Real NHDOC

Interesting story about the dock issues: https://www.ktoo.org/2022/08/19/rockslides-are-battering-a-skagway-cruise-ship-dock-and-crushing-the-towns-economy/ Now I know why those shipping containers were there!

As I said I don't recall all of the details, just that we weren't allowed off the train in Canada and the people onboard weren't required to have passports to get on. Maybe the loop we were on wasn't supposed to go into Canada but would have required some deviation to allow us to get off because the track going back was blocked. Anyway, I think I was confused about the rockslide issue that was raised in this thread. Now I see there were rockslides that affected the port and the ability of cruise ships to dock there. Nothing to do with the train, so sorry for my deviation.

For those with a small amount of technical capability there is a device called a WIFI bridge that will permit the sharing of a single internet connection among multiple devices. It's only as good as the connection itself (in other words if the connection is slow then the shared connection will be slower since the bandwidth is shared) and it's not without some quirks but it does work. We travel with one and use it in the cabin to prevent us from having to log on and off. Basically you connect it to the ship's wifi and then it creates a hotspot that you connect all of your devices to. As an example, this is one type: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/tl-wr902ac/ Available on Amazon for around $40.

I don't remember all of the details as it's been a few years now. I think I recall there being a couple of tour options - we were on the shorter one which may not have required passports (and maybe the requirements have changed since then). The train wasn't supposed to stop anywhere. I do vividly remember them discussing the possible options for getting us back included us getting onto a bus but that the Canadian authorities didn't want us to get off the train in Canada without passports so that option wasn't pursued. Fortunately after a few hours on the train we were able to return to town. But we did learn at that time that the train was owned by the cruiseline.

FWIW, HAL (more precisely Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, part of Carnival) owns the Skagway scenic rail so they should have the inside scoop on when the train can run and when it can't. We got stuck on one of the excursions when a rockslide blocked the rails for our return and were stuck on the train for several hours not knowing how we would get back to town but luckily they cleared it. We didn't have our passports with us and since we were in the Canadian part of the tour Canada wouldn't let us off the train to take a bus back so it would have been an international incident if the rails weren't cleared, LOL. They gave us a full refund for the excursion and some other goodies too. That's when we found out they own the whole thing.

Is anyone aboard the Nieuw Statendam now and knows what the happy hour drink special is? Every ship seems to have a different policy and we'll be joining in March and were curious.

This is a problem with HAL. They will routinely wait until the last payment is due (usually the 90 day window closes) and then announce changes. They did this on a 45 day south pacific cruise we were on last year. Fortunately for us we booked the cruise after the changes were announced but lots of people who booked before the 90 day window were very (justifiably) angry. It's really a terrible way to treat customers. I would certainly elevate my complaint if I were you. If you make enough noise you'll get noticed but with HAL you sometimes have to be a very squeaky wheel to get any grease. Good luck!

Flight ease isn't exclusive to HAL - it is shared among the Carnival brands and I am not 100% certain it's even something the cruise line has any control over. I am pretty sure it is an outside service they just link themselves to. That explains why it works better than any of their other website features, however.

To be clear the OP is talking about a future cruise deposit (FCD), not a future cruise credit (FCC) as those are two distinctly different things and are treated differently but as a general rule if you book a cruise that has a refundable deposit you will get back the FCD or FCC to use on another cruise. But FCC's are never refundable (in cash back) and have definite expiration dates after which they are lost. FCD's do get refunded (as returned cash) after 4 years if you don't use them. If you book a cruise with a nonrefundable deposit I am pretty sure you lose either one. I had this happen once when HAL's system applied FCDs to a "courtesy hold" in error and then when the hold expired they (tried to) keep the money arguing the booking was nonrefundable. But it wasn't even a booking - just a courtesy hold. After much heated discussion and elevation it was reinstated but not without a fight (and not without them scolding me and telling me it was a "one time courtesy" even though it was clearly their system's error!). I don't think you would ever get back a nonrefundable deposit from them in any form. So it is very important to know what type of reservation you are making and the exact terms of the refundability of any deposits before applying any funds to it.

HAL's isn't much better. Sometimes you get notified of a message, sometimes not. Most of the time, if you check the app the message is there even if you get no notice of it. I would not want my life to depend on receiving the messages.

Agreed. Their website is terrible, the worst of any cruise line I have experienced. The Navigator app, though better than it used to be is still very poor (it does work better once onboard but not great). WIFI on most ships is horrible. They could have spent some of the time they had during the shutdown fixing a lot of the technical problems they have but did nothing. Their IT department needs to be ordered to "walk the plank".

It wasn't until I read the other responses that I did remember that Celebrity (and presumably some others) do let you use OBC before boarding, though, technically they should call it something like "spending money" and shouldn't call it OBC. HAL has always enforced the strict definition of onboard credit to be used for onboard spending only. Having said that HAL's system for prebooking things lacks a lot of niceties - like applying the correct mariner's discount or HIA package inclusions to purchases or reservations made online. For years they have said this was going to be fixed, but it hasn't been. I assume since it is to their advantage to collect as much money from guests before their cruise begins they will never fix these "glitches".

Nope...it is called ONBOARD credit for a reason...only can be used onboard. I have heard of people who have booked using a CC beforehand, then going to the excursion desk and asking them to cancel and rebook them on the same excursion so they could use OBC but I have never done that. That way you would be assured a spot on the excursion in case it booked up early. They refund you in refundable OBC so you get a credit on your account but if you finish with a credit balance you would get that money refunded to your CC. I have also never completed a cruise with a credit balance so don't know what that's like either!

As a general rule each group is separated by 20 minute intervals so B would be 11:20, C 11:40 and so on. Of course if you are in a Neptune or Pinnacle suite or are 4* or 5* mariners you can show up at any time you like (why they assign check in times to them I will never understand).

All of the Pinnacle class ships have basically the same small interior cabins without extra seating. That means the Rotterdam (VII), Koningsdam, and Nieuw Statendam. I mentioned there are some triples that have a couch in them but it is alongside the bed and not really practical to use for anything other than a third person to sleep on. There are only a total of 10 of those per ship (2 on each of decks 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 behind the mid-ship elevators). There are some very nice, larger interior cabins on the other classes with corner sofas (you have to be careful in choosing but they do exist). None like those exist on the Pinnacle class, and since the OP was asking about that we should limit our discussion to those so as not to confuse. As for what PCC's know and don't know I think it varies because I have asked specific questions many times to different PCCs and been told they don't know the size or configuration of any particular cabin on the ships and the diagrams and descriptions (using the word "large") are very misleading if not blatantly false sometimes. An example is they call the interiors up forward on deck 10 large and they are the smallest on the ship! So, Caveat Emptor.

You used to be able to do it from the website like every other dinner reservation but they have disabled it now, so, no.

Chances are with OV guarantee you'll land up on the main deck. We had the same experience with our 2/15 Rotterdam cruise. Received the assignment last week. Had hoped they would bump us up to one of the Verandas but landed up in a C category on the main deck under the Pinnacle Grill. Could have been worse. There are OVs under the music venues that might be noisy in the evenings. At least from the main deck you have easy access to the MDR and entertainment venues. We don't use the elevators so it will be a good workout to get to the Lido 😀

11:00 is typically the earliest (it should say a group number and is probably A).

Yep, that's similar to our experience. If we hadn't checked we'd have missed our excursions too. Frankly, the SHOREX department needs an overhaul in the way they manage things - but that's a whole other conversation. In the "old days" they would send out paper notices to update guests when the time changed but now they rely on people using the Navigator to confirm the excursion times and if you don't have or want to use your smart phone it is not going to be very convenient for you.

Noise levels in the Pinnacle MDR's has been an issue for me as well. Mostly from the waiter's stations. HAL markets the MDR as a "Fine Dining Experience" but at least half of the tables are very close to those stations and the servers (while doing their Herculean task) just don't realize how noisy it is when they work at them - plates, glasses, metal covers, silverware all being whisked around clanking and clanging and drawers and doors slamming. It's just a poor design and just not conducive to a "Fine Dining" experience, or even a mid-range dining experience. You can't eliminate the windbags at nearby tables who have to share their opinions with the whole room but it would seem like there should be a way to design those stations so they aren't so noisy. The solution was that they allowed us to choose a table for open seating that we had every night and we found some far enough away from the waiter's stations to minimize the noise levels but you don't have much choice at breakfast or lunch when you're seated wherever there's an open table. First world problems, I know, but if you are trying to make the experience as pleasant as possible this is one area that they have failed.

I think those 4 cabins on deck 1 might work for you then. There's definitely space to park a scooter in the entry hall inside the cabin. I just don't recall the exact layout and configuration of the space in terms of space around the bed. They are the largest interior cabins on the Pinnacle class ship other than the accessible ones. There's still no seating area other than the bed and the small cube at the dressing table but at least you have more space.

It probably is but you could probably request one of the designated accessible interior cabins too. Those have bigger bathrooms too.

6116 is actually a handicap cabin. If you look at the deck plans you'll see it. You were lucky you got it. I have asked about getting one of those and was told that we could not book them unless we required a handicap room. Don't judge the interiors based upon that one. It's the outlier.

A "bit bigger" is a relative term. I can only say the interiors on HAL's pinnacle class are the smallest cabins I have ever seen on any cruise ship. The bathrooms are nice, basically the same as any others up to and including veranda. Also, they do have a lot of storage. But space for anything else is extremely tight - maybe 1-2 feet around the bed. I will book them because we can live with them if we have to but most of the time we count on getting upgraded (paid or free) to OV which are, on average, probably 40% larger and more importantly have a place you can actually sit other than the bed. They do incentivize you to spend more time out of the room than otherwise would be the case. God forbid we ever got quarantined in one.

I got in the habit of just checking the charges on either the Navigator or the TV in the room each day. If I saw a discrepancy I would just send a note to guest services through the app and it would be corrected within a day. Not really an overwhelming task unless you wait until the last day. The drink charges were rarely the problem we had. Most of it was trying to figure out what the excursion department was doing. The specialty restaurants would sometimes "forget" to give us our mariner's discount (as would the beverage department when we bought wine packages) but I honestly can only remember one time being charged for a drink we didn't order in a bar on the ship. If that's the only reason to get the card I don't see the need but to each his own.