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BermudaBound2014

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    Michigan & Maui
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    A retired Generation X actively traveling the world
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    HA! I’m barely loyal to my siblings

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  1. I know the question about my disappointment with HAL tours has been asked a few times so let me tackle that question. Of course this is only my experience. Ymmv The HAL Hollywood in Kailua was ok. I paid $179. HAL raised the price to $279 for those on next years cruise. It’s a rip for $279 but they do take you to lots of pretty spots. Our tour guide wasn’t the best but I was on the bus with a great group of friends that made the time go by nicely. It was my favorite of the three Hal tours I did. I can not recommend the next two HAL excursions. The first was Ohana Catamaran from Papette (note, they also have Ohana catamaran from Moorea which will likely be much better because the water in Moorea is much better for snorkeling. The description says you snorkel in a lagoon. Be aware that in FP, a lagoon is everything inside the coral reef. Basically we anchored in a boating lane in water that was about 25-30 feet deep. There was minimal coral and fish. The hygiene standards on the catamaran weren’t great either. People with me on the tour got $25 rebated. I did leave a note in navigator and asked them to call me. They never did. I could have followed up too, but for a measly $25 I didn’t want the negative energy. The tour is not as described. I’d give that one hard pass if you want snorkeling. It’s a nice boat ride. I should also mention that I do not recommend any snorkeling in Papeete for the very same reason (you don’t snorkel in a lagoon, you snorkel in a boating lane). Tahati by boat went to a very similar area. I know people pleased with tahati by boat but there were also those who were not pleased. The waters off Papeete are not in the same league as our other stops. There were turtles, but there are turtles everywhere. There are also dolphins at the entrance way to the lagoon, but you can see these from the ship at sail in. iMo the best thing to do when in Papette is a land tour because the water here just isn’t as nice. I used Eden tours (pdf information file is in this years roll call and I’ll repost when I get home). I do recommend Eden tours for a lovely circle island tour. Next year I hope to skip Papeete entirely and head to Moorea for a few extra nights. More on that in another post. The last tour I did with HaL was the photography tour in Mooraea. I had improper expectations for this tour as I was hoping for info on aperture and focal length. A more in depth class like other photo tours. Instead, the host concentrated solely on composition. She showed a couple cool tricks but it just wasn’t my vibe. All in all I was very disappointed in HAL tours and was reminded why it’s been many years since I purchased a cruise line shore excursion. I do acknowledge that ship tours are much easier and if you don’t make it to an island you are refunded. Given the medical emergency we had that prevented us from Fanning island, and the weather that prevented the cruise before ours from docking in Maui, it’s important to read all terms and conditions of any non-ship tour you may book as port stops just aren’t guaranteed.
  2. Did you mean March 22? I’m part of a group that collects data on the numbers. It’s no longer whale soup as expected but there are plenty left according to my data sources.
  3. I’m currently half way across the pacific on my way to Maui and getting bored so I’ll take a stab at this one now :). Truth be told I don’t snorkel much on the south side since the condo is on the west in Kapalua with some of the best snorkeling on island nearby. however; I do not recommend you cross the Pali to snorkel on the west side. I didn’t recommend that for a one day cruise stop prior to the fires and it’s worse now due to tremendous traffic on the only road into/out of the Lahaina as the clean up efforts commence. That leaves you snorkeling around Kihei. Any of the Kams are popular but my favorite spot on that side is Ulua. Some nice coral last time I was there and it’s an easy beach to enter the water at. Of course you could look up Trilogy from Ma’alaea and see if you can make an excursion to Molokini based on your timeframe. If things work out like this year I’ll be on island in April again since I plan to head to Maui after the 2025 Tahiti cruise too. If I’m on island, and not entertaining that day, I maybe able to come pick you up :). Last year I was seeing whales right up until the last week of April (although not as abundant). Based on reports I’m getting they are still around right now. I’m heading out next week and hope to get to encounter some fun comp pods. End of season comp pods are a blast!
  4. Sadly, smash and grabs are not isolated to California :(. Somehow we have lost our way. I will continue to sail out of San Diego as long as there are itineraries I want to sail on. One day of disorganization was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. San Diego as a city offers a lot. We walked our tails off in the tourist areas the last 4 days and never once felt unsafe.
  5. I just said goodbye to my dear friend as she must make the long trek back to Northern California to report to work in the morning. It’s been a whirlwind few days. Have I mentioned how much I love retirement? Retiring in my early 50s was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Highly recommend. We stayed at the Hyatt Manchester. Literally attached to seaport village. They do an amazing breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the club suite rooms- I highly recommend the upgrade for both the chow and views. Sunday was rainy and downright cold. Monday and today have brought bright blue skies but temps in the mid 60s. Light jacket weather for sure and it’s a good thing the pool is heated. We were going to do the Hop on hop off trolley, but everything in San Diego is pretty close and I really wanted to walk since I’ve been eating so much. 30k steps later we explored little Italy. We also walked to the gas lamp district for drinks and taco Tuesday :). We managed a harbor tour too. Time literally flew by!! I did witness my very first smash and grab. Technically it was just a grab but pretty surreal for this midwesterner. The guy was quite polite explaining that he wasn’t planning to pay (he had a variety of grocery items from the CVS on Broadway and 4th street). The worker just let him pass. Someone asked if she was going to call the police and she explained that they don’t report if the person was non violent. She also explained that it happens daily and that she is instructed not to intervene. At the risk of sounding political, wth is happening to our big cities? San Diego is a lovely town, but I’m afraid visitors maybe quite shocked at the amount of homelessness and general disarray. In spite of that little reality check, I enjoyed my time here very much and think San Diego has much to offer the cruise community. As with all large city’s it is best to always be aware, but I’ll be back next year. Unafraid and absolutely unwilling to let a few jerks dull my sparkle :). With that, just a quick 6 hour flight and I’ll be in my happy place (Kapalua, Maui) tomorrow. All of Maui is nice, but for me Kapalua is home. There is a resounding level of spiritual energy in the Aina’, and I look forward to laying my head down there tomorrow night. I can think of no better way to end this epic adventure than spending another 6 weeks on Maui. I promise that I have not forgotten your questions. Hubby arrives on Saturday so I should have several days to wrap up this review. In the meantime, here are some photos from San Diego…
  6. Good morning from a very sunny (but windy/chilly) San Diego. The club room breakfast here at the Hyatt reminded me of the lido with yummy omelets and chocolate croissants (among other things). I really need to stop eating. The views here are wonderful!! My friend arrives this afternoon. I have no idea what we are going to do but I suspect last nights bottle of wine won’t be the only casualty. For anyone familiar with San Diego, the back entrance to this hotel literally opens into seaport village. Any happy hour suggestions within walking distance? Bonus points for calamari.
  7. I feel pretty confident you will be fine for a noon flight, BUT you will have to be proactive. They put the color tags out 5 days before debarkation. I’d get there early to pick up the earliest self debarkation and then make sure you are in line first for immigration. You can not bring luggage to immigration (side note, i did see three people with carryons in line- this is another place HAL could improve and enforce the rules as these made it very difficult for wheelchairs). Basically like every other cruise, if you have an early flight you need to be proactive but I’d book that flight if I didn’t plan to spend more time in San Diego. There were plenty of taxis inside the gates. Most headed to the airport. Cost I was quoted was $35 plus tip (but that was from my taxi driver that charged me $25 to go three blocks, I just didn’t want to drag my luggage and without the premium charge no cabs wanted the ride). Ubers must pick up outside the gates. Best to walk a bit down toward seaport village to give your Uber a hassle free pick up spot. I just didn’t want to deal with my luggage and i already had a porter who could take me to the taxis (but not Ubers). Lazy I know. I think it should be a bit smoother for you since the Princess ship won’t be debarking luggage or dealing with immigration, but I hope one of the people who work at the port will comment in more detail for you.
  8. @OBX2Maui I still admire that your first cruise was 35 nights!! Love the fearless commitment. I think you will find that the disembarkation process was pretty chaotic when compared to other cruises. You stated you waited 45 minutes to get thru immigration. That’s pretty much unheard of at other ports. Much of this was caused by the lack of physical space at the San Diego terminal, but imo Hal could have handled things better too. I agree that by the time folks got to the disembarkation line it was too late to check colors. IMO that should have been done at the entrance to the immigration line (just past the library). If you got to that point before your color was called, one of the white coats could have easily sent you to the side in a nice chair in RSRR or Billboards to wait your turn. Just my idea, maybe there are others, but I do know that compared to the two ships I disembarked last month (one holding 6,500 passengers and one holding 4,000 passengers), yesterdays process was significantly more disorganized and crowded even though the ship only held 2,500 passengers. The line snaking the entire length of the ship was difficult on those with physical mobilities too, not to mention extremely crowded and prime for passing along the corona virus that was onboard. I avoided lines the entire trip for a reason. hAL can do better. It sounds like we both had decent experiences because you were quite early in the process and I was quite late. My advice to others is to either line up first or wait things out patiently. Also, there is double the luggage to manage on a 35 nights cruise. Double the workers needed and double the space to store it once off the ship. San Diego just isn’t built to handle that. We also agree that the entire experience was EPIC! So epic I’m doing it again in both 2025 and 2026, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t areas where HAL can improve. IMO, yesterdays disembarkation is one of them.
  9. She pulled away from the pier at 10:30. Photos aren’t so good due to glare (and a we bit o wine). I sincerely hope everyone on this weeks 7day trip has a great time (although I don’t know how I’ll ever do a 7 day trip again, 35 wasn’t enough for me)
  10. Well gang, it’s 8:15 and she still hasn’t moved. To make matters worse the wine is gone.
  11. Do you know what time? It’s 7:15. I’m three glasses into a bottle of wine. Not sure how much longer I can last up here…
  12. I try very hard to let nothing dull my sparkle 🙂 It’s 6:15 and our girl hasn’t moved. I’m just going to sit here in the club room where I have an excellent view facing the port (my room faces the Coronado). Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there is wine and they are bringing out dessert in a few…..I am a ridiculous.
  13. Debarkation was a cluster. It started with immigration coming on ship about 20 minutes late which put everything behind schedule. Of course passengers were behaving poorly too (showing up early, cutting in line, etc) but HAL could have done a much better job with crowd control and communication. For one thing, i was never once asked for my disembarkation color. The lines for immigration started at the forward elevators, snaked back to the atrium, did a 90 degree turn and wound up in the theatre. The line moved fast but there were sooooo many people. There were also people cutting in line. Some on purpose, some because there was no where to tell where the line began. People would unload from the elevator and jump in line, even thought that was cutting. There wasn’t any clear signage and the white coat officers that were there stood in groups of 2/3 instead of spreading out and helping to direct people. At one point the tensions were high. I’ll post a photo of the immigration line. The coughing got me more than the line itself. I have no doubt that covid is in onboard. At 9:00 (when i was supposed to head to the line), Grant Announced to anyone without a plane to catch to please not come down to immigration until after 9:30. At that time, they had only called 4 colors to debark. By the end of it I would estimate they were a full hour off schedule. Once I saw the line, I decided to just chill in billboards. I squirreled away a couple shots of bailies last night to enjoy with my coffee and since I didn’t have a plane to catch, there was no way I was joining the chaos. Once the crowd thinned I got in line and it did move fast (but was still snaked down thru the atrium). The announcements were very hard to hear. Not totally HALs fault as people simply don’t stop yacking, so if you are in a crowded public area the chance of actually understanding Grant were slim to none. This could be mediated by instructing lido workers not to talk thru announcements too (it’s as if they don’t even hear them). Even the white coats didn’t hush for Grants announcement so that really doesn’t set an example. I had no idea what color luggage tag they were on when i got thru immigration so I just went back to my cabin, grabbed the carryon, and proceeded off the ship. It was 10:15 and I was supposed to disembark by 9:30. Figured I was safe. I was wrong. Unfortunately when i got to the luggage area I found out they hadn’t even unloaded blue luggage from the ship. There were at least 100 people mulling around a closed cargo door. More kept piling in. The long shore worker explained that our luggage was past the door, but they couldn’t open it because there was heavy machinery still in operation staging the luggage. He kept insisting we all write HAL to express our frustration because it wasn’t the long shore workers fault. Since I still wasn’t frustrated, I’m not writing anyone. The blue group waited about 30’minutes before the cargo door was opened for us to enter the area and grab luggage. Interestingly, this area was open air. The rain held off until this afternoon but that would have been a nightmare had the luggage been sitting outside. Moral of the story, if there are two ships in port and it’s supposed to rain, you might not want to pick one of the later colors as there just isn’t enough sheltered space for all the luggage and the late colors sit outside. IMO HaL really should update the announcements much more frequently (constantly) so people are certain what number/color they are on. I also feel that more white coats directing the line would have prevented some of the obvious anxiety passengers were experiencing. Me? Well I was two shots into Bailies and the Hyatt texted me at 9:30 saying my room was ready so I was under absolutely no stress…..at all. Zero. Zilch. No way was I going to have my last memories of the ship be negative. I suspect I may have had a different perspective if I was catching a plane. Keep in mind, all this chaos is because there was also a Disney ship in port and the two ships share resources. Next week there will be THREE ships in and my porter said that while it doesn’t happen often, it is an absolute nuthouse when that happens. My porter who was wonderful. I had two large suitcases and a roll aboard (I’ll pack different next year). I used a service recommended here called luggage forward. It’s not cheap, but I hate traveling heavy so I sent one large suitcase home so I am only taking one case with me to Maui. I am very pleased with luggage forward. They met me right outside the gate. Texted me all morning. The porter couldn’t exit the area but she waited for me inside the gate while I dropped off one luggage with luggage forward, then she wheeled me to the taxi line, where I spent $25 to travel a couple blocks to the hotel. Be aware that taxis don’t want to pick up short rides. They must wait in a very long line to even get into the port pick up area so they want a bigger fare. I settled on $25 with the taxi driver before I even got in, which made it worth his time. Otherwise, I may still be standing there. Hyatt had already texted me that my room was ready (I love Hyatt status) so when it was all said and done I was in my room by 11:00. I consider that a very successful debarkation day. I’m on the 32 floor with a lovely view of the bay. I am club Hyatt which means they feed me breakfast, snacks, and dinner with 24 hour soda/coffee/etc.. drinks are on the honor system. It’s a bit like being on the ship :). Tonight’s complimentary dinner was salmon with a cuscus side. An extensive salad bar with very high quality shaved Parnassian cheese and some cucumber slices with ahi poke’. My favorite was the blue cheese mousse with fig and Bouchée. It’s a high class joint. So much for me being done eating, cause this stuff is tasty! I just watched the Disney ship pull away from the pier (5:20). Going to wait for the Koningsdam. It was a rainy cold day today but the sun is shining now and this weeks crew should get a nice sail away. It’s 5:45 so they are running late (I believe they were supposed to set sail at 5:00) I’ll upload some pics of today and come back when she does sail away. Line just outside forward elevators. This is not the start of the line it was snaking thru billboards at this time. My room with a view My poor attempt at showing how the line snaked thru deck 2. salmon for dinner These were excellent. Disney ship left at 5:20. It’s currently 5:54 and Koningsdam hasn’t budged.
  14. Afternoon!! I have lots more to summarize and I promise to get to all questions; but today has been a whirlwind between packing and all the goodbyes. Yep, already shedding little tears. Sure there are areas for improvement, but this has been a remarkable cruise with amazing people. I am overflowing with gratitude. I’ll be at the Hyatt in San Diego for a few days as I have a friend from Grad School driving down from northern CA to spend a long girls weekend. From there I’m flying to Maui where I’ll have lots of downtime to wrap up this report. I also have GoPro footage to upload once I get to stable internet. So much left to discuss :).
  15. Good afternoon from the magnificent Koningsdam where we are meandering along at 13 knots heading toward San Diego under bright blue skies and glass like sea conditions. Folks, it’s glorious!! I’m in shorts and a T-shirt and it is nice and toasty in the sun, but the minute I sit in the shade I’m chilled. Temp in the app says 66 at 2:00 pm so we definitely aren’t anywhere near the equator any longer. Sadly, I have given up my playpen for the remainder of the cruise because with several towel blankets it’s still quite chilly. Even my exposed nose got cold yesterday while peaking out. A big difference from last week where the only way to chill a nose was to stick it on ice. Not sure how to advise others to pack other than to say both the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser have made an appearance (BTW, that’s still one of my favorite Christmas tunes if that tells you anything about my state of maturity). Since there was no dance class today I decided to channel my inner Forest Gump and walk 5 miles up on deck 11 where it’s full sun with a gentle breeze. There literally isn’t a cloud in the sky today. Have I mentioned it is simply glorious? Well, It’s simply glorious. Yesterday, I discovered lime salad dressing at the deli and ate not one but three caprice salads (ok, one for lunch and two for dinner- they are small, stop judging). Took 33 days for me to find it, but this stuff is legit. Nice and light, super refreshing type of dressing. Can’t be a lot of calories either which is a bonus. Don’t make the same mistake I did and be sure to try this out earlier in the cruise. I’d do shots of it if they’d let me. Last night was more of the same. BBKings had the night off so we were all in Rolling Stones. The last set wrapped up at 11:15. Most folks were already in bed. Nightlife just isn’t HALs strong suit which is part of the reason they just can’t shake the dreadful (yet well known and decades old) stereotype as the cruise line for the “newly wed or nearly dead”. It’s a shame really because there are many very active people onboard who are ready to help HAL put that negative image in the rear view mirror! HAL is trying too with the music hall, and they are getting really close. A few more tweaks and HAL can appeal quite strongly to the retired Gen Xers. IMO there is no better cruise line for offering unique itineraries at affordable prices and even though the entertainment schedule is lacking (my personal desires), I am excited to announce that a large group of us have had so much fun together that we have booked this itinerary in 2026! For me, the timing of this trip is perfect. I can travel with hubby all of January (his slow month at work), jump on this girl for a spin around French Polynesian by myself, then meet hubby in Maui for 7 more weeks of sunshine and exceptional golfing. Life.Is.Grand. There are at least a dozen of us booked for 2025 and an other dozen booked for 2026 if that tells you anything about how much we have all enjoyed this cruise. When I say I have met life long friends onboard, it’s no joke. Many of us have become a cruise family over the last 33 days. Not only are we planning to cruise together again, but some of us have made plans to visit each others homes this summer and one couple may come meet hubby and i in Maui next month. Not sure if all long cruises are like this or not, but I will be forever grateful to both CC and social media for connecting me with “my people”. They have elevated this cruise beyond measure. When things are all said and done, it’s the connections i have made that I will cherish mostly. I will be crying disembarkation day. Tonight is dressy and the third time they will be serving unlimited lobster at the lido. I can’t imagine anyone having a single complaint about the food or service onboard. It’s simply the best…. Last nights sunset
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