3rdGenCunarder

I don't see how anyone but a trained dancer could do the Step One routines. Perhaps they can find someone who has just come off a contract who can step in.

Well, forget production shows. HAL doesn't do that anymore, unless you count the "Step One" dancers, who dance interacting with recorded music and video backdrops. They're good, but not what I would call a production show. Other evening shows are BBC Earth nature videos. I agree with @Mosaic that the most lively entertainment would be on one of the Pinnacle class ships (Rotterdam, Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam). I don't remember which ones do Caribbean, but at least one of them will. Other than the Music Walk (BB King,etc), HAL is not "lively." On the Pinnacle ships, all the music (which is deafeningly loud) is in that one area, Music Walk. Nothing in any of the bars. No more classical group. Eurodam usually does Caribbean itineraries, and that ship is not a Pinnacle class, so there's even less variety in entertainment. You didn't mention the length of cruise you prefer. HAL does a lot of 7-day cruises, and also sells them as back-to-back 14-day cruises. Going back to Fort Lauderdale for a day in the middle of a cruise does not appeal to me. Go to the website and search for Caribbean options to see what ports HAL is visiting. A quick look at the maps that come up will show you which cruises are really two put together to make something longer.

Deep breath, you can do this. If anything specific worries you, come back and ask questions. Or if it's just general "can I do this?" come back and talk about that. Several of the posters on this thread I knew were widowed from some of the things they've said about cruising, but none of us have said so much about solo travel on this board before. So a big thank you to @vswan for starting this.

West Street Cafe is great!!! I don't remember what my best lobster roll was on that trip, but I know the "worst" was McLobster, which I tried out of curiosity (in Halifax). It wasn't bad, but it lost points for too much lettuce "filler." I'll skip the poutine and enjoy a beaver tail instead.

I don't book a cruise "just to eat ashore," but I love to try local food. It's part of experiencing the destination. On one of our Canada/New England cruises, I had lobster roll in almost every port, just because I could. (Spent too much time in the Bell museum in Baddeck, so we had to settle for a quick ice cream stop.) 🦞

I've been to Bar Harbor at least 4 times, both HAL and Cunard, and the only tenders in use were from the ship.

Juneau needs to limit the number of ships. I think Queen Elizabeth was one of SIX ships, and most were larger than QE (a Vista). There are so many passengers arriving on a single day that vendors aren't able to keep up with the demand for tours, both independent and ship tours.

I had the change reversed, sorry for the confusion. That's way before final payment. So only the port changes are after final payment?

Just to be clear, you're talking about this year, Zaandam? I just did a search and the website shows the Zaandam repositioning cruise as April 18-29, with 7 day Boston/Montreal itineraries after that. So if they pushed your repositioning back to May, what is the ship doing after arrival at FLL on April 18? And if your repositioning cruise is now May 2, what happens to the people booked on the 7-day itineraries out of Boston and Montreal????? Bar Harbor and Newport still show up on the map for the repositioning cruise. What are they up to with Zaandam??? They cancelled my winter Caribbean 2 weeks ago and still haven't filled that hole in the schedule--or sent me any notification; I found out on CC! I have learned that if I call HAL with questions, the agents have access to the same web pages I can see. So they have no additional information.

I taught physical science and had students who couldn't divide by 10 without a calculator. I have no idea how many times I explained the conversion from decimal to percent!

But that is part of the cruise fare, not an extra charge.

I would hope so. @vacation 2011, did they say why the departure was changed? Do you know what they planned in place of your cruise in your original time slot?

Or kids at lunch but not dinner? I know it isn't the same menu, but it's also a faster meal, easier for a little kid to sit through.

I'm a little surprised at the Bar Harbor change. They are trying to limit the number of cruisers who visit. The town does get seriously overrun on a busy day. But Zaandam is a smaller ship, so I would have expected that one to be allowed in instead of a larger ship. Portland is fun. I did a walking/tasting tour with "Maine Foodie Tours," and it was one of the best I've done. The company has expanded beyond food tours and has changed its name, but if you search for Maine Foodie Tours, you should be able to find it. Great lobstah in Portland!

And when HAL cancelled a tour, not me, the shorex credit came back to my account right away. Hey, something HAL's system gets right!!!!!

YES! I feel the same way. Also the fact that the ships are smaller. My only complaint about HAL is the terrible entertainment in the evening. Looking back at my cruise on Eurodam in January, I was one of the "old people" going back to my cabin at 9 PM--NOT because it was too late for me to stay up, but because there was nothing I wanted to do. If I hadn't gone to the Lincoln Center performances, I'd have been in my room at 8 PM, hoping to find an interesting movie on the TV.

it's actually .003, which is .3%. Still VERY good.

They "cherry picked" staff from Caronia to transfer to QM2. They may have taken experienced staff from QE2, as well. The positions on Caronia were filled by inexperienced servers who needed a lot more training than they had been given.

Detroit update! They just added a Motown tour (one of the "Premium" tours that you pay for)! it's supposed to go to the Motown museum, plus some sites to drive by and a music performance. I signed up today!

I've often thought that the "old people's cruise line" would continue to get new passengers as people age out of party ships. But HAL isn't offering enough activities and entertainments to replace the "frenetic" activities that younger people enjoy on a cruise (that is a huge assumption/generalization, btw). I can see moving to less active excursions--walking tours instead of mountain biking, and similar substitutions. I'd like to think that as we get older and our bodies want less vigorous exercise, our minds will still want/need exercise in the form of enrichment. I don't think a talk in the jewelry store on "alexandrite, the gem of the tsars" meets that need.

They don't allow it. But parents bring their kids into the pool anyway. On Princess, I saw a guy bring a diapered baby into the ADULT pool. Cool, breaking two rules at once!

Assuming there is a thought process. I wonder if they're sending her around the world to see which markets book most quickly or the most cabins. Feedback from the maiden season may help determine her future deployment.

Which ship are you on? 240 extra passengers (since under 18s can't book their own cabin) is a lot. Oh oh oh! Upcharge opportunity!! Pre-book your kid's space in Club HAL for a "small fee"!!!!

I'll bet it did! Have you been given any information about cases on board?

I think if Cunard puts a ship on itineraries in the Caribbean, whether they start from the US or from an island, I'm betting it will be QA, because she's the newest and biggest, Just what we crass Americans supposedly want in a cruise. I hope I'm wrong. I would LOVE to see QE on some East Coast cruises. I would fly to Barbados to take a Caribbean cruise on QE.