Live Cruise Reports

What is life like virtually living on a HAL ship? After seven months on the Zuiderdam earlier this year, I'm back at sea -- this time on the Zaandam -- and once again blogging. I'm going to try to update this thread with every post, unless the internet gods protest too much.

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This will be a first attempt at a live review from me so here’s some background.
I am from Ireland and this will be my 6th NCL cruise, first time to Alaska. I have been to the US over 20 times since I was an undergrad on a J1 visa in the 90s, I spent 13 years working for an American multinational and have cousins stateside. Alaska will be the 14th state I’ve visited. 

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Hi, last month (August), Maria and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a 3-day Alaskan land tour, followed by a 7-day Alaskan cruise (Whittier, AK to Vancouver, BC) on HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam. This is our story, better late than never!

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Hello and welcome to my first go at starting a live thread for this upcoming cruise. I will try my best to keep it updated and my fellow shipmates are welcome to post their photos and experiences as well especially as I will likely not post too many photos. 
 
If there’s any questions I have 11 sea days worth of time to go check something out and report back. We will be primarily dining in the MDR so follow along and see if we make it through all 17 nights before burning out! A couple nights for Tuscan Grill and Murano are planned as well. 

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Arrived at 1200 for our scheduled boarding and was at the end of a long line. It took about 20 minutes to get processed and aboard. The ship is lovely and everyone is delightful. This is our 3rd Regent cruise. Sail away party was fun. Dinner in Compass Rose was very good although service was a bit slow. The evening show was an introduction for what is to come. Internet is slow and spotty so far.

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Let's go to Hawaii!!! After much second guessing, it's happening and I couldn't be more excited. Traveling with me are DH, DD (8) and DS (10) and none of us have been there before.
 
Booked since June of last year, I started really planning a few months ago. My planning has consisted of scouring Cruise Critic, TripAdvisor and social media for information on Hawaii. It has also consisted of spreadsheets, lots of spreadsheets. Some people like to take notes on Word, but Excel and I are BFFs. Turns out there's so much I want to see and do it was hard to pick and limit to the time available in port, too. And also to remain within a reasonable budget. And then DH throws me a curveball - he wants to make sure we get actual relaxation time on this vacay and we don't return home more exhausted than when we left! I plan to treat the POA more like a floating hotel given that there's no sea days; besides, I'm bound to be exhausted in the evenings from all the port adventures we have planned.

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Welcome to my LIVE! Blog of my trip on Wonder of the Seas!  This is my 6th LIVE! Blog here on Cruise Critic, but my first for a Royal Caribbean Cruise.  
 
I’m Dee, and although I usually travel with my dear husband, this time I’m traveling solo.  
 
I love cruising! Starting cruising back in the 1990s, I’ve cruised on lines including Carnival, Norwegian, HAL, Regent Seven Seas, Celebrity, Radisson (that goes way back!) The Caledonian Sky,  Viking River and Viking Ocean.

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After 4 nights at the Villas at Grand Floridian (DVC) we are getting ready to head to the port via Lyft. This will be my 11th DCL cruise and Cameron’s 25th. She is excited to hit Pearl status. Have a magical day!

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I wasn't initially planning on doing a Live for this sailing, since I'm only on for a 2 day "cruise fix". However, there are many on CC that are staying on to do the various other legs of this journey, so I figured I could start this and have everyone else onboard to join in/continue! For my portion, this is a 2 day Seattle to Vancouver trip, that will reposition the Royal to do her journey over to Hawaii and on the Australia/New Zealand. I admit to feeling just a little jealous of all those making that journey onward. For me, this is simply a fun little "staycation" to get in my fix while I await my next big cruise in December...

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I know, I know, not ANOTHER alive thread on Splendor!  After a summer sailing around Scandinavia, Splendor is now going to go south for the winter.  Want to come along?  
 
We left Atlanta on a direct flight to London on Virgin Atlantic.  The flight left about an hour late with a garbled announcement from the caption about something, something and paperwork. But, the jet stream was on our tail and we arrived at Heathrow 15 minutes early.  

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Hello, everyone! Good to see you again! It’s been a while since I posted on these boards and a lot has changed since my slightly cursed cruise on the Anthem last year. Let’s get you all caught up on the highlights of the year before I get to the nitty gritty: last spring, I sailed on the Celebrity Beyond with my mother, which was an amazing experience because for the first time I felt that I was the target customer for a cruise ship. It was amazing! Also, I bought a robot vacuum which I love almost as much as my cat. Maybe even more when it’s shedding season, but don’t tell the cat. And that’s it! Those are the highlights of my year. 

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Day 1 Leaving Cyprus Sunday 17th September 2023
Hi, Everyone,
Almost every time we book a cruise we have to fly to London (UK) this is no exception.
There is no way we can fly to London for the flight to Vancouver the same day, so we flew the day before and stayed overnight at Heathrow airport.
This is our third cruise with Regent, we have sailed with Silversea and Seabourn, in my opinion there is not a lot between them, others may disagree?
So, where to start? Mr. Fudge is a young 73 yrs. old, (well he thinks he is!) Mrs Fudge is a very sprightly 60 yrs old. We emigrated from the UK about 20yrs ago to a small Island called Cyprus in the Mediterranean, a lovely sunny climate all year round.
For the information of our British friends, we stayed overnight in the Holiday Inn just outside Heathrow, clean, comfortable and a good price.

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Hi All
 
We're Randi( I'm on the right) and Julie a same sex couple living in a north suburb of LA.  We booked this cruise for our 10th wedding anniversary!!( actual date Sept 28th).  We're currently at a hotel in Midtown, enjoying our last of 3 days here.  I'm originally from NYC, however I grew up in S. Florida.  Julie retired last year from LAPD.  This will be our second Oceania cruise.  Our first was Feb 2022 for Julie's 60th bday.  It was wonderful as we were originally supposed to be on Sirena, however, O switched the ship to Marina.  There were only 338 people on board.   

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The Galapagos Islands have always fascinated me.  I'm not entirely sure why I'm drawn there but it has always been a bucket list destination I wasn't sure I'd ever get to.
 
Perhaps it was the remote location and overall difficulty getting that added to the attraction.  Maybe it's too many National Geographic type episodes on TV or the idea of so much wildlife to see and photograph.  Maybe it's knowing Darwin himself formed so much of his knowledge right there on the Galapagos Islands.   To walk in the footprints of Charles Darwin.  Can there be a better excuse than that?

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Royal got our ship all fixed and we're SERIOUSLY super excited for tomorrow! There is SO MUCH to do here in Anchorage I need more time to see all of it! More nights next time Right? I have to pace myself! And yes here's our room at the Marriott and I see that the ship is ready for tomorrow!

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Hello to all from beautiful Vancouver.   We arrived here on  Friday night after a long flight from FLL with a connection in LAX.  We made our 2nd flight by only a few minutes - luckily the gates were next to each other.   Our hotel here is beautiful,  it is called L'Hermitage.  All the hotels were so expensive so we decided to splurge a bit and get a suite for not much more than a basic room.   This hotel is centrally located, walking distance to anything you could want and a 2 minute walk to Tim Horton's. We have a one bedroom with a full kitchen, washer/dryer, and a balcony which overlooks the courtyard and a beautiful pool and hot tub.  I could live here.   

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I know it's a little early for me to be starting this thread, but I am just so excited to be cruising again soon that I couldn't help but post. I can't wait to be back on the Meraviglia in 13 days. Depending on how Hurricane Lee goes, my husband and I are supposed to be doing a 10-day sailing out of Brooklyn to Canada & New England. This will be my third CA & NE cruise and my husband's second. Newport, Sydney, and Charlottetown will all be new port stops for us.

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Day 1 – Dover, UK
 
This is my 4th Carnival cruise but my last one was about 20 years ago so none of that experience is really relevant to today. I’ve been on something like 45 cruises by now. This is my wife’s first Carnival cruise.
 
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Good Morning everyone.
 
I'm back after almost a year hiatus on cruising.  Well, it wasn't exactly a hiatus, a spring cruise did not present itself, so I ended up not doing anything until this one.  But this one is special.
 
As usual, I'm tagging @FionaMG as is my habit.
 
As of today, Our itinerary is
 
Halifax, NS,
Nuuk, Greenland,
Qaqortoq, Greenland,
Nanotorik, Greenland
St. John, NL
 
14 nights in all.
 
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Hopefully, I will be able to make this a regular series of posts for the sailing from Reykjavik to New York.  As a bit of background, I've had a couple decades of cruising with about a hundred segments all told.  Most all on the luxury lines of Crystal, Regent, Silversea and Seabourn.  A couple here and there on Oceania, Azamara, Windstar and Celebrity with the one-off HAL, Princess, PG and RCI.

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Hello, my cruising family!
 
Who is sitting at work, glaring at their cruise countdown clock, willing it to move along a little quicker? I may not be able to smuggle you onto the ship in my suitcase, but I can do the next best thing: let you live vicariously along with my cruise adventure thru this live review! So, if that, along with a few tropical drinks (sorry, you have to mix them yourself) will help you get thru until your countdown clock reaches zero, then come sail away with me onboard the beautiful MARDI GRAS!

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Thought I’d start a live-ish review. Today is the third day and we are in Kiel. Sailed on Britannia in October last year, both times in an aft suite so it is easy to compare experiences. This year we are unfortunately in A726, I say unfortunately because right above us is the damaged ceiling from the Sunset bar which P and O are currently repairing at night., in fact all night. They drag chairs around from midnight right through until 7.00 in the morning. My husband went upstairs at 5 to ask them to stop dragging chairs around and they carried on despite his polite request. I phoned reception this morning explaining that we couldn’t sleep last night and was told that we should have phoned last night instead of going to speak to the staff doing the repairs.

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So, we’re Day 2 on our Iona cruise to the Fjords. Here’s our hot takes on dining so far:
 
1. Epicurian - our dinner on Saturday night. 
 
- if you’re into seafood like us, the giant Indonesian tiger prawns were stellar. 
- the starters were trying too hard. The snow crab cocktail which contained grated apple and the accompanying  salty cucumber drink shot with lemon foam was a bit all fur coat and no knickers. Style over substance. My husband had the slow cooker in ox cheeks which were presented on a hollowed out bone, or a  “canoe” as the menu referred to it. My husband liked it to a Greggs steak bake on a piece of bone.  
-dessert - we had a lemon meringue tart with looked like a dinosaur - a trail of tiny dots of meringue over the tart “mound”. Tasted good. 

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Join The Bird, *live*, from the Norwegian Encore as she sails to the absolute best cruise destination, Alaska. This voyage is a round trip Seattle calling in Juneau, Skagway, the breathtaking Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, and Victoria.

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We are onboard the Silver Muse!
 
Embarkation at Canada Place this afternoon took about a hour. It was quite a bit faster for those with US and Canadian passports because there were only THREE agents at US boarder control. 

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