Donny-Joe

By the way, for anyone else reading this thread for Alaska advice, I would always recommend embarking in Vancouver. Going from Seattle means they have to do that short stop in Ketchikan so they can get to Victoria the next day. But that short evening stop in Victoria is really not worth losing all the time in Ketchikan. The Vancouver itineraries all have much more time in Ketchikan, and often they're the only ship there in the afternoon (because all the other ships had to leave to head for Victoria). We're willing to do it because it's so easy and we've been to Alaska many times, but all our early Alaska cruises were out of Vancouver and it made a big difference.

And actually, if you love NCL but want a better Ketchikan experience, NCL from Vancouver might be just the ticket. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any loop cruises from Vancouver, so that means flying back from Anchorage or doing a back-to-back 14-day combo that visits mostly the same places. And the ship is older and smaller.

Actually, I just looked at the Jewel itinerary out of Vancouver, and it looks excellent. It has the big three port calls - Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, all for nice long visits, plus Glacier Bay AND Hubbard. Because it's a one-way, you still have to fly home from Alaska.

6 hours ago, njkate said:

I was on the July 16th sailing and agree with your review. The ship, food, entertainment was great.

This was my first visit to Alaska and the time in ports were awful, they were short and I felt rushed. Maybe because it’s a 7 day cruise and the distance between ports?

Partly my fault as I didn’t research it enough I always sail NCL,  that said I would like to go back but I will research other lines, maybe  9 day cruise where I get more time in ports. Ketchikan was the worst as far as time and how you actually got to the town

FWIW, we think the very best itineraries for Alaska are HAL and Princess, which makes sense. They've been doing Alaska the longest, and they own a ton of land-based infrastructure in Alaska (the Gray Line buses, the Skagway train, the Westmark hotels, etc.) They have long port calls, they tend to go to great lengths to get you to a big glacier (via Glacier Bay, or Hubbard Glacier, or a side-excursion in a small boat into Tracy Arm), they have very long relationships with the independent tour companies and they get first dibs on tours run by one of their own sub-entities. And they have good food and service. 

The downside is the ships are much more, I guess, "subdued" is the word. NCL's whole vibe is lively and youthful, while HAL (and Princess to a lesser extent) have a quieter, more "classic ocean liner" feel, which is either stodgy or relaxing depending on your preferences. I tend to think that in Alaska, the main goal is to see Alaska, so I'd always recommend those two. One of the big Princess ships would probably be the closest to the Bliss, but it's still going to be different.

8 hours ago, anirudhrege said:

Thanks for your thoughts. Could you tell what the show timings were?

Most of the shows were around 7-ish and 9:30-ish. If you set your dinner time at around 6:30-7, that would probably give you the most flexibility to see the later show times.

We almost always get fixed late dining on other ships, so we're used to dinner about 8:15-8:30 or thereabouts, and that is the worst possible time on NCL; it can conflict with both the early and late shows, unless you want to either show up late for dinner or rush through dinner. I suspect that we're outliers on NCL, since there were very few people eating dinner that late. Live and learn! 🙂

18 minutes ago, kjquilts said:

Thanks for your review.  Glad you enjoyed the Bliss as she's one of our favorite ships.  Did you make it to the Observation Lounge?  We spent a lot of time there.

Yes, spent a lot of time in the Observation Lounge. Very appealing, and really big. We like HAL's observation lounges, but they fill up so easily. 

18 minutes ago, kjquilts said:

Re drawers in the balcony stateroom, there are two large drawers that pull out from underneath the sofa.   I wish there was a plug receptacles close to the bed for CPAP machines but am happy there are USB chargers underneath the switch in the lights on either side of the bed.

We found those about halfway through the cruise. We were looking for blankets, so we could sit on the verandah on the glacier day. Another nice HAL thing - they put throw blankets in an obvious cubby near the door to the verandah so you can grab one to wrap up with.

Which reminds me of another thing - cruise ships have had low success rate getting close enough to see the Dawes glacier for a while, yet many of them (including NCL) put it on the itinerary, and I'm sure lots of people think they're going to see a glacier. The cruise lines really need to find another glacier to visit, or just give up and add a port call or something. Hubbard is a major haul, yet some cruise lines manage to do it.

18 minutes ago, kjquilts said:

The change to using Ward Cove was a disappointment to us but we've been to Ketchikan several times in the past.  This time we took the NCL shuttle to town and then walked to Creek Street and stopped at some shops on the way back to the shuttle.  The May 21st Bliss cruise was only at about 60% capacity so we didn't have any trouble with the shuttle arrangement. 

 

Some of the other NCL ships have much better Alaska itineraries but our cruising friends had never been on the Bliss so Bliss it was.  The Victoria stop is a joke which is a shame because we love Victoria.  NCL does have other Alaska cruises that actually spend some quality time in Victoria.  For us the Bliss cruise was more about finally being back on a wonderful ship and enjoying the gorgeous scenery.  We did whale watching in Juneau and had an easy day in Icy Strait Point.   Weather was beautiful so after checking out the cannery/shop building we walked into Hoonah and took the NCL shuttle back.  We watched whales right off the dock in ISP and just off shore while on our walk.

Can't agree more - we were able to enjoy the cruise and not stress about the itinerary stuff because we didn't feel like we were on our big "bucket list" Alaska trip. But what about the guests who are on their one Alaska trip? I feel a little sorry for them. 

53 minutes ago, phissy said:

Totally agree with everything you said. 
We were on Bliss in May. Also, many times to Alaska.

Third time on the Bliss. First time back post Covid.

 

Ward Cove is a disaster. We heard of many unhappy passengers who came down to find they had missed the cut off for outgoing buses. It was never announced or put in the daily. (First cruise of Alaska season)

I guess NCL got a good deal for this superfund site.

 

 

 

 

Wow, those pictures are amazing, in a horrifying way - it looked a little better for us, but I still didn't think it was appropriate to send guests through. Since you visited, they've built a bit of "rock wall" out of concrete and they seem to be trying to create a kind of "Alaskan wilderness" look inside, plus they had the candy shop going and the empty space was filled with souvenir racks (mostly clothing). It still looked terrible. There were a lot of unhappy people in the bus line heading back and in the souvenir shop as we headed to the ship.

Just wanted to jot down some random thoughts in case it helps anyone going later in August or September. This was our first Norwegian cruise; we've mainly cruised with Holland America and Disney, plus a few on RCI, Princess and Celebrity. We've been to Alaska many times, on multiple cruise lines (but mostly HAL). We took Norwegian largely just to check out the company and because we needed a quick break. The price was right, and we've been to Alaska many times so I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get the optimal itinerary.

Prior to taking Norwegian, I had vague expectations that it would be similar to Royal Caribbean, which to me means fair-to-OK complimentary food, very good upcharge food, lots of reasonably OK entertainment, and good service. What we experienced was good-to-very good complimentary food, mostly excellent upcharge food, very good to excellent entertainment, and excellent service. Really, the overall cruise experience was remarkably great. The downside is that the itinerary is really, IMO, not great at all, especially compared to HAL and Princess.

We live just across the lake from Seattle, and our older son lives downtown, walking distance from the port, so my wife and younger son (college age) took a Lyft to the terminal and met older son who walked over. Embarkation seemed like it had a lot of stages, each checking one specific thing, but it moved quickly and we never had to wait around. We had two adjoining (not connecting) balcony rooms (BB) on deck 11.

Upon embarkation, they directed us to our muster station to check in, which was a good idea, I thought. It got people arriving spread around the ship quickly, which reduced bottlenecks. Rooms weren't ready yet, so we went to Savor to have lunch. Lunch was generally good. Entrees were hot and tasty. Melting cheese on top of the cheese steak rather than mixed in with the steak wasn't super successful, but it tasted fine. Fries had been held too long, but heck, we ate them. 

Once our rooms were ready, we headed up and found some generally well designed staterooms. The complete absence of drawers was a little odd, but we found shelves and whatnot and got everything stowed. There are way too few power outlets, and they're all in one place at the desk. Norwegian warned me that I would need an extension cord for my CPAP and indeed I did. For our room layout, it wasn't a big deal because the bed was between the desk and the bathroom, so it was easy to route the cord such that I wouldn't trip on it heading to the bathroom in the night. If we'd been in our kids' room, it would have been really annoying because the desk was between the bed and the bathroom. They built this ship in 2017! How hard is it to know that people have powered devices that need to be near the bed? Both HAL and Disney have plugs near the bed. Or at least all of Disney's and all of HAL's newer ships. I found this honestly inexplicable.

The bathroom seems very thoughtfully designed to me. The shower was big enough for comfort (I'm a big guy, 6'2" and 290 lbs), which I was a little worried about, and the rest of the room had space so you could maneuver. Good number of hooks, which seems obvious, but so few hotels and cruise ships seem to get it right.

The room attendant said he's not allowed to open the verandah dividers for "safety" reasons. I find this odd, given that they built the ship with them installed, and Disney and HAL will open them. Was there some kind of safety event that changed NCL's opinion on dividers? Do we think that Disney and HAL have worse safety cultures than NCL? Don't know, but we saw multiple ships docked with dividers opened here and there, so it's not a change across the industry. 

I won't go day by day. We found the house band, Siglo, to be excellent. The Beatles tribute band on our sailing was The Beatles Experience, from Argentina, and they were amazingly good. The Spanish accent was occasionally jarring, but their musicianship is outstanding. Sadly, we missed many of their performances because our dinner reservations conflicted. And why did they conflict? Because NCL doesn't tell you before the cruise when the shows will be, but if you want to get a reservation at the better upcharge restaurants, you need to get them before the cruise. I picked what seemed like a "normal" dining time, but found that it was right in between the early and late shows for a lot of entertainment. I find this really annoying. Once we saw the show schedule, I tried to move some of our reservations, but there were no better times available. So we just gave up and missed a ton of stuff. We did get to see Six and Jersey Boys. I was looking forward to Six but didn't think Jersey Boys would be to our taste, but we were wrong, it's great. Really, the entertainment was the best except for Disney, which is saying something.

We ate upcharge meals in Food Republic (twice), Ocean Blue, Los Lobos, La Cucina, Cagney's and Le Bistro. All of it was very good except my cioppino in La Cucina, which was meh, and everything I had at Ocean Blue, which was all excellent. My wife did not enjoy her cioppino in Ocean Blue, which was not the same dish at the one at La Cucina. Apparently cioppino is the achilles heel of NCL! 🙂 We only ate twice in the MDR, and thought the food seemed good to very good, which was a pleasant surprise.

Breakfast and lunch we had mostly in the buffet, and we thought it was good. Nice layout, rarely seemed to have long lines or bottlenecks, and trying the various Indian dishes in the Taste of India section was fun. I eventually learned that one station would always have wildly overcooked bangers, but a station on the other side had perfectly cooked bangers. I don't know whether they were trying to appeal to two different tastes, or whether the cook on the one side didn't know that bangers are supposed to be gray, not dark brown.

We didn't do the slides, but the tube slide looks cool and the body slide looks insane. They weren't running on a lot of days because of cold, maintenance, wind, or something else. Our sons did the go-karts and found them to be fun.

As mentioned earlier, the itinerary was the worst part of this cruise. In Alaska, you really want some time in port to see Alaska, but all the port calls were short - much shorter than HAL or Princess (or Disney, or RCI). The Ketchikan port call was just a snafu of epic proportions. Ward Cove is not, IMO, ready for passengers. Where to begin? The area looks like a dump. The drive to and from the visitor center is filled with potholes (both our driver into town and back apologized). There are not enough shuttle buses, and because they need to get everyone back with inadequate buses, they tell you to get to the shuttle stop by 11 am for a 12:45 departure. The shuttle stop is at berth 4, which is another 15 minute walk from the main downtown area. There's no cab stand at the visitor's center. Heck, there's no real visitor's center at the visitor's center. There's a big warehouse filled with souvenirs, a fairly nice independent candy shop, and that's about it.

I get the idea that Norwegian has with Ward Cove - create a cruise visitor's center that they own and control, where they can manage their own excursions, have their own souvenir operation, etc. For a port that's kind of a dump, this makes tons of sense, which is why all the cruise lines are building private cruise centers all over the caribbean and mexico. But Ketchikan is not a dump - the best part of it is the very nice downtown area, but Ward Cove is 20 minutes away. Moreover, there's nothing to do in or near Ward Cove that you could walk to, other than a little souvenir shopping in the one building. 

What adds insult to injury is that the day we were in Ketchikan, berth 2 (downtown) was empty. I'm not sure there is a downtown berth available for every date a Norwegian ship is in Ketchikan, but on this specific day, they could have used berth 2 but chose not to. Yes, I'm sure it costs money to dock downtown, but what's better guest experience worth? They really should stop using Ward Cove except when there is no other berth available, and/or they need to spend what it takes to get more buses. Just as an aside, I thought it was hilarious that they were using mainly Gray Line buses, as Gray Line of Alaska is owned by Carnival (via the Hal/Princess group).

We went into Ketchikan, and had an early lunch at our favorite place (the Alaska Fish House), then headed back to the shuttle stop. We arrived at the shuttle stop at 10:45, and found a chaotic mass of people being sort of vaguely managed by NCL folks. We waited 45 minutes before we got on a bus, and there were still at least a few hundred people at the stop when we left. I get that they don't have enough buses, but to tell everyone to get there an hour and 45 minutes before all aboard (and 2 hours and 15 minutes before scheduled departure), so that they can slowly get them onto buses over the next 2 hours is... just... I can't even. If buses are at a premium, make people schedule a return slot. The earliest people to reserve can get a 12:20 slot. When that fills, they offer a 12:00 slot, then an 11:40 slot, and so forth. That way, at least the people who can plan can stay downtown a reasonable amount of time. The one thing I know is that the way they're handling it now is terrible. Having a good chunk of your guests spend the last few hours they have in Alaska in a long line waiting for a bus is not good.

I'll also mention that I find the Victoria port call to be a frustrating thing. I know all the cruises out of Seattle have essentially the same call, and they only have it because of the PVSA. Victoria is a great town that is totally worth a long port call, but you have barely enough time to maybe see Butchart at night. We, in fact, did Butchart at night on this cruise. It's kind of neat to see it at night, but it's really better in the daytime.

Disembarkation was quite efficient and really better than anybody else except for HAL, who are the kings of embarkation and disembarkation in our experience.

So bottom line, we had a generally great trip, with some hiccups. I found the way NCL handled Ketchikan to be perversely fascinating, in a "what not to do" kind of way, but strangely not that frustrating, since we've been to Ketchikan so many times. I would recommend the Bliss to anyone who wants a beautiful, lively ship with plenty to do, great entertainment, great service and generally great food, but I will not recommend NCL to friends going to Alaska, as it just doesn't seem like they get it.

Here's the entire text of the Florida law referring to business restrictions on "vaccine passports":

(1) A business entity, as defined in s. 768.38 to include any business operating in this state, may not require patrons or customers to provide any documentation certifying COVID-19 vaccination or post-infection recovery to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business operations in this state. This subsection does not otherwise restrict businesses from instituting screening protocols consistent with authoritative or controlling government-issued guidance to protect public health.

There's nothing about not being allowed to ask about vaccination status. They aren't allowed to ask for documentation. They can certainly ask whether guests are vaccinated, and even say they won't let you on if you're not. They could refuse to let you on unless you state clearly and unequivocally that you are vaccinated, or answer a clear "yes" to a direct question about your vaccination status. They could even warn you of potential consequences if they learn that you lied about your vaccination status. This law just says a business can't make a customer show them a CDC card or other documentation.

I would also note that health care providers are exempt from this provision:

(5) This section does not apply to a health care provider as defined in s. 768.38; a service provider licensed or certified under s. 393.17, part III of chapter 401, or part IV of chapter 468; or a provider with an active health care clinic exemption under s. 400.9935. 

Conceivably the cruise lines could have the onboard health care provider (who works for a contracted medical company, not directly for the cruise line) ask for vaccination documentation. Then the cruise line could say they won't carry passengers who are not acceptable to their health care provider. That would be a clear end run on the spirit of the law, but it seems to meet the letter of the law.

I can think of multiple other subterfuges that would meet the requirements of the Florida law, such as contracting with a company outside Florida to provide "health screening" services, which just runs an online site where you answer a health questionnaire and upload your vaccine documentation, and they report a "recommendation" to Celebrity without saying why they recommend for or against.

Honestly, I don't think any subterfuge is needed. Cruise lines can just tell guests at booking time that all passengers are required to be vaccinated, and ask them at checkin whether they're vaccinated. Most people will tell the truth. If people ignore the requirements and lie at checkin, well, that's on them. The ones who would lie are exactly the kind of people who would get a fake CDC card, so requiring documentation really doesn't do much.

Many ships have tailoring departments right on the ship that are there to tailor the uniforms of the crew and officers. We have seen these people and their tailoring department on two different ships. Sewing a button back on is trivial. Just ask.

Just wanted to come back and let folks know how it went, for others looking for the same information. We just told them our son couldn't make it when we checked in. They asked why, because they said sometimes the ship wants to know (perhaps to know if there's any chance they'll show up), but everything went smoothly otherwise. We didn't get his fare back (as expected), but were not charged a single supplement or any other fees.

And we had a lovely cruise and wished he could have been there, but that's the way life goes sometimes. Thanks again to everyone for your help!

Don

We’ve been on four RCL and five HAL cruises, and overall they’ve all been enjoyable. HAL is a bit more our style, but they have their pluses and minuses.

MDR food is much better on HAL. By a big margin. The up charge restaurants on RCL are better than the MDR, and typical RCL ships have more of them than most HAL ships. I think if we take another RCL cruise we’ll budget to eat every night in one of the premium restaurants. Though on longer cruises that gets old, because the upcharge restaurants’ menus never change.

Entertainment is generally a bit better on RCL, especially if you are on a ship showing a big Broadway show and it’s one you like. Though HAL has some good things like the B.B. King blues bands. Disney really has the best overall entertainment (if you like Disney).

Service is better on HAL. It’s not bad on RCL, just less refined, less polished.

HAL itineraries are better. They have better port selections, mostly, longer stays, and in the Caribbean their private island is significantly better than RCLs, in our opinion.

RCL ships are livelier. More activity, more energy.

Certainly we’ve enjoyed all our cruises, so honestly I wouldn’t try to dissuade you from taking RCL. Try them all! See what you like! Have fun! Let us know what you thought! :)

On a ship tour on the Nieuw Amsterdam we saw them making bread rolls. We could see dough being made, formed into little balls, laid on trays and put into the proofers. I don't know if they make the more complex pastries or the sliced bread for sandwiches, but they definitely made the rolls on ship in summer 2016.

Perhaps on the older ships they do less scratch baking?

Thanks, everyone, for your kind advice. We are sad that my son can't go, but we knew it was a possibility quite some time ago, so it didn't come out of nowhere.

As to whether HAL knows, I'm really not trying to hide from them. I've already talked to them about it, a month or so ago when it was looking more and more like his job would be not-so-subtly pressuring him to stay.

The rep on the phone said that if we cancelled prior to embarkation, we'd have to forfeit the cancellation penalty, and at that point my other son would be a solo passenger so they'd have to add the solo supplement. And as others have mentioned, we could change passengers, for a moderate fee. The rep seemed to be saying (if I read between the lines) that there was no good reason to actually cancel his berth until I had someone else to fill it. So I said I'd wait and see if he really couldn't go (which we did) and look for a substitute for him (which we did).

Now we're at the point where it's 99% probable that he's going to stay, barring some breakthrough at work, and we were unable to find a replacement. We tried several of my other son's friends, including a friend who traveled with us on a previous cruise. All had other plans. And we have a single relative who lives near the embarkation port, but he's jammed up with work. So we've done what we can, but I think we're out of ideas.

To be fair to HAL, I kinda get the reason why they run it this way. As far as I understand it, the single supplement is mainly to encourage people to find someone to share the room. They want the ship to sail full, because each additional person spends money on the cruise and they really want that additional spending to make the cruise profitable. It just feels a little unfair to cancel a passenger and basically get charged extra for that.

Again, I appreciate the advice and am going to enjoy this trip, no matter what happens with the fare and penalties and whatnot. It's just money, right? Got our health, got two healthy kids. It's all good. :)

Don

Hi all,

My son can't come on the cruise that's leaving in a week, because of work issues. He was sharing a room with my other son, who's now going to sail solo. We did not buy insurance (and I doubt it would have covered this situation anyway, as his work is not telling him he has to stay, they're telling him it would be in his best interests to stay, hint hint).

So we're resigned to losing his fare since we're way past the full cancellation fee time frame. But I don't want to lose the cancellation fee AND get charged a single supplement. I've now read a half dozen threads on this subject, and it sounds like the right thing to do to avoid getting double-charged is to just have him not show up.

Now, should we just tell them he's not coming when we check in? Or is that going to result in the single supplement plus cancellation being charged? It seems like some folks have played dumb and suggested that the missing passenger is traveling separately, and checked everyone else in. I'm not super thrilled about that approach, but I'll do it if it's going to save us several thousand dollars. Frankly, I'm extremely mad that the cruise line will charge BOTH the cancellation fee AND the single supplement in this situation, but I didn't think I'd need to worry about it. Foolish, I know.

Thanks in advance for any tips on this situation!

Don

Well, one thing that helps, they have always remade my bed - ready for the next occupants - while I'm at breakfast,

Same here; on our most recent cruise we got packed up but left our luggage in the room while we were at breakfast. When we came back, the room had been tidied and the beds were set for the next set of passengers (who apparently wanted split twin beds). The luggage had been moved a tiny bit to make room to maneuver. We were impressed, actually, at the efficiency.

I guess there's no real secret to getting the rooms done during disembarkation, other than "do whatever you can as early as possible." That means instead of methodically working their way down their section, the attendants have to bounce around as people leave the ship, go to breakfast, etc. I suppose they might have a printout of when HAL expects each room to be empty, and then they just keep an eye out for people leaving their room. Or maybe they can see when people take the card out of the slot near the door.

In our experience, waiting in a lounge for your number to come up is a terrible, mind-numbing way to end your cruise. I don't know why cruise lines don't put more effort into making that process as pleasant as possible. It's the guests' last impression of the cruise and the company. On our recent Princess cruise, the lounge we were scheduled to wait in was full to the brim, with people standing around because they couldn't get a chair. That's poor planning; don't send guests to a room that can't hold them.

We have loved being able to wait in our stateroom on the final morning for our disembarkation number to come up, but that seems to be unusual. Disney, Princess and Royal Caribbean all asked us to vacate the room by 8 or 8:30. Are there any other lines that let you wait in your cabin? And while I'm asking, is that the standard across all HAL ships and itineraries, or have we just lucked out with the cruises we've taken?

I have to admit, I don't know how they do it. They let you wait in the cabin to disembark, and they generally have the rooms ready when you embark. The logistical complexities must be considerable.

You hit it on the head! I primarily read non fiction and go to reference points such as maps and tables which requires much flipping back and forth. Using an e-book app for this just doesn't give me the same level of enjoyment.

Yeah, that's a problem. I've seen a few books where I thought the charts and diagrams were OK on an ebook, but it requires putting in very high-resolution images, and it seems like most publishers either don't want to do that or don't know how. And even then, you have to spend a lot of time zooming and scrolling to see everything.

I do think there's potential for ebooks to be better overall than paper books, even for graphic-heavy books like art books, because you can zoom into images and really examine the details. The problem is that the ebooks need to have images with enough detail to be worth zooming into. And right now that's just not the case.

Do you work for an e-book manufacturer or sell the software?

No, though at one point I worked for Microsoft, which had one of the earliest and worst ebook readers ever. :-)

I'm just a paper book lover who railed against ebooks for years, then finally stopped fighting and embraced the ebook world, at least for fiction.

I got a Kindle Paperwhite a couple of months ago and I am in serious need of help using Amazon to build a Kindle library. If you don't mind helping a computer illiterate senior please e-mail me at themanginosatcoxdotnet. Put cruise critic-Kindle in the title

 

Thank you, if you don't have the time I understand.

I emailed you, but in case anyone wants the short version, the basic advice is to check the Kindle deals pages regularly. Daily if you like, but really whenever you have a moment. I find that they regularly have big sales on authors that they've signed for their backlist program, and they'll put that author's entire backlist on sale for a few days every once in a while and you can get, say, the entire James Bond series for $0.99 per book, or all of Ed McBain's 87th precinct series or things like that.

Here's the front page of the Kindle ebooks page, and from there, it's easy to get to the various deals pages; look at the menu on the left side of the page. Signing up for the daily kindle deals email is also worth it, though you do get an email every day.

https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks

With the rise of travelers bringing their own Kindles or other e-readers, or using iPads for reading, library usage is clearly sharply lower, and I share your pain. I love the look and feel of a library full of books and there's something really wonderful about browsing the shelves and finding something new. My wife is a librarian and we have a house full of books.

My advice, though, is to try to accept the trend and join the ranks of ebook users. if you were unhappy with the e-readers of a few years ago you might be surprised at how nice the newer models are. I got a Kindle Voyage recently that I think really reproduces the experience of reading text from a page very well, and is lighter than a paperback. There's very little downside (other than the cost of getting the reader in the first place).

And if you don't mind a very slightly heavier and more expensive device, the newest iPad mini is very light, has a lovely screen, and can be used for a variety of entertainment in addition to reading.

One caveat with any of the e-reading solutions is that I find that books with large numbers of diagrams or charts still tend to be inferior in electronic form (with some exceptions). So I tend to read popular science books and technical books on paper. But novels work great on e-readers, and Amazon has constant sales on older backlist titles they've acquired over the years. It's very easy to build up a substantial library of good stuff with just a few weeks of checking the regular Amazon Kindle deals pages.

You can call or email the mariner society and ask for the two star pins.

Thanks! I did call, and they sent us 4-star pins. Bit of confusion there. Well, at this rate we'll be there soon enough. :)

Donny Joe, where did you get the debit card? We're going Next July for our 44th anniversary with a 4 day pre-stay. Did you stay at suggested hotel? We've gone on 54 cruises but not Norway, so looking forward to it! We're booked in our fav, Neptune suite. Love reading what to expect. Thanks for all info. P S If you haven't done Antarctica...Do It!

Hi, we didn't use a debit card. We used the Chase Sapphire, which doesn't have any foreign-transaction fees. We stayed at the Doubletree Amsterdam, which is extremely convenient to the train station and the cruise terminal. We took a cab because the weather was iffy, but it could be walked easily enough.

I agree with essentially everything in this review. We have also done mostly Disney cruises, and the Koningsdam was, to our way of thinking, better in multiple areas. I'd only say for us, the HAL food was better than Disney, but that's a highly subjective thing. Disney does have certain dishes that we love (the Black Truffle Pasta Pursettes, for example) and the food on Disney is without a doubt very good, but overall we would give the food on Koningsdam (and Nieuw Amsterdam) a slightly better score.

For us, where Disney excels is entertainment, pretty much across the board. The selection of movies on the in-room system is generally better (though skewed toward Disney films, naturally), the stage shows are better (with the caveat that you need to like Disney), and there are more activities, especially activities designed for the whole family.

Disney also has a livelier cruise. The servers will joke with you, do tricks for your kids. The entertainment staff is much higher energy. They set off fireworks on their Bahamas and Caribbean itineraries. The deck parties really get the whole deck bouncing. Of course, it doesn't take much to get small kids bouncing. :)

Has HAL stopped with their free small pkgs of sea calm (meclizine), headache pill and band aids? They usually are right near the door of the infirmary?

They're still there; I just saw them a few weeks ago on our Koningsdam cruise. And I got a band aid and some antibiotic ointment from the front desk after I scraped my knee while in port (though come to think of it that was on the Nieuw Amsterdam). The bowls of meclizine and band aids were definitely there on the Koningsdam, though.

I also asked about the art tour and/or information, and they said it was in the process of being compiled and wasn't available. Perhaps in a few weeks/months they'll have it all ready. I was just curious about the artists of some of the pieces. Oh well, we'll have to go back on Koningsdam again to get that info! :)

Additional thoughts:

• We did try the culinary center dinner on the last night. It was really good! The chef and staff made the food right there in the show kitchen, and they encouraged people to get up and watch and ask questions, which several of us did. The food was not vegetarian (there were vegetarian options), but many of the dishes revolved around vegetables in various forms. Plenty of butter, cream and olive oil was involved. The meal wasn't really "light," but it was a fun contrast to the more traditional food in the main dining room, Pinnacle Grill, etc. Lots of vegetable and fruit purees and foams; plenty of interesting greens, plus some very nice fish or rib-eye for the entree.
  
• As has been reported here, they offer four drink packages on the Koningsdam ranging from just a Coke Freestyle cup to an "Elite" package that covers drinks up to $15 instead of $8. Now, here's the odd thing - when I reviewed my bill at the end of the week, every drink I ordered that cost less than $15 was credited back on my bill. Maybe they credited Explore 4 guests with the Elite package and didn't inform us? If so, that's kind of annoying. In any case, some bugs are being worked out, it seems. If you have Explore 4 and go on the Koningsdam, I'd double-check what package shows up on your account once you're on the ship.
  
• Our kids moved up to two-star Mariners while on this cruise, and were given two-star pins. We became two star on the last cruise, but have never gotten pins. Should we call and ask for them? Are they useful in any way, or just another miscellaneous collectible?
  
• The sriracha in the Lido was Roland brand, which sadly is not as good as Huy Fong (the famous "rooster" sauce). First world problems! :)
  

I don't like the idea that they do not have real pianos in the Piano Bar.

I don't love it, though there are very good electronic pianos that can sound excellent with proper amplification and speakers. In this case, they're missing the proper amplification and/or speakers.

If you look at pictures of the piano bar space, you can see what look like baby grand pianos, but those are just shells. The actual keyboards fit into the shell, leaving most of the space empty. If the label on the front of the "piano" is "Slam Grand," that's a shell. You can also just look at the keyboard and note the blinky lights on it and the various buttons for sound presets and so forth.

I'm pretty sure that for other shows like Lincoln Center Stage they used an actual grand piano, but to be honest I didn't look close enough at it to be sure. Perhaps it was a larger "Slam Grand."

I actually think they could just add some bass woofer units under the piano shells to beef up the low range and it would improve the sound 100%. But I am not an expert on cruise ship sound amplification. :)