Cruise NH

5 minutes ago, mchell810 said:

@richwmn, @WriterOnDeck and anyone else onboard:

 

When paying for meals, cabs, purchases, etc are you using Yen or credit cards?  Do you feel you really need to have Yen for the larger costs?  Thanks for any information.

I'm not currently on board but have been to Japan.  I found it to be very much a cash society, which is different then what we found in Australia for example.  I'll be interested what others say, I was there a few years ago but yeah, we needed yen!

3 hours ago, terrydtx said:

A friend uses this rechargeable insulin cooler when she travels. She got it on Amazon

Thanks I'll take a look at it.

4 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Be aware that if you call Fae to check on rate changes, they will adk your permission to cancel ypur current flights. It seems they cannot (or will not) check for updated prices w/o canceling current flights. So, it us really better to check yourself then simply close out the browser if you want to keep your current flights.

We just recently had one leg of our flight changed by the airline and wanted to see if I could get an earlier flight (like the op I think).  I called FE and they looked for available earlier flights under my booking and couldn't find any but it did not cancel my existing flight. I went in after the conversation just to check and saw everything was okay.

3 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

My wife stored her insulin in the mini fridge in the suite, she had no issues. We are in the middle of planning a very long overseas adventure and she bought a a Travel medication cooler. It looks like a thermal stainless steel water bottle but has a small cooling unit for a lid. It will run from a regular outlet or a USB port. Hopefully you find something to suit your needs.

Could you or craftygrandma provide a link on amazon?  We'll be dealing with a similar issue on this year's world.  thanks.

Okay, so I always forget about Microsoft Edge.  I tried that and it worked, I'm able to see excursions.  I did say okay to cookies when I signed in, not sure if that made a difference.  

My advice...try Edge now and good luck.

1 hour ago, Sea42 said:

I had no issue canceling a couple of excursions and booking others on the website today. I never have had an issue with the website but until HIA I never booked excursions with HAL.

I have a PC laptop/Windows 11/Firefox browser and everything for my 2 cruises comes up without an issue.

You must have magic Firefox 😜.  I've tried Firefox (made sure it was up to date first) and I get the white screen only.  Also made sure my windows was up to date.  So frustrating.

58 minutes ago, atexsix said:

 

 

I'm just going to have to go back to what I used to do, pull out my 15 year old macbook that works flawlessly with HAL's 15 year old website; I'm exaggerating, but that stupid old thing has come in handy numerous times and I'm glad I held onto it. 

What good does a Mac do?  I have one too.  I'm trying to look at shore excursions.  I tried multiple browsers on my pc and then went to my (brand new) Mac.  The only difference is on the Mac I get the 'continuous circle of death' while on the PC I just get a white screen.  It comes to the same thing...no access.

5 hours ago, WatchHill said:

We booked SY8094 for our cruise in December, primarily for location and the slighly larger balcony. I am aware of the noise potential, but DH can sleep through a thunderstorm, while I'm a light sleeper, though stay asleep better on a cruise than at home. We've encountered all night party folks in adjacent cabins, and crazy drunks organizing races along the corridors at 2: am. If the crew are moving food carts in the wee hours to prepare my breakfast, that's fine with me. 

 

Darcy

I like your attitude!

Thanks for the info.  I honestly didn’t think it was that bad, I only noticed it in the morning and then a little at night too.  My husband is very noise sensitive.  
 

I really appreciate the video reviews that might sway him.

And yes, a loud tv next door is far more annoying 😀.  That can happen on any deck.  I never looked to see if closed caption was available on those sets, that might help with the hard of hearing.

I would like to hear from folks who have actually been on deck 8 and what their experiences were.  I would love to get a signature suite for the world cruise but DH is concerned about upstairs noise.  We want mid-ship.  We were on the Koningsdam a couple of years ago and could hear the carts going back and forth in the morning above us.  It was annoying.

I know there are signature suites on deck 7 but they are the higher category ones, we're just interested in knowing about the deck 8 noise, in case that's where we end up.  I saw that Inside Cabin was on deck 8 last world cruise, he didn't mention noise but I didn't mention it when I was on the Koningsdam either.

Thanks.

On 11/16/2023 at 3:18 PM, bluemarble said:

 

Another thing to keep in mind about the Royal Court Theatre on Queen Anne is its seating capacity. The specs for Queen Anne indicate a total passenger capacity of approximately 3,000 with a seating capacity of 825 in the theatre. That compares to approximately 2,700 passengers on QM2 with a seating capacity of 1,105 in the theatre. Plus there is also Illuminations on QM2 providing an additional 500 seats for concurrent events.

 

I'll be interested to see how that's going to work out on Queen Anne. Queen Anne will also have the Bright Lights Society. Not sure what the capacity will be for that venue although it doesn't sound like it will be all that large.

oh that’s not good.   We’ve been on the Koningsdam with a similar theater seat to guest ratio.  It was very crowded.  
 

One night they had some guest dancers, we went to the theater 45 minutes early and there wasn’t one single seat left, not one.  We heard the next morning it was a great show though.😕

Why oh why do they stick us with those awful hangers!  Even when you remove them you're stuck with the rings taking up space.  With all the trend towards thin hangers you would think they would get the message.

Other then that, it looks very nice.  We have one on the 2025 world cruise.  I hope someone does a tour of the club balcony dining room.

1 hour ago, 1of4 said:

Typically river cruises do not offer laundry, or laundry packages. You can pay per item, and pay for pressing. Scenic offers 1 kg of free laundry per cabin per voyage. The Royal Suites get unlimited laundry. 

Thanks for the clarification!

On 4/15/2024 at 5:14 PM, 1of4 said:

I believe it is only 1 bag of laundry once per voyage unless you are in the top suite. 

Are you talking about a deal you had for one bag or are you saying that everyone on the boat (other then suite) are only allowed one bag each?

1 hour ago, seacruise9 said:

Hi, 

 

Thanks for your post. I was not aware that there was a discrepancy in the itineraries. 

 

I am booked on the full world cruise but I have not been able to access my booking on My Cunard since the revised itinerary was announced. When I attempt to login, the circle keeps spinning. I am guessing that they are still making the updates to the itinerary. I will let you know about the itinerary after I am able to access my booking again.

 

Chuck

Same here and I've tried chrome, firefox, etc.  

5 hours ago, rog747 said:

I think the whole Gulf/ME region will be 'off limits' to all Cruise ships for the long time foreseeable.

Cunard's ships are insured by Brokers at Lloyd's of London and the Underwriters state there is no Cover for the Region.
(My Family are all at Lloyd's in London working in this field for the past 60 odd years).

If these worrying troubles escalate further then we can likely kiss goodbye to Red Sea holidays (Sharm etc) possibly to Cyprus too, and maybe even Dubai.
So, if you want to go and see the Pyramids, The Nile and The Valley of the Kings, then go there soon.

The QA will be rerouted via the Cape as HAL has already done, and I am sure she will stay on schedule for her many US World Cruise guests to connect with the QM2's SOU-NYC crossing to get them home.


Everyday is a 'School Day' for me LOL
Scuttlebutt in slang usage means rumour or gossip, deriving from the Nautical term for the cask used to serve water.
(or in Today's' world :The term corresponds to the colloquial concept of a gathering at the water cooler (USA) or the tea trolley (UK) in an office setting, which at times becomes the focus of congregation and casual discussion and gossip.

A Navy scuttlebutt.

I used a naval term and I didn’t even know it!

Could you let us know what it said?  Where are they going, around Africa?  Thanks.

22 minutes ago, safarigal said:

I imagine there will be. Our around Africa cruise on the Sojourn has been re routed, and I just got word that the Island Princess has been rerouted, so Cunard can't be too far behind unfortunately.

Hadn't heard about Princess, that is interesting.

I see that HAL has already announced that they will not be taking the chance and go through the Suez Canal on their 2025 world cruise.  QA is currently scheduled to go that route and I'm wondering if that will hold.

We're debating taking this cruise and wouldn't mind if it detoured to Africa but that would be quite a change for them.  Is there any scuttlebutt about this?  Also I can't believe I just wrote out the word 'scuttlebutt' for the first time in my life.

This is an interesting topic for us!  We're on our first river cruise, on Amawaterways, next month.  We're going from Budapest to Nuremberg and then onto Prague for a couple of days.  The cost of flying business class to Europe is so high we felt we had to do more while there so after Prague we're flying to Amsterdam to do a 14 day Baltic cruise on HAL.

I guess we'll see the comparisons up close and personal.

Just found this site, very interesting!  Thanks for posting.

We'll be on our first river cruise this year, May 15th leaving from Budapest on Amawaterways.  We're hoping for nice weather and normal water levels!

I think a lot of the horror stories about boarding in Boston are from before 2023.  We were on the Voyage of the Vikings last summer.  We got there around 1ish and it was a breeze, no problems at all.  Everyone was very professional.  I didn't hear of any difficulties from anyone else either.  

Just now, kazu said:

any cabin with the word suite in it is considered that category.  So yes, you will earn double mariner points and yes, you pay the suite gratuities rate for the cabin (even though it is a verandah technically).

oh good my memory isn’t going after all!  Thanks 

Do you pay the suite gratuities rate with this type of room on the Volendam. I know it’s really just a balcony room but I seem to remember on the smaller ships it counted as a suite even for double mariner points but I could be wrong.

I don't think this is a creepy subject at all, it's just a necessary one.  Similar to a previous poster we keep a file with all our financial and insurance info in our safe and let everyone in the family know where it is.

Beyond that, this past year, we sent a letter to our close family members to let them know how to handle things when (not should, remember we all go) die.  We told them to have our remains cremated where ever we are in the world, not to have a memorial service and basically do whatever is easiest and best for them.  We'll be dead, we won't care.  We wanted to make sure they had no guilt about any of this process.  Have fun with the insurance money!