nyold

9 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

The usual prices? $73-78, $23-$27, $9? US dollars?

This is a 3-night sailing, and prices per day are 90, 41, and 15 SGD. So in USD using today's rate it would be 67, 30, and 11. So around your estimates, plus minus a little bit.

9 minutes ago, ARandomTraveler said:

Does your March sailing have beverage packages available in your cruise planner yet? My July sailing on Spectrum only shows a "soda plus Voom" package. 

Yes it shows deluxe, refreshment, and soda. 

Hello,

I am sailing the Spectrum of the Seas in March, and am buying a beverage package. My questions are:

1. For things like water and soda, I assume every lounge will have it? So if I'm doing things far away from the buffet (say near the shops, or near the theater etc) then I can get these pretty easily?

2. But for things like iced tea and lemonade, are they only available in the Windjammer? I know the restaurants will have them too but I supposed I can't get them easily without "sitting down" in the said restaurants.

3. For the tea and coffee shop on deck 4, what kind of specialty coffees are they serving? Is it like lattes, frappucinos type, similar to what you'd find on a Starbucks?

TIA!

On 6/22/2022 at 6:55 PM, a1211 said:

Just wondering.....what's the afternoon tea service like?

The maitre'd will sit you down. You get to specify if you would like your own table or share with someone else. There will be 3-tiered snack trays already waiting on your table, and there are waiters going around with pots of tea. They will refill your empty cups.

In general the atmosphere is "supposed" to be upscale and calm, but I've had occasional times when it was a bit louder than necessary, or people come in lido-deck outfits. I'm not judging them but it does subtract from the atmosphere a bit.

The snacks are okay. There are hits and misses but generally less than what you'd get in an MDR appetizer or dessert (in terms of quality, I know they are different kinds of food). 

The tea is standard English black tea.

Does anyone know what scent they're using in the greenhouse spa? What I mean is that, whenever I pass by the spa on my way to the gym I caught a whiff of the scent that they're using and it's wonderful. I think there's some eucalyptus, but I don't smell lavender, which is unusual for a spa, but either way it's very relaxing. If you know the name of the lotion or air freshener that can produce that same smell please let me know.

The shows are not crowded. There were a lot of people but everyone kinda knew to space themselves out and not pack every single seats.

Between buffet and room service, you should have plenty of food available. Of course they're not going to be plated as nicely as MDR food. Maybe if you ask, they can make an exception to have MDR food delivered to your room. 

One data point: we were eating in the Pinnacle Grill and got too full for dessert so we just asked it to-go. They put them in plates with cloches and gave us the rolled napkins with utensils. We just took that to our room as if they were room service. We ate it later that night, and it was fine. Of course you can't do this with warm desserts, but for like cake and cheese plates it's perfectly viable. 

27 minutes ago, Happy40s said:

If you have VeriFLY do you have to wait in the line or is there signs or something that indicates VeriFLY? Never used it before. Thanks for any help with this. 

There are 2 lines, veriFly and non-veriFly. Thing is, people don't know what it is so they just get on the shorter line assuming it's for them, so the staff had to redirect some of them to the non-veriFly line. 

1 hour ago, SweetsugarNL said:

Thank you all!

 

Just booked the cruise.

Congrats and enjoy the cruise! Also enjoy the anticipation between now and embarkation day !

If you show up at the port right at noon, prepare for a long line. The line might move fast, but it is still long. If you show up at 1, the line is most likely shorter. If you have verifly, you can just waltz right in.

That being said, most hotels' checkout time is noon. So if you are staying at a hotel the night before, there is no reason to artificially delay your arrival at port. Just check out, leisurely get to the port and hope you dont have to wait too long.

4 minutes ago, seacruise9 said:

Hi, 

 

I am booked on the Rotterdam's 10-day Southern Caribbean cruise that departs on Nov. 20, 2022. For dining, my reservation states "Confirmed Main." Is "main" the second (8:00 pm) seating?

 

Thanks,

 

Chuck 

No, it just means that it is either 5:30 or 8 pm. If you want to confirm to double check, you can email hal_ship_services at hollandamerica dot com. I am spelling it out because sometimes the forum rejects posts that have email addresses in them.

Just email them saying you want this time slot and confirm the number of guests in your party, whether you want a table by yourselves or mixed with other  guests etc. If you have several staterooms you can also confirm that all of them are linked so that you sit together etc

3 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Even worse, in my view, is that part of the Lido is self service.  Last evening I watched as the guy in front of me picked up a filled roll, inspected it, and put it back on the display. 🙄

That is absolutely disgusting, covid or not. What makes him think it's okay to do that? Even before covid, I had been hoping for more "served" stations in lido because of behaviors like these.

FWIW my MIL caught covid PROBABLY on the ship. She began showing symptoms the day after we disembarked, and testing positive 2 days after. So lucky that it wasn't earlier. She is having very mild symptoms. 

5:30 pm and 8 pm. So if you do the fixed hours, you can do 5:30 OR 8, but you cannot switch willy nilly. 

The flexible one is always flexible of course. The issue is that if say you usually do 5:30, but on ONE day only you want to do a flexible dining, they can do it but they said you're making it difficult. They'll still do it with a smile of course, but out of consideration we try not to do this one unless we have to. 

1. Best to keep count yourself. I didn't know you could ask the servers, but I did ask guest services and they could pull up your account. However, there's always a line in the guest services, that's why I started counting myself.

2. Midship is better than fore / aft. Lower floor / deck is better than higher deck, but of course higher decks usually give you better rooms, so there's that. For the particular ship you're interested in, try to find out what deck the embarkation gangway would be on (or you could ask here). That tends to be very crowded first and last day, and super noisy in the morning of the last day.

4. Wifi is available in the room. Move closer to the door if it's an issue because I think the router is somewhere in the hallway. My wifi strength diminishes as I move closer to the window. For room service, drinks are NOT counted towards your package and would be charged extra. But in the covid case they might be willing to make an exception. 

I can also attest that the tap water is perfectly safe to drink. The water that the servers refill in your glasses in MDR / Lido is probably the tap water as well and they taste about the same.

That being said, the canned water in HAL has a slight flavor to it (and if you read the ingredients, it has electrolytes added). So I like it a bit better. I take them on port days as well because you never know when you'd be thirsty without easy access to a drinking fountain. But when I'm in the room, I drink the tap water.

5 hours ago, zgscl said:

Interesting data point. This is why I always have a folder with all my stuff handy just in case. I would guess the verifly line moved quite quickly though as they just need to glance at your screen. 

I agree with this. In this day and age it's easy to feel like you have everything you need on the phone because all confirmations etc are always emailed to you. But I've lost count on how many times I'm frantically searching for that info on the email whenever the person behind the counter asks for something I wasn't prepared for, so now I always print everything (even in half size if you want to save the trees) and bring them in a folder, ready to show.

That being said, for Zaandam boarding in Montreal, the no verifly line was absolutely a mess. The verifly line was short but it still moves slower than expected because people still had to fumble with their apps, and their phones locking on them, etc. 

17 hours ago, albingirl said:

I'm always surprised at the comments on food quality on these threads.  I have found food to be delicious on all Holland America ships, and I am no cheerleader either.  I wonder what people are eating at home to say the food is not good?  I think there is room for improvement, particularly in the area of entertainment, but I found the food to be consistently fine.

What? You don't have a personal chef that makes Michelin quality dinner each night at home? 🤣

I jest. I do think HAL's food is a step up above RCL/NCL (the other lines I have tried), although in terms of entertainment I think it's NCL > RCL > HAL. So I agree with you there. Maybe they are comparing it against other lines like Celebrity because HAL and Celebrity's prices are comparable?

8 hours ago, love_the_sea said:

Thanks so much for this review with all the information and pictures. I am doing the final cruise of the season, Montreal to Fort Lauderdale. Seems like a lot has changed since I last cruised on HAL in the fall of 2019. Sounds like you have to have the Navigator app for excursions? No excursion tickets? 

And of course the whole boarding process with the Covid tests etc. is different. You mentioned in one of the early posts that "room keys were in the room" (see quote above). This seemed strange to me as always before the room key is a card that you get at check in and that you have to show to security to get on the ship. In fact every cruise I have been on (HAL and other lines) was that way. Can you explain? Thanks. 

Ah right, I should say "there were envelopes right outside the rooms." Those envelopes have the keys that you need to get into the rooms, as the other commenter pointed it out. After that point, correct that these cards are the ones you have to show to security to get on / off the ship, to buy drinks, etc.

We did use navigator app installed on each person's phone, and that was nice because then everyone can look up the schedule without having to carry around the where and when. It was quite a pain actually to try to log on to the app for each person because everybody forgot their usernames and passwords and we did have to go to Guest Services once to reset an account because someone mistyped his email address 😅 But yes, we never got the excursion tickets in the room. The only information available on the meeting time and place was on the app itself, or I guess you could ask the shorex desk. However, the app is not needed to get on the bus. The guide can scan either your app barcode or your key card.

Thank you for letting us follow along. I am enjoying it!

6 hours ago, basicprincess24 said:

How strict is the 15-drink limit for the beverage package? I'm more familiar with the beverage packages on Carnival and Princess which also have the 15-drink limit, but on those lines it only applies to alcoholic beverages, and non-alcoholic beverages are unlimited. I don't think I could hit 15 alcoholic drinks in a day so that limit wouldn't bother me, but between specialty coffees, bottled water, sparkling water, and soda in addition to wine and cocktails, I think I might get close! In practice, are guests cut off due to non-alcoholic beverage orders?

It's not like they will suddenly say "we can't serve you anymore" unless you are severely intoxicated. If you go above the limit, the billing system will automatically charge you for the 16th drink onwards. The bar staff will only put your order and scan your card. So in that way, you need to keep track of it yourself. There is a way to check your current usage by going to guest services, but AFAIK there is no way to view it on the app.

My trick is on day 1 (embarkation day) to start loading up on canned water (not bottled water, it reduces plastic!) as the day nears the end. Also on port days when you tend to consume less. That way on sea days you can use your 15 drinks for actual fun drinks, and you drink the canned water that you got previously.

7 hours ago, Arkansas cruisers said:

Thanks so much for your well written and informative travelogue.

Is there a page of the When  and Where that shows the times for the various  food service venues ? Did I miss it?

 Thanks!

Hi @Arkansas cruisers,

I'm so sorry, yes there is that info on the back of each day's When and Where but I didn't take it because I thought it was the same every day.

Basically the gist is:

Lido dinner is open from 5:30 to 9, whereas Main Dining Room is open 5:30, so it's comparable.

Dive In closes at 5:30 pm, but opens maybe 11 ish?

Lido lunch is around 11-2, and MDR lunch is only open on sea days and it was 12-1. If you enter at 12:55, you can stay there until a bit later I guess, so 12-1 refers to the time you ENTER the restaurant.

For breakfast, it's something like 6 am for Lido, and  7:30 for MDR. Room service is 24 hours, but for breakfast you would use a doorknob thing that you hang before midnight, and you indicate the preferred time of delivery between 6-8.

9 minutes ago, Newly Retired Teachers said:

Was Pickleball offered on Zaandam?  We will be sailing on her for the Voyage of the Vikings and would like to know if we should bring our paddles.

Bob & Steve

In this Where and When:

You can see that there is a pickleball tournament. I see the net is perpetually there on deck 9 even when walking around, but I don't see it being used that much. So YMMV (unless you are playing against each other in which case you'd be fine). 

I didn't see the note saying "do not put in the hallway" when I ordered room service, and as such, I saw a lot of trays in the hallway. Mind you, some people have the foresight to put the cloches back on so that you don't see half-eaten food in there, but you can't really cover the cups and glasses. 

44 minutes ago, ShipsAreTheBest said:

Thanks for taking us along.  Interesting to compare this sailing from the one before ( which I was on).

 

As far as going to Montreal, Zaandam is the maximum size (for HAL, which pretty much eliminates any other major cruise line from going). Vista class and larger have too great an air draft (height above water) to fit under the bridges between Quebec and Montreal .

Thank you! How would you compare it against your sailing? I am curious especially how Boston-Montreal would have been, because we were debating between the two directions. 

8 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

 

Sorry you couldn’t find the icon to submit comments on the Navigator app because the crew receives the recognition right away.  Check your junk mailbox for the survey.  Sometimes I find it there.  If you get one, it usually arrives within a few days.  Sometimes they aren’t sent at all.

To circle back, I did get the survey email, and it's pretty lengthy and fine-grained (asking about different categories and aspects of the cruise). At the end there is a specific text box on which staff members you would like to recognize, so there's that. I hope it goes to the right eyes and the right people are recognized for their efforts.

4 hours ago, AncientWanderer said:

Just a comment about lack of food availability when shore excursions come back late or the day is off kilter in some way...

I don't think that's a HAL thing.  It's more of a thing that varies by ship, depending on the quality of the hotel director.  Some just seem to keep to an unvarying routine, and some are a cut above and responsive to daily occurrences; they stay on top of their various departments.

That's what we've observed, anyhow.

Good point about it being a director thing. I have definitely experienced it on other ships and other lines as well, but usually I chalked it up to them not being a premium line like HAL.