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boulders

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About Me

  • Location
    FL
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Holland America
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Antarctica

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  1. My first cruise on Celebrity was in January, 2023. Before that, I had sailed on HAL twice, in 2012 and 2013. Between 2013 and 2023, I only sailed once, on RCCL. The Celebrity cruise was 11 nights on Constellation to the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. It was just OK. The shore excursions were very good. I had been to Costa Rica 20 years ago, and I was glad to go back. The food was disappointing. There was only one night when a salad was offered. The quantity of vegetables with the main course was very small. This was surprising as the cruise left out of Tampa, so I would expect fruit and vegetables to be easy to get. The entertainment was disappointing as well. There was only one performance in the main theater that I wanted to see, but I couldn't get a seat. I generally really like Bingo on cruises, but there was none on Celebrity, only Deal or No Deal, which was rushed and not interesting. The HAL cruise was 48 nights on Noordam from San Diego to Australia and New Zealand. I just got off 2 weeks ago. I really liked this cruise. The food was great. Surprisingly, even when we were weeks away from the last major port, salads were abundant and fresh. The main courses had a good quantity of vegetables. I did not notice repetition in the menu. There was roast chicken, salmon and lasagna every night, in addition to about 6-8 other main courses. My table mates, who were more experienced than I, were able to order a garden salad or a Caesar salad whenever they wanted, even if they weren't on the menu. There was at least one salad on the menu every night. Entertainment on HAL: There was a lot. I'm sure I'm going to forget something. There was Bingo just about every sea day. There was also Deal or No Deal. The young lady who ran both was engaging and made both fun. There were lots of trivia sessions, generally 3 per day. There was dueling pianos in Billboard On Board and a piano/cello duo in another venue. Unfortunately, I never got to see the piano/cello duo as I was either playing trivia or eating dinner at the times they were playing. There were bridge lessons every sea day between San Diego and Sydney. These were very well attended. Due to the length of the cruise, I got to be a pretty good bridge player. The lessons were 2 hours in the morning and then there were games for 2 hours in the afternoon. There were two groups that performed on the main stage - One Step Dance Company and Cantare. I'm not a fan of singing, so I didn't go to the Cantare performances, but I heard that they were good. One of my offspring is a professional dancer, so I did go to the dance performances. The staging and the quality of the dancers were excellent. I highly recommend them. Due to the length of the cruise, we got 2 different casts. One got off in Papeete and the next got on in Sydney. There were also dance groups that got on in Honolulu and in Papeete to perform for one night. The Papeete group was very good. The Honolulu group was not. There were in depth lectures given frequently in the main stage, most by the cruise director, but some by experts. There were also daily talks by the cruise director where she interviewed either experts or members of the crew. There was one talk by all the senior officers that was held in the main stage and was very well attended. TLDR: The food on HAL was a much high quality than on X. The entertainment was about equal quality, but there was much more available on HAL. I did pay more for HAL than X - about $200/day as a solo for an inside cabin on HAL vs $130/day as a solo for a balcony on X. The demographics were about equal on both lines - average age about 70 and very few children. I'm quite a bit younger than that average. I had a lot more fun on the ship with HAL, than I did on X.
  2. I sailed on Noordam last month as she traveled from San Diego to Sydney, through Hawaii and French Polynesia. They were installing Starlink in San Diego and delayed sailing because they couldn't quite get it to work. The internet was off and on, even for the ship's operations, until Hawaii. Rumor has it that one person debarked in Hawaii because they were so frustrated with the internet. Once we got it fixed, it was fine. Email and most websites loaded quickly, but not as quick as at home. There were no dead zones, even though we were days away from the next port. Cons: Video through Apple TV was frustrating and frequently required reloading. Logging into some websites was a problem as they could determine my location wasn't at home and they wanted to send a verification code, but the texts they sent didn't get received over wifi. So, no Black Friday shopping on Amazon for me. The internet was a significant improvement over the last time I sailed, around Antarctica, in 2013. There were a lot of dead spots and very slow connection speeds on that cruise.
  3. boulders

    Photo test

    Radiance of the Seas San Diego.HEIC
  4. I've never had an independent provider cancel a tour. I'm going on a long HAL cruise in 2 weeks and I've lost track of the number of shore excursions and ports that HAL has cancelled or modified. Just in the past week, I've had one very popular shore excursion cancelled, with no reason given and had to quickly find an independent tour provider. Many of the replacements I could find online were sold out and I only found a suitable replacement through another poster on the roll call.
  5. @Ken the cruiser I can't answer for the whole cruise, but I've had several instances on my upcoming cruise where HAL has cancelled port stops where I had one of their shore excursions booked or just cancelled one of my shore excursions. The shore excursion funds show up on the gift card I used for payment in about 4 or 5 days. In one instance, even though the itinerary had been changed to a different port, HAL didn't cancel out the shore excursions from the port we weren't going to, even after several weeks. So, I eventually cancelled it myself. The funds showed up on the gift card in the same time frame as the other cancellations.
  6. It's likely too early to be looking for summer 2024. Not all itineraries will be loaded yet. Wait a few more months.
  7. I've been having the same issues for weeks. I switched to Safari from Chrome and then was able to access the booking, pay off the cruise, book excursions etc. After being away from Chrome for a week or two, I can now access the booking using Chrome.
  8. Lucky! Our HAL Lahaina stop in October got switched to Kawiliwili. There's only one cruise ship berth at Kahului.
  9. January and February are whale season. They mainly are found in west Maui. You should be able to see some around the west coast of the Island of Hawaii as well.
  10. @ccole Volunteer Point was probably the best shore excursion I've ever been on.
  11. @boursiquot Click on this link to find the discussion about your cruise. Grand South America roll call For Port Stanley, I highly recommend a Volunteer Point excursion with Estancia Excursions
  12. I have no desire to visit an area that has had a natural disaster. However, I seem prone to have natural disasters occur in places I plan to visit soon. I was booked to visit Maui on my cruise in 2 months. Final payment has passed and no refund for me. Years ago, I had made final payment on a guided tour to China just before the Chengdu earthquake hit. No refund for me there either. In both cases, the itinerary was changed from those places to what I consider an inferior stop. Just a warning to those of you in Australia and New Zealand, I'm booked to go there in November. Edited to add: Up until 2 years ago, I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii. Two weeks before I was scheduled to close on the sale of my house there, the neighboring town was evacuated because of a brush fire. It was extremely stressful knowing that my house could be destroyed soon. Even though I never had to evacuate and the fire burnt out before it hit the neighboring town, it was an extremely stressful time. I developed heart issues because of the stress. My heart goes out to all those on Maui who have been affected.
  13. You should be able to apply them by calling your travel agent.
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