terrydtx

I do not ever recall having to pay gratuity for any purchases in the ship stores. Maybe the coffee purchase from the Dutch cafe is considered a food purchase. It is probably too late, but when I have had something show up I didn't purchase or agree with on my invoice from a cruise, I dispute it with my CC and it gets reversed with no questions asked.

We have a true B2B on the Edge next January in Sydney and I already know we will have to get off the ship and wait to get back on, even though we are in the Retreat and same cabins for both cruises.

I have found that on hot weather cruises like in the Carribean the aft cabin balconies can be hooter with little to no wind. On cooler weather cruises not having any wind is much nicer.

Last year on the Oosterdam we booked a 14 day cruise RT from Venice that got broken into 2 seven day segments. The first 7 days ended in Athens with people getting off and on, but we did not have to do anything on our part. It was not considered a B2B cruise. HAL does a lot of "Collectors" cruises that contain several shorter segments but are not considered B2B like Celebrity does.

I agree for the same reasons, we have one on the Koingsdam in November on the California Coastal cruise from San Diego

Not sure you can upgrade the SBP in HIA anymore, last year on the Oosterdam we could not do this once we boarded. I had been able to upgrade pre covid but I couldn't last year, and I took it up the chain to the food and beverage manager before we ordered any drinks when we boarded. I was told if you bought the SDP and not part of HIA you could upgrade, but if it came with a promo or HIA you couldn't anymore. This was also a month before the new policy of paying the difference for a higher price drink started.

I did not stay in her room at the hotel, it was a hotel approved by the Italian Health Authority and she never tried to leave so I am not sure if they would have stopped her if she did. This was after, thankfully, that a negative test was required to fly home. By day three at the hotel she tested negative with the home tests I bought at a local drugstore and the hotel people said we were free to leave, never got any official papers from them, but we breezed through Italian passport check to fly home the next day. I need to add our experience with HAL Flight Ease. We used them to book Business class seats from San Antonio to Italy. We got off the ship on Sunday and were originally supposed to fly home from Venice BC on Monday. Sunday I called FE to cancel our flights home, they were already aware or our plight and told me to call them back to rebook when she was cleared. When she tested negative Wednesday morning I called the FE emergency number they gave me and got an agent on the phone at 5:00am Seattle time and he got us booked on the same flights home Business class leaving on Thursday morning from Venice we originally had Monday. There was NO extra cost for the new flights. This is one of many reasons I continue to use HAL Flight Ease for booking our flights overseas for cruises. If we had booked directly with Delta, I doubt we would have been able to change flights and stay in BC.

On the Oosterdam last August, we were in a Signature suite and 5 days from the end of the cruise my wife tested positive and she got moved to a balcony cabin in the Covid ward of the ship, I was not allowed to be in that room with her unless I tested positive. I was tested the same day and negative but was not tested again. I stayed in our SS and had no restrictions on my use of the ship. I did wear a mask and dined in the Lido away from others or with room service in my cabin. My wife had a very mild case with hardly any symptoms but she had to spend 3 days in quarantine at a hotel in the Venice Maestre district until she tested negative. I got to stay in a room across from hers in the hotel and was free to do what I wanted and was never tested after the first time on the ship.

AT&T makes everything sound like it is new.

That plan is only good on land and does not work on a cruise ship when not in a port. I have it too and use it when I travel.

We have 4 tours booked with SDT on our Apex cruise in September. All are small, under 14 people and less in cost than similar ones offered by Celebrity. In Lisbon we booked with them a private car for 4 of us to do a 7 hour tour with a stop at a Port wine tasting room for only 109 euros per person. Celebrity offered similar tour in a big bus for almost $200pp. All of our tours do not include lunches, which we prefer, but allow us to choose the time and place for lunches on our own. Our other ports we have booked with them include Cadiz, Cartegena and Mallorca. After our experiences last year in Italy and Greece, we no longer will book any cruise line shore excursions. We paid a premium for most of them and the ones that included lunches were too late in the afternoon (2-3pm) with below average food. I suggest for Spain and Portugal anyone look at SDT and elsewhere do a little research and find 3rd party shore tours on your own.

I received an email from AT&T about a new program for talk, text and some data while at sea on cruise ship. It looks like all HAL ships are included. Prices are for 30 days and has two rates $50 for limited talking and $100 for unlimited talk, text and 200MB of data. This could work for passengers who do not have HIA or an internet plan. For longer cruises this could be much less cost than the ships internet plan. I use the HIA internet and find that Wi-Fi calling on my phone works for the few times I need to call. Here is a link with more information: AT&T Cruise Packages – Cruise Ship Talk, Text & Data Plans (att.com)

Is the CO dining room on Pinnacle ships anytime dining or do they have set times like MDR?

I would change your seating to anytime, we never chose a set dinning option as we have no idea what time we will be ready to have dinner. We prefer to enter the MDR between 6:30 and 7:00 and 5:45 is too early and 8:00 is way too late for us.

We had the same issue with our Pinnacle Grill booking last year on the Oosterdam, we had 6:00 and my sister and BIL had 6:30. When we boarded, we got the PG manager to change us both to 6pm on a table for 4.

Off topic but still a CO question. We have CO for first time on the Koingsdam departure from San Diego, and with CO priority boarding is there a separate line for checking in at the port?

We are on the Koningsdam too and our HIA restaurant credit was good for either Pinnacle Grill, Canaletto or Tamarind. When you reserve one it will ask if you want to use your credit for payment when you check out.

Thank you for the video, we will be on the Koingsdam in November and looking forward to being on one of the new Pinnacle class ships.

Doesn't appear that there are any martinis in the Martini bar in the SDP and the large ones are $1 over the Premium $17 limit. That is real nickel and diming.

There will be shore excursions through HAL just make sure they are not ones that end at the airport. Also you can do private excursion with 3rd party vendors like Viator and Tours by Locals.

Have fun in Italy, we love traveling there.

Everything on the ship is charged in USD, so will your credit card be charged with no foreign fees. BTW you should find and take a CC that doesn't charge any transaction or exchange fees. That is the only type of CC we use anymore because we do so much international traveling.

To be perfectly honest, we did a Celebrity Reflection cruise in a Sky Suite last August from Rome and we followed it with a HAL Oosterdam cruise from Venice in a Signature suite. The Luminae had a lot of misses and all of us in our group thought the overall food quality was better on the Oosterdam MDR than the Reflection Luminae. Service and ambience was far superior in Luminae than the Oosterdam MDR, however. We will be on the Celebrity Apex in late September from Amsterdam to Athens in a Sky Suite, followed 6 weeks later by our Koingsdam Coastal California cruise in CO, so we will be able to do an even better comparison.

I remember last year that our tour guide in Croatia said that they would be on the Euro this year. In Montenegro our tour guide would not take euro for tips, he asked for USD, so I was under the impression the country would not accept euros.

We haven't been in Blu since pre covid and only have been in Celebirty suites with Luminae since, not expecting CO to be close to Luminae, but it is all HAL has that isn't the MDR.