3rdGenCunarder

Travel visas come from the country you want to visit. Wouldn't work visas be the same? As cruisers, we are told we are responsible for getting our own visas. I would hope a cruise company would help prospective employees apply for visas.

600 kids????? HAL definitely sold more triples and quads than they were prepared to handle. Holiday cruises are always more crowded because of family bookings, but that's crazy! I think the Pinnacle ships have pushed the passenger to space/service ratio too far.

You're more than a year out, so anything could happen. The "development department" won't have started working on your excursions, so contacting shorex won't get you anything. I would just keep checking the website to see if the itinerary description changes. They seem to be pretty clear about departures being "Chicago" (as in really Chicago) or "Chicago/Milwaukee." The actual excursions available are not all the same as the "teasers" in the pre-booking itinerary page. I'm disappointed that the lighthouse boat ride from Mackinac Island isn't running. (Yes, there's the fine print about things being subject to change.) Excursions go "live" 180 days out, so I suggest that you look at your itinerary for 2023, maybe in April. Unlike other cruise line sites, the AQV site lets you see the real excursions and their prices without having to have a booking. I will post about the cruise because there is so little info on this board that isn't just press releases directly from AQV. For my itinerary, the change makes a lot of sense. As it was originally planned, we would go from the US to Canada (Manitoulin Island) and back to the US (Detroit) and then to Canada again (Niagara Falls, docking at Port Colborne). With the rearranged schedule, the ports are all US until we get to Port Colborne. So now there's only one border crossing.

Viking advertises on PBS, Masterpiece Theatre. I love their slogan, "The world awaits." And to answer your comment about gray. I went "covid platinum," and I liked the lovely white hair in the front. But it's salt and pepper (more pepper, my original brown, than salt) on the back. So when I came out of hibernation, I opted for blond. Easier upkeep than something darker.

If anyone is on a Chicago-to-Toronto itinerary or the reverse, the itinerary is changing and some tours are not available. In one case, the vendor isn't available to do the tour for them. Isn't it amazing how one employee can make a company look bad and another can redeem it? Two months after I made the booking, I was contacted by someone who would be my "single point of contact and concierge" at AQV. So that's who I contacted with questions about tours and itinerary. His reply? Contact my travel agent. I know I can't change the booking directly with a cruise line if I use a TA, but it's standard practice on "real" cruise lines to allow me to ask questions about itinerary or services, buy tours, etc directly. I tried chat and the chat defaulted to an email after I typed my questions, even though it had said an agent was available. AQV was going downhill fast in my estimation. But a very helpful person from the tours department replied to my email and was able to answer my questions. I was greatly relieved to find someone at AQV who has a clue! So the upshot is, Manitoulin is out and the new port is Escanaba, MI. I also noticed on the website that some Chicago departures say that the transfer is to Milwaukee. Mine does not, so I'm hoping that means I will depart from Navy Pier and not have the longer bus ride. Interestingly, the transfer and city tour is $99 for either departure. The one that goes to Milwaukee includes lunch. The one that doesn't go to Milwaukee does not include lunch, but appears to have stops along the tour to justify the amount of time given to drive to the pier, less than a mile away from the hotel.

Quote from above: I can see my wife & I in this commercial we're in our mid 70's. But you're right this would not attract the younger crowd. This is more of a, " look what life can be like when you retire" Yes! it reminds me of a commercial for annuities or some other long-term investment. "Instead of champagne, we drank coffee. (video of a couple having coffee in a cozy den) Instead of cruises, we took long walks. (video of a couple on a stroll through a park). And now our future is safe..." or something like that. We used to yell at the TV, Take the cruise NOW! yes, you need to save for the future, but don't put off all of the fun.

You forgot blender. Does anyone remember the blender thread?

Yeah, I'm trying hard not to think about that. I took another look at the commercial and I figured out that the gray hair is bothering me. Not because I have anything against people with gray hair--mine is under the blonde somewhere. 😉 But it does make them look older than much of that age group, and combined with "time of your life," I'm getting the message "do something before your life runs out of time." Depressing.

I wanted to use the laughing icon, but this is too true to be funny.

So I watched that commercial. Zzzzzzzzz. That does nothing to make me want to cruise. Nothing in that looks good enough to count as "the time of my life." The voiceover sounds bored. Even the music is boring. If they're going for "time of your life" maybe they should have tried to get "I've had Time of my Life" from Dirty Dancing?

Well, Princess will probably hang onto the Love Boat connection forever. That show is still in reruns somewhere. And instead of a good seafaring blast of the horn as they leave port, their horn plays the first lines of the Love Boat theme.

Tradition is good, but HAL's 150 years is 3 decades shy of Cunard's 180 and P & O's 185. I don't know if tradition "sells" a product well these days. With so many people, especially the coveted younger crowd, constantly online looking for what's new (and not "so last week"), does tradition impress them? Journey should set HAL apart. I haven't seen the MSC commercial, but the idea of "the places you will go" should appeal to people who don't want the ship to be their main destination. But for this to be true, HAL has to step up the support for its itineraries with speakers related to the journey and port lectures that are more than commercials for the ship's "partner" shops ashore.

I just read the article. There would have been FIVE ships in Skagway that day! I love Skagway and would be disappointed to miss it, but OTOH, I probably wouldn't love it on a 5-ship day.

I just checked my mariner points. Three cruises in Vista suites (Maasdam, Amsterdam, and Veendam) gave me the suite bonus.

On my cruise, the "everyday" items were at the end of the list of main courses, not shown as a separate list. I recall "rustic lasagna" and roast chicken being there every night. I don't recall the steak, but it could have been there. The menu choices are more limited on gala nights because they print the fancy menu, but I would think that you could ask for the "everyday" items.

Is it too late to do a dispute with your credit card company?

And I checked again between the pre-booking descriptions and the booking descriptions and the prices are higher, but they didn't go back to change the old blurbs. They should leave the price off the pre-booking descriptions, the way HAL does.

I'm booked on Ocean Voyager departing Chicago (or Milwaukee?) June 13 (or maybe the 14th, do I count the hotel stay as the departure date?). I've wanted to do this cruise for a long time. Companies came and went, and the ships changed names and owners. But I was hopeful that AQV had enough experience to run the cruise well. Now, I'm wondering about that. Nothing seems to be consistent. I'm hoping posters here can answer my questions. I don't have a lot of faith in the AQV agents. And reading recent reviews has made me very nervous. I know, a lot of people who post reviews are the unhappy passengers. I'm just afraid I'm going to turn out to be one of them. The cruise leaves from Chicago. Or does it? A poster here said his left from Milwaukee. I could swear somewhere it said that we would get a tour on the way to the ship. Now it's $99. So if I don't do that, do I have to take a taxi to the pier? Or will there be a later bus that just goes to the boat, wherever it might be? I really don't want a bus tour of Chicago, especially at that price. I've been to Chicago a couple of times and would prefer to spend the time enjoying it on my own. I've been checking on shore excursions. Somewhere, I read that the excursions would be available last week. But when I tried, I couldn't book anything. And everywhere I looked said excursions would be available 90 days out. So I did a "chat" with an agent on Jan 30. Her reply was: "Our Development Team is currently working on all the details. They've instructed that all the information should be up and ready by tomorrow afternoon. The booking, however, should be available within the 90 days." I was told to check again mid-March. Out of curiosity, I checked today. Optional tours are open for booking. And now, instead of 90 days, it says tours can be booked 180 days ahead of time. What the what???????? And two that I was interested in aren't showing as available. One port isn't showing anything, not even the included tours. BUT if I just research the cruise as if I hadn't booked yet, those tours are showing on the itinerary for my cruise. IF they're already sold out (in a week?), do they keep a waitlist? Included tours are not open for booking. Will I be able to choose my time in advance, or do I have to wait and book that on the ship? Or at the hotel at their "desk" in the hotel? BTW, I was told that the pre-cruise hotel would be the Sheraton. I know this is a lot of picky stuff, but the whole thing feels too disorganized. This is an expensive trip, twice the cost of 10 days on Cunard! Any information/advice about the Chicago to Toronto cruise would be appreciated!

Thanks for the recommendation! I wonder if all that water and soda really gets destroyed or does it end up in the port workers' break room?

Very inconvenient on a tour. With a bottle, you can put the cap on and leave it in a tote bag, or even on a bus between stops. But once a can is open, if you don't hold it, it's likely to spill. I need to find a new water bottle that's easy to fill at the sink in my room (I don't mind tap water) because they don't let you fill it at the Lido.

On a related food note, HAL's former buddy ATK has just signed some kind of deal with American Queen Voyages. It isn't clear what the connection is beyond AQV being a sponsor for ATK. (There are posts/announcements about it on the AQV board)

You know, I was wondering if she actually HAD that sandwich (or just saw it the press release HAL gave her). And if she DID have a fish sandwich, there are some pretty good fish take-out places in Alaska. Edited to add: I just reread that article. She never says that SHE experienced any of this. "Guests can enjoy..." Not "I enjoyed..."

I had a similar experience with my phone. If the internet went out, I was still connected to the intranet and Navigator. When the satellite signal came back, reconnection to that was not automatic. Sometimes it reconnected on its own, and sometimes I had to reset the internet connection.

You're right that airborne transmission is the main way it is spread. Early on, people worried about fomite transmission--remember when we "aged" our mail before opening it???? But we've learned so much about how Covid spreads since then. A woman at my table said she had caught covid on a previous cruise, 6 or 7 months ago. She described moving to quarantine with a crew member fogging the air behind her as "the walk of shame." There is an element of luck in whether you get covid on a cruise. You can't control how many people bring it onboard, or how those people behave. I was being careful about masking on QM2 when I caught it last September. I was less careful on Eurodam last month and I didn't catch it. But you can improve your odds by being careful, especially in close proximity to other people. As I said earlier, I worry about crowded loud entertainment venues. Also tour buses. I wore a mask on the bus for my tours. My feeling is I do the best I can to keep healthy.

Ah, I forgot that. Well, that saves me some planning time and luggage space.