sandyss

We have a late flight out of Boston Logan - departing at 5:20 pm next July.  The HAL drive around transfer with sightseeing doesn't especially appeal to us.  We could use Luggage Direct, but we would still have our carryons with us.  Does anyone have a suggestion for a tour (walking or van) that we could do with our carryons?  Thanks.

Thanks again for all the advice.  I will book the earlier flight.

Would we be able to make the early flight if we don't walk off with our luggage, and for some reason are unable to use luggage direct - if we just left out our luggage the night before and picked it up in the terminal?  (That's my DH's preference.)

Thanks for your input.  We definitely prefer the earlier flight at 11:55am which gets us home around 6pm (rather than the later flight which doesn't arrive until 10pm).

We need to make a reservation for our flight home from Fort Lauderdale in mid December.  It looks like there will be two other ships in port that day.

We're debating between an 11:55am flight and a 2:15pm flight that day.  (The 2:15pm flight arrives home 4 hours later than the 11:55am flight - both have a connection in Atlanta.)  Will we be able to make the 11:55am flight, or should we play it safe and choose the 2:15pm flight?

Very very slow pulling up Holland America for days now.  Today, I couldn't get on at all.

Some Travel Agents do.

Thanks for that information Tom.  Since I don't function between 1am and 5 am, we will have to decide whether or not the internet will be worth it for us.  We do like to have internet, though, so that our children and grandchildren have a way to contact us while we are traveling.

54 minutes ago, GeorgeCharlie said:

You're welcome and best of luck on your new internet service.

 

We live in a rural area of Canada and we're happy to get a consistent 25Mbps - once kids get home from school (and adults from work) it's about half that.

We’re currently getting about 12 mbps - and we live in the heart of Silicon Valley.   We’re tired of promises from AT&T, and decided that it was time to try Xfinity. Keeping our fingers crossed. 

Thanks so much for that link GeorgeCharlie.  There were actually 3 people from your cruise posting about the internet, and it sounds like it was working for the entire cruise - although slow at times.  But then again, I am used to slow - we currently have AT&T internet at home, which is really pokey.  Tomorrow we are switching to Xfinity - fingers crossed that it is an improvement.

Question for you.  How well did the internet work on that cruise, since some of the ports were quite isolated?  Not sure if we want to get it for our cruise next year.  Thanks.

Thank you for taking the time to post this wonderful review and the fantastic photos.   We are looking very forward to a similar cruise next year.

As others have said, there may be extenuating circumstances that caused the problem with your TA. 

Recently, we contacted our long-time TA, who passed on our complicated request to someone else in her company, instead of handling our request herself.  We had to send our request a 2nd time, since the other agent didn't handle it as soon as we would have liked.  We were ready to change TAs until we found out that our TA had a serious family problem that she was dealing with.  I talked with her and let her know that we were so sorry to hear about her problem and hoped that her problem would be resolved soon.  I felt so badly for her.

We will stick with our TA, unless this one-off request becomes the norm.  TAs have personal problems that sometimes interfere with their job.

We have a similar problem with the Zuiderdam July 6, 2019 Roll Call for the 7 day Viking Sagas cruise.  I have sent messages around 4 different ways, without results.

If you go to the Find your Cruise for the Zuiderdam, and click on July 6, you get an entirely different Roll Call.  This is very confusing for anyone who tries to find the Roll Call.

Host Walt - Please help.

Great photos.  Thoroughly enjoying your blog.  Thanks.

Enjoying this thread very much.  We take a similar cruise next summer, and this adds to the anticipation.  Thank you.

There is an error for groups on board:  19 July 2019 – 29 July 2019 : Baltic : Road Scholar Group

With the reshuffling of cruises, that departure no longer exists.

Starting July 13, the Zuiderdam has a transatlantic cruise - starting in Rotterdam and ending in Boston.

That’s correct.

Some information relating to the operation of the Holland America Line Cruise Train by the Alaska Railroad is unclear, and I hope that someone with actual recent experience can clarify. It is clear that the Cruise Train, when contracted by Royal Caribbean International (including Celebrity Cruises), Silversea Cruises, and Norwegian Cruise Line, operates between Seward (cruise ship dock) and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. However, the 2018 Summer Operational Information for Alaska Railroad passenger operations shows the Cruise Train, when contracted by Holland America Line, serves a “South Anchorage Depot” (rather than the airport station). The operating plan also describes the operation of the train as: “This train takes guests from cruise ship to airport (or Anchorage for those participating in land tours). The southbound trip takes guests from airport to cruise ship.” Likewise, the 2018 summer consists show the Holland America Line Cruise Train operating round-trip from Seward to “S of Depot.” (Interestingly, the Holland America Line Cruise Train is also shown as operating with all seven Alaska Railroad low-level dome coaches, as it does when operating the Cruise Train under contract to Princess Cruises as the McKinley Express service, between Whittier and the railroad siding at Woodpecker Avenue near Talkeetna, and not just five of the Alaska Railroad low-level dome coaches when operating the Cruise Train under contract to the other cruise lines.)

 

While the 2018 cruise season is concluding, I expect that the railroad operating plan for next year will be similar, if not identical. So the questions I have, and hope that some others can answer from their experience, are as follows.

 

 

 

• Is there a “South Anchorage Depot,” presumably south of the main Anchorage downtown station, that is served by the Holland America Line Cruise Train? If so, where is this station located?
  

• Does the Holland America Line Cruise Train make passenger stops at both the airport and this presumed “South Anchorage Depot”? Or does it stop solely at the “South Anchorage Depot,” from which, presumably, motorcoaches transfer passengers to either the airport or to the Eagan Center?
  

We took the train from Anchorage to Seward in June. We were told by HAL when we booked the train that we could board the train at either the airport or at Egan Center. We even rechecked that information with HAL before leaving for Anchorage.

After we returned our rental car at the airport, we went to the location at the airport that we were told to check-in for our train. When we arrived there, we were told that the ONLY pick-up location for the train was at Egan Center in downtown Anchorage. (We were told that the departure point had been moved to Egan Center several years ago!!) Luckily, we were meeting our son an his family there for the train ride to Seward. They were being dropped off at the airport by relatives, who had not left the airport yet. They were able to drive all of us to Egan Center. From Egan Center, we were put on a bus that took us to the downtown rail depot.

There is a train depot at the airport, but the HAL train does not stop there.

We are on a westbound next year - July 13th - on the Zuiderdam which travels from Rotterdam to Boston. (It's a 17 day cruise.)

We are also on the prior leg - 7 days from Copenhagen to Rotterdam. In total - 24 days.

You could fly in the day before your cruise, and stay in a hotel near SFO, around Burlingame, for around $200.

"Zuiderdam : 19 July 2019 – 29 July 2019 : Baltic : Road Scholar Group"

The Zuiderdam now sails from Rotterdam to Boston from July 13 - 30.

We checked our luggage at Egan center. It was delivered to our cabin.

 

The train station in Seward was at the dock.

 

There were very long lines to board our ship, since so many people were arriving at once.[/quote

 

Thanks for the info. About what time did the train leave Anchorage? We are currently booked on the bus transfer, but I may try to change to the train.

 

On a prior cruise, we just took a private transfer bus. I actually liked the bus transfer better than the train, since there were long delays to get on the train, and then again to get off of the train. The times of the bus and train transfer by Holland America are virtually the same. I think that we left Egan Center at around noon – to take a bus to the train station.

We checked our luggage at Egan center. It was delivered to our cabin.

The train station in Seward was at the dock.

There were very long lines to board our ship, since so many people were arriving at once.

We took the HAL train from Anchorage to Seward in June. We had booked independently and were not staying at the HAL hotel. The meeting place was Egan Center. (When I called HAL, I was told that we could either meet at the Egan Center or the Airport. When we went to the airport, we were told that HAL had given us old information. The meeting place had been Egan Center for several years!! So we left for the Egan center.)

When we arrived at the Egan Center, there were two groups there. The people who had booked the HAL train and the people who had booked the HAL bus. We checked our luggage at the Egan Center and got our tickets for the train. The first group departure was the people who had booked the bus. A short while later, they called the people with train tickets, and we boarded a bus to go to the downtown train station.