woodinville cruisers

I was able to see the Northern Lights from home last night.

3 hours ago, kazu said:

 

She is.  She’s reminded me a few times.  😉 

 

It was her birthday on the 22nd.  Here are her birthday flowers I got for her.

 

 

We are going to PG tonight - birthday dinner since it’s halfway between her birthday and her DD DH.

The flowers are beautiful!  What a lovely birthday gift.

Have a wonderful time.

Mary

1 hour ago, cr8tiv1 said:

My sister is a HAL Mariner.  I am still trying to get a grasp on a Neptune Suite.  From all accounts (my understanding), is that a Neptune Suite is not really a suite, but more likened to a Princess mini suite.  You will get more perks in a Princess Grand Suite.  The Diamond won’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but a smaller ship feel.
 

HAL ports right next to the Yokohama Intercontinental Grand Hotel.  Princess offers a free shuttle from Yamashita Park or a taxi ride. 
 

Princess will offer a paid shuttle into the city. Don’t know about HAL.  Princess will have a destination expert presenting port lectures.

 

Have you been to Japan before?  I was there years ago and recently on the Diamond.  I wasn’t interested in touring castles and shrines.  You will have to weigh more ports/more excursions, verses stateroom choice.  
 

I’ve been told that the fall foliage in Japan can be spectacular.  I hit Cherry Blossom time perfectly.

Start looking for local guides.  Japan has something called Goodwill guides for (sort of) free.  Plan on spending a few days in Yokohama.  Lovely city. Eat as much of the local foods as you can. 

 

I believe you are thinking of the Signature Suite.  It a larger room with no suite benefits.  The Neptune suites are full suites with all the benefits.

3 hours ago, cobalt206 said:

We are trying to make a decision for a cruise in 2025 to Japan. We have sailed HAL a fair amount and are happy with the overall experience. We are booked next month to visit Norway on the Rotterdam in an aft Neptune suite which we’ve experienced before on other HAL ships and loved the suite and location. We’ve only sailed with Princess once many years ago and had a great trip.

 

I found a decent deal on Princess Diamond for their Grand Suite B750 for a 10 day itinerary from Yokohama with ports Toba, Kobe, Kochi, Beppu, Busan, Nagasaki and Shimizu. The suite looks incredible and probably compares close to a Pinnacle Suite on HAL.

 

For about the same price, I can book a 15 day voyage on HAL’s Westerdam in a Neptune Suite. Ports include Omaezaki, Kobe, Kochi, Fukuoka, Sokcho, Kanazawa, Sakata, Otaru, Aomori, Hakodate and Miyako. So this would provide 4 more ports compared to the Princess itinerary.

 

We are trying to determine which experience would be best for us. Better cabin on Princess vs a longer cruise on HAL. I’m sure we’d love both and being our first time to Japan, we want to make the most of this trip. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

I see that you are from Kirkland.  Both lines offer a 28 day cruise from Seattle on September 28, 2025.  The Princess cruise is on Discovery and terminates in Singapore so there are other ports besides Japan.  Holland America has the Westerdam ending in Yokohama and is more Japan intensive.  We prefer trans pacific cruises so there is only one long flight.  We were on the Westerdam for the 2023 cruise and loved it.  We took many private tours.  We have the Discovery booked for 2025 just to do something different and we haven't visited Singapore in years.

Have a wonderful time.  I look forward to reading your posts.

Edge In private works.  Thanks for the tip.

Rebooting didn't work.

I can't seem to view any of my booking through my Mariner account.  They show in the account but when I click on any of them I just get a white screen.  It sure would be nice to book a tour.  It's been this way for about a week.

1965 on the Nieuw Amsterdam when we moved back to the US from the Netherlands.

I just logged in to my Mariner Account and can't seem to look at tours for my upcoming cruises.

It also shows 0 credits on my account and should be 600+ credits.

Is anyone else having problems with their account?

I agree.

That looks like an amazing itinerary.  We just did a cruise on the Westerdam 26 days Seattle to Yokohama and I'm sorry we didn't stay on until Singapore.  It was amazing.

29 minutes ago, Geoffa30 said:

Love the look of the 29 night Discovery Princess itinerary Seattle to Singapore via Alaska and Japan. Unfortunately we’re already booked on Star Princess in the Mediterranean for 18 nights. Might have to consider cancelling this as the Discovery Princess itinerary looks too good to miss.

Where did you find this itinerary?  Do you know the date?  I couldn't find it anywhere.

3 hours ago, Cruise NH said:

I can’t answer your question but do you mind a question?  How was the weather?  I know it varies year to year but I’m trying to convince my husband to take a similar trip next fall and he worries about rough seas. Thank you.

We had rain in the morning when we arrived to Yokohama but it stopped in the afternoon.  The weather was really good in all our other ports.  Some days were cool but comfortable and we had some days near 80 degrees.  There was a tropical depression in the Pacific so we sailed the Bering Sea to avoid most of the big seas.  I thought we'd have big seas but the crossing was pretty comfortable.

We had a lovely cruise from Seattle to Japan in October this year on the Westerdam.   I can see that Noordam is sailing from Vancouver to Asia Fall 2024.  Does anyone have any idea what ship is doing that route in 2025 and what is the stating port?  I'm hoping for Seattle.

I sent you an email.

Mary

Those are great photos of your grandson.  What a cute kid.

Mary

You're really fortunate to see bubble feeding. The tour companies always show photos of it but I guess it's pretty rare.  What company did you use for the tour?

Have a great time in Alaska.

I took a tour on April 17, 2023 with Horizon Private Hire.  I know private tour companies are hard to find for the port of Dover.  We've used him in the past and enjoyed it enough that we booked for this year and were really happy that we did.  We shared the tour with two couples from our cruise critic roll call and everyone had a fantastic time.  The tour that I chose went to Canterbury Cathedral (Gary Price is probably the only private guide allowed to guide inside the Cathedral.)  You pay for the service directly to the Cathedral.  We also visited Dover Castle and had a nice walk along the White Cliffs of Dover. I would rank him as one of the top guides we've ever used.  The vehicle is very comfortable for 6.

We've found that Holland America passengers are generally very kind and open to conversations with other passengers.  I think this may be due to our senior population.  

We are on the August 19, 2023 Rotterdam cruise with stops in Oslo and Kristiansand.  I just booked tours for those ports today through Shore Excursions Group.  HAL didn't have an English speaking walking tour for Oslo so I booked Historic Oslo with City Hall with Shore Excursions Group.  I also booked for Kristiansand a tour called Visit Kristiansand.  That tour visits the Vest Agder Cultural Heritage Museum and several other places.  Tour costs seem to be a better value than HAL.  The cancel policy is 14 days before the tour or you can take out the insurance.  We also booked our own tickets for the Flam Railway with Norway's Best.  If you book it direct be sure to book the round trip ticket.

I believe that Celebrity's non refundable policy changed March 2, 2023.  Bookings made before that date are grandfathered with the old policy but any new bookings will lose the entire deposit when you cancel.

Thank you but Rotterdam isn't the same class of ship.  I'm sure people would like to see photos on halfacts though.