boulders

Thank you POA and thank you to CruiseCritic for bringing the countdown clocks back. I know they're kitchsy, but I like them. 

That makes me sad. 

You should get credit for the Neptune suite then. They are having difficulties crediting additional Mariner days to people's accounts. Give it another month or so. 

I'd choose starboard. We did the cruise in the reverse direction and had a port balcony. I don't recall the captain making turns to show the opposite side of the ship. I spent lots of time on the balcony and had great views of Antarctica. 

Go to the ship and check in. 5 pm is the deadline, not the earliest time. You should be able to start checking in around 10 am. 

I was in 1058 for a 24 night cruise with 3 kids. I would definitely choose it again. I measured it as about 200 sq ft. Out of the ones you list, I would choose 1064 or 1116. 1064 is closer to midship. Many of the others are connecting cabins and may be noisier. 

Thanks for the reply OlsSalt. HAL appears to have several of the InDepth Maasdam cruises at a very good price over the next few months. I wish I could take one. 

I meant to quote your post above but it became a casualty of the new software. 

Do you remember when HAL shore excursions became available for booking for your cruise? 

A few years ago, I booked an Antarctic cruise with HAL, just before final payment. It involved me taking the kids out of school for several days, although most of the time was over Christmas break. A few weeks later, they modified the itinerary and split off the first 3 days and drastically cut the price. I could have gone for much cheaper and the kids would have missed less school. I was kicking myself. But I had a fabulous time.

While I was on the cruise, I learned that our city had experienced an ice storm , there was no power to my home and it was freezing cold. Power wasn't restored until after Christmas. The ice storm started the day I would have left if I were taking the modified itinerary. I wouldn't have been able to fly out. So, I was much better off for not having taken the cheaper price. 

Things happen for a reason. 

Upper right just under your screen name. When you click on the box to add your search term, a drop down box appears which allows you to restrict your search to certain forums, members, titles etc. 

There's a "Report Bugs and Glitches" forum at the top of  the main page. I recommend you post there. It's a pretty active forum right now. 

@rtkenmore   I've only got bold, italics, underline, attach, quote, emoji, bullets, bullets by number and preview. I'm on  a MacBook. 

Had to edit because the tag didn't work the first time. 

@rtkenmore I was going to quote you, but I just thought that it would be mean to other users.    I'm on a laptop, so I should be able to see everything that's on a desktop. 

The only options to me are bold, italic and underline. This current post is written just in italics and underline. Somehow they make the post more bold. 

My eyes are hurting after 5 minutes. The font is awful.   Where's the buttons to increase size or add color? I don't see them. 

When I booked, as a collector's cruise, they had allocated certain cabins to single sailings and other cabins to the collector's cruise. My PCC was able to pull the cabin I wanted from the 2 single sailings and book them for me for the collector's cruise.

I'm booked on that cruise and the one before as well. I booked at the end of June and there was a lot of availability at that time. When I did a dummy booking just now, I see a lot of available cabins. It doesn't appear that anywhere near most cabins are taken. Is that what they said on the Nieuw Amsterdam?

No advice, but that stinks. I would keep on Princess/the company handling the land tour until it's fixed to your satisfaction.

Not all baby boomers want a dance party. I'm a young baby boomer and am quite happy that HAL doesn't have them.

The price may have increased to discourage people from cancelling before final payment and rebooking at a lower price after final payment date. There may have been a promotion added, like Explore4.

I would expect upsell offers around 2-4 weeks before sailing.

There are some travel agencies which will show all the available cabins.

If you like challenges, and you have time, take a drive to South Point for a cliff jump. It is about 30 minutes past Punaluu and the two young adults I was with thought it was great.

Alaska has a lot more interesting shore excursions than the Caribbean, especially for kids. Go!

Look for a designated smoking area.

All of Hawaii is volcanic. In the past, ships have sailed past the ocean entry of the Kilauea lava flow and the red glow was visible at night. Currently, there is no lava flow or any red lava to be seen. The ship is likely to sail past the prior ocean entries as that is the shortest route to Kailua-Kona. The sun sets around 6:20 pm and the ship doesn't leave port until 6 pm so it is likely to be too dark to see anything.

I've done one Disney cruise. I remember staying up until 2 am the night that shore excursion bookings opened. I hit refresh right at midnight, but couldn't get on. The website kept crashing. I couldn't book anything. The next day, I could book some things, but many of the shore excursions I wanted were gone. It does leave a sour taste before one is even on board.

How exciting it must be on this cruise. I am booked on the Auckland to San Diego Maasdam sailing in 2020 and am hoping they will continue the program. They haven't committed to continuing it beyond this season yet. Please keep posting your experiences.