formal wear

[vulcan500]

Emotions run high on wardrobe decisions, don't they? We are looking forward to our 2nd cruise in January and I've had good luck at Ross finding women's formal wear. I like the idea of 'prom night for grown-ups.

[jhannah]

I do, too. And so do many other HAL cruisers. To me, it's a part of what makes a cruise something beyond the every-day. Glad you could find some bargains. (I've done quite well on ebay!)

[vulcan500]

Not sure if hubby is as excited to dress up as I am...as a newcomer to CC, is it a good idea or not, to locate others who will be cruising with you? What if they sound great online, but don't turn out to be someone you'd want to spend a great deal of time with..?:confused:

[welove2cruise232]

YES! Go find your roll call and get involved! You'll meet the most wonderful people!

[vulcan500]

I'm a new CC idiot. How to do that?

[grannynurse]

Vulcan,

Go to the boards page and go to roll calls, click on Holland America, when the HAL page comes up click on your ship and from that page, find your cruise date.

Welcome to CC and the HAL board.

GN

[jhannah]

You can always meet up with fellow cruisers; but you don't need to be joined at the hip with them. You may really click and enjoy being together, or you may not. Just play it by ear and have a good time.

[kdowneymd]

Very discouraging, I have posted several times on Roll call for our July 7 cruise out of Venice for 12 days in Med with NO responses. Is HAL not as active on Roll Call as RCCL? or does this mean many groups ?

[grsnovi]

kdowney - your sailing is a long way off, give your roll call some time, it will pick up. The roll call for my 4/12 sailing is still reall quiet too.

 

vulcan - I'm 54 and used to have to wear a suit to work years ago - these days I wear jeans (computer software guy) but I love the notion of getting dressed up. I rented a tux for our June cruise and I'm debating renting vs buying for the up coming one. I figure it will only take a few more cruises to make the buy break even (over renting) but by renting I can go different each time. No pastel blue jacket these days (seems that was one of the prom colors)

[jtl513]

What if they sound great online, but don't turn out to be someone you'd want to spend a great deal of time with..?:confused:

Don't worry - unless you plan specific things to do together, you won't just 'run into' others all that often - even on the smaller ships.

Very discouraging, I have posted several times on Roll call for our July 7 cruise out of Venice for 12 days in Med with NO responses. Is HAL not as active on Roll Call as RCCL? or does this mean many groups ?

It's pretty hit-or-miss. On our upcoming Dec 15 cruise the roll call was started 14 months out and there are now 440+ posts from about 30 people. On our Sep cruise there was ONE other couple on our "roll call", and on the cruise-tour we met a mother/daughter who are CC members but never introduced themselves on the Roll Call. For a 12-day out of Venice I'd expect a roll call more like the latter. :(

[djhsolara]

Not to sound cheap and I don't know if they do this everywhere, but I know in my area there are tux rental stores that have "end of season" sales just like a department store. When they have these it is very easy to put together a tux in a very inexpensive way (for anyone who may be concerned about the price)...and it is your's to keep. The nice thing about the place that we go to is that you can get one tux and then get many different vests and/or ties/cummerbunds to get the most bang for your buck with one tux.

 

I will say though, even though we have our own tuxes we have decided that we are going to rent so they are waiting for us in the cabin when we get there. We found that last year the tuxes got very wrinkled during travel and it was hard to get the wrinkles out.

[DesertDiva]

You could always have your tux sent out to be "pressed" after you board the ship.

 

I will say though, even though we have our own tuxes we have decided that we are going to rent so they are waiting for us in the cabin when we get there. We found that last year the tuxes got very wrinkled during travel and it was hard to get the wrinkles out.

[grsnovi]

I was all for renting from the supplier to HAL, but they did not have white dinner jackets available for the Alaska cruise and I just felt like wearing a white jacket. The place I ended up renting from had a week long rental rate and the also offered "gently used" tuxes for sale.

[Northshorecruisers]

On our Oosterdam 1/06 cruise, we met a great couple on the boards that live in Vancouver, BC. The 4 of us really hit it off and have kept in contact.

When we decided to do the Grand Princess this past November, I emailed the couple and asked if they'd like to go with. I was so happy when they said "yes". We decided our group needed a name, we came up with CanAm Cruisers. Linda designed a logo and I had it put on golf shirts for all of us to wear when boarding (my son and a friend were also joining us).

Now, Linda & Ryan have decided to join us on the Oosterdam cruise in 10/08. It will be our 5th wedding anniversary and Linda & Ryan's 7th anniversary will be two days later. We will be adding another cruise underneath our Western Caribbean 2007 on our golf shirts.