CGYCruisingFamily

Did your kids enjoy the club? My granddaughters love Royal Caribbean kids club but hated Norwegian.

We havent done Royal Caribbean with our kids so I can't compare. Our kids love HAL (they are both 2* Mariners fast approaching 3* - with 5 or 6 cruises on HAL each). The program is good and our kids have always been well entertained.

I especially appreciate their port day program as it runs without additional cost vs NCL's which you have to pay for when in port.

When I think back to our last NCL cruise, vs the HAL cruises, the kids club had fewer kids on HAL vs NCL but the overall programs were comparable. Royal would offer more "extreme" activities on board and even NCL has some more too.

Please understand that for my kids, their favourite has been HAL but it might not be for all kids.

If you want, I could post some of the sample activities from our last cruise (I just cant do it rightnow).

A couple of things. They have changed the age groups in Club HAL. It is now 3-6 and 7-12. This was done sometime in the past few months between our Christmas cruise and the cruise a couple of weeks ago on the Noordam.

If there are enough for each group, they are pretty strict however the do combine the groups for certain activities. We had issues with different ages in different groups but honestly it is actually for the best. Its not fair to have an older child with the young ones (with the younger programming) and vice versa, the younger doesnt necessarily fit with the older programming. Both our kids are happy to meet others their own ages.

At Christmas there were over 100 kids on board but not a lot who went to Club HAL in the evenings. We found they kept the younger and older groups separate during the days and together in the evenings.

However on our cruise a couple of weeks ago, there were only 4 kids on the ship in total, my 2 (ages 7 and 10) and another 2 (ages 6 and 7). They combined them into one group and were pretty flexible with the planning. They still ran the full program but when there were port days, they just asked us to register in advance if we planned to attend during the day.

I will say the double sign in process (having to sign the waiver every time) was a real pain in the you know what at Christmas. I don't understand why they just didn't keep the form at the beginning of the cruise the way it was.

I also noticed a couple of days ago they have shifted the age groups slightly since our Christmas cruise. At Christmas, it was 3-7, 8-12 but the website now says 3-6,7-12. I for one am happy because our 7 year old was in with 3 year olds at Christmas, now he will be in with his brother. There's a HUGE difference between this ages and the change seems like a good one .

As for shift around of groups the won't shift up. I also don't know if they will allow shifting down if it's busy. Having said that we are taking a cruise next week that I know currently has 2 other kids on it (that's all on this segment which my parents are on), and not sure how many will be on ours other than my 2 and the other 2. I can see them running the program together then if there's only 4 kids on board.

I have sent the info I found to my dad to ultimately make a decision on what we are doing (to rent overnight or not). If we do though, I was able to locate a parkade which is about 0.3 miles walking distance from our planned pier. Because we are overnighting Sat to Sun there are no issues parking overnight they said and it will be $6. I am not sure if there would be issues on a weekday. It's located at 155 Ala Moana Drive.

We won't be in Honolulu until early Oct. 2016, but I'd be happy to come back and let you know what I find if you are sailing after us.

 

Utahtea

We are there in 2 weeks so trying to find out. I did look at one of the sites after posting this. I was able to see that there are 2 lots about a minute walk away that operate 24/7. I phoned one but wasnt able to understand the lady so I might call back tomorrow during the week to see if I can chat with someone else.

It the second place I saw is correct on their website, they say weekends are $3 for the day. I am not sure if when it reached midnight if it goes over to a second day but if thats the case, $6 isnt bad. I will keep looking into it

How about any current suggestions for parking in the area? We are looking at doing the same thing by renting a car for the overnight stay in HNL but would like to see if we can get parking close to the port. I have searched and come up pretty empty handed except Aloha Tower but there is conflicting info about there and overnight stays on weekends.

Thanks. I was on my ipad this morning and seemed to not be able to find a Hawaii board.

I know it isnt cheap and am expecting to pay a couple of hundred for the night but given that we are then getting on a cruise, want to try to not spend over $350 a night with taxes.

I will take a look.

Hello cruise fans. I need some recommendations. I a travelling with my 2kids to Honolulu one day before be board the Noordam i need to find a hotel that is not too far from the port, not insanely priced (no $400/night for us) but I am hoping for safe and close to things and maybe the beach. I know tough list. HALs hotel is full.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I am looking at the Hilton Waikiki Beach and the Hyatt Place Waikiki as 2 options. Does anyone have any other suggestions? TIA.

We had booked last year for our family of 4 on the Oosterdam. It was not cheap but we wanted specific rooms.

We watched the prices. Explore 4 came along and we changed. Now I should explain that while our overall price dropped just over $1000 and we now had the special package in reality my husband and my fares actually increased due to the promo. Were our fares went down to make up that $1000 difference was in third and fourth person pricing was substantially reduced.

We know this because my parents, who were travelling as well, tried reprising theirs to explore 4 and the fare was higher , same room category.

So I would say for some special packages it does actually increase.

POA1 - have you checked Westjet flights? We live in Calgary and recently flew non stop from here to Orlando the from FLL post cruise direct to YYC. I only mention this because there might be other options of going through Canada which would allow you an earlier departure from YVR without US customs there.

If not, even though you have a tight connection, I would recommend the 1:20 flight. While you could make the 11:30, it might be a little tight with having to clear customs.

I'm from Vancouver originally (actually Richmond where the airport is). I have never taken the Canada Line. The drive from downtown on a Saturday morning would take about 25 to 30 minutes comfortably assuming there are no road cloures. If you were to get the earliest disembarkation, 11:30 is make able but I would still err on the side of caution for the 1:20 personally.

We just got off on Dec 28. We found the Crows Nest, screening room and MDR good (mind you I did wear a sweater most nights as part of my outfit. The only place I really truly found cold was the Vista Lounge for the shows. If she has a throw or sweater she should be fine.

Our Mariners lunch was our last day on the ship which was an at sea day on a 10 day Caribbean. You can bet it will be an at sea day for sure so maybe plan on going to the PG in port?

We had lunch in the MDR on our Dec 18 cruise on the Oosterdam on the embarkation day. It was open from 11:30-1pm. Set menu which was alright but it's been better in the past.

We also had the champagne reception for Mariners from 2-3.

They were up on the Oosterdam last week when we got off.

We just had a Monday flight which was at 1:15 pm. We got off the ship on the 9-915 group (quite late). We waited for our transfer which didn't show for over an hour, before deciding to take a taxi. Oh and this is the crazy holiday season. All that said, we were still over 2 hours early for our flight.

If you get off early, you will likely be ok.

After 2 previous attempts on other HAL cruises, this time we finally got a hands on cooking class. The first time it wasn't offered (even though we had 4 at sea days)- they were prepping for a world cruise. The second time we had only 1 sea day (port intensive itinerary) and they had to cancel due to lack of interest. This time they had to offer 2 hands on since the first filled up within a couple of hours from getting on board.

Anyhow, we got into the second one. It was offered on a port day starting an hour before we docked. It was $29 and there were 6 of us in the class. As mentioned in a pp it includes lunch in the pg, wine and an apron.

Now as I said we had been eager to try one for a number of cruises. I have to say I was disappointed when the chef tournant didn't have us do any prep, or cooking. He just demo'd ( with the exception of one couple got to mix the eggs for the Creme Brûlée but he finished it off). The others in our group were also surprised that we didn't get to cook.

When in inquired afterwards, I was told a couple cruises before a participant cut themselves really bad and that the chef was afraid others might do that so he had taken to more of a demo stance. After my discussion, the second class was run and from what I understand from a friend who was in it was that they actually got to cook in that class. I'm not sure if my feedback helped with that or not but still, our experience was less than stellar.

We just returned and I will be discussing this with HAL. If it's billed as hands on, it should be hands on.

Anyhow on another note, there were demo cooking classes held on multiple days on our 10 day Caribbean cruise. Sometimes the times were not at the best times but there were more for that cruise than in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2014.

So we just (and I really mean just - we were left the ship 12 hours ago) got home from our Oosterdam cruise. The room was exactly the same size and layout as the NA. We actually found it quieter (BB Kings noise) than the NA last summer except for a couple nights where the dancing was quite loud. Square footage wise, these are the best deal on the ship... (IMHO).

We have stayed in 1068 on the NA and did get the BB Kings music but it wasn't too bad (for the sheer space of the room we were ok with the nightly music). I would think as RuthC said, the other side is likely quieter.

The white spaces are for the stewards to access the central corridors. No noise from them.

My understanding is the room layouts on the NA and Oosterdam are similar. We are stayng in 1068 next week on the Oosterdam next week and will know for sure then.

Age of you little one?

Our kids are seasoned HAL cruisers. We love the line. Club HAL is a good program with lots to do.

Ask away if you have questions.

If people look hard enough, they can always find faults...

While I admit we did see some changes on our last cruise, we still had a fabulous time. Through our communications to the company following the trip, they did actually rectify one of our issues and apologized profusely about it too. I also admit reading the negativity about cutbacks and changes also had me worried for our upcoming trip but really, when you stop and think about it, we will be on a ship in a beautiful location, experiencing some new islands we have never visited. We will still get to do the things we like. The food will still be good and plentiful. Club HAL will still entertain our children. What else can we ask for? They are still also one of the safest lines - we hear more times about them coming to the rescue of other ships in distress than we hear about from other lines.

But no matter what, each of our HAL trips have far exceeded the other lines we have been on and we are glad we keep coming back.

CrewNews, can you see if chef Tim tibbets will be on the Dec 18 cruise? He sounds great.

Which cruise are you on? We have had 2 cruises where the classes haven't happened. Once on theAmsterdam which they didn't hold one at all because of prepping for a world cruise and the last time on the NA it got cancelled because they were shy 2 people.

Hoping on our upcoming Oosterdam cruise also has one.

We had a similar thing happen. We requested open seating (we dont want to be tied to a time of early or late with the kids and also to keep our options open for Canaletto, the Pinnacle, Lido) but got assigned to the main seating. My parents, who we are traveling with had open but ours was wrong. After a chat session with HAL, it got switched no problem.

Glad they got yours worked out easily too.

Thank you so much for checking out if they have the movie for us. One last thing we have to pack.

Thanks. When we found out we had it, we were told. $7 and under. We looked at the list and for the most part couldn't get wine we wanted (we aren't too picky but just don't like Chardonnay which was the only one at $7). It's good to see they upped it by a dollar to cover more.