mrmoviezombie

Last year on Coral Princess cruise they had locked down the TVs in some way. I think it was a custom firmware or some such. I could use the hard-wired buttons or universal remote to get into the menus and select inputs but it didn't really do anything. And would constant switch back to the princess interface. Best I got was the second input in picture in picture mode for a short time before switch back.

I have always been able to select a seat but you may have to pay for it if that is an airline requirement. I forget which airline it was, but we definitely had to call and request "early ticketing" (aka pay for the flights and lock in the price) before the airline website would let me pick seats. On pricing, yeah economy is usually about the same as anywhere else, it's the higher classes that you see the benefits. Also watch your connections times, especially if they change around your flights prior to ticketing. I've had them select connections that while still inside the "guidelines" would have you sprinting to make your connection. Or missing it if there was any delays.

US citizenship not a right to fly in a plane to the US.

This point keeps getting lost... It's one question about what a cruise line will or will not allow you to board the ship with.... It's an entirely different question what happens when something goes wrong and now you need to fly home. And it can be things entirely out of your control. The normal case is simple accident/illness lands you in hospital. But what happens if there is a fire on the cruise ship while in the foreign port? Something that cancels the rest of the cruise. Now you are stuck on land in a foreign country with minimal documentation. The cruise line's help here is often very marginal, sometimes not even help with booking flights/hotels. You are on your own, and in many common cruise countries doing this is very difficult without a valid passport.

Hard to say... but likely yes you should have a backup... The jacket is fairly light, not at all like a heavy lined/padded/insulated winter jacket. The quality or fabric also varies, my wife's was very effective as a windbreaker, mine not so much.

Once you get them changes back, try requesting that Flight Ease "ticket's" the flights. HAL doesn't pay for the tickets with AA until fairly close to the cruise date. This is to allow you (and them) to make changes without fees. However, you can request that they do so early. We have even done this before final payment. This is so that you can do things like pay for premium seat selection with the airline, which typically doesn't let you do that until it's "ticketed". The only downside is that it does lock you into those flights.

Make sure to test the inbound call part at home. Have some make a normal number dialed call to you. If you get the call when your phone is in airplane mode and connected to your home wifi, then you know your carrier is properly supporting wifi calling and you have everything setup right.

Your data is more likely to be stolen at the "ends" by the App you installed on your phone than anywhere else. The company that made the App and the third-party code/contractors they used are the least trustworthy parts of the system.

This is an expedition ship, there is no entertainment. Unless reading books, looking at science exhibits, listening to lectures are your thing. Take a look at the promo videos available on youtube to get an idea of what's on the ship. What are you looking for in this cruise?

We had 850 on the Roald with a glass balcony. There are a couple at the rear like that. BTW we booked 854, and they switch us to 850 without telling us. Fortunately, it was an identical cabin still with the glass balcony. I believe the next one forward was where the red strip hits on deck 8. We spent way too much time looking at pictures/videos and counting decks/windows to make sure we had the glass on the balcony.

Making this mistake will get you in a lot of trouble... Australia and NZ are not the same country. Yep. $5 is the smallest note. That 50 cent coin is huge. The 1 and 2 dollar coins are smaller but heavy.

And how many kilos of coins are you carrying around?

Two weeks is a good period to explore one part of Australia. Australia is big, as in about the same size as the US big. So saying you're going to "I was thinking of spending a few days post cruise in Sydney, then flying to Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth" Is like saying you are going to visit New York, Maimi, Houston, and Los Angeles in the same trip. And worse the airfares are much higher because the is a lot smaller population, and there isn't much competition in the airline market.

Indeed, don't know where the 2024 came from... we are doing the lap this year.

We are doing the Coral Princess Syd to Syd on Oct 25th 2024 When we were planning, this was the best itinerary we could find. We are normally HAL cruisers, but the HAL ones weren't working for us. For the long flights, definitely plan to arrive two days before. Meaning, you have a full day at the embarkation port before cruise day. Typically, there is only one flight per day to Australia from whatever is your originating airport/airline. So, if there is any cancellation, missed flight etc, You will end up with a full day delay in getting to Australia. And you really don't want to be betting on them getting you to Australia on embarkation day in time once there has been a disruption of some sort. Internal flights in Australia to catch up with your cruise can be tricky as well, there just isn't the flexible volume of flights that other places have. Definitely check with the princess easyair, it's normally about the same for economy fares, but can get much better deals on the higher-level premium/business fares. I also like them because if you do the cruise line insurance, your trip starts when you get on the first flight.

The US border guards are not impressed by arguments about what is or is not "reasonable", they follow their policies. We really should have the list of people who discovered the hard way that you have to spend days paying out of pocket in foreign countries/hospitals trying to get the emergency passport so they be flown back to the US.

Turns out it's not on the HAL site, but "big box" website has it up now. Seach in June 2025 and it's there. We already booked it. Had to call to get the have it all package. Or if you already have a HAL PCC (or other TA) then call them and they can book it.

We just booked for 2025, it's on the big box store website... look for June 2025 dates and it's listed there. But we had to call in to get the full Have It All Plus promo package. Is this July cruise another 28 lap? I didn't see the cruises after June 2025 on the big box site yet.

Not Eurodam, but I'm going to shill this one.... You should look for the 2025 version of W438 28-DAY ULTIMATE ALASKA (hollandamerica.com) Because I want HAL to offer more of these sorts of extended Alaska trips. It should show up somewhere in December.

That's certainly why we cruise HAL.

I was pretty happy with bonded ISDN at 128Kbps

Norway makes a point of have good offshore coastal coverage to support fishing and oil industry.

We certainly spent the time to select our cabin with the glass balcony because we do tend to spend a lot of time on the balcony. Ours was the north-west passage so there is a lot more close to land scenic cruising than I assume is in the Antarctic cruise. We nearly lost it at checkin because they had switched our cabin without informing us. Fortunately, it still had the glass, one cabin away from the red swoosh. Yeah... we were booked on the 2020 NW in one of these cabins, but got covid cancelled. And had to upgrade on the rebook to get a cabin we liked. BTW one huge benefit of the upgrade was free laundry which we used ALOT, completely changed the packing :).

We cruise the sister ship Roald Amundsen, in ME-850 That front elevator virtually no one uses. It's also actually tucked into the stairwell; it doesn't open onto the corridor like it's shown on the deck plan. My memory is that the corridor is a dead end as well so there wasn't any real foot traffic either. Remember it's actually a really small ship with only 500 or so passengers. There is very rarely any real traffic anywhere on the ship. I think the size difference on the deck plans are just a picture scaling problem.

Are you 330 days out from the return? For economy flights it's usually a wash vs booking direct... it's the higher classes that usually are cheaper than the airlines. If you use the cruise line protections/insurance, then you start the benefits from the first flight. specifically trip interruption kicks in. If you book your own flights, then you need separate coverage because as far as the cruise line is concerned you trip "starts" when you get on the ship.