boulders

Yes, if HAL dropped the price for those suites or offered upsells to people who had already booked. 

Thanks Alberta Quilter. That helped me find it. The website sure isn't user friendly. Looking at the manage payments page, the page said my cruise left one day before it's supposed to. Gave me a fright. 

I booked through HAL and I can't see my OBC. Where are people seeing that?

I've never found lower prices with a TA, including a big box TA. I sometimes get "private fares"  on the HAL website which are very good deals. On my last HAL cruise, I let my PCC know that I was looking for an upsell and was able to upgrade to a Neptune suite for about 1/5 the going rate a couple of weeks out. Count me as a HAL PCC loyalist. 

We did the Nieuw Amsterdam Med in July, 2012. There were 300 kids on board. 

We will be arriving in Sydney at the Overseas Passenger Terminal on a Sunday. The cruise starts in Auckland and visits Hobart and Melbourne prior to Sydney. I've got Sunday night booked at the Marriott Circular Quay and would like to take a tour of the Opera House sometime that day after debarking. I'm just not sure when to book the tour. We've got a long activity that's planned for the evening, so I'd like to get to the Opera House early and rest at the hotel until it's time for our evening activity. 

How long should the debark process take? We'll be doing self debarkation. Am I right in assuming that there won't be customs and immigration since we'll have visited other ports in Oz prior to Sydney? Is it an easy walk, with luggage, from the OPT to the Marriott? I've looked at google maps and it looks to be a pretty short walk but it's kind of hard to see the sidewalks. Thanks in advance. 

At Hilo, I'd recommend going to Volcanoes National Park. 

At Kona, there are several good tours. Mauna Kea, beaches, coffee farm, seahorse farm....

Make sure that your cabin has a bathtub/shower combo, ie does not have an asterisk on the deck plan that indicates the cabin is shower only. Most cabins on the Eurodam  have the bathtub/shower combo. 

Thanks for reposting klonerga. Some posters on CC can be nasty to critical first posts. 

I remember posters complaining about parts of Veendam's MDR ceiling falling down years ago. It was in a state of disrepair for months. I was put off sailing Veendam then. 

20 minutes ago, klonerga said:

If the ship is not capable of providing what is promised when when you book (outside of weather conditions) then perhaps it's time to put it into dry dock to repair the plumbing system, refurbish the suites etc. It appears that corporate is becoming very stingy. Cienfuegos was NOT cancelled due to weather, tides or any thing of the sort. It was cancelled due to a mechanical problem that the crew had to work on all night long. I am aware that I can travel to Cuba via a flight and land excursion. I chose a cruise because I wanted the comfort of cruise ship accommodations and food. I was not eager to stay in a hotel or several hotels during my visit due to what I heard from friends who had visited. 

I agree with your assessment that if a ship is not capable of fulfilling its itinerary, it should be either fixed or pulled from that itinerary. 

The main deck J cabins are quads. I had one for 24 days on the NA with 3 kids. The sofabed is actually a sectional. The bed part is a twin. There is lots of storage space and room to move around. I wouldn't call them very large though. They're about 225 sq ft. Here's a review and pictures from a parent with a 4 year old - http://halfacts.com/1018-nieuw-amsterdam/

Don't order the water from room service. RC doesn't use different carafes for water and coffee. My room service tea always tasted like coffee on Royal Caribbean. The water is also likely to be lukewarm. Blech. Go to Windjammer and get hot water there or go to a restaurant or the coffee bar. 

We went to Volunteer Point with Estancia. It was fabulous. We also went to Magdalena Island which was not nearly as fascinating. Our ship did not confirm that they were going to Stanley until about 5 days prior to sailing. That's also when they made the Volunteer Point excursions available for booking. I believe they were about twice the price of the Estancia price. All vehicles were Land Rovers and went and left at the same time. The ship's shore excursion sold out in 2 days. There were hoards of people trying to get something with Nyree at the dock. 

I'm short and I've had a leg injury that was not diagnosed for a long time. Stepping into a shower/tub combo is difficult and has the potential for falls, especially when stepping out with wet feet. HAL probably assessed the safety of the setups and decided that a shower alone was safer for their passengers. Count me as one who would be happy with the change. 

Edit: OlsSalt beat me to it. 

We took a 3 week cruise over Christmas one year on HAL. The only place I heard Christmas music was in the dining room. The first night,  around December 18th, they had the music CD playing. At one point, "I'll be Home for Christmas" started playing. Someone must have noticed pretty quickly that no one on the ship would be home for Christmas. You could almost hear the record scratches as "I'll be Home for Christmas" suddenly stopped and the next song started playing. 

The ship doesn't dock. It tenders in Kona. The tenders dock at the Kailua pier. 

Uber isn't a big thing on the Big Island. I wouldn't count on getting a vehicle. 

It sounds like onboard personnel tried to get emergency visas for the couple in the 3 days they were onboard. Once they found that they couldn't, they had no choice but to kick them off the ship. HAL has probably learned a lesson too - no boarding without the proper visa. 

18 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Mission accomplished 

Thanks so much, John. 👏 Bravo.

I made the browser window smaller which has the same effect as increasing font size. The CC website is a bit jumpy though so I sometimes scroll all the way to bottom without meaning to and there those annoying pictures (especially one in particular) are again. I reported one picture, so we'll see if that makes it disappear.  

Their tripadvisor's most recent review in 2017 said that Hakau never showed for their reservation and that the phone was disconnected. Their website doesn't work either. 

Does anyone have any other recommendations? 

Has any progress been made in allowing us to block the photos? I generally don't mind ads, so don't use an ad-blocker. The photos on the right of my screen are very annoying. 

Alaska has some great wildlife viewing opportunities. Some are only available on private excursions and must be planned far in advance. My favorite all time excursion was Anan Creek with Island Wings. Anan Creek requires permits and only a small number are given out each season. 

Alaska has a well established tourism infrastructure with many excellent companies available for private excursions. The Alaska forum was a wealth of info when I was planning my Alaskan cruises and can help you with ideas. 

You should be fine. Canadian Customs and Immigration is pretty streamlined. Now, if you were going the other direction (YVR to FLL), you might have a problem. US immigration has been awful at YYZ recently. It took me 2 hours to get through in June. 

You could take a round trip cruise from NYC to England on the QM2, or take a one way, stay for a few days and fly back. 

The POA cruise around the Hawaiian islands is not like a Caribbean cruise and is definitely inferior to a land trip to Hawaii. 

If you decide to leave the airport, you'll have to go through the full Canadian customs and immigration process and then show up at security for your next flight 2 hours in advance. Pearson used to be my home airport. Checkin and security at Pearson can be bedlam.  I'd stay airside if I were you.

Interesting. My offer is for 10000 Membership Rewards points with a $500 spend.