jlawrence01

I would agree that NCL has better entertainment options, especially in the main theatre. However, the difficulty is ever getting a seat especially in the smaller venues. I have found that the entertainment venues on the Epic which carries 4000-4500 passengers are no larger than the ones on HAL ships that carry 2800-3000. Also, since there is no staff at the smaller venues, many people show up an hour early and reserve 20-30% of the seats. In other words, you show up 30 minutes early and there are no seats.

I was on the Norwegian Epic last year for a seven day cruise. While the ship was satisfactory, we found the service to be very lacking, the food to be very limited in selection and that MOST employees appeared to be unhappy. That is right after they cut their entertainment and housekeeping staff. We have been on two HAL cruises in the past 18 months on the Konigsdam and the Eurodam. We thought that the entertainment was very good on the Konigsdam but very average on the Eurodam. The major difference is that BB King is NOT on the Eurodam. I am a foodie and have run commercial kitchens for 15 years. I have found the HAL food in the MDR to be above average and very consistent between ships. I have never felt the need to use specialty dining as I have been very happy with the food and its presentation. The services in all food venues have been very good. Overall, the entire ship crew has been very good and service is very attentive and the morale is excellent. I have come to believe that we can ask for anything and the staff will do their best to make it happen. The officers are out and around the ship interacting with the guests. I just purchased a 14 day cruise to Alaska on the HAL Nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska. That cruise will be sandwiches between two week long cruises on the Celebrity Solstice which will end in Hawaii. I know that some will disagree BUT if you are comfortable with Princess and Celebrity, I do not think that you will be displeased with HAL. They are all very similar, each with their strong points. I will say that I really like a lot of the itineraries that HAL has and some of their prices are a great value, especially if you are retired and can travel during the off-seasons.

Since I am the only one of my friends who have been on a cruise in recent years, I get a lot of questions. Most of them are pretty easy to answer. However, this is one that I have not been able to. Assume that a married couple book a cruise 6-18 months out. If one partner dies in the interim, I know that travel insurance will cover that. However, can the widow maintain the reservation and invite a friend or family member to accompany her? Is there any additional charges or fees?

When we were on the HAL Eurodam in January, the cruise exercise director led a one mile march around the ship every morning starting at 7 am. I think we made it up there on 10 of the 11 days. Maybe that is one of the reasons we did not gain much weight on the ship ... other than all those stairs !

Thank you for your replies. What we would like to do is to walk over to Chinatown and stop at T&T Supermarket which is one of our favorites. We really love different supermarkets and that one is one of the best. They are now in the US but nowhere close to us at this point

We are on three straight cruises. The first is a seven day inside passage cruise on the Celebrity Solstice. The second is a a 14 day RT cruise on HAL Niuew Amsterdam to Seward. The third is a nine day cruise to Honolulu again on the Solstice. What started as a one week cruise to Alaska for our 40th Anniversary has morphed into a month long trip. Thanks for your response. That means that we should have no problems walking between ships. I was just thinking that ports like Fort Lauderdale have piers that are quite a distance apart from each other which would require a cab ride.

We are doing three back to back cruises out of Vancouver. I thought that this information would be on the Vancouver Cruise Port website but it is not. Our first cruise will be on Celebrity; our second on Holland America. When we get off of the Celebrity ship to board on the Holland American ship, roughly, how far is the walk? Is it a mile requiring a cab or is it a couple hundred yards which would be a relatively easy walk. Thanks in advance for all your help.

One of the strengths of the Holland America baked products is that nearly all of it from basic hamburger buns and breads to cakes are made on board. I think that the only thing that I have seen that is purchased are some gluten free products.

You told them what cakes you wanted to try and they would give a large slice. They were NOT cheap with the portions.

I am sure there was ... But I wasn't going to try it ...

We were on the Eurodam back in January and they had about 20 cakes, ALL well labeled, and yes, it was really popular with everyone. Fortunately, we were there early and had a large choice. They had a list of cakes posted and being handed around It was great I do NOT remember it on the Konigsdam in December 2022.

That has NOT been my experience whether it be in Roatan or St. Lucia among others. There is nothing better than buying a fish that was caught last night over buying one that was caught 14 days ago by a Chinese trawler

The resort owners and many of the business owners in the resort towns that we vacationed in PREFERRED US dollars as they spent all winter in Southern Florida or Arizona. My business in Detroit always accepted Canadian currency. Why? I made about 2% on the exchange. Some of my customers were in healthcare and were Canadian nationals. Also, I used to make significant purchases in Windsor and carrying $C was helpful.

I have traveled all over Ontario as my father had a cabin north of Belleville, ON. We could US currency and all of the businesses accepted it and gave a decent exchange rate. Ditto on the western provinces . The only place where they only gave us par was in Halifax. It was also the ONLY place where a bank hassled us when we tried to exchange US currency.

We have been on eight cruises on seven lines. When we started this endeavor, we purchased 100 shares of Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and NCL to capture the shareholder benefits. We sold the NCL stock as we won't be cruising with them again. Last week, my DW asked me how our investment was doing. We had an unrealized gain of $7500. WOW! And $650 in on board credits.

Usually TWO.

I signed up for the shareholder benefit through the app tonight. When I tried it last month, I did NOT try it because I thought that the app required me to enter my passwords for my brokerage account. This time, all I had to do was to take a photo of my latest brokerage statement showing that I owned Carnival Corp. stock. It took all of about 10 minutes total and was quite easy.

I have tried to book flights on Flight Ease and the rates I have been quoted have been higher than I have been able to get via Southwest Airlines. On my next set of cruises which is a 7 day cruise on Celebrity followed by a 14 day on HAL, I booked the flights on the Celebrity website which was 15% cheaper than HAL. We would have flown into Bellingham on Southwest but the transfers to Vancouver were cumbersome.

I was looking at Icon of the Seas for early December 2024 and their inside cabins for a 7 Day Caribbean was $2700 pp out of Miami. A 7 day Caribbean cruise in a suite on Windstar Star Pride would be $2200 pp for the same week. Give Royal Caribbean credit for their marketing ability and all the the cruise influencers that they are compensating.

I was at a travel show on Sunday March 3rd and I was talking to one of the Cunard reps. He told me that what I was wearing that day - dockers and a collared golf shirts would be fine in the dining room on any night except for the two formal nights. On those nights, you would wear a sports coat or a regular suit as opposed to a tuxedo. I want to take a transpacific to Japan and continue on to the Philippines and Singapore but I am not going to carry an extra bag all through SE Asia with all sorts of formal clothing.

To be honest with you, for Americans, cruising on Costa Cruises was a lot like purchasing a Fiat 500. It sounds great in principle but in practice ... My first cruise was on the old Costa Riviera around 1991. The cruise was built fro Mediterranean cruises but we were on an Alaskan cruise. Big Mistake. There was so little to do and "Cruising Italian Style" was very weird. There was so many goofy things on that cruise. Pizza was an extra charge. They sent you a pre-cruise survey. We noted that we did not drink and we were seated at the Mormon table. A bunch of us would play basketball everyday and a little Italian guy would walk through the game every single morning. The only thing that 90% of Americans cruise know about Costa is the Costa Concordia disaster. Carnival has been converting several of the Costa ships under the Carnival brand but it seems like those cruises are more heavily discounted than most other Carnival cruises.

We took a private tour with Roatan Travel and Tours in Honduras. They sent us a young driver in a Hyundai Elantra for $25 pp for four hours. He took us around to a variety of small food shacks around the island as well as a Circle K that everyone on the island frequented due to their great food selection. We bought food for the three of us at every stand. The driver told us that on the next trip he wanted to treat us to the best food on the island - he would have his mother cook for us. We had taken a bus tour with that company two months before and the young people were excellent and very proud to show off their island.

The problem that I have with some of the prices of "non included" food on cruise ships is that the cost of the food is full retail despite the fact that you will not be eating the "included" meal that you paid for. I have no problem paying $15 for a lobster with my meal or paying $25 extra for a meal that is significantly better than the MDR selections. Those prices are very expensive. For example, on a recent cruise, Norwegian was charging $72 for their Brazilian steakhouse on a cruise out of San Juan. I could go out less than a mile away at Texas de Brazil and get the same meal for $56. Why would I pay that much more? Yes, I am a budget cruiser but when you travel 10-13 weeks a year ... =================== The Dive-In is quite excellent and I have never had a bad bite there. Celebrity's version involved precooked hamburgers and cheeseburgers and the staff on board could not properly cook a french fry on three separate occasions. ==================== The worst part of the HAL entertainment is the replacement of enrichment talks by outside people with the entertainment director reading off a teleprompter a pre-done presentation. It is like a college professor using a powerpoint and reading off of it. The best enrichment I have seen was on the Regal Princess where the guest presenter told us everything there was to do at each port INCLUDING INDEPENDENT tours and INDEPENDENT shops that were "must sees."

Yesterday, I was at a travel show and sat through NINE cruise line presentations. I am starting to notice that the inside cabins on new ships like the Icon of the Seas and the Celebrity Edge class ships on a 7 day Caribbean cruise are often higher than the lowest cost cabins on some of the Windstar yachts where you get James Beard Foundation quality menu and ALL the dining venues are included. You get itineraries with FEW sea days and you are able to get beyond the "same old" crowded ports that the large ships cannot reach. Imagine a 10 day cruise with nine port days. And a lot more things are included. While I am a budget traveler, there is a lot of value in some of the luxury lines.

I was on the Celebrity Millennium, their oldest ship, a month after being on the Konigsdam and recently on the Eurodam. I found the food to be better on the Millennium overall and the service in the MDR and buffet was excellent. They recovered from the pandemic a lot faster than the Konigsdam. There were three things that were unsatisfactory on the Millennium. First, the main theater had one of the worst sound and lighting system that I have seen. Honestly, my high school had better equipment. Second, if you encountered any bad weather, the outside decks closed and there was limited space. Third the entertainment did NOT match what was available on Konigsdam. Having said that, I don't have a strong preference between HAL, Celebrity or Princess. Excluding the new ships, they are all pretty similar and it really depends on pricing and itineraries. Personally, I would NOT pay the price that the new Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships are commanding. If I was going to spend megabucks, I would probably do a Windstar cruise where I can get excellent food and impeccable service for a similar amount of money.