OzKiwiJJ

Verdict - Port Stops and Excursions We primarily cruise NZ to visit family and friends and have been to all of the ports several times. The one port I really wanted to go to on the original itinerary, Kaikoura, was cancelled just a few weeks before departure and substituted with Picton. We had no tender ports but did have some wharves that required using shuttles to get off them and a shuttle ticket system was used for a couple of those. That didn't impact us as we either were going off the ship later, after the rush was over and tickets were no longer required, or we were on an excursion. We didn't get off at all in Napier as we arrived late, 11:30am, and it was rainy. We have been to Napier a few times so would have only gone off for lunch ashore but by the time the rush had died down it was 1:30pm so not worth it. At some of the ports we either visited people or just wandered around by ourselves. We had an excursion credit so initially booked a whale watching excursion in Kaikoura. After the change to Picton we changed to a Marlborough wine tasting excursion at the same price. We'd already used the rest of our excursion credit to book a Bruny Island excursion from Hobart and paid the extra. The Wines of Marlborough excursion was excellent. We had a very informative driver and enjoyed the three wineries we visited. It was good value for money. The only downside was that it was mid-morning to mid-afternoon with no meal included. The Bruny Island excursion was also excellent and even better value for money. It included a delicious fish and chip lunch, with an extra bonus of some fresh oysters to start with. I posted detailed descriptions of both excursions earlier so won't go into further detail here. They were well organised. The tour tickets were in the Navigator app / webpage so easy to access.

Verdict - Pool Areas I've heard many people say HAL is a cruise line full of senior cruisers. I guess most of those don't swim in the pools, or if they do they are very fit and agile people with no joint issues! Both swimming pools only had ladder access which I find difficult especially when getting out of the pool - wet hands and slippery steel rails aren't a good combination. I was very surprised that neither pool had easy access steps. We only tried the Lido Pool which had a moveable roof over it. The pool was heated to a perfect temperature, warm enough to stay in for as long as you liked but cool enough to feel refreshing on a hot day when you got in. The Lido Pool steps were at either side with a curved dolphin statue area between them. There wasn't that much space between the ladder and the tiled edge of the statue area so if someone had slipped off the ladder backwards there would be a risk of them hitting their head on the tiled edge. It seemed quite dangerous to me. The other problem is that there didn't seem to be a pool for small children. The shallow end of the Lido Pool, where the ladders were, was about 1.3 metres, too deep for little kids so they would hang off or sit on the ladders. Both pool areas only had sun loungers in full sun positions - one row down each side of the Lido Pool, and a couple of rows in the middle behind the Wake View Pool. The shaded areas were taken up by tables and chairs. Both pool areas had bars and access to the Buffet. However there wasn't much on offer in the buffet for a mid-afternoon snack other than ice cream and cookies. The Lido Pool also had the burger bar and a taco buffet but I'm not sure what time they shut down.

Verdict - Bars, Lounges, Theatre, Entertainment Explorations Bar / Crows Nest. For some odd reason HAL has put the only espresso machines on the ship into an area with limited seating for the best views forward, a few cafe-style tables and some weird combinations of soft chairs and sofas. Also in this area is the library, or at least some bookshelves, a room set up with rows of seating lecture-style, the games area with big jigsaw puzzle tables, chess/draughts tables, a few other tables, and the Excursions Desk. Now in my world libraries are quiet areas. Jigsaws and chess are also quiet pursuits. But there were plenty of other noisy games provided as well. Add in the constant noise from the cafe/bar and this wasn't a pleasant place to sit even if you could find a seat somewhere, especially in the mornings when the morning coffee crowd wanted their super-sized takeaway cups of fancy coffee. It wasn't so bad in the late afternoons during sailaways. Now in my world if you have a cafe with espresso machines it's usually expected that the barista know what they are doing. The simplest coffee is a single espresso (short black). It is the basis of all other espresso-based drinks. However it isn't easy to get it right. It depends on the fineness/coarseness of the grind, the amount of ground coffee, and how firmly it is tamped. To add to the complexity temperature and humidity play a part. Ideally the coffee should take 20-30 seconds to run through resulting in a rich liquid topped with a thick crema. A good barista will run a test coffee each morning to ensure the grind is correct, and keep a close eye on every coffee made and adjust the grind if necessary. A short black should always be made into a warmed espresso cup or glass, it should never be made into a glass that has been used to make other coffees then dumped into the espresso cup. Rolf did manage to get that message across to the barista after a few days but even so we never got anything near a good espresso. Of course those with their mega fancy coffees in huge cardboard cartons wouldn't care how the espresso was made as long as it tasted vaguely of coffee. Ocean Bar Our favourite bar in the evenings was the Ocean Bar on deck 3. Specifically the side where the bar itself is rather than the seating around the Atrium. Usually we could get a seat there and would open the curtains for the view. The Ocean Bar had two wonderful waiters, Aileen and Pang, who were always quick at providing service and remembered that after dinner we liked some iced water with our after dinner drink plus some cans of water to take back to our cabin. The only thing missing was some live music although there was background music playing through the speaker system. Pinnacle Bar We only went to the Pinnacle Bar once, the night we were dining in the Pinnacle Grill. It's a very small bar and was very crowded the night we went there. Service was slow as the bar also served the Pinnacle Grill. Billboard Bar We went to the Billboard Bar a couple of times before going to a show. It is directly across from the Casino and I found the flashing lights from the machines quite annoying even when the Casino was closed. On one of the nights the Casino was open and so we had noise from it as well. Theatre Westerdam has the strangest theatre I have ever been in on a cruise ship. The front part of the deck 2 level (main floor) was like the Princess Vista/Universe Lounge seating - rows with sofas at the back of the row and chairs and small tables in front of them. The rest of the theatre had bench seating, not individual theatre seats. The bench seating was marked off into seat positions, just a little too close together for these times. The backs of these benches were very hard and straight up and did not suit my back at all. Entertainment When we booked our cruise there were only two dining options available - Early and Main. We chose Main as we prefer to dine late however this impacted our ability to enjoy some of the entertainment around the ship. The theatre shows were at 7pm and 9pm. Our dining time was 7:45pm so the early show was tight timing for dinner and the late show wasn't possible at all. We made it to two theatre shows and the Xmas Eve crew show but gave up after that, it was too much of a rush for us if we'd been out and about during the day. Most of the other evening entertainment was on while we were at dinner. There was almost nothing that started before 7:30pm and most were later. We didn't usually finish dinner until 9:45pm - 10pm and by then all we wanted was a quiet after dinner drink before retiring for the night. The theatre entertainment was very limited: - 3 perfomances by Cantare (we saw two of those and they were superb) - 5 performances by Step One Dance (we saw them at the Christmas show, not interesting to us) - 2 perfomances by vocalist Ali Harper (I would have liked to have seen her show but ...) - 2 performances by Patrick McCullagh billed as Comedy Magic (I've seen to many bad comedians so tend to avoid comedy shows) - a couple of other shows - Origin Story and Planet Earth in Concert There didn't appear to be any sort of production shows unless that's what the last two were. One was on the first night when we were still finding our way around the ship, the other was on Christmas Eve. We really missed having early evening "lounge music" like they have on Princess. There was a piano tucked away in a far corner of the Ocean Bar but we never heard it used.

Interesting. I don't recall seeing it mentioned on any of the Coral cruises we did last year but I wasn't looking out for it as we had the Plus package for all of those. I kept all the Patters so when I get some free time I'll have a look through them. However you seem to have already seen the latest info on them. There isn't much more to it. You buy the package that suits you. There is some method of keeping track of it - probably via the medallion now, in the past it was a small card. You order the wine from your waiter as you require it and unfinished bottles are stored for you until the next day. When the package runs out you either buy another one or just buy individual bottles or glasses. It is similar to the HAL packages from what I saw on our recent Westerdam cruise.

As much as I'd like to see some more interesting local itineraries there are some factors that may impede that concept: 1. There are surprisingly few safe harbours around the Australian coast which is why coastal cruises go to the same old ports all the time. 2. Small Pacific islands probably don't have the infrastructure to handle ship loads of passengers. 3. Cruise ships are getting bigger and bigger and smaller ports are saying no to them. 4. Our peak season is also the northern hemisphere winter so American, Canadian, British and European cruisers come down here to escape the cold. What places do they want to see most of all? NZ, Great Barrier Reef and Sydney. 5. Our peak season is not the best time to do some itineraries. It's cyclone season in the South Pacific. Unfortunately most ships bugger off to other regions when our peak season is over leaving very few ships to do the interesting itineraries at the best time for those. 6. South Pacific ports are often far apart which would result in a high number of seas days on itineraries to some of those ports. Personally I'd love it but many people want port-intensive itineraries. 7. Cost and time. Longer itineraries are more expensive than shorter ones obviously, and long itineraries don't suit a lot of people who only have limited holiday time. Sadly we're a minority group and there aren't enough of us to keep the ships here over our winter. Even Princess has cut back to one ship from the two that used to ply our waters for the first 3-4 years since I started cruising in 2014, and that ship is busy doing the big itineraries.

The cruises we had them on were in 2016 and 2017.

In the past these wine packages weren't available on cruises in this region. We did manage to get them twice, once on a Med cruise and once on a repositioning cruise. You could choose how big a package you wanted and the savings were greater the more bottles it contained. With the package you could choose any wine up to a $ limit, but if you wanted a more expensive wine you only paid the difference between the limit and the price. Princess never mentioned them online. I only found out about them through reading posts here on Cruise Critic. You just ask your waiter in the MDR but sometimes even they don't know about the packages. It's a bit strange. What cruise were you on when you saw them mentioned?

And both are better than numbers. Much more fun especially when they can't pronounce them. 😊

They'd probably ban me from the dodgems on RCI. I'm vicious! 🤣🤣🤣

HAL did something similar twice during our cruise. The first time was a group for passport control in Hobart which we didn't need as we were booked on an excursion so automatically had that excursion group. The second was disembarkation times - we went down to Guest Services and picked our colour group and number within that colour. Much better than having a group number assigned to you. We didn't have any tender ports on our cruise but did have shuttle groups but I can't recall if they used that system for those.

I think part of the problem is lack of training or experience. Too many new crew members who either have never worked on a cruise ship before or who haven't worked in their current position. We did meet some lovely crew onboard Westerdam who were extremely good at their jobs but, unfortunately, that just made the inexperienced ones more obvious. But if they are going to serve espresso- based coffees on an Aus/NZ cruise they really need to ensure they have an experienced barista!!!!! 🤬

Unless you suffer from insomnia you probably wouldn't even notice the brightness of those lights. But once you've learnt about various techniques to help insomnia you become very aware of things like that and you also learn by experience as to what works for you or not. Rolf can sleep through anything and bright lights don't bother him at all but me ...😟

And the exchange rate for the prepaid gratuities was very favourable. Around 0.70 instead of the 0.65 at the time.

Not all of them, just the regular Aussie three.

Yes, I think most of the luxury lines have all inclusive fares.

Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, HAL, Norwegian, Cunard, MSC, all the luxury lines. The only ones that are in AUD are Princess, P&O Australia, and Carnival. Some of the USD cruise lines have now bundled the daily gratuities into the fare - Celebrity and Royal Caribbean I think, but the rest haven't.

They were on our Coral Princess cruises. 🤣

It was extremely annoying! I had a minor hissy fit at the time. The excuse was it was taking too much time/effort to squeeze the oranges Then I realised I could order a serve of orange slices with my melon or papaya. I reckon it takes longer to segment an orange than to squeeze it! 🤣

I fixed it for you! 🤣🤣🤣

I did the same for our Grand cruise in March. We have a balcony cabin booked but I bid for a minisuite. I didn't bid for Club Class or a suite as we have friends joining the last part of the cruise whom we want to dine with.

A magnet about the size of a 20 cent coin solves the bathroom light issue. Place it so just a little light seeps around the edge and it's perfect. This cat magnet worked well for me.

That would have driven me crazy! We had something like that on Ruby Princess once, it was so bright it woke me when Rolf went to the bathroom in the middle of the night even though I use an eye mask to sleep. The steward blocked the sensor with towels after I complained.

I'm wondering if there have been cutbacks since the pandemic, or perhaps supply issues. After a while the menu choices seemed to be variations on a basic theme rather than well considered dishes in their own right. Some worked, some didn't. There were some very nice menu items though but it wasn't consistent. Even the plating wasn't consistent - one night five of our table of six chose the same appetiser - a very nice salad with blue cheese. There was at least three variations on the plating of that dish.

If you don't use a lighted Kindle to read then I suggest you get a book light that has two settings to use as a torch. The low setting is ideal, just enough light to see where you are going but not enough to disturb your sleep patterns. I used to use one of those before I got one of the lighted Kindles. Never use a phone flashlight! Incidentally the Kindle lights are a special sort of light layer, quite unique. You can adjust the brightness but I find a setting around 8 is perfect for reading and as a night light when I need one. My sleep has been much better since I bought one seven years ago.

I didn't notice any light strip under the cupboards. I didn't take a photo of the bathroom nightlight. It is a small bright white light in the middle of the ceiling, possible an ultra-bright LED light. It doesn't impact the main part of the stateroom but can be a problem for people with sleep issues who avoid turning on bathroom lights if they wake in the middle of the night. I use my Kindle on a low light setting as my night time light source instead. I've heard of people who use LED tealights for the the same purpose but the flickering of those irritates me. It's a bit complicated to explain but suffice to say if I get exposed to bright lights in the middle of the night it can take 2-3 hours before I get back to sleep and that's the last thing I want if I've got an early start for an excursion on a cruise.