The4OfUs

We did this in Sept - and I found the two vastly different. It was really cool to be able to walk to a giant waterfall at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier - but it was very far away - the zoom on my camera was appreciated. (That being said, the waterfall was awesome!) Glacier Bay was breathtaking for us - I took so many videos and photos to share with folks back home, but honestly until you're floating on a beautiful ship in front of a giant glacer SO close - allowed on the bow to view, or on our balcony as they swing the ship around so both sides get a long view - you won't really understand the awe of it all. It's one of my favorite places on earth now and I want to go back. 🙂 Either way you will have a wonderful time! 🙂

Love this thread - Happy Birthday HAL! This company has been a part of my family's life since my Opa joined the Holland America Line in 1933 as cadet officer on board the ms Leerdam - makes me so happy it's made it this far, and I hope there are many more "birthdays" to come! 🥳

Interesting!! Thank you, that's good to know - it's not on our documents for the Jan 2025 9 day Rotterdam cruise that we booked Oct 29, 2023, which is just silly, it's a great marketing tool they could use to get earlier bookings! 😛

My TA just called me after talking to Holland, and said "I had NO idea, but you're right, the deposit is fully refundable!" Apparently we booked under the Have It All Plus promotion for the Sept 2025 "7-Day Canada & New England Circle: New Brunswick" cruise - something he had never heard of until I asked about this. 🙂 I had been just holding the room until we decided for sure, but we just put the full deposit down as a result. 😄

Hi there! We just booked a cruise on the Zuiderdam for Sept 2025, and asked for the HIA package - but this time the booking confirmation documentation has a new item - refundable deposit. That's not on our Jan 2025 Rotterdam cruise confirmation, although we reserved that one 14 months ahead and this one is 17 months, so that might be it? I can't find anything about this on the website or other sites, and I'm checking with our TA, but wondered if anyone here has any insights while I wait? 😛 Thanks! 🙂 Monique

A little laugh to lighten the mood! Just got an email and it made me think that maybe the CEO of BarkBox (a monthly subscription box for dogs that includes toys and treats) needs to tackle this problem like he apparently just did for air travel! https://air.bark.co/ Then again, a 6 hour flight is on par with some of the HAL suites on a 7 day cruise in cost...so maybe not - as my husband said when I showed him, "The audience for that service probably own their own jets" 😂😂

Oh WOW, thank you for the correction - here's where I admit I'm a tea drinker, and I asked my husband who is the coffee drinker and he was sure it was "the other Nespresso machine with the small pods" 😂 Apologies for the incorrect info! You're right, I googled Mocoffee Holland America and this image came up. 🙂

We have been on both the Nieuw Statendam and the Eurodam in the past 4 years in Neptune Suites and it was the same machine as my cousins in Holland have - - you can look for video tours on YouTube of the Neptune suites on the ship you’re going on - they always point out the coffee machine 😂😊

And there's also two types of Nespresso pods - the Vertuo ones, which are normally 7.77 ounces, with some options as small as 1.35oz and as big as 18 oz (they are circular) and the Original Espresso ones, which are 0.85 to 3.7 ounces and are small and pointy - two different machines are needed, in the Neptune Suites they are the Original only. 🙂

They are the smaller pods - not the Vertuo we have at home - if you have the original espresso capsules, they would work! 🙂

We have this harness - it's from True Harness - and when you order it you can customize the velcro "sign" that attaches to the side. We have our pups names and my cell number. We saw someone do this on our flight home last month - little dog like this (ours are Silky Terriers that look much like this as well) in a red vest, then we deplaned and as we headed to pick up our luggage, the owner took off the sign, put a leash on the dog and then RAN up the escalators. SO frustrating, we were just looking at a long cruise (35 days) and realized we could never do it because we would never be away from Banjo and Kazooie that long. I hate seeing this. 😞

You got me curious...so I went back to the week of Sept 10 last year, when we were on a 7 day Alaska HAL cruise...and checked respiration during sleep...and it is significantly lower. The week before, my rates during sleep were 13 breaths/min at the lowest - during the week on board, it was 7.5 breaths/min and looking at the weekly rate for the rest of the year outside of that week, it's no lower than 12. Fascinating. My next cruise is in Nov...I'm going to have to keep an eye on that just out of curiosity! 😛

Princess, RCL and HAL all have told us that they cannot do this until after sail away for some reason - interested to hear if you find a way! 🙂

Not sure if you've seen it, but here's a video from Sept 2023, I would assume after the refit? When I sailed on the Nieuw Statendam in 2020, it was in an aft Neptune Suite - we have the Pinnacle on the Rotterdam for our January cruise, SO looking forward to it! 🙂 This one looks like what I've seen in videos for the Rotterdam.

We had two waitlisted for our Alaska cruise last year - one was a 15 person bike pub crawl type thing in Sitka and the other was for the Mendenhall Glacier tour, which we figured was a long shot. We found out the day before we got on board that we got the bike tour (which was a BLAST, riding around Sitka after the guys finished their once in a lifetime round of golf in Alaska 😂) - and we had already arranged for a private tour for the glacier, which was so nice - a van for the 6 of us, way less $, fantastic personal tour guide. I'm curious - Where can you see how high you are on the wait list? Asking for our January cruise as there's a few new ports for us on that one! 😄