RobertAndDennis

Hey Steve,

We have sailed South Pacific many times. First time was Lima to Tahiti; second time Tahiti to Auckland. Then we took a post-retirement leap to do half of the world cruise (HAL), which was 51 days, the beginning part of it in that area. We do love our sea days, so our best best cruise was 90 days (HAL) -- San Diego to Sydney followed by circumnavigation of Australia; then switched ships to sail back to San Diego. This will be our first time in Viking.

Cheers, Robert.

Los Angeles to Tahiti, round trip.

If you want to chat, rstieman at gmail

2 hours ago, iramack said:

Hey guys,

The post you responded to is quite old and 2DJ's have gone off the grid about a year ago.  However, I have been on Viking Ocean and can tell you the spa area is great!  The men's side has a nice sauna, cold plunge and 1 or 2 showers.  The co-ed part, in between the men's and women's, is also very nice with therapy pool ice room and steam.

You will enjoy it I am sure!!

Thanks, Iramack. Great info. Looking forward to it indeed. 33 days cruise, with 22 being glorious sea days. Lots of sauna time I’m sure.

On 11/2/2018 at 9:39 PM, twodjs said:

We'll be taking our first Viking Ocean Sky cruise in January. So looking forward to the spa suite!

Hey 2DJs -- recognizing your Ocean Sky cruise was years back, how was the men’s sauna? Hubby and I are headed out on Viking Star in 10 days with many sea days. Hoping to enjoy sauna time. How was it?

Does anyone have any info on whether there is a separate men’s sauna on the Viking Star ocean ship? Heading out on the 13th with many sea days coming up.

My original post was not intended to be a Roll Call.

Is there a way I can delete this post?

Husband and I are taking our very first Viking cruise in January, and looking forward to all the sea days coming up. Heaven. Hoping to meet fellow cruisers.

Awfully late to the game, but Robert & Dennis from CA will be on this cruise. Flying to Seattle tomorrow for boarding on Sunday. We are longtime cruisers, but this will be our first since covid. Looking forward to all the sea days! See you soon.

Good luck. I've been calling today (9 March) every half hour for 3 hours since 8am. "Call volume is too heavy for a timely response. Please try again." Then (click) and a hang-up.

Hubby and I are sailing on this 28-day round trip coming up in March.

Looking forward to connecting with other gay cruisers on board.

Robert.

As with most things, this varies from ship to ship and itinerary to itinerary. On the longer cruises we've been on (24-day+), the LGBT groups are outstanding and wonderful experiences. Lots of people show up and tend to be frequent (if not every night) visitors to the get-togethers. We have made many lifelong friends through these groups. It helps when HAL schedules them for a time during what most people would consider "happy hour," ie early evening before dinner. We have heard that if the group is scheduled at an awkward time, you can ask that it be changed. Never done that ourselves, but from what we've heard. On the other hand, we have been on shorter HAL cruises -- 10 days, 14-days -- and there is NO ONE at the LGBT get-togethers, on any of the nights. Our experience has been that there are lots of gay couples on these shorter cruises, but there is somehow less of a desire or a need to get together in any kind of official way. Lastly, wherever the LGBT group gathers, the bar and wait staff on HAL is always very lovely to the gay groups, however large or small they might be. Very welcoming in our experience.

We have just returned from a nice 10-day cruise on the Koningsdam, with a stop at Half Moon Cay. I am writing this as a public service announcement to everyone who wonders about booking a cabana on that island. The booking process -- at least on the Holland America shore excursion web pages -- is not entirely self-explanatory. Specifically, you are required to book the cabana based on its “color designation,” but there really isn’t any one-stop place to research where each color is physically located. And it makes a difference if someone prefers to be near the food area, or prefers to be further away in a quieter section of the beach.

Some years ago, another Cruise Critic member posted a map of the cabanas with their own indications of which colors are where. This map is helpful, but there could still be confusion based on color descriptions. For instance, just looking at a color-coded map, it's hard to tell which cabana is “turquoise” and which is “sky blue.” Or “peach” versus “orange.” Combined with the difference in how different people perceive color, or see it on their devices’ screens, you see the problem.

Once we arrived at the island, I was happy to see this map laying it all out…but you can only see it once you are on the island. So…in hopes that this will be helpful to future travelers, here are the colors with their corresponding numerical locations.

1  TAUPE

2  BLUE

3  TURQUOISE

4  ORANGE

5  SKY BLUE

6  PURPLE

7  PEACH

8  PINK

9  EGGSHELL

10 GREEN

11 GRAY

12 YELLOW

13 TERRA COTTA

14 RED

15 VIOLET

Hello Eric & Martin,

Yes, we do enjoy going to the LGBT meetings. We have met many good friends over the years. But It depends on what time they are. We have been on some ships where the time is really weird. But we will go to one of them for sure so we can meet the people on this cruise. Including you two! The first night of this cruise we have dinner plans with some people we met on a previous cruise. The dinner time is not fixed yet, and we don't know what time the LGBT group meets, so we might have to wait for Night 2 to meet with the group. We'll see. If you want to email me outside of here, I'm at RSTIEMAN at Gmail.com

Cheers.

Hi Eric,

We live in California...a little town called Cambria, right on the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles & San Francisco. It is just a few miles south of Hearst Castle/San Simeon...in case you have ever driven along the Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy 1).

Yes, we have been on Holland America many many times. We are 4-star level...only a month or so shy of making it to 5-star. Our first HAL cruise was way back in 1984 when we were "mere children." HA. This will be our first time on Koningsdam. From the looks of your past-cruises list, you have been on a lot of big ships. We tend to stay on smaller ships...Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Maasdam, that size. I think the largest ship we ever sailed on was the Grand Princess, which was at the time the largest ship built. She is probably considered mid-size now. Since we both took early retirement (at 55) we've done several really long cruises: 51 days, 82, 89. LOVE the sea days on these long trips! (Oh...we are "young 60s" now, fyi)

We have not planned any shore excursions for this cruise. Actually, we were thinking that we would more likely go ashore to just see what there was, and then get back on the ship to enjoy the pool while most of the passengers were away. We have done "the beach thing" in ports like these over the years. And we are not shoppers. Looks like these ports are really designed for shopping tourists, and snorkelers. Having said that, there's a possibility that we will change our minds and book an excursion at the last minute in one port or another. Have you guys booked anything?

Robert.

Yes. We will be on Koningsdam for 10-day S. Caribbean cruise. Hope to see you on aboard.

Robert & Dennis

My husband & I are sailing San Diego to Sydney and then the circumnavigation of Australia on the Maasdam. We've always had a great time meeting people at the LGBT gatherings, and are looking forward to making new friends on this trip too. Cheers! And see you on board!

My husband & I sailed 89 days on Rotterdam in 2015...loved it all...but to your comment about the "wading pool" at the stern...it's sort of a big blank space back there. During the entire 89 days, we only saw one or two people ever using that area to sun...and they were usually US! LOL ... Based on conversations with crew, HAL realizes they made a mistake by taking out the rear pool and putting this thing in (so they could add a handful of suites in the deck below). Hope you enjoy the Rotterdam.