ukpylot

Hi everyone, Looking to do their 11 night roundtrip Antartica cruise in February 2025, wonder if anyone has answers to these questions before I bother their customer service with them. 1. Getting there it looks like you fly into Buenos Aires, stay the night and then the following day they pick you up and fly you to Ushuaia and to the boat. What about getting back, it looks like they fly you back to BA but it isn't clear to me that they do. 2. Am I right in thinking that the Juliet balcony is just to look out of - you can't actually go out onto it and sit out there? Sitting out with a glass of wine is our favourite thing, though with the temperatures perhaps not so much but I definitely think we would want a sit out balcony. 3. What is the food selection like? I see lots of pictures and videos of very fancy food but I'm a real plain meat and fries kinda guy, will I starve if I don't eat Beef Wellington? Thanks in advance if anyone knows! Paul

We were on it a couple of months ago for a 7 day Mexican Rivera trip and were delayed because they couldn’t start the engines. Took 2-3 hours to fix but like you say it doesn’t hurt the experience other than missing the great views on the way out

I’ve never seen duelling pianos on HAL, dual yes, but always working together. I’m very sad if that’s now down to just one, the interplay between the two was always great. When we got off the Koningsdam last month our pianists, Brian and Katie, were on their penultimate cruise before a break. Sounds like break might be longer than they thought. It was our third time having Brian, and we loved Katie. I’d choose an itinerary just for them.

I’ve seen the shows four times now all on different ships and while I wouldn’t go that far, they were all quite poor. They mostly seem to do the balletic dances well but as soon as the tempo goes up, there’s no technique, no poise, no dancing, just running from line to line and striking a pose. On the Koningsdam right now and first show is tonight, I plan to go because I really want to see them do well, and I love a good dance show. Fingers crossed this is the ensemble that proves me wrong.

Somehow missed roll call but we will be making the two hour drive to San Diego shortly to board the Koningsdam for a little Mexico adventure. This will be our first time repeating a ship, we were on the Koningsdam in October 2021 for a different Mexico itinerary. We’ve done several Mexico cruises but this will be our first time visiting La Paz and Loreto, so looking forward to it. Everyone have a great day

100% this, I don't know where they get their dancers from but I'm yet to see a show where they are up to the choreography. The slow, classical numbers are mostly ok but when it comes to the upbeat stuff, I can't watch. And omg please stop doing the latin show, or at least get some basic training in latin dance technique. As an ex-latin dance professional I understand I may be watching with a different eye than most but when you compare the standard to those on other ships, there is a huge difference. We always enjoyed the LCS though after a couple of cruises, sad to see it gone, although they did need to update their material.

Well tonight it all seems to be working for me. Continue button works on the iPad, and my upcoming trip is in my bookings.

Its definitely hard to test everything across all platforms but I would have hoped that testing would have included making sure the purchase button works everywhere. Still doesn't work for me on my iPad, or anyone in my office, but perhaps they don't get many bookings from iPads so it doesn't matter to them.

The Continue button for bookings is working for me now on Chrome on Mac but still broken on the iPad. But in some good news, when I login I now see my January cruise and, perhaps as a bonus, one of the tours I was waitlisted for has become available.

I brought this up on Twitter and the HAL account replied there are no known issues with the website at the moment. I mean, I’m using safari on an iPad and the Continue button for booking cruises doesn’t do anything. Not like I'm on some custom browser and equipment

Yes, the fact that I can no longer make any purchases at all seems far from an improvement. The average customer isn’t going to try 3 different browsers, will surely go to a different cruise line. That said, maybe the average HAL customer prefers TAs and the phone, idk.

I write software for a living and the HAL website has always been awful so I’m amazed they made it worse. Right now when I login it says I have no bookings despite being less that 30 days way from one. Using the booking number only, no login works. And looking at future cruises next year, the Continue/Book button does nothing, thereby preventing me from finding prices or making any kind of booking. Do they want customers?

Good choice on the starboard side, I wish I had done my research. We did the HAL Magdalena island tour and we were the only one all day that got to go because of high winds, no other boat got to leave the dock. Well worth it, a highlight of the trip though a close second to the Falkland Islands rookery

We did the 14 day Chile to Argentina trip this February and it was fantastic. Definitely get a balcony if you can and if you are doing it the direction we did, make sure it is on the port side as almost everything was on port side and the ship did not stop to rotate for a 360 view. Our sailing was the only one all season that did all ports, we sure lucked out. Great ship, great crew, highly recommend

Had the same experience last month with our cruise, despite the website offering up the HIA, when we clicked it, it said not available for my reservation. If others are able to get it, must be some other reason we could not?

Only once on that trip, no explanation why it took longer. There was no laundry bag in the room so we had to ask for one and then our room steward told us if we put it out before 9am it would be 24 hrs, after that 48. Back in Feb on a 14 day trip on Oosterdam I did laundry twice, and both came back next day.

Been back off this ship a week and had a poor experience, put my laundry out on Tuesday at 3pm and my laundry came back sometime Friday, was waiting for me when we got back after our tour. My own fault I suppose but had to wear dirty clothes Friday. This was on the 7 day Barcelona to Rome cruise.

Ship had no issues leaving Barcelona, we left the dock sideways, went backwards for but and then rotated around the aft to bring the front forward and off we went. On our way to Nice, Captain not reporting anything but fine sailing ahead.

Interesting, am about to get on in a few hours so will see if anything obvious stands out. Our itinerary also had some (minor) changes a couple of weeks ago, all but two of our arrival times in port were pushed back an hour.

Thank you all, looking forward to it!

We were on her for a 14 day South America trip last month and loved her, nice size ship, great crew (if a little understaffed), better entertainment than I expected, and a great captain. I think you’ll have a good time.

Idk about the ballroom dancing, recently off the Oosterdam and there was ballroom dancing hour every night to a live band. Quite popular.

We just came off the Oosterdam, 14 days from Chile to Buenos Aires, what a fantastic trip and we lucked out by getting to visit all the ports, and all of our excursions came off (weather was bad in Punta Arenas and only one boat made it across the Strait to see the penguins). Anyway, you asked about embarkation and our experience in Valparaiso was awful. Got there at 11.20 for an 11am boarding (Uber drivers there have no idea how to get to the terminal, a 6 min ride took 40) and thanks to a computer malfunction and completely clueless staff we got on at 2.30. Others I am sure waited 4 hrs or more, it was a complete shambles, no communication as to what was going on, just a longer and longer line no matter what your boarding time or priority. btw If you do take the cruise in this direction, be on the port side. Everything was on the port side.

Curious which port that was - we just got off the Oosterdam and the embarkation process in Valparaiso was an absolute disaster. Took us about 2.5 hrs to check in (and we had an 11am time), others more like 3-4, and no one from HAL present to sort it out, tell people what was going on. We're on the NS in a month's time out of Barcelona, hoping for a much better experience.

Thanks all, been trying to do this cruise for 3 years so really looking forward to it.