New to HAL. Now the waiting...and waiting

[Bimmer09]

I am not new to cruising but new to HAL following many Princess Cruises (Elite status), 4 Celebrity (S Class and E Class) and 2 Azamara.

I have, since my last cruise (X Apex) to Iceland/UK, canceled an Azamara cruise (Turkey/Greece) in favor of a HAL Rome to Egypt, Turkey and Greece sailing September 21 2024 on the Nieuw Statendam. She appears to be doing that route as we speak. If there's anyone on board reading this let us know how it's going if you can.

I have been taking pics of HAL ships during my many cruises and posting them in my CC reviews...here are samples

 

 

I had to do a lot of research before deciding on HAL and thankfully there's a lot of positive, even glowing, YouTube videos which helped me narrow down the field for a bucket list eastern Med cruise. 

We (me and DeckChairQueen) usually sail aft for the wake views in verandahs or suites. All aft verandahs were sold out on the NS so we'll have a Vista (wanna-be) suite but that's ok. Booked on line and next day had someone from HAL volunteer to be my PCC. I was prodded to ask about Club Orange by someone who doesn't like huge dining rooms, no matter how beautiful but prefers a more intimate space. So we added that.

A delicious British biscuit

 

Seeing how early aft real estate sells out on HAL I looked for another bucket list cruise in 2025, almost 2 years out.  I booked one which has us revisit Amsterdam a city we fell in love with  this past June as we prepared to sail to Iceland. The ship sails from Rotterdam but we prefer Amsterdam as a base.

So #2 HAL is Nieuw Statendam (again!) 14 days up to the top of Norway (all new ports for us up there) and back to Rotterdam via some Scottish ports (all new to us) . Last stop is Dover which we visited this past June. 

The aft verandahs were already sold out!! Another Vista, this time the one next door to our Rome sailing.

Now we have to wait a year before we get to see if HAL is a good fit for us. I am not asking anyone to wait with me-please go on about your business.

I'll let you know when we are back by writing a long photo/video review detailing our experiences on HAL. As is my custom every meal will have his picture taken and I'll cover the public rooms and restaurants and bars and spill the beans (I'm a messy eater and lover of the Full English for breakfast).

Just popping in to introduce myself....

Norris

 

[ski ww]

Welcome aboard Norris, enjoy your cruise.

[VMax1700]

1 hour ago, Bimmer09 said:

lover of the Full English for breakfast

That can be difficult on HAL!

Takes effort to harvest the necessary ingredients, but, with perseverance it can be successful!

Grilled back bacon is available at one Lido station, which also has mushrooms, sausages (pork), baked beans (not beanz 😉) grilled tomato and fried potato.  Sometimes it has scrambled egg (reconstituted) but if you want fried egg then you must go to another station.

The routine is:  go to station 1 and order fried eggs and then at the end of that station order the toast.  Walk up to Station 2 and get a plate of back bacon, mushrooms, beans etc.  Then walk back to Station 1 and collect eggs and toast plus butter (not real butter but a pasty coloured product) and marmalade. 

Eat, enjoy and repeat daily.

[0106]

Available in the MDR and the Club Orange dining room.

 

@Bimmer09 Welcome!  We prefer aft cabins too.  Many people booked them during the $1 deposit sale.  Many of these people will cancel their bookings.  Call your PCC and tell them you would like an aft cabin.  I have received notification on two different cruises when aft cabins became an available and immediately changed my cabin to an aft.  IMO an aft cabin is better than a Vista Suite.

[Nodakboiler]

There are vista aft suites on the Pinnacle class ships which is what he has I believe. We've also booked them when the verandahs are sold out.

[TeaBag]

Nice to look at your pictures in Vancouver again, Norris.  We are boarding Eurodam 2 weeks today, Vancouver to Ft Lauderdale.  This is our first sailing on HAL also and we are looking forward to trying it out.  They do have some lovely itineraries.

[Live4cruises]

@Bimmer09 I echo @0106. We don’t use a HAL PCC, just me on the phone with the 800 #’s. We periodically take a look at what’s available, and have been pretty lucky with aft wraps, which we oddly fell in love with several years ago on X!  Good luck, they are the best. 

[Bimmer09]

3 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

That can be difficult on HAL!

Takes effort to harvest the necessary ingredients, but, with perseverance it can be successful!

Grilled back bacon is available at one Lido station, which also has mushrooms, sausages (pork), baked beans (not beanz 😉) grilled tomato and fried potato.  Sometimes it has scrambled egg (reconstituted) but if you want fried egg then you must go to another station.

The routine is:  go to station 1 and order fried eggs and then at the end of that station order the toast.  Walk up to Station 2 and get a plate of back bacon, mushrooms, beans etc.  Then walk back to Station 1 and collect eggs and toast plus butter (not real butter but a pasty coloured product) and marmalade. 

Eat, enjoy and repeat daily.

Difficult on HAL you say. I have been spoiled by the Celebrity Buffet where boffins cleverly made a section called English and one called American. At breakfast one (such as I) could go to the English section and there was fried bread, fried mushrooms, baked beans, pork sausages, back bacon, fried potatoes, fried eggs/poached eggs and black pudding!! (gasp!) One stop shopping.

Over at the American section there was crispy (think shrapnel) streaky bacon, sausage patties, eggs in various guises, hash browns, breakfast potatoes and (yippee!) excellent corned beef hash.

There was always Indian food too.

At lunchtime the English section would feature Brit pub fare like steak and ale pie, shepherd's pie, cottage pie, sausage and mash with gravy plus cod and chips. If you wanted the full British pub experience you just had  to ask and a waiter would fill the table with empty beer glasses, some empty crisp packets and an  overflowing ashtray and a bloke called "Old Ernie" who was skilled at falling off a high stool over and over again. Cor blimey Guv'nor it was a right old kerfuffle!

VMax I'll follow your mental map in my quest and thanks for taking the time to clue me in.

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

2 hours ago, TeaBag said:

Nice to look at your pictures in Vancouver again, Norris.  We are boarding Eurodam 2 weeks today, Vancouver to Ft Lauderdale.  This is our first sailing on HAL also and we are looking forward to trying it out.  They do have some lovely itineraries.

Agree on itineraries! Nice to see you here. I'm glad you found me. Let me know how you get on when you cruise from Vancouver. Enjoy your trip through the Panama Canal.

Hope to see you in my Ruby Princess (partial) Panama Canal cruise over Christmas! 

(Coming January 1 to computers Nationwide!!)

Norris

[Bimmer09]

3 hours ago, 0106 said:

Available in the MDR and the Club Orange dining room.

 

@Bimmer09 Welcome!  We prefer aft cabins too.  Many people booked them during the $1 deposit sale.  Many of these people will cancel their bookings.  Call your PCC and tell them you would like an aft cabin.  I have received notification on two different cruises when aft cabins became an available and immediately changed my cabin to an aft.  IMO an aft cabin is better than a Vista Suite.

Hi,0106 and thanks for the welcome. I did ask my PCC to put me on a waitlist hoping there is such a thing. The Vista cost a couple of grand more. I know it comes with a pair of binoculars which I know can be expensive. As well as Club Orange I opted for HIA.

Thanks for the Full English breakfast tips too. I'm definitely up for it even though it lacks black pudding (aka blood pudding) . By sleuthing and an attentive eye I see that HAL uses Illy cafe from Trieste and that was a feature that helped me sway Carol (DCQ) who always needs help being swayed away from Princess- first to X then once she was happy with that I had to sway her towards Azamara. Now to HAL.

Thanks again,

Norris

[Haljo1935]

Welcome to HAL @Bimmer09! I do hope you enjoy both the awesome wake views of your true aft cabin and the itineraries. Be sure to utilize HALs fabulous laundry service.

I'll be back to read your thoughts and see your pictures. 

Safe travels  - enjoy your cruise!

[Ferry_Watcher]

Both the full American Breakfast, as well as the English Breakfast were offered on the Zaandam last week (Sept 2023).

[Ferry_Watcher]

5 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Welcome to HAL @Bimmer09! I do hope you enjoy both the awesome wake views of your true aft cabin and the itineraries. Be sure to utilize HALs fabulous laundry service.

I'll be back to read your thoughts and see your pictures. 

Safe travels  - enjoy your cruise!

I will second the laundry suggestion.  Well worth the price.

[puppycanducruise]

Welcome!  Have a great cruise.

[scubacruiserx2]

Hi Norris and welcome to HAL . Our favorite ships have been the Nieuw Amsterdam and Eurodam Aft corner Neptune Suites . They have a private breakfast at the Pinnacle and here's a photo of Patty's English Breakfast from there . Hash browns , fried tomato , fry bread , beans , back bacon , pork banger , mushrooms and eggs . If you would like , we could show you a video of the aft corner . Happy cruising to you and Carol .

 

 

[Bimmer09]

12 minutes ago, scubacruiserx2 said:

Hi Norris and welcome to HAL . Our favorite ships have been the Nieuw Amsterdam and Eurodam Aft corner Neptune Suites . They have a private breakfast at the Pinnacle and here's a photo of Patty's English Breakfast from there . Hash browns , fried tomato , fry bread , beans , back bacon , pork banger , mushrooms and eggs . If you would like , we could show you a video of the aft corner . Happy cruising to you and Carol .

 

 

Thanks Joe, I've seen many videos of Neptunes including those in your reviews. More space than we really need and more $$$ than we like to spend. I think a TransAtlantic would make it more worth considering. The balcony is indeed impressive as are the perks.

I am sure we will sail on the ships you mention if we like NS. I know Carol will not be happy with the Pinnacle Class promenade decks but would love those on the Eurodam/NA.

 

Cheers,

Norris

[pretty princess]

Great to see you back and you have healed and recovered to go,cruising again!  Looking forward to your review!

[Bimmer09]

19 hours ago, pretty princess said:

Great to see you back and you have healed and recovered to go,cruising again!  Looking forward to your review!

Thank you for the good wishes. I'm still having tests done and was at the hospital today and am in good shape!

I am looking forward to a new experience with HAL and photographing a new ship and new countries and some new sights like the Pyramids, Istanbul, Athens, Ephesus, Mykonos etc.

Only 360 days to go! 

I'll start packing...

Norris

[valancy1]

On 9/24/2023 at 3:14 PM, Bimmer09 said:

I am not new to cruising but new to HAL following many Princess Cruises (Elite status), 4 Celebrity (S Class and E Class) and 2 Azamara.

I have, since my last cruise (X Apex) to Iceland/UK, canceled an Azamara cruise (Turkey/Greece) in favor of a HAL Rome to Egypt, Turkey and Greece sailing September 21 2024 on the Nieuw Statendam. She appears to be doing that route as we speak. If there's anyone on board reading this let us know how it's going if you can.

I have been taking pics of HAL ships during my many cruises and posting them in my CC reviews...here are samples

 

 

I had to do a lot of research before deciding on HAL and thankfully there's a lot of positive, even glowing, YouTube videos which helped me narrow down the field for a bucket list eastern Med cruise. 

We (me and DeckChairQueen) usually sail aft for the wake views in verandahs or suites. All aft verandahs were sold out on the NS so we'll have a Vista (wanna-be) suite but that's ok. Booked on line and next day had someone from HAL volunteer to be my PCC. I was prodded to ask about Club Orange by someone who doesn't like huge dining rooms, no matter how beautiful but prefers a more intimate space. So we added that.

A delicious British biscuit

 

Seeing how early aft real estate sells out on HAL I looked for another bucket list cruise in 2025, almost 2 years out.  I booked one which has us revisit Amsterdam a city we fell in love with  this past June as we prepared to sail to Iceland. The ship sails from Rotterdam but we prefer Amsterdam as a base.

So #2 HAL is Nieuw Statendam (again!) 14 days up to the top of Norway (all new ports for us up there) and back to Rotterdam via some Scottish ports (all new to us) . Last stop is Dover which we visited this past June. 

The aft verandahs were already sold out!! Another Vista, this time the one next door to our Rome sailing.

Now we have to wait a year before we get to see if HAL is a good fit for us. I am not asking anyone to wait with me-please go on about your business.

I'll let you know when we are back by writing a long photo/video review detailing our experiences on HAL. As is my custom every meal will have his picture taken and I'll cover the public rooms and restaurants and bars and spill the beans (I'm a messy eater and lover of the Full English for breakfast).

Just popping in to introduce myself....

Norris

 

I hope someday we will cross paths.  If the VS is sold out, and budget allows, look at the AS suites as on the pinnacle class ships, they share aft facing space with VS's.  Or splurge on an SB Neptune (watch for sales and play even a little bit in the casinos for upgradeable offers) with that amazing corner wrap verandah in the back.  Deck 6 even has an adjoining verandah so a family can really share that space.

[Ipeeinthepools]

This is great news, I'll finally be sailing with Bimmer.  We'll be sailing from Amsterdam so we'll be onboard waiting for you when you board in Rome.   We can also have dinner with you in Club Orange, Welcome Aboard.

[Bimmer09]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Now we can both pee in the pools together-I thought I was the only one.

Norris

[Bimmer09]

10 hours ago, valancy1 said:

I hope someday we will cross paths.  If the VS is sold out, and budget allows, look at the AS suites as on the pinnacle class ships, they share aft facing space with VS's.  Or splurge on an SB Neptune (watch for sales and play even a little bit in the casinos for upgradeable offers) with that amazing corner wrap verandah in the back.  Deck 6 even has an adjoining verandah so a family can really share that space.

Hi Debra- we've already been forced into Vistas for both cruises booked. Both on Schubert deck 7.

Neptunes look great of course....the corner wrap has a fantastic balcony!

Thanks for the comment!

Norris