LAFFNVEGAS

Welcome on Board!! I very much look forward to your reporting, we will be on board 11 weeks from today also in a Neptune. I would very much love it if you could state what some of theadditional menu items are for Club Orange. I follow along on the Navigator App almost daily but of course it never gives the Club Orange item on that menu. Hope you have an amazing week on the Westerdam!! ENJOY!!

Just 12 weeks till I will be there lol😄

I have been cruising HAL for quite a few years and bben to HMC several times. To be honest I do not like it. It was nice the first couple of times early 2000s I guess as I have gotten older I enjoy the view but hate the beach. I need it a bit more civilized, nice walking paths, bathrooms and showers very close by someone serving me lol basically being at a nice resort. iI am at the age I just want to be pampered. lol

I found it for the Westerdam. I have been looking every evening on the Navigator App for what they are eating. For the fun of it I hit Lunch for Saturday being the last day on board and there it was…… Totally different than what the other lunches have been in the Main Dining Room.

Here are some pics of NCL’s cabana and you can see why I am not interested in reserving HALS. We had our own very private beach.

I just pulled up our December cruise. It appears they now have a fancy new way of presenting Shore Excursions lol. Mine only shows Half Moon Cay but yes the pricing is absolutely crazy and definitely not at all worth it. For LESS NCL offers beautiful air conditioned with full bath and shower in each little condo/apartment type Villa that has it's own Private Beach and High end special Buffet included and there is a Spa within short walking distance. The small ones that are probably about 600 sq ft they allow up to 6 people before charging more. Their pricing is $600 and that is a new price they were not so long ago $499. Plus theirs come with the Butler service. Sadly I would not spend more than $300.00 for what HAL offeres especially since there is no A/C, or bathroom facilities in the cabana. I have already decided we will just stay on board the day we go to HMC.

I too question what Westerdam is offering, athough we do not sail on her till September. But every report/review I have read about the Brunch has been sailings that left on a Saturday where the first Sea Day was a Sunday amd they did the Brunch. I have not read of any ships offering that Brunch on Monday or the last day on the ship. I would definitely enjoy the Brunch just need some people to report in from the Westerdam.

I have been told that once Club Orange reaches capacity that is it and there is no wait list.

A friend brought this to my attention yesterday, I was going to post the article from seatrade. I then saw where a few professional groups I belong to were discussing this. The discussion was that over all this is good for Princess and not so much for HAL/Seabourn and they also agreed that this was a way to easily sell off Costa. I am hoping that it will help HAL get back to the way they were before they started the Princess/HAL merger some 10 years ago. The biggest problem is they are so intertwined there are division that will be hard to seperate and will take some time. But over all the first seperation which I suspect will be ship management could actually improve HAL or at least that is my hope.

For an Alaska Cruise I am not sure I would bother paying extra for the Premium Internet unless you know for sure the ship has already installed Starlink. The problem with Alaska cruises and the internet that is on the ships that has not been upgraded is they are not connecting to the satellite and internet is pretty non existent. Even the ship themselves has very limited access. Your best is going to be using your cell service in ports such as Juneau and Ketchikan, Icey Point is not good at all for cell service and evern Skagway gets spotty.

Thank you for your review, you may want to call Mariner Society to see if they would allow you to purchase a Future Cruise Deposit. It mayy be a long shot but it may be worth a try if you tell them you really wanted to purchase one while on board. I know of a situation several years ago where someone was able to on a charter but then that was pre covid and so much has changed but it would not hurt to ask. Their phone number is 1‐800‐547‐9139

It depends on how soon to the sailing date after final payment, but in most cases the extra paid for the single supplement can be use toward the price for the second passengers and often the 2nd person only needs to pay port taxes. Then the first person just need to get reimbursed (if they want) from the new person being added.

HAL offers Pre and post hotels for embarkation and Debarkation cities. You would book this with the cruise or add on later after booked. HAL always offers transfer with the hotel airport to hotel and hotel to ship or vice versa. Sometimes the hotel sounds high but when you compare total cost of what hotels charge you often are not too bad considering the transfers included. Breakfast is often included for the Europe hotels but not in Canada or US port hotels.

For less hassle I would book at least hotel and transfers from HAL. With the rising cost of hotels the cruiselines and HAL have been much closer matched in pricing in the past year and since HAL includes transfer picking you up and taking you to the hotel then taking you to the ship it is defiitely better. I hesitate with booking HAL Air. It has had many problems over the past year partly due to the airlines but quite a bit a fault through HAL's sub contracted Air Department. You can book your own air and that way you have control over what is happening with it and if their is an air cancellation you and the airline can handle it Not middle man. But with the above being said my next cruise on the Westerdam in September I bought Air from HAL since my non stop first Class Delta flight was a lot cheaper than I could get direct with Delta (or at least at the time) unfortunately now it's cheaper with Delta and my flight time changed 1 hour and 55 minutes later for return home. Delta will not change me to a better flight and HAL is a lot more expensive now. But I did book hotel through HAL which oddly was the same price I paid for the same hotel with them in 2021 and is the same price if I booked directly with hotel but included is transfers. For my upcoming December cruise, not doing air with HAL booking direct with American (far cheaper for non stop first class) but definitely doing hotel with HAL price was slightly higher than if I booked myself but I am flying into Miami and they are providing transfers (probably pre paid taxi voucher) from Miami to the hotel in Ft Lauderdale, then will get us to the ship the next day. To me it is a win with less hassle.

I am very much enjoying your commentary of your cruise. It has made me laugh and smile and say :Yes that is about right" 😁 Looking forward to Saturday's Game and for GKs to take the Stanley Home!!

One thing HAL did that I was impressed with is they added the Espresso Coffee machines in the Neptune Suites so no worry about going to the Neptune Lounge and or Crow's Nest for Coffee. I bring my own little Coffee creamers and I am good for the week.

Since the Westerdam sails on Sunday the First Dressy night will be Monday and the last one will be Friday night.

I would go with deck 5 5190, The balcony is totally covered, I have been in 5191 many times and love that suite. Over all deck 4 is slightly smaller.

I can also tell you that applying for Military Credit is for Future New Bookings as well, they will not budget on this. Personally I find it disrespectful to not off the credit to long time Mariners that are just now finding out about the Military credit but they cannot use it on any current reservations or even staterooms on hold if done prior to applying for the credit. Once they are approved the Military credit is attached to their Mariner number and they will always get it in the future but not for any currently booked reservations if just applying for it.

Another place you can see it is if you have down loaded the Navigator App on your phone. It is updated daily for main dining room and Lido. we are going on the Westerdam in September so we see the current week menu items. This week is a charter on the Westerdam so we know this is current.

Since you are in a VA category, they will not downgrade you to a VB category with Club Orange you must move up if you want to move your choise would be V, VS or VQ. There is a very good possiblity that those staterooms are not a better location despite them being called a higher category. The VQ staterooms are a very small balcony and the staterooms are narrower V or VA may or may not be better. Some of the V's have slightly larger staterooms or much larger balconie but generally those would have been taken before now with your sailing in July. Your benefit if the Club Orange is even still available for you sailing would be for the dining. You cannot get the ship board credit by not moving unless every single category above what you already have is sold out.

I think there are several reason, one being that there is not a specific CO Restaurant on ships that do the Grand Voyages, menus for Grand Voyages are often very different from a regular 7 day cruise and already have additional options, the number of days the Grand World Voyage is and even segments may not be cost effective. The one of the big reasons is stateroom assignments The Grand World full voyage is normaly the one that has availability to select a stateroom, the segments often end up being Guarantees in many categories. This is so those booking the full Grand World Voyage get to select the stateroom they want, then it later can be assigned for the segments. this just make it impossible for being able to offer Club Orange since one could not choose a higher level stateroom.

I too am not thrilled with Caribbean, even though our December cruise is on the NS, we just did Eastern Caribbean on NCL Encore in the Haven in February, loved the cruise, the ship and the Haven but could have stayed on the ship all week. We are both born and raised in Iowa so we know snow and cold but have lived in Las Vegas since 1978 and actually do enjoy going to Alaska. There is just so much more Sea Life and Nature and Wild Life. But for warm weather I would prefer going to Mexico over Caribbean.

Update menu boxs have now reappeared.

Oddly mine was fine too and it was updated. Then suddenly went to look at menus late last night and got that white screen everyone was talking about so I left it thought I would check it this morning and still no luck so I unistalled and reinstalled and now pulls up and up to date but No menus, I checked MDR and Lido, nothing. I have a 14 Pro Max. ...Interesting I always forget to check my iPad since I rarely use the app there but just tried that and getting the same white screen so guess I will go do the same with that.