Hlitner

Reading this thread has further educated me on the attitude of some HAL passengers. The idea of going to the MDR for a "fast food" experience is just not in my DNA. We truly enjoy "dining" and dinner on a cruise ship has always been, for us, a social event to be savored. We also cannot get into the 5:30 dinners (we still like to dine no earlier than 7:30) although we have spent enough time in Florida to understand the "Early Bird" attitude that goes with the territory. The funny thing is that DW reminded me of our last Princess cruise (Enchanted Princess) when we had to ask our waiters to please "slow down" since we did not want a fast food experience. In fact, we generally refuse to even order our meals until we have been served our wine (otherwise you might not get your wine until dessert). So now I am feeling somewhat sorry for the waiters. How can they possibly get it right? Some folks want to be in and out in an hour and others prefer 2 hours! And on HAL, my goodness, some of these folks want to be rushed through dinner so they can go see a BBC documentary. Go figure. Hank

We are a lot like CruiseMom in that we prefer a sit down dinner in a restaurant and also enjoy the socialization. As to the Lido, it is always true that when you go to a buffet you will have a bigger choice than in the MDR. But if that is a criteria we wonder why anyone would ever dine in a real restaurant as opposed to going to Ponderosa or perhaps a Chinese restaurant with a 110 item buffet. In more than 1300 nights on cruise ships we have only had a buffet dinner one time, when we returned to the ship very late and missed MDR dinner. If the food and service is so bad in HAL's MDRs that we feel forced to dine in the Lido it will certainly be our last HAL cruise. Speaking of Cruisemom, we hope to meet her on the Westy and perhaps we can get together for a long MDR dinner :). Hank

If I read this correctly, in the MDR you could order a Starter and a Salad without any add-on charge. But if you order a Starter and Salad in the Pinnacle, you will pay $7. I guess that makes sense in Seattle. Hank

Things seem to have improved for the airlines. Just read some good news about Southwest, that they have settled some labor contracts and finally have added enough pilots. Always preferred Love Field to DFW :). I always suggest that lobster lovers fly-in to Ft Lauderdale a day early, stay out around 17th Street, and go over to Kelly's Landing for dinner where you can get a real Maine lobster. It will be the best seafood you will get on your trip :). Hank

3 Hours! ROFL. My call only took about 10 minutes and they simply told me there is no need to use Verifly. When we cruised on Princess they also suggested Verifly and we did not bother When we got to the embarkation port (Port Everglades) those with Verifly probably saved less than 1 minute in line. For those without Verifly we only had to show our test results and vaccine doc. Somebody noted (at the time) that it took longer to upload everything to Verifly than it did to check-in without Verifly. Not sure how that will work with HAL. But I am thinking we will have better things to do than sit around our hotel room dealing with the Verifly app. I guess we should also consider it is more than 3 months to the cruise and HAL is liable to change their rules 10-15 times in the interim. Hank

This might be a good topic, to be resurrected, since so much has changed since the COVID shut down. Prior to that mess, the fans of Oceania would have insisted they had the best cuisine and a few of the luxury lines (i.e. Seabourn, Silverseas, Regent, etc) would have also been in the mix for the best overall food. But now, just reading the various blogs and having been on a few recent cruises, we think it is a really open issue. Most cruise lines have cut-back for various reasons (i.e. financial, crew shortages, logistical issues, etc) and we see negative posts for nearly all the lines. I suspect the best food on a cruise would be the meals you have ashore :(. Hank

None of that wonderful movie was filmed at Gibraltar.

I would add that the overwhelming majority of folks booking cruises on HAL (and other lines) book through travel/cruise agents. A few years ago, while on the Prinsendam, we had dinner with the future cruise person and got into a discussion about how folks book. She told us that over 80% of HAL bookings came from cruise/travel agencies and described it as a win-win. The agencies handle the "hand holding," and much of the work, do a lot of marketing, etc. If they did not have the agencies the cruise lines would need to hire a lot more reservations employees which is quite expensive. The other question we asked (and later had a similar discussion with a Princess rep) was why most of the cruise lines will not compete with travel/cruise agencies in terms of deals. I actually told the Princess rep I would book direct with him if they would match the deal I could get from my favorite cruise agent. I was told that the cruise lines "do not want to compete with agencies since they need the agencies." To this day, having booked far more than 100 cruises, the only time we booked direct was back in the days of Renaissance Cruise Lines who did not work with agencies. They did everything in-house which may have contributed to their bankruptcy. Hank

I would point out, to those that talk about Venice, that this port is no longer open to cruise ships. If you want to go to Venice on a cruise, it may mean docking more than an hour distant in several different ports such as Trieste or Ravenna. DW and I do enjoy Venice (been there on cruises and multiple driving trips) and suggest that folks who want to visit that city plan to do it pre or post cruise and plan on 3 or 4 nights in a local hotel. Hank

Listen folks, if you plan on going to Ephesus only consider a tour/excursion that specifically includes the Terrace Houses. Many cruise ship excursions do not include the Terrace Houses so be sure before you book. Why do they skip the Terrace Houses? This part of the ruins has an extra admission fee, involves walking up/down steps, and prohibits tour guides! The latter is because they do not want tour guides holding up the flow of traffic and shouting over each other. The Terrace Houses involve steps and metal walkways that are ideal for individual travelers and not so good for those who want to be part of a group of 30. For fans of large cruise ship excursions, I would only submit that there are just many things that cannot be reasonably done by large groups. My advice for most places is plan on a very small group tour or Do It Yourself (DIY). Hank

The question should not be "what is the earliest" but rather "what is the the earliest that is reasonable." Why? There are several factors that impact how early one can get to the airport. 1. The ship must be cleared by the "authorities" before anyone can debark. This can sometimes happen in a half hour, but other times it can take more than an hour. 2. How long does it take you get off the ship? With express debarkation you need to carry your own luggage and keep in mind that you must get to the proper deck from your cabin with all that luggage, With thousands trying to use the elevators at the same time this can be a problem. 3. Once off the ship you need to clear immigration. This can involve waiting in a long line with more delays. 4. Once outside of the terminal you need transportation. The taxi queue can be long and slow. Uber is possible but always iffy. Using the cruise line transportation (which costs more money) may mean cooling your heels on a bus while they load luggage and wait to fill the bus. And the cruise line transfer buses drop everyone at a common location which can be some distance from your needed terminal. Finally, a lot depends on the day of the week. Saturdays/Sundays are the busiest and everything takes longer. So we get back to the original question. My own advice is not to plan a flight before 11am with 12 being a little safer. And keep in mind that some events can delay debarkation for several hours. It does not happen often, but it does happen, I will tell you what this old cruiser (with more than 50 years of cruise experience) likes to do in Ft Lauderdale and Miami. DW and I generally try to book an early afternoon flight. While folks are fighting to get off the ship, standing in long lines, not having fun, etc. we are relaxing. We enjoy our last breakfast. After breakfast we grab our carry-off stuff and relax in a deck chair (usually on the pool deck) where we enjoy coffee, perhaps a Bloody Mary, and read our Kindles. While folks are fighting for elevators and working up a sweat we are just enjoying the morning. Around 9:15 or 9:30, when most folks are off the ship, we grab an elevator (easy at this time) go down to the appropriate deck, walk off the ship, easily find our luggage, head outside, and grab a taxi (or summon Uber). While we sometimes must do the earlier flights, we find the later flights make for a more enjoyable day. We love to cruise and prefer to be among the first on the ship (at embarkation) and the last to leave at debarkation. Hank

I think that is baloney (although I have nothing against NCL). If your primary concern is drinks, then you could always book with any luxury line that simply includes all drinks :). But, these days, just about every cruise line offers multiple drink packages which are often discounted as part of booking packages. In some cases a drink package is not a good deal so folks need to assess their own drinking habits and compare to the real value (not the value claimed by cruise lines) of a drink package. Another major consideration should be the itinerary. Folks on a cruise that is in a port every day will generally drink a lot less than those same folks on a cruise with many sea days. In fact, several cruise lines used to not sell drink packages for trans Atlantic or Pacific cruises since they would lose money. That has changed since drink packages are now usually pricey. Hank

We do not like to refer to comped amenities. Instead, we point out that using the right cruise agency will usually yield 7-10% of discount, OBCs, or amenities. These will be over and above anything offered by the cruise line. Hank

I will just mention that we have an upcoming 42 day HAL cruise for which we have received over $2000 in On Board Credits from one of our favorite cruise agencies. This $2000 would not be ours if we had booked with a PCC or any other direct way with HAL. That OBC is on top of the usual HAL perks. Hank

You do not tell us the cruise or even the embarkation port. But since you are talking about a January cruise we assume it is a Florida embarkation to the Caribbean. If so, I would not get too excited about booking air from Dallas to Florida. And keep in mind that while you can book 330 days in advance for most airlines, Southwest has it's own booking rules. On a relatively short flight we simply book the best deals. During the busy winter cruise season there is good reason to book hotels far in advance and we still like to book refundable deals and watch for price drops. Popular pre cruise hotels in Florida tend to book-up very early for Friday and Saturday nights. Hank

If you do a home covid test there is no way to upload the results to Verifly. Hank

A comment about "Princess going larger." We have long enjoyed the "Grand Class" since our first cruise on the Grand Princess. But than Princess decided to add an additional passenger deck when they created the Caribbean Princess. IMHO it broke the mold! When we went on the Caribbean Princess our experience was awful. Never enough seats in the theater for Production shows, queues too long for the MDR, long queues in the Lido, etc. They than created the Royal Class and suddenly we had postage stamp balconies, not enough elevators, etc. When the Caribbean Princess took us to Greenland it was an unmitigated disaster. Trying to tender 3500 souls ashore in a tiny town (with a tender pier that could only handle one boat at a time) was awful. Some folks waited over 3 hours to get on a tender and gave up (they never got ashore). This happened at the two Greenland tender ports. In Nuuk, the number of cruisers overwhelmed the relatively small city. Ports have reacted to Mega ships. It has resulted in places (i.e. Charleston, Key West, Bar Harbor, Venice, etc) banning or partially banning cruise ships. There are already movements in many other ports (especially in Europe) to further restrict or ban ships. Mega ships have all but ruined some of the Caribbean islands (such as St Thomas) because of the high number of passengers flooding the islands. No way would we ever vacation in St Thomas these days because of all the day trippers (cruise ship passengers). When we go to a Caribbean island for a land-based vacation we now go to islands that do not welcome large cruise ships (i.e. St Barts, Anguilla, etc). There is a place for the huge Mega ships and we think they are at their best on sea days, at their private islands, and at the handful of ports that can handle the masses. But as an adventurous traveler/cruiser I will admit that there is nothing better than being on a small ship (less than 800 passengers) going to smaller more exotic ports. Hank

Along with a corkage fee for tap water.

The entire "water thing" has taken on its own life around the world. Folks are fine paying more for water than gasoline! I imagine the next step will be to sell cans of air! And they will likely be filled from touch free air dispensers. It is easy to imagine HAL charging $4.99 + 18% for a can of clean air. For those with an interest here is an example of a can or air imported all the way from Prague: Hank

Hmm. So if men identify as a woman than it would OK for them to wear shorts?

We have always found the daily Elite Lounge event somewhat of a joke. They will usually offer a very small discount (perhaps $2) off a very limited menu of drinks with all other drinks charged regular prices. There are a few snacks (often the same every day) along with a daily special item. On some days they might offer something decent like cold shrimp, but other days the offerings might be something like salsa and tortilla chips. For us. the novelty wore off many years ago and we seldom go. These days, many of us have drink packages which make the Elite discounts worthless. Hank

If we find all the shelves empty of Tequilia, we will know who to blame :). Hank

I believe they had ginger beer on our recent Seashore cruise, at least in the YC's lounge. While it is not listed as a "beer" they had it for those who ordered Moscow Mules. Hank

DW and I actually do like to dine in specialty restaurants on the first night. Why? On some lines, where we must pay for the specialty restaurants, there is often a discounted rate (up to 50%) on the first night. But having cruised for over 50 years we know that the first night usually spawns some confusion (among passengers) in the MDR that caused delays at the door along with longer queues. We have found it is the perfect night to avoid the MDRs. I should add that we always do open sitting options so do not have an assigned table/waiter. In fact, most of the cruise lines we now cruise do not even offer traditional dining having moved to an open dining scheme. Hank

DW just reminded me that Seabourn actually had several kinds of hash brown at their breakfast in the Collonade cafe. On the buffet they would have a large tray with, what we would call, real has browns. Some days they were just plain hash browns and other days they had some bacon mixed-in and was truly excellent. One could also order hash browns from the waiter (the Collonade has both a buffet and table service) in which case we got something akin to pre formed frozen hash browns. The freshly made stuff on the buffet was certainly superior. Hank