POA1

Thanks. My bad. I didn't see a sailing because I had the Find a Sailing filter set. (Apparently I'm not as good as this computer thing as I thought.)

Sure, if you would like to, be my guest. No attribution needed. The only concern might be the bandwidth. I optimized the file, but it's still 15 MB. That's why I stuck it in Evernote and not on one of my servers.

I know that the table of contents / bookmarks can be found on a phone, but the little side bar only shows up on a bigger screen. I made sure that full text indexing was left intact. That means you should be able to search on any text in the file, including cabin numbers. Acrobat files have a lot of extraneous, invisible text in them, so you may get more in the way of search results than you'd expect. I searched for 7045 and found the starboard PS on the Vista class, but also a bunch of seemingly blank areas. My eyes are not quite good enough for the phone version.

We're looking at an abbreviated 6 day sailing on the Rotterdam next April. We normally like longer sailings, but a round trip Port Everglades voyage doesn't require anything but cab rides to and from the pier. Also, it's over my birthday which will save us from having plan anything. It looks to be a 2 week layup and the Rotterdam is quite new. Anything to be concerned about?

You don't have to remove your luggage. They will often move your things for you. Ask your room steward. Advance notice to them is best. On some ships you could leave your drawers packed and they'd move the drawers. I don't know if that's still possible, but your room stewards will know the procedure.

You are all very welcome. I got tired of pulling down the deck plans every time we wanted to look at a sailing. I know that HAL has that really wide PDF with all the decks on it, but I like the one deck per page version better. And, this means that I only need one file. I'll have to update it when there is a major change, but that's pretty rare.

We were trying to choose some sailings and staterooms and I started to get a little tired of opening up each ship's deck plan and trying to find a good cabin location, public areas and other amenities. So, I said to myself, "Self you have the skills needed to solve the problem of constantly re-downloading deck plans. You should do that." And here we are: The May 2023 Holland America Line Consolidated Deck Plans. The link takes you to Evernote and you can download the file from there. At the bottom of this post is a little diagram that shows you how the file "works." I took all the deck plan pages from the 11 ships in the fleet and put them into a single PDF file. I then provided an index and bookmarks to each of the 120 decks. You may or may not find this to be helpful, but I figured I'd throw it out there for you, my HAL Boards Pals. Important: You do not need to have Evernote installed to use this file. Just open the link in your browser and download the PDF. Here's a tiny "explainer" to show you how to find things. In case you missed the link, here it is again: The May 2023 Holland America Line Consolidated Deck Plans.

Really great reporting and the photos are stunning! Thank you so much.

Yes. Be sure to check the procedure. I kinda think you need to order early in dinner service. IIRC, your whole meal will come at once. Neptune Suites will vary. The PS can have course by course service. It's lovely, but you are paying a premium.

High end Scotch, Tequila and Cognac exceed the SBP limit. All the gins, including Hendricks, are covered.

This is the kind of dedicated research that will fuel our Mission to Mars. I commend you, sir! Seriously though, thanks for the menus.

Yes. If you use your HIA credit and you are unable to excurse*, because there are weather issues in a port, or a port is missed, they'll credit you back. I'm not throwing shade, but this discussion explains the "Warning! This coffee may be hot⚠️C *Excurse is a real word. The CC editor is fighting me on the warning triangle.

You remember correctly. At 21 days you get 3 credits worth up to $100 per excursion.

No, but you can add them. The meals aren't cheap, but costs in Alaska are crazy expensive.

You don't have to print things, but we've been burned by network outages and software problems. We always carry paper back up.

And, if I may drone on, getting out of the grocery store quickly is for the public good. (As the public, my vote counts. 😉)

So.. Just for giggles... One can assume that you were in public service? Do you have any actual info that would say that the passport offices are scaling up to meet demand? (Please no misdirects about profit. Thanks much.)

Excuse me young lady. The Vista Suites are almost 6% larger* and give you suite day credits. Sure, there aren't multiple rooms - the honest to goodness definition of a suite. I'd really rather that we don't cause the powers that be to address this and come up with a new term for these rooms. This is how we went from semi-formal to formal to gala to the current abomination, "dressy." Can we please agree to step away from the room nomenclature? We've seen this movie. It does not end well. * - Some are a bit larger. Some are not.

You are definitely correct that travel is up, but much of the backlog is that the government doesn't scale well. When the lines get too long at the grocery store, they call all the register-trained employees to the front and open additional check out lines. The government holds a meeting, then issues a statement blaming "unprecedented demand" while never actually solving the problem. It's nice to have a monopoly.

Everyone should write Ruth's response down. It's the most succinct I've seen. One note: If you see a 150th Anniversary promo, it's pretty much Have It All+. Depending on your sailing, the 150th might include better internet, better beverages (Elite vs Signature Beverage pkg) and occasionally prepaid gratuities. The HIA refundability rules are the same.

I see that several people got caught in the "site is updating" trap. It happened to me in a different thread. So... If you see duplicate posts from Wednesday, it's not the poster's fault. It's a "feature."

Five ships had lanai staterooms. Amsterdam, Maasdam, Rotterdam, Veendam and Volendam all had them. They gave you outside space like a verandah, but with ocean view type pricing. The verandah door allowed you to get out, but you had to come in via the inside door. From 2017, when there were still several ships with lanai cabins: https://www.hollandamerica.com/blog/recent-articles/whats-new/what-does-a-cruise-stateroom-look-like/

Call HAL. The amount will show in your booking details. If you hadn't booked, they'd still be able to see the credit attached to your Mariner ID.

You need a package for everyone, including minors. They'd need the Quench package. If you aren't using the beverage package, the regular refundable fare is probably more cost effective. Like Kazu said, look at the Advantage fare. It's typically $50/day less for the first two people anf it's a refundable deposit farel.

If you find a Singapore itinerary, it'll have some additional requirements. I think it's that a certain amount of health insurance is required for some vaccination statuses.