MISTER 67

Agree but the Volendam and Zaandam are a bit too small, we love the Signature Class ships, the Eurodam and the Nieuw Amsterdam are favorites of ours, just the perfect size. The Koningsdam and her sisters are OK but like you stated they are the new style ships that have taken away the traditional promenade deck. I'm waiting for one of the lines to bite the bullet one of these days and build a ship with the traditional promenade deck.

I guess we have been a little luckier than you, BTW last we we sailed on the Sky Princess also out of PE, that was our 72nd cruise and we boarded the ship at 10:55, a record for us for boarding that early.

We've taken 6 Celebrity cruises since the post pandemic start up and we have always been admitted to the Celebrity terminal building between 10:30 and 10:45 with boarding time between 11:20 and 11:30

We are 4 Star Mariners with HAL and we no longer sail with them for the same reasons you mentioned and a few more including the decreasing food budget with HAL where they are actually rationing butter pats and cream cheese, portions at dinner are really tiny, on our last HAL cruise in February I had some grilled sole and it was gone in 3 bites.

While on board we booked the Enchanted for May and looking at the deck plans we were very happy to see that there is a Crooners on the starboard side of deck 6.

Nicest one would be the Crown Grill Bar on deck 7. Bellini’s off the Atrium on deck 5 isn’t bad but could be noisy.

I agree with you as they replaced Crooners with the seafood restaurant on the port side of deck 7, it actually interfered with passenger flow as I was stopped and told to go around the Atrium on the starboard side. I had no problem with Alfredo’s also on deck 7 as it did not block passenger the passenger flow. We had no other problems with the layout of the ship, we did think they should relocate the pastry area in the buffet more towards the main area which is a bit more aft. BTW I’m a voracious reader and read 3 books and started a 4th on the cruise and I love the quiet area in the rear on both sides of deck 7, the starboard side is for smokers, there you will find the old style steamer deck chairs with nice comfortable padding, great place for reading and taking in the views and sounds of the ocean.

Welcome to cruising in the 21st century, have you sailed on Royal Caribbean or Celebrity?

We also cruise all 3 lines that you mentioned and since the start up after the pandemic IMHO HAL has had more issues than Princess and Celebrity, we will not spend our money with HAL any longer with 2 less than stellar cruises on the Rotterdam and Nieuw Amsterdam which is still our all time favorite cruise, in that same time we have had 5 cruises with Celebrity and 3 with Princess, all were very good cruises but being honest there were some cutbacks on Celebrity and Princess but ones that we can live with. We just returned this AM from a very nice cruise on the Sky Princess and booked the Enchanted Princess in May and already booked on the Celebrity Equinox this coming February, maybe one of these days things will improve on HAL and we can sail with them again

Have to agree, we also miss Crooners.

Just off Sky Princess, 7 day Eastern Caribbean to Princess Cays, San Juan and St. Thomas. Very nice cruise with almost perfect weather, we had a couple of sprinkles and yesterday morning the seas were a bit rougher, didn’t bother us but some people had some issues. We dis-embarked this AM at 6:30, we live in Punta Gorda Fl and were home by 9:12. That’s the earliest walk off we’ve ever experienced and this was our 72nd cruise. I usually grade our cruises in various categories on a scale of 1 to 10 so here goes. Ship Condition 9.5 Ship Cleanliness 9.9 Cabin service 9.5 MDR food 8.5 MDR Service 9.5 Buffet food 8.0 Buffet service 9.0 Guest services 9.5 Bar and International Cafe service 9.5 Entertainment in main showroom 8.0 Activities 9.5 Cruise director and staff 9.5 Shipboard activities 9.9 My scores might seem a bit high but we are low maintenance people and hardly ever complain. I will try to answer any questions.

Everything I read here with some of it appalling re-affirms our decision not to sail with HAL any longer, we will stay with Celebrity and Princess. We are 4 Star Mariners and we are so disappointed that HAL is not the line it once was, they have lost us as loyal passengers. We love HAL ships with the Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam as our all time favorite ships but that is not enough to become loyal passengers again. Maybe some day things will get back close to who they were at on time.

Since 2019 we have sailed on the Equinox 5 times, the Infinity and Reflection one time each, all of the cruises were excellent with no problems at all with the condition of the ships, I thought for their age they were in great shape with 1 exception, the veranda cabins we occupied needed some work, the interiors were in fine shape but the verandas needed some work as they had some peeling of the paint, the handrails needing some varnish and the decks were sort of worn, not that big of a deal especially since we usually book inside cabins. I wouldn’t hesitate booking again with any of those ships, in fact we are sailing again on the Equinox in February on a 9 day cruise to the ABC islands.

We have seen passengers denied seating in the MDR showing up in shorts and tee shirts.

We’ve worn running shoes many times on smart casual nights, all depends on how our legs and feet are feeling that night.

We sailed twice on her back at start up in Nov and December of 2021 and were extremely pleased with the condition of the Caribbean Princess, in fact the November cruise was her first sailing IIRC in over 600 days, surprised that things have deteriorated a bit in 2 years, We have sailed on her 10 times and the only time she looked worn out was back on a cruise in 2017, she was definitely in need of new carpeting and furniture.

I was sort of joking as we have all 3 plus A Christmas Story in our DVD library, we watch them all right before Christmas. We will be on the Sky Princess this coming week and actually I hope they have Oppenheimer as we haven’t seen it yet.

What? No White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life or Holiday Inn for us old farts.

We started cruising with the Sitmar Line in 1980 and all through the 1980s on that line and the old Costa line the dress code was followed by passengers with Sitmar having semi-formal nights which required coat and tie, on Formal nights you needed to a Tuxedo or a suit. We started cruising with Holland America in the early 90s and the dress code on that line was adhered to by passengers, we started noticing a change in the mid 90s with a turn to more casual wear and now we are at the point where when you see someone in a suit or tux they are really an exception.

Sometimes easier said than done.

We have seen passengers more than a few times wearing shorts turned away at the MDR entrance but then again I’ve seen others in shorts who either slipped by or were ignored.

Probably Renaissance, we sailed with them on the R-1 in 1999 doing a Greek Island cruise from Istanbul to Athens with great 3 day hotel packages in both towns, the rates were great and included round trip air from NYC. 9-11 hurt them badly.

Exactly, we’ve had some really good singers but also had a few cruises were they were just horrible.

IMHO you can never have enough or too much OBC.

The thing to remember is at one time we received some pretty nice canvas bags, if they still have the cheap plastic bags, they can keep them.