get our new ID cards and information the day before the cruise ended and had our pictures taken then.

 

Upon leaving the ship we had to use our old ID cards and use the new ones to get back on.

 

Since we always book our cruises far in advance we have never had to worry about changing cabins.

[Fblack]

I am booked on back to back in the Med in September. I am booked for the same cabin. But I plan to pick out the dinner table for the second cruise.

[sail7seas]

We always book the same cabin for each segment of back-to-back so we don't have to move.

 

In FLL, we have always had to clear Immigration but we wait until most of the guests have left so that we can immediately reboard the ship. If we are planning to stay ashore, we would clear at any point once disembarkation has begun. In in-transit guest is not permitted to reboard the ship after clearing Immigration until all guests from the previous cruise have left.....that is why we wait until late in disembarkation as we normally wish to go back aboard.

 

In Montreal last year, we had to be sure we took everything with us we wanted for the day as they would not have permitted us to return to our cabin to pick anything up. Once off the ship, we could not reboard until disembarkation was completed.

 

You don't have to return to the ship until 30 minutes prior to sailing except that you will need to attend the life boat drill again. Check to find out what time the drill is being held.

 

[sail7seas]

I am booked on back to back in the Med in September. I am booked for the same cabin. But I plan to pick out the dinner table for the second cruise.

 

If during your first segment of your cruise you see a dining table you would enjoy for the next segment, speak with the dining supervisor for your section or the Maitre d' (Dining Room Manager is what they call him these days, I think). I am sure they will do their best to accomodate you. But, remember it is possible someone who booked long ago already requested that table and 'they could have asked first'. That does happen sometimes.

 

Back-to-backs in the Med........glorious!!! How fabulous to look forward to such a treat. Hope you have a great time.

[booboo29]

Ditto on pretty much everything Sail said. We have only done one back to back and it was in Lauderdale on the Westerdam. All "in transit" guests were called to one area at about 9:45 and at that time we were handed our new room keys/ID cards. We did not get our photo taken again, but did scan out with the old card and back on with the new card. There were about 40 of us staying on, and some folks were moving to another cabin. Some of them reported begin able to do so as early as 9am and some were going to do so later in the day. We were escorted off the ship as a group and then invited back on about 30 minutes later, after the ship was cleared.

 

As far as the dining room was concerned, we did not get the dining time or table size we requested on the first leg, so the Maitre d', whom I had spoken with a couple of times, gave us exactly what we wanted the second week. Had we wanted to stay where we were, he would have accomodated that as well. He walked around on the last night of the cruise and handed out new table assignments while we were at dinner.

 

Have a great cruise!!

 

Frank and Jennifer

[bryanwal]

Thanks for all the info (and for the good wishes). My stepmother who lives near San Diego, is going to pick us up at the terminal and we're going to spend the day together. I wanted to be able to give her a time to pick us up at the terminal (or nearby) so your answers were helpful in giving us some idea of what to expect. When we are on the first cruise I'll check when they do the lifeboat drill. I'm glad we can get our IDs the night before - there's always such a long line on disembarkation morning at the purser's desk that I knew I didn't want to wait there!

[bryanwal]

As to the dining assignment, we've requested a table with French speakers, so if there are any French aboard we'll let HAL arrange the table.

[jtl513]

You should be able to get an "express disembarkation" card at the front desk and get off even before the "priority" suite passengers.

[bryanwal]

That would be helpful.

[Denn33]

Did this fantastic itinerary last year. As I recall, we had the option to close out our shipboard account at end of first leg or let it continue running. Have a great time!!

 

Thank you!

 

This is all helpful. I assume that I will be in the same cabin for the entire time based on the responses here...because my confirmation (booked reasonably well in advance, 8 months) only lists one cabin.

[cruisinjudy]

We did the turn around in San Diego in February on Oosterdam. We got our new cards the night before. We did not have to go through imigration and could get off whenever we wanted, using our old cards to get off and our new cards to get on. Our account was held over to the second week. Tips are taken out of your account so that is done each cruise. Extra tips you could give at the end of the first cruise or wait til the end.

 

On our Oosterdam cruise they treated the B2B passengers extra special. We had a special lunch in the dining room with Simon de Boer and Stephan Shuetz. We had champagne delivered to our room and we were invited to a special coctail party. Simon said that special activities for the B2Bers depends on the hotel manager and what he chooses to do.

[sail7seas]

That sounds so nice, CruisinJudy.

 

Who is Stephan Shuetz? I'm just guessing but is he Culinary Operations OIfficer?

[cruisinjudy]

Yes, I believe that was his title.

[bryanwal]

This does sound very nice. We are looking forward to this new experience.

[mamaofami]

We did a BTB in Alaska and did not change cabins. What a job that would be to pack it all up just to unpack it again. Have fun! Your cruise sounds great!

[sail7seas]

We have always kept the same cabin but have seen others moving to a different one. The stewards are wonderful about assisting and they take all the hanging clothes from the closet and use a hotel style rolling rack to move them.

 

Most of the drawers are interchangeable and they help take the full ones to exchange for the empty ones.

 

Mostly you just have to clean out the bathroom/dressing table (if in a suite) and it doesn't take very long to get moved.

 

[Krazy Kruizers]

cruisinjudy

 

That sounds wonderful what your HM did for your back-to-back cruises.

 

We have done a ton of back-to-back cruises and never had a special lunch, no champagne sent to the cabin or an extra invite to a special cocktail party. Maybe that is because on the majority of the back-to-back cruises we have done there have been anywhere from 12 to 189 intransit passengers.

 

Were there are a lot of intransit passengers on your cruise?

[2bout2c]

I've done a lot a B2B. I really like them the best. On the Statendam last fall, there were approx 280 B2B folks. They had a special "moving" talk in

the afternoon after the regular debark talk. A lot of folks were moving, some up and some down. The crew was just wonderful taking care of all of us. Our cabin steward even offered to move with us if we wanted him to. He would have had to change decks to do so. We of course told him we thought that would be too much work for him. We just waited in the cabin after debark started then two cabin stewards with rolling carts knocked on the door and moved us. Not a problem at all.

[cruisinjudy]

There were ony seven at our lunch. There were more at the cocktail party, but we were late due to the time it was held and did not find out if they were all B2B or there for another reason. At any rate the number was small so I am sure that was the reason we got extra special treatment!