travelholics

Strange. The 43 day, starting in Auckland, is not titled Legendary, but the 29 day part of the journey from Sydney to Seattle is! My thoughts are that the Legendary part starts in Sydney and HAL views the stage from Auckland as a collector segment.

How about Tamarind week long 'popup' on Westerdam cruises in Asia? Are Mariner discounts applicable?

Welcome to HAL, hope you enjoy sailing with her as much as we do. The crew are absolutely amazing, nothing is too much trouble and the itinerarys are excellent. We spent a week in Hong Kong with our daughter, when she was in her early 20's, and had an amazing time. We are on Westerdam in March for travel around Japan and will be very interested in your report. We have visited Hong Kong Disney and plan to see Tokyo Disney this trip. Safe travels and thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.

Also thanks for the tip about the Google translate. We had thought we would need to pay for internet coverage to use it, so thanks for answering this and we now have Japanese installed

Hi Carolyn, Great action photo. Please can you tell us where you picked up the rental car in Hilo and how long the drive was. Many thanks

Thank you so much for taking the time to include us in your travels. We did the trip in 2019 and loved it and hope to repeat in the future. Look forward to reading more of your travels in the future.

Another great journey to follow! We hope you have a wonderful trip and look forward to reading all about it! This is certainly going to be a Winter of adventure for all of us, with so many interesting, and very different, journey logs to read each day.

Really enjoy your reports. I have been checking daily this week for your launch e mail. Safe travels and thank you so much for all the useful information you provide to us travellers who are only able to take shorter journeys.

When you log into your cruise on the HAL website, go to itinerary and you will see the tours and dining you have booked under the date

I am sure you will love this journey of exploration. We travelled to Antarctica on Zaandam in 2020 and had the most amazing time. Look forward to reading your live thread, thanks for taking the time to let us share your adventure

Same for us. We wer on both Koningsdam and Noordam in September and didn't receive e mail for Welcome Home for either cruise

Mant thanks for the pictures and information. Really look ofrward to trying all that seafood!

Thanks so much for the info, it will really help us with final detailed planning.

Really enjoyed your reports, thank you so much for your dedication. We are on Westerdam in March/April, so your information has been extremely useful. The $25 shuttle cost, was that each way or return? We have 2 visits to Kochi during the 28 day trip, did you hear of any other excursions people enjoyed? Safe journey home

We cancelled a cruise in June and the FCD's were returned as FCD's and we used one of the $300 for 2 deposits during the $1 special in July and received the $75 OBC which went with it for a veranda cabin

What choice! I think it would have been starter in the MDR with the Borscht and then up to the Lido for Steak and Kidney puff pie! Not sure if there would be room for bread pudding too !

Can $1 per person, pushed us to book a 2025 longer cruise we had been thinking about but didn't want to lose our opportunity for an aft facing cabin. 95% chnce we will sail and now excited to start planning

The location of the smoking area must vary, depending on the cruise. When we were on the Hawaii/French Polynesia 35 day journey in February this year, the smoking section was on the port side, which left few tables for eating breakfast outside for non smokers. The set up has many more tables and the serving staff on the port side.

Thank you so much for your wonderful report of your family's first cruise on a HAL ship. My brother and I still remember clearly every day of our first cruise when we were your teens age! It is now 50 years later and we completed a 35 day cruise together, with our spouses, in March. Travel is one of the best investments we can make in our kids lives and I am sure your family will remember their time in Europe for many years to come. Thank you for sharing.

On our 35 day cruise to the South Pacific on Koningsdam we explained that we loved vegetables and a large plate came each evening for the 4 of us to share (MDR)

P and O in the U.K. have some ships which are adult only, and it seems to work well. HAL's solution of now stating that the kids club will not be offered on longer cruises seems like a good idea, as we found, on the 35 day South Pacific cruise, that 2 entertainment staff were required to run the kids club for approximately 7 children! It meant that there were only 4 staff available to organise events for the remaining 2400+ guests, during the day.

We have found service to be quicker now with wine by the glass than before covid when we were often still waiting for the wine bottle to arrive when the first course was served. We have had no problem ordering a second or third glass and liquors to be delivered with the coffees. Do not be afraid to query if you think you might have the wrong wine, as the waiters carry a full tray of glasses and we have been given the wrong one a few times!

I have found that the crew, in general, feel uncomfortable with today's culture of hard sell- witnessed in their reluctance to 'push' bottled fizzy water at lunch in MDR and the large extra cost steaks (despite an incentive being offered for each sale), and this is why we are no longer subjected to this embarassing issue since covid. (Spa excluded!) We have only been asked to mention them on our post cruise survey when we have built up a particularly good relationship with an individual and in a very tactful manner. We have no objection in helping them gain well deserved incentives or promotions, but would not let an individual colour the comments we would naturally give.

Whilst I agree that it would have been wonderful to take this cruise on an R ship (we were on Zaandam to Antarctica in 2020 and loved getting to know our fellow travellers), it was lovely to have a balcony, which would not have been in our budget for the 35 day Polynesia journey. I think the only other cruise ship we saw was a Windstar in Tahiti, so eventhough Koningsdam brought 2500 passengers, it was not like in Alaska with maybe 10000 plus extra visitors. At tender ports, arrivals were spreadout and some chose to stay on board as Cruise Director advised stepping ashore could be difficult. We did not have priority tendering, but we got to the tender distribution spots about half an hour before tickets started being handed out and we were always in the early tenders. We did not encounter any long wait returning to the ship.

We had originally (2 years earlier) booked this cruise when it was scheduled on a Vista ship. It was then changed to Koningsdam and, subsequently, the itinerary lost Bora Bora and several other small island visits, not at HAL's instigation, but because French Polynesia decided to limit entry to some islands to much smaller ships. We had never travelled on Pinnacle class and thought Koningsdam would be 'too big' for us, but we were excited still, given the long Covid break. It turned out we thoroughly enjoyed Koningsdam - the music walk, dutch cafe, more speciality restaurants, particularly Tamarind, and we will be happy to sail on this categroy again. We did miss the smaller ship Promenades, but you have to go with what is offered at the time, and we thoroughly enjoyed this itinerary and would do it again! We had 2nd sitting fixed dining and could enter at 7.45. It was very quiet with lots of empty tables around us on mst days. The service was excellent and our waiters relaxed and willing to help in any way. We always received a plate of freshly cooked vegetables to share and drinks arrived in no time. Again, sometimes we had to miss some events in the theatre or elsewhere, but there was so much going on that it was impossible to attend everything! Fantastic value for money, bearing in mind the distance travelled and the places visited.