deeeeeeem

We’ve been on the Nieuw Statendam the past two weeks and there were no educational presentations or whatsoever. That might be something to consider if that’s something you’re especially looking forward to.

Ah that would make sense indeed! Thanks for your response!

By the way, since there are a lot of first time HAL cruisers in this thread, I thought I might share my own opinion here. I see most people being very positive about the Club Orange upgrade, especially on the Pinnacle Class ships since they have their own CO dining room. We tried to upgrade to CO quite shortly before our departure but it of course was sold out already. Personally, in the end we're glad we weren't able to upgrade at all. We luckily got upgraded from our VH cabin to a V cabin without obstructed view, which was great and also the best we would've got by paying for CO too (this of course isn't true when you book very early, when booking VH with CO seems a very good strategy to get the best verandah cabin). We didn't like the atmosphere and look of the separate CO dining room as far as we could see from the outside. I'm sure the service would be quicker than in the MDR, but overall we loved the atmosphere in the MDR and the service was very good as well. Sometimes not that quick, but always friendly and personal although we did the open seating. Only had to wait one time in two weeks and that was only 5 minutes. I think CO is a great option when you book very long in advance and are able to pay for a VH cabin and get upgraded to a much better cabin, but in other cases, I would really think about the fact of having a separate dining room and maybe a slight upgrade are worth the cost for you. For us, it wasn't and we we're glad we didn't had CO.

Just returned from our first cruise (which was overall fantastic!) but now I'm left with two questions: 1. When do they send out the post-cruise surveys? They mentioned it so often I thought we would get them almost immediately after our debarkation, but we haven't got them yet. 2. How do they calculate the amount spent on board for the mariner points? We got the maximum 14 points for on board spending, meaning they calculated our on board spending as being at least $4200. I'm not complaining of course since we're almost 2* Mariners now, but even our on board statement and 3 HIA packages rated at $65 per day (what we didn't pay for it) don't add up to $4200.

Hi all! We’re first-time cruisers on HAL and are currently on the first part of our B2B cruise. Is there any chance that we receive our one star mariner status after the first leg of our B2B (we booked it as a 14-day cruise under one booking reference)? We would love to get a HAL tile as well, seems like we’re one of the very few people not getting them at the moment 😂

Maybe a verrrrrrry specific question: does anyone know if they have Nutella in the Lido Market buffet for breakfast (on the Nieuw Statendam specifically)?

Thank you!

Thanks (both)! I guess that’s the ‘problem’ indeed, I don’t think the milkshakes are included indeed. Good to know there are plenty of other options! 🙂

Just another question, on the pdf with all drinks included in the drink packages, it says the drink packages can’t be used at Dive In. I haven’t read this in other places (it doesn’t say that on HAL’s website for example). Is this true? If so, is there another place around the pool/sun deck where you can order drinks?

Thanks a lot!

Just wondering, how long before the sailing date can you see the daily program (assuming you saw that the NS offers the game show there)?

3 days! Here’s some more information in English: https://www.klm.nl/en/information/airport/security-timeslot

Hi all! First time cruiser here. I was just looking around at the website and found that you can pre pay the crew appreciation fee online. I saw that it was actually cheaper to do it online. Is this correct? At first, it said it was $16 pppd and later on it translated to €17 pppd. However, it shows €185,92 per person as a total for a 14 night cruise, which equals to €13,28 per day instead of the $16/€17. Is this normal?

By the way, you can reserve a timeslot for the security as well. This is a free service: https://www.schiphol.nl/nl/pagina/timeslots/

Those extreme lines were in Summer 2022. Last year I never had to wait, I could just walk through at security or had to wait 5 minutes max. I only encountered very long lines at the passport control when arriving, even though I’m Dutch. But in general there’s nothing to worry about! Especially outside holidays.

Thank you!!

Hi all! This will be our first time cruising with HAL (and in general). We booked our cruise including HIA and thus have $200 shore excursion credit per person since we will be on a 14-day cruise. When booking directly (we didn’t), the website says that HIA includes “2 shore excursions - up to $200 per person”, but this limit of 2 excursions is nowhere to be found elsewhere. I can’t find it in the general terms either. So we were wondering, is it also possible to book 3 or 4 cheaper excursions per person with the credit? Or is the credit gone after you booked 2 excursions? Maybe someone here knows from experience. Thanks in advance!