MustBCruzn

I was stationed on Okinawa 76 - 77, and at NH Yokosuka from 77 - 79. Yup, it was a long time ago. 😅

Your pictures are wonderful and have me in full reminisce mode. I can't wait to hear how your visit to the base was (and see pictures). I was stationed at the Naval Hospital, Yokosuka in the late '70s, and have such fond memories of my time there.

So excited to follow along. We have this itinerary on our radar for 2026. It will be my first time back since 1987!

This has been our experience exactly. Our CVP was fabulous, and took great care of us for many years. About four months ago the calls were suddenly automatically transferred to the off-shore call center. Since that time the service has been very spotty...from difficult to understand, to "I'll have to check with my supervisor." Once in a while I've gotten an ok representative, but nothing that even comes close to my previous CVP.

We've flown out of Schiphol many times, and in fact will do so again in May for a British Isles cruise which also ends in Rotterdam. Our departing flight is at 11:30 am, so we're spending the night at the Airport Sheriton. As many have mentioned, the traffic from Rotterdam to Schiphol, and airport security can be a real zoo. It's not worth the stress to us.

This has been my experience. I really hate the sales pitch which ruins the relaxing massage. Add that to the service being twice the price of what I can get at home, it's a no-go for me.

I couldn't agree more (thank you Ken!). After following along on Ken's wonderful adventure, we booked a Princess Antarctic cruise for 2025. We've been long time Celebrity cruisers, but have recently branched out to Holland and Princess. You can't beat thier itineraries. @Ken the cruiser you should be getting a kick-back from both Princess and HAL! 🙂

Princess has some fantastic Antarctica sailings. Check out @Ken the cruiser "live from" blog on the Princess site. His commentary and photos inspired us to book this cruise in 2025. Check out his link here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2984033-live-from-the-sapphire-30-day-antarcticasa-b2b-jan-20-feb-19/

Ken, I've loved following your cruising blogs on the Princess, Celebrity, and HAL boards. DH and I have been tossing around the idea of an Antarctica cruise, and your photos and comments on this cruise has convinced us to do it. We just booked the Sapphire Antarctica for Jan 2025--and we were able to snag an aft balcony! Thank you for all your time and effort on this, so many of us have benefited from your work.

This is exactly how DH and I feel. We really enjoy the E class ships, and sailed the Apex twice in an SV and loved it. That was followed by a cruise on the Beyond in an IV...only because there were no SV's available, and suite prices were rediculously expensive. So we thought we'd give the IV a try since we really liked the itinerary. Well, we're one and done with the IV's. We really disliked the lack of a true balcony. A window that opens just didn't do it for us. We were drawn to the great itineraries of HAL, so we decided to branch out after 20+ cruises with Celebrity. We sailed on the Niew Statendam and the Rotterdam this past summer, and really enjoyed our cruises--the ships, service, and onboard experience were great. We also have a HAL Antarctica cruise booked for January 2025.

We're recently off the Apex, staying in SV 9307 which shows "connecting" with suite 9305. It was fabulous. The cabins themselves are not connecting. As others have previously mentioned, you simply share a private hallway. The rooms are very private and quiet. At no time did we hear our neighbors except when we were on the balcony at the same time (wonderful balcony, by the way). I would not hesitate to book one again. Of course our first choice would be an SV right in the middle, but you have to be quick for those! In fact, we have the Apex booked again for July 2025, and have the same "shared hallway" SV cabin booked (because again, we were a bit too slow to book--those SV's go fast!). But, we're very excited for our cruise, and already know we love the room and the balcony. Bottom line, don't let it scare you away from booking.

We're flying United Airlines in May from Colorado Springs to Amsterdam with a layover in ORD. We originally had a 3 hour layover, which I was comfortable with. However, we just received notice that our flight from COS into ORD has changed, now giving us only 1 1/2 hour layover. It appears that all other options for that day are even shorter, so a simple change isn't an option, and prices to fly in a day earlier and spending the night at an airport hotel are through the roof. For those of you familiar with O'Hare, is 1 1/2 hour layover adequate? Of course the United phone rep says it is. Am I sressing for nothing? Thank you for your help.

We booked the 7-night, Jan 4th cruise. The itinerary is boring, but we don't plan to get off the ship. It's just (hopefully) a nice warm get-away in the winter. We got an SV at an incredibly low price. I think there were pricing errors when it first came out, because now they've increased significantly.

Wow. Absolutely not. I was stationed on this base in the early '90s, and my heart goes out to those men and women stationed there now.

My experience exactly. I e-mailed my awsome CVP yesterday about a cruise (I've used her for years). Today I got the undeliverable notice stating "no one by that name." I decided to call her directly and the call was auto-redirected to the call center. To make sure I didn't get her extension wrong, I re-dialed. Nope...redirected to the call center automatically. I've been on hold waiting for a rep to answer for 40 minutes now. I have my phone on speaker while doing other things (like this). This stinks.

That's the sailing we were on as well. Maybe I should have tried @Georgia_Peaches $20 idea. 😀

We were in a SV on the Apex in July, and we had just two uncomfortable chairs and a very small table. When we asked our room steward for a lounger, he said they were no longer available. We loved the SV, but the small, uncomfortable deck furniture was disappointing.

Elite-plus, booked 3 HAL in 2024, 2 HAL and 1 Viking Ocean in 2025. First time in 15 years we've booked a line other than X.

It's on the Oosterdam, roundtrip from Athens.

This was us exactly! The Adriatic has been on our list for quite a while now, and we just couldn't logically book X with those conditions. We found a wonderful Adriatic itinerary on HAL with a refundable deposit, the All Included package (including gratuities), and a beautiful aft suite--and quite a bit less than X is priced. We booked it.

We've cruised the Solstice to AK several times when we lived in Seattle. We're planning to visit family back there this May and decided to tack on another Alaska cruise. We looked at the Solstice again, but ended up booking the Koningdam instead, as we were able to get an aft Neptune Suite for significantly less than an SS on Solstice. Glacier Bay was also a big factor.

This. We've now booked two cruises with HAL in 2024, and two in 2025. Their itineraries are much more varied than Celebrity's, their prices far more reasonable, and their "all included" is still actually all included.

This was our experience as well while on our July Baltic cruise on the Apex.

Thank you so much for heads-up on the 2025 itineraries. We just booked an awesome Adriatic cruise for Oct 25 to make up for the May 24 Beyond Adriatic cruise that Celebrity cancelled on us with no notice (I heard it on CC first).

Agree completely. We're Elite+ on Celebrity (which doesn't mean anything anymore), and have loved our cruises. However, for a number of reasons we've begun branching out and have found HAL to be a great fit. The food and service are great, and the itineraries are much more varied than Celebrity's itineraries. The only downside (for us), is HAL's smoking policy in the casino. But that aside, we absolutely love thier newer, Pinacle class ships and have several more booked for 2024.