curmudgeon98

I was somewhat amused when boarding in San Diego last month to see a cluster of about 20 of the little single-serving prosecco bottles sitting on the wine table in the terminal. I imagine someone figured out to their dismay that paying $20 per "bottle" of those didn't make much sense. In our boarding you could have ignored the table (you had to be looking for it), but we planned to use the wine we brought in the dining room in any case so we paid and had it tagged. Slightly annoying to have to pay 18% service charge on top of the corkage.

Normal price, depending on the ship (they charge more for CO on ships with a separate CO dining room).

Interesting to read this review. We were on the sister ship Eurodam for a 16-day cruise recently. HAL clearly made entertainment more of a priority for our cruise, with a house band in Ocean Bar most evenings and some decent acts on Mainstage. They did add in an additional dish or two each day for breakfast and lunch in MDR because of the longer cruise and had some decent fish and meat options, including grilled salmon most evenings. Desserts were still pretty tasteless though. Our room stewards were excellent; MDR service varied a bit, but mostly pretty good.

Last time we were there (about three years ago), BCN did have free wifi, but it was rather flaky. I wouldn't want to count on it for doing one of the video-supervised rapid tests, but it should be ok for getting your results from a prior test.

My interpretation of the location would be the Fusina ferry terminal. It appears that the port authority has finished the docking space for two additional (small/midsize) ships there. Most likely it will be "secure" shuttle from dockside to/from the terminal in Marittima, with checkin and baggage handling done at Marittima, as Fusina doesn't yet have provision for handling cruise ship passengers at the docks. I'd probably allow 40 minutes for the bus ride. It's workable for cruises starting or ending in Venice, but I don't think I'd like as an intermediate port. Strictly speaking, the term "Western Shore" could also mean Chioggia, which is quite a bit further away, but I doubt that would be the case here.

I suspect they do. We didn't have a beverage package on a recent cruise where casino drinks were comped, but they asked our cabin number and I noticed that casino drinks showed up on our statement as "signature beverage package - $0.00", or something like that.

We were on the same cruise as Dave. It had been five years since we had been on a HAL cruise. It did feel like the "nickel and dime" aspect had increased since our previous cruise, especially the 18% add-on charge on so many things that were already an upcharge. I tend to look at the overall costs, though, and not get too worried about how the specific charges fit together. There was nothing really wrong with the cruise, and the service was quite good, but there was also nothing that really compels us to choose HAL over others.

Yes, we started out with the basic package and found it extremely limited (like dial-up). Upgraded to the premium, and it was no better. One big frustration was that we couldn't do wifi calling on our phones even in the off hours - wifi calling worked for us on Princess, Azamara, and Seabourn. The last three days of the cruise, it got much better and wifi calls suddenly started working... I'm wondering if they had something misconfigured, or a satellite out of service or something. To be pedantic, the wifi network on the ship mostly worked ok, it was the uplink from the ship to the internet that was the major problem.

I think it is very unlikely that Celebrity would go back to Venice anytime soon. Royal Caribbean (the parent) is managing and expanding the Ravenna port, so I think they will be committed there, at least with the larger ships. More of the smaller (less than 700 passenger) ships may use the Fusina ferry terminal next year, as it looks like the additional two berths there have been finished, but that won't fit large ships (and would still involve a shuttle bus from Maritima checkin facility). It's possible that they may squeeze a few more large cruise ships into the Marghera container dock schedules next year. I think this year MSC and Costa managed to do about three per week there, on Saturdays and Sundays, but those docks are pretty busy with freight traffic.

In your circumstances I might lean towards Princess. I thought the wine selections available in the beverage package (especially at the wine bar) were pretty decent on our Princess cruise this spring. I like other aspects of HAL (observation lounge and smaller ships), but you didn't mention those as a priority for you. I think dining can be a bit of luck-of-the-draw on various ships these days, depending on whether you got the good experienced senior chefs or not.

I'm no expert on this stuff; we have a couple of cruises this fall that are the first "free" ones we've done. When we booked, there was an option to upgrade (we had OV free), but it was a significant extra cost, probably $1000 or so. For one of our cruises we chose to pay for "Club Orange", which gave us our choice of any OV cabin (we picked one of the "spa" large OVs on deck 10) - I think it cost us about $450 for 16-day cruise. Close to the cruise date, we got offered an OV upgrade for another $300, but chose to stick with what we have. I'm not sure if we could have cancelled the Club Orange at that point or not (we don't care much about the other Club Orange benefits).

My experience with most cruise ship libraries is that they operate on the honor system without any checkout process for the hardback titles in the ship library. Libraries vary quite a lot; it's not unusual for the "Library" that shows on a deck plan to be pretty empty of books. I've found Oceania pretty good for libraries, and other lines a mixed bag (Majestic Princess was a bad joke in that category). There is also usually a corner of "take one - leave one" paperbacks donated by guests; I will usually pack a few extra paperbacks when setting out on a trip that I don't plan to bring home.

Don't miss requesting the additional onboard credit for doing a back-to-back booking. https://www.azamara.com/plan/back-to-back-voyages

I would far rather do October than July or August. Similarly I much prefer September/October for much of Europe less crowds and better weather. If you are really looking for the party crowd ala Bondi Beach, then peak season makes sense, but most Seabourn cruisers aren't in that category.

One thing that I count as a major plus for HAL is the forward observation lounges. Depending on the itinerary, I really enjoy relaxing up there and watching the world go by (usually with a book). Sometimes the space gets invaded by trivia or (gag!) karaoke, but I just move on for a while if that happens. Celebrity has dropped these on their newest ships, and Princess has very few, if any, across the fleet.

I tend to view these three lines as more similar than different, especially for Alaska. There can be strengths and weaknesses to each ship and itinerary. Taking the east side of Vancouver Island is definitely a plus, but so is starting or ending in Seward (for visiting Kenai Fjords). Glacier Bay can be nice, but if you get a socked-in rainy day, you won't see much. My own experiences have put HAL MDR in third place (though still quite adequate), with Celebrity and Princess doing better. Similar order with entertainment (though that can vary from ship to ship). Princess ships can get a little large/crowded for my taste. Celebrity pricing seems to be higher, though prices are all over the map these days. We've got three+ weeks on HAL scheduled for this fall (casino offers). We'll see if that pulls us into being HAL regulars, or pushes us away towards other lines. I suspect we will continue to be in the "uncommitted" camp, though.

A decent Blanc de Noirs is my preferred sparkling wine. I didn't find any on the Onward earlier this year, or on Seabourn Odyssey this summer. But they had it on Princess this spring (Gloria Ferrer), and even included it in the beverage package (though only if we ordered it in the wine bar, not in the MDR). The vagaries of supply chains and ordering decisions are always somewhat unpredictable.

I'd say an important point to remember is that Marina/Riviera are a significantly different experience from the R-class ships (especially in standard cabins). There are advantages to each, but it is a big shift between them.

We had no problem dropping our bags at the dock in the morning when we did this earlier this year. Probably about 10am when we did it. There was a small truck at the entrance to the pier taking bags at that time.

I've noticed several cruise lines listing Venice for next year. I'm not sure if part of the situation is hope that the regs may be modified to let some of the smaller ships (such as R-class Oceania/Azamara) dock at Maritima. It could also be an expectation (hope) that the local authorities will get around to dredging/finishing the other two berths at the Mestre/Fusina ferry terminal (again for smaller cruise ships). Or even that more dock space for larger ships will be available next year in Mestre (MSC was able to use this consistently this year, but I think they owned/controlled one of the container ship docks in Mestre. Looking at satellite photos on Google maps, it appears that at least the Fusina work has been completed so that up to four ferries and cruise ships can dock there. There's also signs of some work up on the Industrial North canal area (by the shipyard), but I'm not sure if that is passenger-related or not. My guess is that there will be more of the Oceania/Azamara/Viking/Seabourn class of ships using Fusina next year (and calling it "Venice"). Still an awkward situation with security and baggage handling at Maritima and maybe 45-minute shuttle to the ship, but not as far away as Ravenna/Trieste.

We all have different tastes that affect how well a cruiseline suits us, as well as different price points we are looking for. We did Celebrity and HAL cruises to Alaska a few years ago. For us, Celebrity had pretty good MDR food (and rather poor buffet food), good entertainment, and didn't handle the itinerary quite as well. HAL seemed pretty average all around, without any particular high or low points. Our takeaway was that we'd probably lean towards Celebrity over HAL in the future, but neither really grabbed us. After those we did a NCL cruise to fit a specific date/itinerary (was fairly poor all around), and then gravitated towards smaller ships of Azamara, Oceania, and Seabourn which all have better food/service than HAL (though at a higher price). We got sucked back onto HAL this fall with some "free" casino offers, so we're giving them another try.

But don't they charge twice as much for CO on the Pinnacle class (where you get the actual separate CO dining room )? But my memory (or information) could be faulty... We did the CO to get a specific cabin for one of our upcoming cruises, but didn't bother for a different shorter one. We haven't been on HAL in a few years, so we'll be seeing how we like the HAL cruises we've got on the schedule this fall. By the time you add up all the additional charges, I'm not sure whether the "free" casino cabins will prove worthwhile for us versus just paying the price for a cruise where we have more selection choice. We'll see.

I picked up a couple of euro plug USB chargers off of Amazon a while ago. Handy for traveling in Europe, but also on cruise ships where you can then make use of the "other" plugs.

We did just that. I don't care much about Club Orange for itself, but it was a low cost way to move from an obstructed OV to one of the big forward OV cabins on the upper deck. Of course it depends on availability.

That's a nice change in my book. It definitely moves the ship up a bit in desirability for us. I remember having high expectations for the larger Marina and Riviera cabins (vs R-class) the first time we sailed them, and then the disappointment on seeing the tiny showers...