League3056

We were on this exact cruise with you, staying in an Oceanview, also on deck 2. We had our two kids (ages 11 and 14) with us. We're only 2* mariners. Even though we are younger than the typical HAL demographic (I'm 42, hubby is 47), we have decided that we like a lot of things about HAL compared to some other cruise lines, namely the food quality and the non-party atmosphere with deafening music pumping by the pool, etc. I hope you don't mind if I add some of our observations about this cruise onto your thread, rather than starting a whole new thread.

While it was still a very enjoyable cruise, this was our least favorite HAL cruise so far. The food quality/taste just seemed a little less than what we're used to. The Pinnacle Grill was a big disappointment. None of our 4 steaks were cooked to the requested temperatures, and I would have sent them back were we not in a hurry to try to catch a show. The Lido was a bit of a mess, crowd-wise, even on such a small ship. The lines were so long at breakfast that we usually skipped it and just ordered room service. In general, I don't like HAL's way of doing buffets. I can appreciate that having the crew serve you *might* decrease the odds of norovirus spreading, but on the other hand, since there's still plenty of self-serve things on the buffet, I'm not sure it helps all that much. But having the crew serve everything slows things down SO much. I'd love if they had a self-serve section where you could just grab the basics like scrambled eggs, bacon, etc., for yourself. Sometimes access to self-serve items like bread or fruit was blocked by the lines for people waiting for custom-cooked things like crepes or omelettes.

Service was good overall, though we never knew our stateroom attendants' names until the last night when they stopped by to say goodbye (and get tipped) and I asked for their names in response to their request that I fill out the survey. When we first met them, they didn't give their names or ask us if we had any preferences, like our HAL attendants usually have. We barely saw them, but they did do a good job of servicing the room. We did have an issue with our bathroom smelling like stale urine, which we mentioned on the first day. They cleaned the floor, twice! .. but a bit of an odor still persisted. The coffee shop baristas were nice, but never followed my requests. I'd ask for a cappuccino with half the normal amount of milk, and I'd get a full cup, or I'd ask for decaf espresso at night and had to watch carefully because we were almost served regular espresso, and that would have made for a rough time. I ordered the upcharge Halibut XO in the MDR twice. The first time, it was AMAZING. One of the best things I've eaten at sea, and would hold up well to most land restaurants. I was dying to have it again, so I got it on the last night. This time, it was missing the brothy, brown, umami type sauce that had come with it the first time and had made it so magical. It had no sauce at all. I asked for the sauce to be added. The chef was apparently confused and sent out a cup of the red stringy topping stuff. That still wasn't right, so the maitre'd took the whole plate back to the kitchen. I finally got my dish after the rest of the family had finished their meal, and it still wasn't right. It was sauced, now, but not with the right sauce. The flavor was totally different and not what I'd been dreaming of, but at this point I decided to move on.

Thankfully we didn't struggle with any AC issues like I've read that some have on the Volendam. However, the beds were less comfy on this cruise than on our other HAL trips.

The ship was in quite good shape overall, certainly not feeling too "old" for her age. It's very clean and well-kept. Yes, the staterooms could use a little sprucing up in some aspects, but I wouldn't hesitate to book HAL's older ships. (We've previously also loved the Noordam). It was very nice to have almost no wait for elevators, ever, and to often get an elevator all to oneself and a direct trip to whatever floor you needed.  We love the promenade on the older ships too. The cafe/library was such a big and lovely space. I loved that there was so much open space, and that there was never any trouble finding a nice place to sit. The selection of books in the library was very good; I didn't have time to read any myself, but I admired the taste of whoever is curating the collection because there were quite a few books I'd read and loved on the shelves. Small ships are so nice for the ease of embarkation/disembarkation, getting around, lack of crowds, etc. 

We felt the entertainment could have been better. Was a shame to miss Breton Thunder all week due to, I believe, one of the band members being sick. Abby, the solo guitarist, has a beautiful voice. The casino was small and pretty smoky, so that literally stinks if you're a nonsmoker like I am. I'm glad we went and I'm sure we'll be back on HAL again soon, though this cruise was more of a mixed bag than I'm used to with HAL. 

I did laugh when the cruise director Kristen was giving her weather report for Sydney as they were letting us know the gangway was ready, and it was *completely* wrong. We looked it up, and best we can figure, she must have been looking at the forecast for Sydney, Australia, as it was certainly NOT "currently 55 degrees outside with an anticipated high of 66" -- I believe it was actually more like 76 at that time, and it was going to be a quite hot day, somewhere around 88 degrees for the high. 

Hope this is helpful to some of you!

Update: We didn't have to take those back-up flights and WE MADE THE CRUISE, but things did go kind of badly and it was really touch-and-go there for a bit. Our original flight last Sat left DSM on time, but then we picked up just enough of a delay during de-icing and taxiing to the runway that we missed our flight from CLT to MIA by mere minutes. We couldn't get to Miami that night, and they initially tried to rebook us on a flight that would arrive the following evening (a non-starter) so finally got rebooked onto a direct flight the next morning that landed in Miami around 11:30. That was a little tight but do-able - We made it onboard the ship around 1:30, about an hour before the final cutoff time, proving that had we landed closer to 1:00, I'm not at all confident that we would have made it. This was stressful enough as it was! We briefly considered just driving the 11 hours from Charlotte all through the night, but we were desperately/nauseously sleep-deprived and the weather looked good in both CLT and MIA for the next morning, so we decided to take that risk. It was a great cruise and we were pinching ourselves the whole week that it'd worked out in the end!

55 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Have you looked at flights into Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando.  

Yes.. nothing better 😞

First port is Amber Cove, but we'd miss the first 2 full days if we tried to meet the boat, and at that point, I don't think it'd be worth it for us just on the basis of missing so much of the cruise, let alone the headache of flying into DR.  OH, and I just remembered that my parents are traveling using their birth certificates and don't have passports, so that's not even an option. 

Hi all, 

We're supposed to fly out of Des Moines, Iowa,  tomorrow around 2pm for a Carnival Celebration cruise that departs the following day (Sunday). It's not looking good for our flight, and I'm guessing it will be canceled. I have back-up tickets (fully refundable) for another set of flights that leave DSM at 5am on Sunday, with a short-but-doable layover at DCA, then onward to land in Miami at 12:52pm on the day of the cruise.

Our assigned check-in time is 11:30-12, so obviously we would miss that if we end up having to take these back-up flights, but our docs say that final boarding is at 2:30. I know traffic in Miami can be bad. We *would* be checking a bag (can't do carry-on only), so if everything went perfectly and we did indeed land at 12:52, do you think we'd have enough time to grab our bags, get in a taxi/uber, and check in at Port Miami before 2:30?  Or is this just a crazy plan, and if we don't make it out of here on our original flights tomorrow, I should just consider it a lost cause and stay home? I don't have enough experience with cruises OR Miami to know how crazy this sounds. This is a one-off very special cruise with family members we never get to travel with, it is so very disappointing that it's looking more and more like it won't work out. 

I couldn't find anything that lands earlier in Miami on my own, but there's a chance that if our first set of tickets for tomorrow get canceled, maybe AA will be able to at least get us closer to MIA for an overnight stop somewhere and a flight into MIA really early on the cruise morning.

Congrats! How many points did you end up with at the end of your last Carnival cruise, if you don't mind sharing? I'm going on my first Carnival in Jan and wondering how many points it might take to get some offers.

On 9/29/2023 at 6:19 PM, tshved said:

I was on the Koningsdam in January of 2023 and heard several rooms had extreme noise issues. My room was on deck 1 aft, a family window room category F. The noise we had was a loud rolling slam-bang that made it impossible to sleep. I knew the Koningsdam was going into dry dock for remodeling and I was hoping they would also be able to take care of this noise problem. Do they do this kind of repair when a shop goes in for remodeling? I wasn't the only one complaining about unusual extreme noise.

Which cabin were you in? My family will be in FA1156 next month 😕 

What is the benefit to linking reservations? We'll be doing a multigen trip with 10 total family members in Nov... wondering if we should link our reservations.

Hi all! For those of you who get casino offers (whether for free staterooms or for heavily-discounted sailings), does there seem to be any pattern as to when new lists of offers are released? I am new to HAL and just last month sailed our first cruise with them. I ended up with enough casino points to get a handful of cruises (none of which I can take... booey) where I could get a free interior room, but then a *much* bigger list that had heavily-discounted sailing on it. Is there any rhyme or reason to when I might be able to expect a new set of offers (like, is it once a month, every couple weeks, or just absolutely no pattern to it at all?)

Thanks!

19 hours ago, ometauru said:

To add to this, I just got an offer via email. Itineraries aren't great but the offer was Ocean View room + $350 free play. 

Thank goodness! If you didn't get any offers from having 3-5k points, I didn't stand a chance! Glad you finally got one. I'd take that deal in a heartbeat! I'd be overjoyed with a comp interior and nothing else.

Thanks Dobby36! I looked at your link earlier and saw some attractive cruises, but the prices weren't in your pic so I didn't know what kind of pricing those cruises would have, or if they were free. Sounds like you're saying they all varied, and cost between $100-800/ea (per person, double occupancy, I'm assuming). That's not bad at all! I will happily take heavy discounts like that! Thank you!

Hi all! Just finished my first cruise with Holland America and spent some time in their casino, hoping to do enough to get some casino offers in the future. Obviously, I'd love free cabin offers (even just interiors), but I also hear that they commonly give a 30% discount off the going rate, so even though that's not as nice as the free cabins, I'm hoping I at least did enough for that!

I ended the cruise with 1658 points. Small potatoes for many of you, I know, but I've heard of people that literally only put $20 in the machines each day and they're getting all kinds of good offers. Midway through, the casino host sent chocolate-covered strawberries to our cabin, and then at the end of the cruise, I had a bounceback offer of $150 in free play if I come back and play more. 

Complicating things is that I already have one more HAL cruise booked for this Nov, so there was no reason for them to give me a better bounceback offer, like for a free interior, since they already know I'm coming back again anyway. 

I know no one can predict exactly how or who the casinos gods choose to favor, but I'm hoping that since I got the strawberries and a small bounceback, that maybe I'm on their radar now? Can anyone who's had a similar play history with HAL let me know what you think my odds are like of getting attractive offers from them moving forward? How long does it take after a cruise before I'd start seeing emails/flyers coming in, if they were going to?

We just did it this past week, with our two kids, and it was wonderful. We did an excursion that brought us to pan for gold first, and then to the salmon bake. You can stay as long as you like (well, until they close or your ship leaves!) at the salmon bake, as they are constantly running buses back to downtown. Our guide said most people stay for an hour or an hour and a half, but we stayed probably 3+ hours. The food was solid - not to die for, but solid, and plenty of it. We appreciated that they had hot apple cider, tea, and coffee available, as well as lemonade and water (plus beer for purchase). After we ate, we walked down the waterfall and enjoyed watching the salmon run and looking at the old mining equipment. Then we tried our hand at panning for gold there - on the gold panning earlier in our excursion, the pans were "salted" with gold so that everyone was guaranteed to find something, but here, they just have equipment available and no salted paydirt, so while we didn't find any gold here, it was still fun. Next we roasted marshmallows on one of their campfires and enjoyed listening to the live music. We finished off with picking wild blueberries that my daughter loved eating. Even though it drizzled basically all day, it was a great time in a beautiful area and much of the salmon bake's area is under cover. 

crystalspin, thanks SO much for your help! I'll be sure to take pics and add to the general knowledge for future cruisers who may be wondering the same thing. We'll be on the Thanksgiving coastal CA cruise with our extended family. Not having to cook or do dishes for Thanksgiving, whilst still being with loved ones - I'll be thrilled no matter where the pullman is (though I obviously prefer it over the sofa bed!)

We'll be in 1156, so I guess we'll find out when the time comes!

5 hours ago, Mary229 said:

She might be better served by a family cabin.  No verandah but the beds are better placed and it has that extra bathroom.  

We'll be sailing on the Koningsdam in a family cabin - are you familiar with how the beds are placed in those? I thought it was still going to have the pullman right over the main bed?

I have been an AARP member for a year, and instantly got verified on the first day (July 24) when the promo was announced. The $50 shows up in my Mariner account online. I called today to see about applying it and waited on hold forever while the rep herself waited to talk to someone from the resolutions department. While we were waiting for the resolutions team, she asked me literally 4-5 times the same question over and over about *when exactly* I applied for the credit and *on what day* did I get the approval. I kept having to repeat July 24, as soon as the promo was announced. It really seemed like they were trying to deny or approve based on that info.

So I was surprised when they said no dice due to already having the $100 educator OBC applied to my booking (which I hadn't even known about - I'd applied for that one too, got verified, but never saw it in my Mariner account. I guess it just applied automatically. Interestingly, that's another case where people have been told that the Educator OBC is only for newly-booked cruises, not existing bookings, but it applied to my existing booking automatically) 

What's frustrating is reading that the Educator OBC + AARP should be combinable. Now, obviously people are having lots of issues getting it to apply to existing bookings, but I did apply and get approved on the first day of the promo, before they changed the T&Cs, so I figured I might have a chance.

No biggie, it's only $50, but just another data point for the thread.