Charleston Lady

45 minutes ago, Petrocelli said:

I have never been on a cruise before.  If you have the option to debark the ship when you want, how long of a window is that? 

Welcome! As you exit the ship there will be a sign showing the name of the port and when the all-aboard time is for that day. It is a good idea to snap a quick picture of that with your phone/camera to refer to while ashore. On a longer trip with lots of port days, the times can run together after a while! Always allow for traffic too, although not a problem in Alaska. 

Lunch at the Pinnacle Grill is lovely, not expensive and usually open on sea days. Reservations for lunch can only be made after you board. Enjoy your voyage!

I have recently become aware of this lovely ship and am interested. It sounds like a wonderful adventure. Will be following. Hope those onboard will share their experiences.

We often bring our family, children and grandchildren, with us. We usually eat one night in each of the 3 specialty restaurants. I always make the reservations before sailing as there are 9 of us and pay for all then. We are 5* and the discount has always been credited to our shipboard account  once we board.

But....this is a new day so we will see how it goes. We are all sailing on Rotterdam for Christmas/New Year's  so guess all will be revealed then. Either way.....delighted to be sailing again!

I have gotten milkshakes onboard for my grandchildren. Not sure if they are covered on the drinks package or not because we are not big drinkers and haven't had that.

It seems like we ordered them from the Dive-In and there was a charge. When on NS I ordered them from the gelato place and so got our 5* discount. I find the prices for HAL's gelato items very reasonable compared to those at home even without being half price. As I recall, it was less than $5 for my grand daughter's milkshake and 3 scoops of gelato for me! Delicious treat!

We have taken our grandchildren on HAL since they were small and they love it. The older ones are now 17 and almost 13. We did take them once each on Carnival, but they prefer Holland which certainly suited us! We do the Caribbean almost every Thanksgiving on the bigger ships and did 14 days in Norway and Iceland on Nieuw Statendam in summer 2019 and they had a great time. The teenagers seem to find one another and hang together as they wish.

Welcome (maybe) to the family of HAL cruisers. Alaska was our first cruise many years ago and it is breathtaking. We have returned several times since. We have cruised many different  lines, but prefer Holland. The crew is superb....absolutely the best! We have found the passengers to be interesting people who like to learn and explore and have made many friends.

All the food is included except the 2 specialty restaurants on Noordam and a dinner at each is part of the current promotion. The Noordam is a lovely ship in our opinion.

What ever you choose, have a great time!

Re paying for luggage shipping......it depends on which level of stateroom one chooses. For some it is included and unlimited, for others it is included but imited to 2 bags per person and for some others it is available,  but is extra. Many Florida people or others who drive to the port just bring their bags with them. They also drive home, so could bring whatever their vehicles allowed and were not planning to end up halfway around the globe. Thus they had to either pick up in FLL or perhaps pay to ship things home. 

It has been an adventure! Still waiting on ours......

To Gadabout60.....re your world cruise planning.

First of all....yes! You should definitely do it, but be aware that it may become addictive.😊

We have cruised on many other lines, but all our worlds have been on HAL. I agree with the comments others have made, but wanted you to also consider the "culture" of the experience onboard. Most all HAL world cruisers take the whole trip rather than than a segment, so there is more time for long term relationships to develop. As I understand it, this is not as true on some of the other Iines. Many passengers take the trip almost every year so there is a sense of family, but not to the exclusion of new members. As newbies in 2008 we were mentored well by other passengers and are still friends with many of them. The crew is a huge plus for HAL, as their worth is beyond measure....competent, kind, fun loving and totally unflappable even when we are grumpy. They too become part of the family. As Storylady said, HAL treats us like family and when they realized that we all needed wifi to make plane reservations, they made it happen. When it was clear that some had no clue how to make their own travel plans, they took care of those too. I felt their compensation package to be very generous.

Many of us really wanted them to sail us home and petitions were produced and carefully considered by Seattle. In the end, their decision not to do that was a wise one as they could not have cared for us safely in the prevailing circumstances. We have always felt safe with Holland America.

I hope you will pose your question on other boards so that you choose a trip that is the best fit for you. Most importantly.....just go and have a wonderful time.

I think their greatly reduced staff is focused on refunds and bookings. We have hundreds of days and do not hear from them except related to cruises we are trying to reschedule and about our world cruise luggage which has not made it's way home yet. It's all just overwhelming!

Well, we did rely on our wonderful TA to get us home as we had not bought wifi onboard and there were no ports available in which to find some. Until HAL decided to open the wifi to everyone, our only option was to get the onboard hosts to contact our agent to please get us home. They handled it all beautifully and have our everlasting gratitude! Bravo!

In regard to fitting in on the world cruise, I have seen some cliques, but personally have found 99% of passengers to be friendly and helpful. Even before we took #1 world in 2008, some CC posters responded to us and really "adopted," us answering a zillion questions, and introducing us to others on arrival. We have tried to model their caring as we have traveled and have met the nicest people on HAL ships in that time.

We look forward to old and new friends and hope we make it all the way around in 2022!

1 hour ago, KirkNC said:

More overnights

Some two night stays

more unique ports, not repeats from every few years, places regular cruises don't go

 

Totally agree. Very good suggestion, but right now I'd be thrilled to get on a ship and go ANYWHERE!

9 hours ago, yerdua said:

 

 

Interesting. We were booked on NS for 8/29/21 and received the re scheduling email a few weeks ago that moved us to an 8/22/21 departure out of Amsterdam vs copenhagen. My acct on HALs site still listed our original booking departure date and port. Have you seen the rescheduled departure on your HAL acct or was the info from strictly the email?

It showed on My Account, but a booking from the (old) Rotterdam that was canceled by HAL when they announced the sale of the ships was still there, so think it is taking a while to get everything straight.

We  just emailed TA about a substitute trip in July as we were bringing our family on the  Baltic trip and the change to late August would have had grandchildren missing 3 weeks of school (although they thought it was great!). 

It was the 3rd of 4 BTB cruises with 3 different lines, so it has all created quite a mess! I think we might be crazy to try to book again for summer 2021, but I'm tired of staying home, so we'll see what happens.

Praying for a vaccine that is safe and effective and for our world cruise luggage to come home safely. Then all would be right with the world.

We were on that cruise too and got the same email. However when I looked on My Account it only displays the first 12 days of the 24 which was what they changed it to in their original email. Yes it sounded like a great deal for a few minutes!

Maybe I can shed a little light on this. We are booked on NS for a June 2021 Baltic and were moved by HAL to a late August slightly different version of the Baltic, which won't work for us as our grandchildren, who were joining us, will be back in school by then. When HAL notified us of the change due to the sale of the 4 ships, they asked that we wait 4-6 weeks before calling or asking to change anything to give them time to complete the summer schedule. I estimate that 6 weeks should be about mid-September, so hoping the  new NS trips will be on the website around that time. Hope that helps.

Cunard (according to a speech I heard the CEO make on FB) invites you use some of your FCC to book a second cabin for family/friends. Wish HAL would do this as we often treat our family to cruise with us on shorter trips. It would be a win-win for them.

Arrived home Momday night after about 47 hours of travel. Our last leg to Charleston was canceled twice but the third option got us there by first going to Charlotte then Charleston.  So good to be home. Our family had everything stocked that we needed and now that we have our Buddy dog back, we are set for our 14 day stay at home.

Loved going to Australia on the ship, but we would never be tempted to go by air again!

We did a private tour with a few other CC folks from Cherbourg. The ship was originally to port at St Malo and we had planned to finally get to Mt St. Michel....a long time dream. When HAL changed the port, we decided to go anyway, even though it was further. It is a long ride and there are many steps, as others have said, but it was an incredible, memorable day. It was like walking through a town from long ago......like nowhere else. So, yes....go, just go!

I hope to get back for an omelette myself one day.

We stayed in an OV midship cabin on NS for 14 days in June and loved it. No problems with noise. Have a great cruise!

Our family enjoys eating there, especially the meatballs, salad and gelato. The new menu features a balsamic chicken dish that is delicious. We have eaten there many times on different ships and always had a positive experience. I hope you do too!

Definitely Grand Turk is best. We have been several times with "Exclusive Escapes" on private tours. Just Google them. We just walked a few minutes down the beach from the pier to their place, got gear which they furnish if you like and got on the boat. We were a family of 8 and there were a couple of others but a small group. They do 2 snorkel spots, the wall and diving for conchs if you wish. My grandson loved it and we went home with the most gorgeous huge conchs which they clean out for you. Also took us to beach for homemade conch salad. Great company. Not $$$.

Well, if you like Alaska, you will love Norway! We spent 3 weeks cruising the fjords on Prinsendam in in 2014 and even after 4 world cruises, it remains my favorite trip. Thus we are taking our family back for 14 days on Nieuw Statendam this June to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

I agree with RuthC that all the choices are wonderful so you can't go wrong. If I had to choose, I prefer the Rotterdam over Veendam,  but find Amsterdam more charming than Rotterdam in terms of port cities although both are interesting. Yes, Geiranger is breathtaking,  but so are most of the other fjords. 

We visited 12 Norwegian ports in 2014 and will see some of those and some new ones this year. Will be glad to share with you in more detail now and after we visit again if you wish. nannrick2007@gmail dot com

Oh, I think #1 would be the winner!

We take our family on Eurodam or NA every year for Thanksgiving so will be on again soon. We have sailed hundreds of days on HAL ships and always stay low,  midship and outside and love it.  My husband is not a great sailor and I don't like the darkness of inside cabins, so they work out well for us.

Enjoy your cruise!

What a great accounting of your trip! Many thanks for taking the time to share it with us. We frequently take our grandchildren cruising with us as we feel it is important for them to learn how to behave and to have the educational benefits of travel. They love cruising as do their parents who get to come along.

We are taking the whole gang to Norway next summer on Nieuw Statendam so hope you will do a review of your spring trip in 2019 as well. It has been a pleasure.

Enjoyed your writing as always and glad to hear John's new knees are doing so well. We had several cruise friends on that trip....Lots of the 'regulars.'

We will miss y'all on the world cruise this year and hope to see you on the high seas again one day soon.

Nancy