lupaglupa

I was on HAL in Alaska and asked a crew member about people missing the ship. I was shocked when she told me they had left someone behind at least once every trip that season. What stood out to me in this story is that the group included several people with medical issues. My husband and I would never be so careless as to risk being separated from necessary medications etc. We explore independently when we know we will be in walking distance of the ship. Otherwise we pay the money extra for a HAL sponsored excursion. It's just not worth the risk. Can anyone remember a news story like this about travelers missing a plane or a train or a bus? No one expects other forms of travel to wait for them!

The menu pictures in the first post were taken at Morimoto when we ate there. It may have changed.

We did it the first night, just happened to be on the right ship. It was very good, not unlike Tamarind but a bit more upscale. I would say that you compare the menu and prices between Morimoto and Tamarind to decide. For me as it wasn't a great improvement over Tamarind based on what I normally order but if you wanted one of the specialty dishes it would be worth it.

I haven't seen a printed newspaper summary the last three cruises on HAL. We did enjoy having access to the New York Times through the navigator app. You can read it all you like even if you don't have a wifi package. And - best of all, it will recognize your New York Times account if you have one and keep your Wordle results. I was even able to share my Wordle with my brother every day. Since I didn't have the wifi package it sent the shared result to him at the next port when I hopped on mobile data.

If we forget to tell the waiter we sometimes swing by to tell one of the maître d's at the door. Once we told the person staffing the desk which makes reservations for the specialty restaurants. They all have access to the same system.

It's usually only bad the first day. Then he gets a crowd of friends and spends his time with them, not online.

We've had this happen when travelling with our son - we get two accounts for the first two passengers in the cabin with HIA and don't want to pay for him to get a third account. If one tries to log in when another account is active then the system will ask if you wish to log off the connected device in order to log in. When the other user is a teenager you see that message every time you want to use your device since he is always on.

I think it's only okay if your ship is in (or soon to be in) Canadian waters. The crew do use their time on shore to shop and tour and having local money is nice then. But if you are on a ship that's not going to be stopping in Canada anytime soon I'd do as others suggest and swap your cash into a currency the crew can use.

We usually get ours about a week out.

That German menu looks awesome. I know it must be hard for them to plan special meals like this but they are so fun I wish they would do them more often.

That would be awesome!

I open up the HAL site in a different browser and, while it is time consuming, look at everything bookable for the particular cruise. I mostly do this when I'm already booked and I want to see how full the cruise will be before I get on.

I make the final payment online and that works fine for my PCC. The only time I give her my card number is when I'm making the initial deposit.

This low number per person, compared to what on land visitors spend, is part of what is pushing port cities to limit or ban cruise ships. Having several thousand people descend all at once to crowd streets and use local services is not very appealing when they spend only a fraction of what other tourists do. My cruise port spending, of course, varies but sometimes it's nothing. I may just walk around and see the sites. We are not big shoppers and rarely buy souvenirs. We do get a meal when we are on shore for a longer time. But we don't usually contribute much to the local economy.

Thank you for answering! I'm guessing my husband will not want to risk the shuttle. He has a very strong fear of getting left behind.

I've been to the museum twice and it's very interesting. It is not a far walk to get to the entrance. But there is a fair amount of walking to get to the museum itself. I would take a good look at the satellite view on Google maps and see the terrain before you go.

We have a stop in Brest this fall and have booked an excursion that will return us to the ship with about 90 minutes of free time. From looking at maps online it seems that cruise ships dock at a fairly industrial port. Does anyone know if it is possible and/or safe to walk into Brest from there? And if not, is there a shuttle that runs frequently?

I saw online that all the Dam ships are on a faster service now and HAL is saying customers are happy with it. I'm glad to see that confirmed!

I'm a huge fan of checking luggage and taking on only the minimum. I like being able to move around the terminal easily. And I love not fighting for space in the overhead bins. But I can see using gate check if I had an extra bag of souvenirs!

I did not add my KLM number at Flight Ease. I will look and see about that. The person I spoke to at Flight Ease told me I would have to contact KLM directly to get any point with Flying Blue for the flight. I will probably wait and see if I can do that at the airport.

I want to give an update to anyone who wondered or who might stumble across this looking for information. After several attempts to log in at KLM I called Flight Ease again. The very helpful person I got was able to check my reservation at the KLM website - they did it without logging in first. When I check the reservation anonymously, rather than under my Flying Blue account, I can see it. And it is a Premium Comfort reservation with better seats and checked baggage included. So that part of our reservation did work. As to the return flight.......

I had to contact my PCC today and exchanged several emails with her as she helped me out. She's usually a straight-forward, no-nonsense person so I was surprised that her first reply to me started with "Thank you for your message!" and ended with "I look forward to hearing from you!" I'm pretty sure in all the years I've been working with her she has never used an exclamation point before. Then I saw message number two began and ended the same way, as did message number three. Is this a new corporate requirement?

We had the same notice before our cruise last fall and it did update to include two dressy nights. I can't remember how far in advance it was.

That's good to know!

We never remind them and it's always covered. On our last cruise we were presented with a bill at the end so we could add any additional tip. The service was terrific so we were happy to get that.