jimbob22

it's true. Best for unvaccinated people to stay on the ship b/c there can be some random checks for vaccination papers when getting off or after getting off.

It's got your standard rice and a couple of non-spicy sides like daal, etc. B/c it's not ordered that much, it's not pre-plated like the rest of the food. Thus it's served up pretty hot and fresh. The mdr portions are so small now that you should go ahead and get it, you can easily split it with others. Here's a pic: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?q=indian vegetarian&quick=1&type=forums_topic&item=2892619

It had things in the morning (including lox and bagel, fruit, salads) but I recall the things being cleared out of there by later in the afternoon (well before Java Blue closed for the night). You could potentially get something and put it in your room fridge (I think it was deep enough to hold those banquet type containers, but I'm not certain). Imo it's definitely worth bringing some ziplocs or similar for holding onto some snacks.

on Rotterdam, at least as of late December, 2022, happy hour was 4-5pm, half off. This was at Billboard and another nearby bar, not at every bar on the ship. Great deal though. The guys at Billboard were generous with the pours.

we were on MG over Thanksgiving and I'm pretty certain they do not. They did not seem to have nightly specials at all, and P&A actually has a slightly different menu than the ships where it is fee based. Eg. on MG there are no 'trashcan nachos'. Be aware ahead of time that dinners at P&A are small, very small side portions. I'd actually request two 'menu sheets'. They would not let me pick a meat from the left and right sides (even though it is complimentary). I felt like they were trying to put me on a diet!! (and I'm actually very slim, fit) Unrelatedly, everything at Chibang is 'tapas sized'. Anyone with a decent appetite will want a minimum of like 2/3 appetizers, probably 2 entrees. best foods on the ship: street eats, big chicken, Guy's, Blue Iguana, Pizza, Pannini. Unfortunately most of those are not open for dinner. We did have one dinner at the Capitano. If I had it to do over, I'd have gone there again instead of trying Chibang a 2nd time. But some might disagree with us on that; it's worth trying Capitano and Chibang.

On the excel class ships, they've taken to serving side portions in small condiment containers. And shrimp entrees were typically around 5 or so small shrimp. We and others I've talked to and several I've seen online were also tremendously underwhelmed by Chibang--but I've had some trouble determining if these types of cutbacks are being done on all the ships, or just on the newest. Basically, people will still go on the newest ships even if the mdr isn't that good. But if Carnival is doing this on all the ships, I'm not certain how badly I want to do Carnival again.

interesting review. Normally I'd say perhaps try one of the pinnacle class ships--but you've basically done some of the same Caribbean itinerary that they do. And the shows are the same (I think even the exact same). I'm not sure if music walk is exactly the same. Pinnacle ships have Rolling Stone room and BB King club. Our rotterdam itinerary included San Juan and St. Thomas, which I think are good ports (historic cities, interesting to walk around)--but we did have a couple of sea days. You 'broadened your horizons'. I guess that some have advised newbies and/or people with kids to do the Pinnacle class ships, not drastically different than the ship you went on, but maybe less issues with staffing, possibly a bit more to do for daily activities. I thought the lido on Rotterdam was pretty varied and fresh. Our teen went to the teen club and similarly felt it was not organized enough. The kids that go to it *want* a worker to take charge, run the activities as planned. And when no worker does that, they get bored and leave after a few minutes. I'd like to see hal put more effort into the teen club (over school breaks, when there are many teens on board), and I'd like to see them do more 80s rock in the rolling stone room (Fixx, outfield, night ranger, flock of seagulls, etc). I guess on Rotterdam I didn't really notice the sea-day down time. Between getting breakfast, hitting the gym for a little while, going for walk on 3rd deck prominade, getting a bite for lunch, afternoon trivia once or twice, the seadays just seemed to fly by. We ate in mdr 3 times, the 3 dressy/gala nights. I thought portions were mostly normal, some had small sides. One night I did get two entrees b/c I like both tenderloin and lamb. But those same meats were likely available on the lido that night too. So there may be a trend of MDR meals getting smaller on Carnival's brands, but at least on Rotterdam, the dinner lido had plenty of good choices (as opposed to the 'carnival' brand, where there's a rather limited selection).

if going that route, I'd probably bring a small, travel sized electric kettle. I think relying on them to bring hot-enough water would not work so well. Wife has brought a small kettle on prior cruises (we had a luggage weight limitation for the latest cruise and did not bring it). But I think in general, there are multiple places to get your morning fix. Note that our recent cruise seemed to run out of splenda around day 4 of 7. I could have made a killing selling those had I anticipated...

FWIW, on Rotterdam last week they had a half price happy hour every day from 4 to 5pm. But there's no way to be certain your cruise will have this. We're not big drinkers, but took advantage of that two or three times. For coffee, blasphemous as it may be, I'd consider bringing a bunch of starbux via packets. Those are not much over a buck each. Hal does have milk and half and half, but the complimentary coffee is very weak (some love it, but there can be no denying that it's very weak, at least on Rotterdam).

the comedian on Rotterdam did not do that many shows and she wasn't that great overall (I don't really blame her, it wasn't an easy crowd, and I don't think that most of the crowd was drunk enough to laugh at anything). To be really honest, I think your family would be happier on NCL, Royal, or Carnival. NCL emails me constantly and often has good 3rd or 4th in a room sail cheap or free deals.

I'm pretty certain there's no arcade.

the theater on NS should have been pretty decent sized, with good sitelines for all but the lowest seats. On Rotterdam, there was some kind of show/bbc every night. It should have been the same on your cruise unless some of the dance crew was injured or ill. Obviously, the hal shows don't suit everyone's fancy. They're not similar to the Royal Oasis class or NCL larger ship shows.

Just to clarify, your sailing did not have 3 or 4 dance shows in the main theater? I'm just wondering if something was going on on NS (maybe one or two of the 6 dancers were sick?) b/c Rotterdam and K-dam seem to have been operating as normal. Bummer about the food, I guess Rotterdam got the good tenderloin and lambchops. I ate quite well on Rotterdam. I do agree wrt to comedians. Tbh, in the current era, I think they're under such tight reign that it's very hard for them to generate huge laughs. The comedian on Rotterdam tried her best, but it was not an easy gig.

Someone had said they were on NS and there were NO shows in the main theater. I'll see if I can find and inquire. Based on recent Koningsdam and Rotterdam, there should be something like 3 or 4 dance shows, one show that's really sort of a history presentation on HAL and a couple of BBC Earth (like NatGeo) shows where the Lincoln musicians provide the music. So these are not huge productions or aerial shows. Even Royal, on their ships that do these types of itineraries, the shows tend to be more dance, acrobats, aerialists climbing up sheets. I think they typically use their Serenade class ships for these types of routes, those are not gargantuan like the Oasis class (which have the grand cirque-type shows).

temp: I have no idea. Based on the googles, daily highs will probably be around 70. For main dining room, I think men are not supposed to wear jeans. I brought some navy blue golf pants (aka 'my dress pants'), and two (khaki, olive) 'tech pants', all from costco, all were around 20 bucks or less, all lighter than jeans. I could have gotten by with just the khaki and olive. They have a 'dressy' night, but it's not enforced, although I'd wear at least a collared shirt and khakis for sure. And they have some kind of 'orange' party, so if you have any orange tie/shirt you could consider bringing it. Hal has an excellent lido, very comparable to windjammer. They serve most of the food--but you can say 'can I have a little more of that?'. They'll put food onto your (not eaten off of) plate, or give you a fresh plate if need be. It's very intuitive. It seemed like a high percentage of mdr entrees (if not all) would be served on the lido that night. On youtube are many vids on hal koningstam, rotterdam, new statendam. All three are basically identical in layout, etc.

as others said, this is a pinnacle class ship (one of Hal's newest ships). Looks like it's a 'viking' type sailing, so I'm sure they'll have a talk or two about the ports you'll be going to. A few years ago, we did a RC Baltic cruise, and it was on a similar sized ship, so I don't think the mega ships (with the most spectacular shows) do these itineraries. Seeing the different cities in Norway will be exciting, sailing on one of Hal's newest ships is just an added bonus. The price of this sailing looks really good. Certainly anyone that can get to it and do it, it's a unique itinerary at a great price on a gorgeous ship. It will be like a really premium cruising experience at a fraction of the price of the more premium lines.

I haven't done celebration, but did the similar Mardi Gras. These are their new 'excel class'. These ships are gorgeous, well laid out, not tacky like the prior generations of ships. There will be a lot of entertainment going on (some in the main theater, much in the 'center stage', middle area), as well as live music scattered around in different bars. For center stage shows, we liked sitting in the 'stadium seat' type section between floors 7 and 8, getting there maybe 20-30 minutes early typically enabled us to get seats there. Food: breakfast buffet is pretty much the same American staples every day. I recommend trying the juevos rancheros with arepa at Blue Iguana. There is no better Mexican joint at sea. Carnival is the best at the quick-serve/fast casual type foods: Guy's burger, Shaq's big chicken, Blue Iguana, Street eats. None of these are open for dinner though. Dinner is where their budget cutbacks may be most obvious to you, especially compared to Celebrity. Portion sizes have been cut back quite a bit in the MDR. Note that Chibang is all small-plates, so if you have a decent appetite I'd get like 3 apps and an entree at a minimum, and getting two entrees in there is not outlandish at all. Many (but not all) meals in the mdr were similar, so I found it mildly irritating not knowing if an entree would be miniscule or normal sized. We did not go to the pay-extra restaurants, but the excel class ships could be a good place to do that if one is so inclined.

correct, no belly flop, no hairy chest, no hairy leg contest. So if you/your teens were really into that on prior cruises, you'd possibly not like Hal. We always find the main pool scene kind of loud and mostly dodged that stuff, so Hal works fine for us. Hal is not an amusement park at sea. Our kids would do some of that stuff on carnival/ncl, but often not for that long (i.e. they did not spend 1-2 hours doing the waterslides). I just wouldn't want you to take the Hal and then report back, 'oh we were bored, they didn't do enough stuff, etc.'. It's always good to bring a backup book or kindle on any cruise imo. I will say that our Rotterdam Christmas cruise was full, had many families, many with fairly young kids, and I'd guess that most came away happy with it.

we've done the other two pinnacle class ships, and we have two teens, but ours are sort of lazy and content in general. Hal does not do a ton of comedy. And there's not a lot of action by the pool, but they do now play music by the pool. We did quite a bit of trivia, but there are no prizes (it was often pretty hard trivia). They do have a nice room where they have tons of puzzles and board games. If your teens really need the staff to keep them fully entertained, then it's not for you. Overall, we liked it. In the last 6 weeks we did Mardi Gras and Rotterdam, and I liked Rotterdam a lot better mostly b/c I really like a good lido and did not like how Carnival has made the mdr very mediocre. Hal does not have big chicken or blue iguana, but Dive In burgers is really good, and the food overall was way better. Our mdr dining experience on Hal were considerably better than on Mardi Gras (Hal has nearly all the mdr entrees on the lido too). There is a teen club but I'm not sure how organized it is. There are no flowriders, waterslides, roller coasters, ropes courses, or arcades (but I think teen club has video games). So if your teens need these things, it may not be for them. As others mentioned: there is quite a bit of live music (classic rock from 60s-80s at rolling stone), the theater shows are dance-oriented, some are similar to national geographic type shows with live musicians playing, so they are sort of 'adultish', but many teens still enjoy them. Overall it's probably a somewhat more 'adultish' cruise experience than they are used to.

it's odd that they only make those red and yellow danishes. Why no chocolate croissants? Are they making danishes there? or maybe just pizza dough? Maybe CC can have a mole infiltrate the galley and report back.

we were on rotterdam over Christmas. Lido coffee was super-weak, no body to it whatsoever. I still drank it. At night sometimes we'd stop in for decaf and dessert and the decaf may as well have been water. I griped on the post-cruise survey. That was my only real issue with any of the food and drink (although our kids would have liked easier access to the tea and lemonade). Next hal cruise I might bring my own 3-in-1's or maybe good instant (although Starbucks is not liked here, I found their little packets of instant to be excellent when I last had them a few years ago).

Music walk tends to have multiple sets, eg. rolling stone band would play 3 times, maybe 8:30, 9:30, 10:30 (on various nights those might be around a half hour later). You should be able to catch quite a bit of MW no matter what. I guess that if you eat earlier, like 6 or 6:30, you should then have more free time to plan for subsequent things, maybe get to a venue before one of the band starts their set. Fwiw, on Rotterdam the main theater showtimes are 8pm and 10pm (lasting about 45 minutes), and those would typically guide your dining time.

Rotterdam has a half priced happy hour every day from 4 to 5pm--but I don't know if all the ships have this. We took advantage of that a couple of times (and their pours were generous, moreso that prior cruises we've been on). We don't drink nearly enough to warrant getting drink packages.

I watched them some last week. I thought they were solid. The guy could do Petty/Springsteen/Clapton type stuff and she did the higher pitched things well. were you able to to catch their later sets? could they take any requests? I'd have loved to see some ballroom blitz, but I'm not sure how much they are allowed (or able) to deviate from standard play lists.

currently on rotterdam, they do replenish the bols a few times, so it was not hard to get one. I guess that the harder they are to get, the more incredible the passengers say they are.