racnwdow

The description of our cruise is 14 day Holy Land, but the itinerary shows day 15 as the day to disembark.  Do we pay $14.50 per day on the 14 days or the 15 days?

Thank you for this question and the answer. I also wanted to know this, but hadn't gotten around to asking.  

Does anyone know if there are showers in the Rotterdam fitness center?  With a couple women in our cabin, I find it easier to go shower in the fitness center.  But I have never cruised such a small ship.  Wanted to make sure there were showers for public/free use.  TIA

Is there somewhere on our paperwork or on HAL, listing each port as tender or dock? Or does someone have personal knowledge of the situation.   I have not been able to find this information.  We will be in Katakolon, Piraeus, Rhodes, Souda  (all Greece), Ashdod and  Haifa (Israel), Limassol (Cyprus) and Messina and Naples (Italy).  Thanks.

I am not a dress person.  So planning  on dress pants and a dressy top.  

We will be doing 14 day Holy Land cruise of Italy, Greece and Israel in October on the Rotterdam.  Does anyone know how many and when formal days will be?

Thanks for the info all.  Command strips it is.  Somewhere to dance each night is fun, but not a make or break deal.

I am generally a RCI cruiser, so I only know RCI.  But I have a few questions-

I have heard the Rotterdam is a wood ship and not metal like RCI big ships.  I generally bring little magnets to stick tickets, cruise info and other information to the wall.  Will this not work for the Rotterdam?  Same with the door, can I put a magnet wipe board on the door?

Does Rotterdam have  the liquid soap dispenser in the shower to use as body soap and shampoo?

Is there a disco or somewhere to dance each night to a dj?

And finally, what is the electric plug situation.  We will be in a standard outside (Category H) room and leaving the beds apart.

Thanks,

Jen

We will be on Holland America and the itinerary says Civitavecchia, Italy. My questions are:  what airport will we probably fly into and does anyone know transport cost from airport to cruise port?

Is there tips for the Land/Sea section of the tour that I need to account for in my budget? I know on ship there is specific amounts per person/per day. Never have extended a cruise, so not sure what to expect when it comes to tips and meals.

We will be traveling north from Vancouver to Seward. Which side is the best to have a balcony?

Accidentally left in your bag? Yeah, right. :D

 

How do you not see a power strip in your bag when you are packing it. It's a good excuse to tell Guest Relations, but you can level with us!!! :)

I honestly can't figure out how it got left in the bag. I wouldn't plug into anything on the ship. I am guessing I didn't think about it or notice when I was throwing stuff in the suitcase. My husband does the actual packing, day before we leave and he probably just figured it was supposed to be there.

And as an FYI we had friends on board that needed an extension cord for the C-pap machine and the room attendant found them one quickly.

Just off Adventure of the Seas. Saw a lot of extension cord bars being confiscated from carry ons. So don't bother to bring any.

We had to track down our luggage because it went to the naughty room. We embarked late, so didn't realize that the suitcase was there until 10:30 after dinner. The message on our machine said to go to deck one. We did. But wrong end. So elevator ride up to 4 and then down to the other end. No one around for a few minutes, then they directed us to guest service on 5. It was the only suitcase left and the tag said we had a knife. Didn't know about any knife. So we had to unpack the large suitcase at the Shore Excursion desk, right out in the open. They found a extension bar that was accidently left in the bag from when I went to Israel. It didn't even work on the ship and they told me that. But they still confiscated it. Had to pick it up as we debarked. No big deal, but a bit of a hassle.

Tipped porter $10. Helped retrieve bags, 3 +1, and then took us thru the line and got us into our cab. We'll worth it.

Note to self: Tip porter and go to shorter queue in San Juan. Thanks.

We were on this cruise, and the one the week before. Used a porter at luggage and there is a porter's line to go through customs and no wait! Worth the tip. We also missed the day of the week in the elevator. Crew was great. We had 8390, an aft E1. Corner balcony with 2 lounges, 2 chairs, and a table. Really great. Only vibration was after we left Curacao when we were doing 20 kts. Both weeks were good.

How much was the porter? That line definitely moved faster. Would recommend using a porter next time.

Did they have a singer in the pub? I heard there wasn't one in the cruises at the end of 2016.

Each evening there was a singer in the pub and in the schooner bar. Both were always full. We sat for the schooner one night but walked by the pub each night. It was standing room only in the pub.

Glad you enjoyed the cruise!! What cabin did you have on 6?

 

We're staying near the forward elevators and wondering if it's very noisy or other possible concerns?

We were aft/starboard 6222. Only noise problems we had were noisy kids with their families (at times). And no big deal.

We did not bring home any compasses, so can't help with that item.

The cruise itself was an awesome cruise. I was sick several days and was a bit apathetic and non-energetic a few other days. Medical did an awesome job, but glad I have cruise insurance to reimburse.

The very first thing I noticed that was wrong. There is no longer days of the week in elevators. For some reason this bugged me immensely. Of course not enough to make the vacation bad, but just enough that it felt wrong every time I got off on the elevator. Then I promptly forgot about it until the next time on the elevator.

I didn't go looking for things that needed to be refurbished so things looked good. Not glaring stains, rips or problems. Our cabin deck six balcony had a comfortable bed. The only time it seemed crowded was the two events in the shops area (drawing a blank on the official name). The lounge chairs on days at sea were crowded also (but that is a given). I think we had to wait for a second elevator to come two or three times all week because of crowding. And we used the elevator a lot more this trip than ever before since my husband has bad knees. We had the steak and other beef items in the main diningroom and was fully prepared to be disappointed (we are from Nebraska/home of awesome beef) and we never had a tough or bad piece of beef. Lobster night was the very last night and not on formal night. We hit St Marteen and the ABC islands. Because of a late night in Curacao formal night was on the second night (St Marteen) and the fourth night (Bonaire). Escargot was plentiful on this cruise, we had it every night.

To me debarkation was a mess. We got off of the ship a bit later at 9:50 and had a 50 minute wait to get through customs. Wish we would have hung on the ship a bit longer.

The two nights we planned on going to the disco were specialty nights. One of them was a silent dance and everyone got headphones and they played different music. The second night we were going to go it was lady's night with the male review dancers. Neither appealed so we didn't stay.

There were roving bartender/wait staff on the pool deck and in the shows. Not a lot, but you could find them. Saw peppermills on the third floor dining, but not on 5th floor dining.

I can't remember any other items that people have asked about prior, but hope this helps.

It was very, very windy towards the end, but we survived.

I have to imagine this is 100% no longer the case... but:

 

Last time I was sailing from San Juan, maybe 17 years ago, the world's largest cruising loophole was in place. We sailed on the Monarch, and the terminal was set up such that you went through security pretty early back in the terminal, vs. at the ship entrance, and then walked *right past* the duty free liquor shop, and then onto the ship free and clear, nobody even guarding the entrance to the ship to speak of, since you had already been through security.

 

Except we didn't walk "right past" duty free liquor at all. Instead we made a few trips off the ship into the liquor store and right back on. Hey you can only carry so much booze in one trip :) Basically our stateroom looked like a liquor store when we were done. What a great cruise, 5 southern ports if I recall. And plenty to drink.

I remember those days. And tons of free samples. We were pretty toasted just getting back on the ship with our bottles of liquor that we took to our room to consume during the week.

So I talked to RCI.. the rep said they couldn't do it.. So I told them the situation.. She spoke to her supervisor and said yes.. no worries. it can be done but I needed my travel agent to make the call.. so she did and then RCI told her no way.. Not sure why they changed their minds..

Can't change the fly in date or can't get the voom package?

Thanks. Yay. Our balcony is starboard.

I guess I should have been more specific (if it makes a difference). We are leaving from Pan Am pier.

What side is the best view of the city as ships leave San Juan?

Thank you.