cruisevers

We had no Mariners lunch on the Westerdam in April so you may not have to worry. Hope this is not a trend...

We bought the ships Internet unlimited plan on the Westerdam in April for $60 and it was very good. Faster than we expected..We were glad we took it as we use it more while sailing than in port. Too busy in port sightseeing...

Thank you for pointing me to these. Did not realize they were the same as the cabin on Eurodam. That helps a lot.

Honestly, I have had more issues the the tub shower than the shower only shower. Never had an issue with the shower only and don't remember ever hitting the wall in the few cabins we have had with shower only. The shower curtain in the tub shower though....I began to hate it as it was always sticking to me. I asked DH and he had the same issue and he did.

I agree with that too! Sticking shower curtains are the worst...having long hair makes it a challange either way..

Trying to choose between 4164 and 4166 for our next cruise. I know 4166 has a shower only but am wondering if the shower is the same size as other cabins or is it bigger?

I hate bumping elbows on those shower walls so usually use the tub to take a shower. Anyone that has had this cabin have any information?

I saw that too, reference all the suites still available, guessing HAL is looking to get whatever last minute upsells they can, betting you get an assignment by the end of the weekend. Good luck, still some nice locations left.

Ok here is my theory and my opinion only but here is what happened on our recent cruise. We booked an SY about 2 months out and I watched inventory like a hawk. We then got an Upsell which we took to an aft wrap Neptune suite. As soon as we switched a previous unavailable Signature suite appeared available. I feel that was the one they had already assigned to us. So my theory is as soon as you book they pencil you in with an assignment which can still change if they need to.

As far as seeing your assignment when it is released, go into your booking and click print luggage tags. It seems to show up there faster than elsewhere. You will get an email but it will be at least a day or two later.

Congrats to all those getting an upgrade!

So glad this thread is still going strong. I thinks it helps others get an idea of what can happen when booking a gty and to see where HAL is at on assignments. Keep posting!

Sitka is not necessaryily a tender port. We were on the Westerdam last week and we docked as did the cruise before us. I liked Sitka better than Skagway as it was not as touristy imo. We enjoyed our cruise and there was all ages on board, food was great and stayed on our balcony almost any time the ship was underway looking for wildlife and saw everything from whales to Eagles from there! I like smaller ships as you are not fighting with thousands to embark and debark when in port thus wasting time, or for space on deck to view glaciers etc.

You might also check Holland America. We just returned from Alaska on the Westerdam out of Seattle. It was a wonderful trip and had all ages onboard. Our price was very good, in fact my nieces balcony was $300 cheaper than we paid 11 years ago! The itinerary was fabulous and included Glacier Bay.

Thanks everyone...it was a great cruise! It wasn't our first cruise but our first on HAL and will be our first choice from now on.

sorry to hear this. We just got off the Westerdam at the beginning of May after 3 weeks on her and the food was quite edible, so I am surprised.

 

PG food was excellent when we were on and certainly worth the surcharge.

 

I wonder if there was a staff turnaround of some sort?

 

I notice the Neptune Lounge concierges have changed.

 

I just can't fathom how a ship could change so much in just over a week unless there was a major staff change?

We just got off her yesterday and the concierges were Margaret and Ivy. I thought they were the same ones as your cruise?

We enjoyed the food except for the Pinnacle Grill dinner. We did eat in the Lido and room service since we spent our time mostly on the balcony watching for wildlife tho.

How odd...we had Clifford also and he seemed lost most of the night. He said he had an assistant but we never saw him. He seemed overwhelmed and they seemed short staffed.

We are not Outback or Texas Roadhouse people either. Two plus hours is acceptable for fine dining but not over 3 hours! We are quite accustomed to fine dining, I assure you, and this was not fine dining at its best. Yes it may have been an off night but this was our experience. You should not judge me as you do not know me or the other poster.

Since I benefited from so many other reviews here, I will attempt to write my first one as I am missing my morning room service for coffee.....

We flew in on Thursday for our cruise on Saturday. We stayed at a Hampton Inn close to the airport as we were not doing tourist type things but meeting up with Dh's sister who lives there. Sadly she was sick and this did not happen. The hotel still worked fine as they had a free shuttle to local restaurants and shopping which we took advantage of.

My niece and her hubby flew in on Friday night. Their luggage arrived soaking wet, including everything in it! Seems it sat out in the rain at their connection in Denver and Southwest claimed they are not responsible for wet luggage. Needless to say it put a damper on the start of our vacation. But they managed to get things dried up overnight and all ended well.

Saturday we hired EastSide For Hire to take us to the dock. It was okay but the driver arrived early (better than late) by an hour and had to wait. Also he did not speak good english and had no idea where the dock was. He tried to use his GPS but it was not quite accurate and we had to help navigate him to the pier. We arrived about 11:45 am and we were in our cabin by 12:10! It was such a smooth embarkation. We were in the suite line and my niece was in general boarding line and we got on within 10 mins of each other. There was no Mariners lunch this cruise, so we ate lunch on the Lido deck.

Cabins- We had the coveted 5190 corner aft wrap suite which was absolutely wonderful! We got an upsell about 2 weeks prior and took it. My niece and her hubby were in 8023, a verandah cabin forward. They loved having their own balcony and felt it was perfct for the two of them. Mostly all four of us spent sea time in our cabin and on that huge balcony. Our cabin stewart was wonderful as well.

We did not think we would use the concierge service much but ended up using it quite a bit. Margaret and Ivy were so sweet and eager to help with just about anything. More on their help later...

Food- I was very impressed with the food on-board, especially on the Lido deck. It surpassed both Princess and Carnival in selection, quality and presentation. I think we managed to try every venue and were happy with all but the Pinnacle Grill, however Canaletto's was awesome!

The Pinnale Grill was such a disappointment. We had a 7:30 res for four and were seated at a window. It was full when we arrived but our concierge had requested a window for us. Once we started most others were finished and I would say was only about half full once the early diners finished.

It started out oddly. We all ordered an appetizer and a soup. 3 of us received our appetizer (shrimp-very yummy btw) and 1 got their soup, then 3 got soup and one got appetizer. After a long wait we got our entree and sides. We all had baked potatoes and the waiter started to serve the butter and sour cream to us, after serving 2 of us, he stopped and said he would bring it out in a bowl. He stopped in the middle of serving my niece and still had plenty left! The 2 of us still needing butter waited while he left and tended to another table who was just seated. We waited 10 minutes, at which time our potatoes were now cold and our entrees half eaten. My steak had the distinct freezer burn taste to it but the others said theirs was good.

After our entrees, we waited again for dirty plates to be removed, another 10-15 minutes and we were given desert menus. The waiter returned twenty minutes later to take our order. He then told us souffles would take 15-20 minutes extra, which we had planned on ordering. Since the dinner was so long already we decided on alternate items. 30 minutes later we received our deserts. My niece ordered chocolate lava cake. It was pure soup! I think they forgot to bake it and it was raw cake dough. All in all a big disappointment and a waste of over 3 hours.

I am sorry to be so long explaining all this but wanted to show we were not being extremely picky.....I did mention it to our concierge and they were very concerned about it and reported it. We did get a call from the Grills director and he did offer of a free meal there but with only one day left on our cruise and had no desire to eat there again. The concierge also sent a gift of a model of the Westerdam as an apology for our dinner fiasco which was very thoughtful and a very nice sentiment!

Canalettos was awesome! Margaret also helped us track down our reservation for 4 not 2 as stated on the reservation card but she got it corrected.

Seattle - Juneau We did see about a half dozen whales on our first sea day!

Ports- We were up early and saw many whales on our sailing into Juneau. We rented a car and toured on our own, including a stop at Wal-Mart. This was the only day we had cloudy weather but it was warm, with temps in the 60's, any of the locals were in shorts.

Glacier Bay, we were up at 4am and had breakfast in our room while watching for whales and other wildlife. Sadly we did not see much wildlife here. However, it was a bright sunny day and it was beautiful! Very little calving of the glaciers, but so many waterfalls! I will not even try to put it into words.... Our Captain was wonderful, even tho it was not on our itinerary he took us to John Hopkins Glacier and it was the most beautiful of them all. I was so impressed by this extra effort by him, I even sent him a thank you note the next day.

Sitka - Our first time to Sitka and we loved it. Such a quaint little town. As I posted earlier, we did dock here and took shuttle buses into town. It was well organized and efficient. We visited Fortress of the Bears which we all said was the best thing we did the whole trip in ports. They fed the bears which we knew they did but they also fed the eagles! Most impressive! better than any Raptor Center for sure.

Ketchikan - We hired Dave with Ketchikan Taxicab Tour and went to Totem Bight Park and Potlach Park and a general tour of the area which was very nice and then spent the rest of the day shopping. Once back onboard we went to the Salmon Bake on the Lido deck. It was fun and food was delicious! The salmon and the mussels were so good!

Victoria - Short port stop so we had dinner at Fishermans Wharf and shopped a bit.

Formal Night Note - Since we were watching for wild life so much, we ate a lot of our meals through room service, including formal night. They even provided a white table cloth for us that night along with flowers for the table! They earned a nice tip for that! What a wonderful meal for 4 we had that night, watching the water as we ate lobster and steak. Magical!!

Disembarkation was fast and orderly. We were cleared and off the ship by 7:45am and on our way. We used Aces Car Service which was great. Nice car, arrived early, nice driver, we would highly recommend them. We were at the airport in about 20 minutes, hours early for our 11:35 flight.

We also used luggage direct and it worked perfectly, well worth the cost.

We will definitely sail HAL again as it was a wonderful cruise with a good mix of all ages. The Piano Bar was fun and the Dancing with the Stars was good. With so many ports we did not get to as many entertainment venues as we would have liked but there was a good assortment of things too do.

As a side note, we did get a refund or our unused portion of our soda cards and credits for a bit of port fees and taxes. Nice having a negative balance on the bill!

Happy to answer any questions!

 

Suggestions for the Westerdam ... boy is that a broad category! Foodwise, I was unimpressed by the Pinnacle Grill at dinner (YMMV) and my sister and I aren't planning on eating there again.

We definitely agree. It was a waste of money. Food was so-so to terrible and service was horrible. Took ten minutes to get butter and sour cream for potato, thirty minutes to order, steak had freezer burn taste, lava cake was soup not cake etc. it took over 3 hours and the room was half full!

We let the concierge know about it and both they and the Director tried to make it right but we did not wish to waste our time eating their again even for free.

For everywhere else on the ship was great however!

Four of us had three different companies. ATT, Cricket, and Virgin Mobile. Of those, only Virgin mobile had no service. Only checked in Juneau for Virgin Mobile however, as we used the other two after that in all others so it may only have been a glitch at that location.

Sure have---more than once! I got a $29.xx refund as recently as last Wednesday when I disembarked the Volendam. The ship refunds excess port, taxes, fees charges just as it charges for increases (had those, too).

 

Frequently it's a refund for a missed port. There are also times when a change in either direction is due to a change in the foreign exchange rate. Right now, with the US dollar doing so well as compared to other currencies, that's a good possibility for many passengers.

Part of it could have been currency but the Alaska Waters fee I really wonder about. I thought this might pertain to Glacier Bay sailing portion.

We actually docked in Sitka instead of tendering.

Has anyone gotten these as a credit on final bill? I had never seen this before but our bill yesterday getting off the Westerdam had two credits for this. It was approx $40 pp.

One was port fees/taxes and one was Alaska Water fees. We did all ports as per our itinerary.

Just off the Westerdam yesterday. We had no invitation to anything upon embarkation, we even asked at check in. They said they were not having embarkation lunch this cruise.

We did receive an invitation to the Mariners brunch and attended. It was well attended as the dining room was packed. That was the only thing we were invited to and there was nothing given out as we had read there would be.

Back on board and just leaving Sitka. The pier was a bit of a pain, long walk to the shuttles. Many tours did pick up right from here however. The shuttles did run continuously tho and were nice tour type busses.

Internet is $60 for the week and is unlimited but only one device can be logged in at any one time. The social pkg is $25 which is good for facebook but not email.

Tomorrow is Ketchikan and the forecast is calling for sunshine and 68 degrees! Locals are thanking us for brining the sunshine to them!

We will not be tendering as the Captain announced last night as we have special permission to dock. As I type we are pulling into the pier now. More info latter...just woke up,..

Ps....weather has been perfect!! Sun all day yesterday in Glacier Bay!!

We are on the Westerdam now, approaching Juneau. I will update when we get to Sitka but it looks like we will be tendering in.

Onboard the Beautiful Elegant Weaterdam, sitting on our balcony approaching Juneau as I type. Snow capped mountains glimmering in the sunlight on both sides of the channel are beautiful. It has been daylight since I got up this morning at 4:30am!

So far we have had fairly calm seas and maintained a speed of 20-21 knots. Yesterday , with due diligence we spotted 5-6 whales while cruising!

It is even more beautiful than i remembers!! More to come...

Just to update, we were offered another Upsell for our Westerdam sailing tomorrow. Offer is for an upgrade from Neptune to Pinnacle suite for $699pp. Not a bad offer but not interested in giving up our aft wrap!

Towhee , did you get an upgrade of any kind? Glad you got your assignment! Thx for posting.

Thank you all! And thanks to all for all the info!!