3rdGenCunarder

I have picked up strawberries in farmers markets in several ports on Canada cruises and nobody challenged me. (Both HAL and Cunard) I don't know how they do it, but eastern Canadian farmers produce a very nice crop of FALL strawberries.

The size of the hydropool is OK, but that center faucet/shower is obnoxious. It really does spash everyone. The center shower in hydropools on the Vistas aren't as splashy.

One reason is to hope there's enough unsold "higher" space to get an offer of an upsell or upgrade. Another is to help decide if you should gamble on waiting to book tours onboard in order to use OBC. Or simple curiosity.

The stupid thing is it already was a sort of pay to play. They charged for meals there in the evening. And they charged for cooking classes. I suppose if people really want to spend $50 per day to eat in a glass box, it could make more money than it did as ATK.

Disgusting! It's the end of the meal, who knows what people have spilled onto their napkins?!? I never do it and I wish others wouldn't, either.

E coli is the "original" Montezuma's revenge. This is usually the one you get from water, ice cubes made from local water, salad ingredients washed in local water. It's also spread in foods, and it's the reason previously frozen burgers must not be eaten rare. Read Robin Cook's novel Toxin and you'll never eat a fast-food burger again!! 😱

New glitches. Small glitch. Sometimes when I log in I see "my account" next to my name. Other times I have to look under "already booked" to find "my account." Makes no sense... Bigger glitch. This morning I logged in to see the tours I have booked for my cruise. Clicked on "my itinerary," and found no tours. None, nada, zip, zero. So, I tried rebooking one of them to see if the website would tell me I'm already booked, which is what usually happened. No, didn't happen. The site appears to have no idea that I already had the tour booked. Tried another and the site offered to put me on a waitlist because the tour is sold out? WHAT???? So I called the tour department. The agent pulled up my account and he found my tours. He emailed a copy of my itinerary and the tours do show. And, of course, I have the emails from when I booked. So if the tours don't exist when I get onboard, I will have proof with me. So I asked, if the tours are booked why don't I see them on the website? And does he know that the website is bad? His answer was that they're doing the best they can with what they have. I said they need to get better techs and he said they're doing the best they can. He did offer to pass along a comment, don't know where he's passing it to... 🙄

The package does not let you "trade" any number of drinks for a bottle of wine. I wish it did, since the times we were given the SBP as a promo we always were well under the number of included drinks each day. Since wine is my major beverage indulgence, I would not buy the SBP.

Cruisemomsaid: "What I'm not convinced of is that HAL is the line to step forth and cater to this group. It's too different from the current model that's geared more for the Vista class ship and upward. And I still think that for the mid-smaller ship (1200-1500 pax) to be profitable would include a good-size jump in fares (WITHOUT a luxury experience). " (sorry, having trouble trimming a large quote to just the part I want to address) This is a good point. Marketing becomes difficult when the image isn't consistent. HAL is already fragmented with ships of different sizes and onboard offerings. For those not familiar with HAL, making a booking must be confusing--which ships have a hydropool? which ships have Lincoln Center? which ships have Club Orange? why are some ships more expensive? Now HAL is doing something very different with Maasdam, but how different can it be for their marketing and management model to still work? This was a problem with Cunard pre-Carnival. Their image was too fragmented. They had QE2, an ocean liner and one of the two largest ships afloat at that time (the other was the Norway), two little cruise ships (Princess and Countess), and "the Yachts of Seabourn." VERY different products with very different pricing. And they owned NAC (Sagafjord and Vistaflord). Just as Carnival scooped up HAL and saved it, they grabbed Cunard to get the prestige of QE2 and reassigned other ships so that Cunard wasn't so fragmented.

Shouldn't you allows a percentage for champagne?

Carnival Corp. lets their lines set their own practices, so there isn't standardization across the various lines. Try calling ship services to see what you do get with the spa cabin. Maybe there are some included classes or treatments.

I'm very careful to use my knuckle on elevator buttons, and then I lean on and put my hands on the railing inside. Duh! I have to remind myself not to do that.

It's true fleet wide. I think the spa rooms started on the smaller ships when they modified some of the forward oceanview cabins to have small balconies. Because they were right abovethe spa, HAL decided to call them "spa cabins" in order to make a small cabin sound attractive. It started on a smaller ship, maybe Veendam or Maasdam? I remember when those cabins became spa cabins, the joke was that the floor space was too small to allow you to use the yoga mat that was in the room. On K'dam (and other ships), the spa cabins aren't smaller than others of the same category, but they're near the spa. The website says they come with "access to spa treatments," but they don't clarify what "access" means. Could mean some included treatments, but I think access means a short walk.

The incubation period of Noro is why HAL used to do the "code orange" for the first 2 days in the buffet, back when it was mostly self-service. We've been on HAL ships that had small Noro outbreaks. And I think they stayed small because HAL is so quick to implement precautions. HAL captains like to use the phrase "abundance of caution." Communal items like sugar bowl, salt/pepper shakers, bread basket, butter dish disappear from tables. You get everything served to you to reduce multiple people touching food-related objects. You can't even reach for a glass of juice at the buffet. Crew are constantly wiping down railings and doorknobs. The captain makes announcements reminding people of the problem and the need to WASH HANDS. And maybe this is a situation when HAL's more "experienced" demographic helps. Been there, done that (or at least seen that), don't want it again, so we take the precautions seriously.

Thanks, Copper. Great pics! Looks like it's "all hands on deck" (or project).