Hlitner

I think it is worth mentioning that the K-ETA currently costs about $7.80 per person. We finally gave up on getting HAL to respond to our question of whether we need the K-ETA, so simply filled out the form (best to do it on a phone) and had approval within a couple of hours. Hank

Nothing simple. There are three different piers (only Pier 1 is at the terminal) and the walking distance is different at each pier. The "federal taxis" inside the port will be the closest and they charge a fixed fare per person (the fare varies depending on where you go). There is no negotiation with those federal taxis (the one inside the port). The regular taxis (outside the port) charge fares based on zones, but many of the taxi drivers will inflate the fares (especially for cruisers). You should always ascertain the fare before you get in a regular taxi (make sure to make it clear if you are paying in Pesos or Dollars). If you pay in dollars you will generally get screwed on the exchange rate. Speaking of prices, if the federal taxis are still charging $5 per person to take folks into Centro, this is actually pretty reasonable. Taxi and Uber fares have increased this year and the exchange rate (peso to US dollar) has really dropped (it is now less than 18:1) so that $5 fixed fare is now good when compared to what 2 persons would pay in a regular taxi. A regular taxi from outside the terminal will likely ask a cruiser for $200 (Pesos) and you can try to bargain them down to $150 (Pesos). In fairness to our local taxis, the cost of gas in Mexico is high (about 23 Pesos per liter). Hank

She is still docked in the Marina (Port) of Puerto Vallarta and does not leave until around 8pm (after dark). For us, it is a busy day so I truly do not have the time to walk the 4 miles (one way) out to the port to get a picture. If Ine is online and sees this post, perhaps she would drive over to the port and get some shots. Hank

Hmmm, that is not very clear (perhaps something lost in the translation). My guess is that the tour meets at the LOWER cable car station, which is located just outside the walls of the city. The tour may well include the cable car ride (the view from the top is quite nice). That being said, there is no need to pay for a tour/excursion to take the cable car (anyone can just walk up to the ticket office and buy a ticket) or use a tour to explore inside the walls of Dubrovnik (a very walkable city). Unless the tour includes something else, outside the city, you might want to reconsider and save your money. You can even buy the cable car tickets online (not open until April) for about $30 (round trip). Within the walls of Dubrovnik, just doing your own walking tour is quite easy. There is one main street which becomes the focus of walking. One can go off to any of the side streets and the city has plenty of shops, restaurants, and cafes (indoor and outdoor). English is widely spoken (by those in the tourist industry) and menus are in multiple languages. For those that are mobile, a highlight is climbing up to the top of the walls and walking around the city (along the top of the walls). There are several entrances (to get up the wall), signage is good, and there is a price. The current cost is 35 Euros (around $38) (which also includes entrance to neaby Ft St Lawrence. If you are going on your own, and do not want to wait a few minutes to buy a ticket, you can buy it online (Buy tickets online | Dubrovnik city Walls (citywallsdubrovnik.hr)). So, assuming you want to go up the cable car and also walk the walls, you are looking at spending nearly $70 on tickets (plus whatever transportation you use to get to town). You might want to compare that cost to the excursion price (assuming it includes tickets for the cable car and walls). Hank

Am in my mid 70s and now wonder if HAL is too sedate for me. We have always enjoyed decent speakers, but really have no time for cruise directors that read scripts (in place of decent lecturers). And we have a problem being "wowed" by BBC documentaries, dark nights, lack of Production Shows, History of HAL, etc. Being on a ship for weeks (or months) with many sea days cries out for decent entertainment. Hank

The question is whether the "Legendary Voyages" will be accompanied with decent food, service, and entertainment. Stay tuned and we will try to post from our upcoming 42 days on the Westy. Hank

We must respectfully disagree, if one cruises in MSC's fantastic Yacht Club. That is a ship within a ship experience with a dedicated section of the ship including restaurant, expansive lounge, pool deck, buffet, butlers, etc. The Yacht Club offers folks many of the benefits of a luxury cruise while also giving access to the rest of the ship. As to Ocean Cay, those in the Yacht Club have a dedicated part of the island with its own restaurant, good drink service, shuttle service etc. Hank

Have never understood why folks buy a hotel package from Princess. It generally costs about twice the price of simply booking it yourself and paying for your transfers. The 17th Street Embassy Suites is popular with many cruisers (from all lines) and tends to book up very far in advance. Unfortunately, the price of the ES has also increased into the stratosphere along with many other south Florida hotels. Hank

The Caribbean Princess is one ship we avoid! Why? Take a pretty good ship design (Grand Class) and modify it by adding another passenger deck without expanding the public rooms and MDRs. This makes for an overcrowded vessel which spurns all kinds of related problems. Hank

I am somewhat confused. You have a tour that starts at the upper cable car station? That does not make a lot of sense. You can walk from the port to the lower cable car station although it would take a fast walker about 45 min! I think a taxi, shuttle bus, or public bus to the city makes more sense. A taxi can take you direct to the lower cable car station but using a bus would mean a nice walk from the drop place (near the main entrance to the city) to the cable car (you can walk through part of the city and head out the exit closest to the cable car station. You might want to look at an online map to get some idea about the direction and distance. Since it looks like you will be on a Celebrity cruise, the ship will dock outside of town at the cruise port. Hank

Woke up this morning to see an old friend come into port. From our balcony in Puerto Vallarta, we saw the arrival of the Amera, which is the current name of HAL's long gone Prinsendam. It is good see that the Elegant Explorer lives on, even if it is with another cruise line. She arrived here after a 23 day crossing from Sydney. Hank

We were on Seabourn, so simply went to the Guest Relations folks and they took care of it. Since we had a ton of non-refundable OBC that car actually cost us nothing. Hank

Since you are arriving late at night, we would strongly recommend the airport Sofitel. It is a relatively easy walk from the terminal, even if you are rolling luggage. When you come off a long flight and just want to get into a room and go to sleep, the Sofitel is perfect. When you are ready to go to the port you can have the hotel get you a taxi, use Uber, etc. If you do stay downtown, you would probably be wise to use a taxi or Uber to get to the port since you will have luggage. If you use the Metro (Green Line) you would still need to find a taxi or use the local bus to get from the train station to the ship...unless you are OK with taking a long walk (over 20 minutes) around the harbor to get to the cruise ports. Hank

I was recently talking about this subject elsewhere on the blog. Having driven to both MSM and Paris (a few times) I decided to check on Via Michelin for their estimated driving times. From Le Havre to MSM comes in at 3:08 each way (this is because much of the route is on slow 2 lane roads). The drive from Le Havre to the 1st Arrondisement in Paris is only a little over 2 hours (although traffic can turn this into a 2 1/2 hour drive. We have been to MSM (twice) and once stayed within site of the town. I would be hard pressed to recommend folks spent over 6 hours in a bus just to see MSM. Hank

Hmm. It is actually about the same distance (a little over 200km) but generally has taken me longer to drive to MSM than into Paris. And if you are going to base things on World Heritage Sites, the Banks of the Seine are in that category. Just for fun I looked at Via Michelin and they have the drive from Le Havre to MSM at 3:08. Their time to drive to the 1st Arrondisement in Paris is 2:13. I mention this because we think many folks are surprised at just how far it is to MSM (from Le Havre). That is why we never recommend going to MSM from Le Havre. Not sure it is worth 6 hours on a bus. Hank

Have not even tried to get a boarding pass on the app since we do not embark until 3/27. But the info on the Pinnacle (and other dining venues) functions quite well.

We are always suspicious of a steakhouse that makes "salt" their signature item.

That is exactly our own position. We have an upcoming 42 days on the Westy (booked long before COVID and rolled over due to cancelations) and have not booked any other future HAL cruises. We do have plenty of future cruises with Princess, Seabourn, Explora Journeys and MSC (Yacht Club). At this time we are giving a lot of consideration to booking Viking Ocean and Oceania...but even though we are 5* Mariners we will not book any more HAL until we see how things are on the Westy. For us, "checking out another line" is not a biggie since we have long been cruisers on many lines. Variety (with cruise lines and ships) keeps everything fresh and interesting. Our "loyalty" is only as good as the last cruise. Hank

Do you have the Navigator app? Scroll down a teeny bit until you see the row labeled "Dining" and than slide across to the Pinnacle Grill. Click on that Pinnacle Grill and scroll down until "Menus" where they have both the Lunch and Dinner menus. Hank

Our long time favorite was HAL's Prinsendam (now long gone). Hard to explain why except it was an 800 passenger ship built as a luxury vessel for Royal Viking Lines and later modified by HAL. We spent exactly 200 days on that vessel and enjoyed every day. Hank

Ok, I will bite and try to help. For full disclosure, we have been to Kusadasi 5 times, gone to Ephesus on our own, with a private tour, and with a Princess excursion. We have also used a rental car in the region (during an overnight). We do recommend that a first-time visitor take a tour. We DO NOT recommend a cruise e excursion because they generally have at least 50 souls, will often waste your time locking you away in a jewelry or Pottery Factory (either owned by the tour company or who pay kick backs to that company). What we do suggest is booking a private tour and you might want to join with some others on your CC Roll Call board. There are several decent local tour companies but I will not suggest one since it has been a few years since we last took a guided tour in Kusadasi. You can do some online homework, look at various reviews, and see what folks are saying on your Roll Call, In our case we once booked a private tour for just the two of us, had an A/C van, driver, professional guide, and the cost was less than a cruise line excursion! As to time, this is really a personal preference. One can easily spend 2 hours (or more) just walking through the ruins at Ephesus and one should make sure that the tour includes a visit to the Terrace Houses (this is within the Ephesus grounds but has a separate fee and is often bypassed by cruise line excursions. The Terrace Houses are amazing! The normal way to explore Epheusus is that you will be dropped at the upper entrance, walk a long way through the ruins (much on a downward slope) and exit at the bottom entrance/exit where you are met by your transportation. When we booked our own tour guide we made it clear there would be no stops at carpet, jewelry or pottery factories. Allow yourself some shopping time downtown (within easy walking distance of the port) and make sure to visit one of the "Genuine Fake Watch" places :). The Virgin Mary House is likely somewhat of a "con" but it is certainly popular. The truth about this place is that nobody has a clue as to whether Mary was ever at this place. She was likely in the area, but accepting that this structure (they only found foundation ruins and built a structure over top) was her home is a real stretch. But calling it the Virgin Mary House does fit an agenda of the Catholic Church who wants to keep a presence in the area. What I said is probably very close to the truth although you will hear differing opinions. If you have a private tour it would be up to the folks on the tour if they want to have lunch. You could take a shorter tour, have the drop you in town, and buy lunch locally (there are many places) or go back to the ship for lunch. Hank

Very true. TER trains are more like commuter trains than the quality trains folks often expect in Europe. That being said, one can drag luggage on a TER train and leave it the end of the car (we actually have a retractable luggage cable lock for this purpose). It that an ideal situation when one has a lot of luggage. Nope. On the other hand, there are times when we struggle with our luggage if it saves us hundreds of dollars. Hank

I know this is not the X forum but I will respond. Booking a Sky Suite (which gets folks the Retreat perks) can cost $700+ per passenger day! I have posted about this on the Celebrity blog. Bottom line is that we can cruise on Seabourn, Explora Journeys, and some other luxury lines for far less than a mere Sky Suite on Celebrity. In fact, we are now looking at a future Seabourn cruise (over 30 days long) that would cost us about $400 per person/day. Celebrity, in its best day, is no Seabourn! Hank

I agree regarding Celebrity. We stopped cruising that line, about 5 years ago, because of their constant cut-backs (I called it "death by a thousand cut-backs) and they certainly rival or beat HAL when it comes to nickel and diming. That is one reason I mentioned the lines we have recently cruised. Celebrity, RCI and HAL are not in any of our future plans (once we take our upcoming Westy cruise which was booked years ago). Whether we book anymore HAL cruises will depend on how it goes with our upcoming 42 day cruise. Reading negative and positive posts here on CC is helpful, but the ultimate proof only comes from being on a cruise. Hank

Very sad commentary which we fear is true! Fortunately, there are plenty of other cruise lines and not all are following HAL's lead with massive cut-backs, increased nickel and diming, etc.