MoyCoy

On 12/8/2020 at 1:54 PM, Fly and Sail said:

Just got the email:

 

Dear Guest,

 

We are reaching out to provide an update on the status of your 2021 cruise vacation.  As the world continues to work towards a new normal, our primary goal continues to be a healthy return to service for our guests, crew and the communities we visit.  While working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other local health and government authorities towards this shared goal, we are evaluating all current itineraries to ensure compliance with the new Conditional Sail Order.  This means some of our itineraries will need to be canceled and others will be modified. 

 

Unfortunately, these deployment adjustments will require cancellation of your Alaska cruise vacation. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes as we value your vacation time and want to ensure you have the best experience possible on a Celebrity Cruise.  At this time, we would like to offer you the opportunity to be re-accommodated on another Celebrity sailing in Alaska or to receive a 125% Future Cruise Credit (FCC) or a 100% Refund. 

 

From now through December 22, you have the option to rebook on any other 7-night Alaska sailing in 2021, departing between May and September, based on the price and promotion of your original booking or at prevailing rate, whichever is lower.  If you choose to rebook, you will also receive an onboard credit of $100 per stateroom. Please contact us or your Travel Agent to take advantage of this offer. 

 

If you are unable to rebook by December 22, you will automatically receive a 125% FCC valid for use on sailings through May 4, 2022.  The value of the FCC will be calculated based on the amounts paid toward your cruise and will be processed by January 22, 2021 via email. ...

 

Sure enough, called and all May 2021 cruises to/from Alaska on X are cancelled. I moved my cruise to June 13 and got the extra $100. Sitting on $450 OBC now, it's piling up! 😄

 

 

My May on Eclipse cancelled.  Moved ot to June 11th. Received a 100 credit too. I now wonder if we should have moved it to Aug. 

5 hours ago, lazey1 said:

I am just off the Oosterdam Thanksgiving sailing. There were 500 minors under the age of 18 on our cruise. I don't know if they still have the Club HAL on the upper deck or not however there were at least 2 very large rooms on deck 3 forward where the children were being entertaibed by the staff.  One room was younger children, the other room appeared to be older, maybe teenagers. Ane of course the Lido pool and spa's were filled with kids almost all the time. The weather was cold, (jeans and sweatshirts) so I doubt there would have been many adults swimming anyway.

Your the best. Thank you. Did you notice the age ranges in the younger kids area. 

I am sailing the Oosterdam with 9 year old twins Dec 14th.  I usually enjoy a few dinners alone in a specialty restaurant.  But with these new changes..I just don't feel comfortable leaving my children alone for hours unsupervised. 

Anyone else have experience with new HAL High Score kids club?

I am sailing on the Oosterdam on Dec 14th. I heard they revamped the kids club. Have you heard any information about that? I am sailing with my 9 year old twins

Thank you

Last time I visited Falmouth , the port was only partially built.  I plan to visit the port January 2021  on the Odessey.  

I will be sailing with my 9 year old twins.  I was wondering if there is decent Jamacian food near port? Entertainment near port?

If we decided to do Rose Hill, how could we get there from the port? Is there a better resort that has great activities for kids?

How do you get to rose hall from the cruise port

Thank you everyone.  Extremely helpful !

On 10/18/2019 at 6:03 PM, PCWalton1 said:

Also on your question of parking there is a large lot behind the cinema where you can park overnight for $15

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

Is the cinema walking distance to the port or will I need to take a taxi? Is uber in Hawaii yet?

15 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

 

In Lahaina there are not as many rental cars as from the Kahului airport which has been reported to result in Lahaina rentals being more expensive.  Based on Google Maps several rental car agencies are located in North Ka’anapali (Honoapi’ilani/Halawai)...Budget, Avis, National & Enterprise.

Is that an Enterprise in the Sheraton that I keep reading about the Hawaii threads? Or is it a separate Enterprise,  which is not in a hotel?

Thank you

1 hour ago, PCWalton1 said:

If the OP ever comes back I was going to recommend using the app Turo. It's like AirBnB for cars as you rent from owners. We did this last month in Lahaina. Just picked up the car at the owner's house over by the Safeway, key was in it. Some owners will even bring car to the port. 

 

Thank you. I'll ck them out.

Oh , I feel silly. I didn't know there were 2 ports in Maui. I am sailing on RCI Ovation of the seas . So it must be Lahaina, I believe. 

Does anyone know how to rent a car in Maui , from the cruiseport?

I know there is a company with a van that will pick the Rental Car Drivers up from cruise port . I thought it was Alamo. I called Alamo and they stated that they dont pick up from cruiseport. Is it National? 

There is a car rental facility not too far from the port. We rented a car 5 years ago when we cruised to Maui and stayed over night. For the life of me, I cant remember how I set up that rental. 

Can you still park close to the cruise port? 

Please help?

One last question.  Do you think the newly built cabins on the 10th floor would be slightly smaller than cabins originally built with the ship? I wanted the 10th floor because of proximity to the Kids Club, but o dont want to sell myself short either and choose a smaller room.

Thank you everyone!!! Whew so tight for 4. The Neptune Suite is 2500 more. 😑

Thank you again. Pictures are very sobering. 

Here is to hoping they offer a upsell!

The inside mentioned. Is it a family inside or a large inside? I would really miss my balcony 😐

We are sailing the Oosterdam to Mexico in December room 10019.  We are a family of 4. (2 adults, 8 year old twins)

We are booked in a balcony on the 10th floor ( one of the newly added rooms) 

I am concerned because some of the balcony cabins require the 4th to sleep over our head. According to my PCC there is no way to know which cabins are set up this way.

I wanted to move to a Vista Suite. But they all only hold 3. It seems if we want a bigger room, we would have to move to a Neptune Suite, which is costly. 

I wonder are there famliy cabins on the Oosterdam? Or special larger cabins that sleep 4 or more?

Thank You!

Thank you so much. Having the hours is so very helpful 

19 minutes ago, sailingskyward said:

Oh how funny, I had originally planned to do the same thing. SEA-YVR on the Oosterdam, then walk across the Vancouver cruise terminal to board the Bliss 6-day to LA. Can you tell us more about your NCL Bliss experience compared to your HAL experience? Thank you and safe travels

We liked Oosterdam.  They apparently don't allow you to ck in luggage for a one day. We packed heavy because we were cruising thereafter.  So it was interesting pulling our luggage through the terminal.  The food on buffet was just okay.  I'm hoping on the 7 day it will be better.

The Bliss had quite a boarding process. They informed guest 4 days before embarking that they cant get on till 7pm

Then they tried to ck in 4000 people between 7 to 930pm

Needless to say, it did not work out well.

Then we had to clear in San Francisco which wasted 3 hours of our port time. And we skipped Seattle.  Overnight in Victoria instead.  Half the ship was Canadian so that wasn't appealing.  Cancellation for Seattle was due to clearance time frame.😑

The Bliss was waiting in the harbour since 10am the day we were to embark. I saw her with my own eyes.   They just didn't have a slip to park. Say overbooked anyone!!!??

They blamed late boarding on tides. 😑

They did finally issue a $100 on board credit. But only after people screamed. 

The intin was crazy from the beginning.  Vancouver, Seattle, Victoria, San Francisco.... clearing is obviously a problem here. So dropping Seattle was a no brainer.  But it should have been adjusted before itin was released.  They informed people they would have to clear in San Francisco the night before, making it impossible for those with private tours to call and cancel. 

We disembarked and people were still in line  , yelling at customer service. People wanted gratuities refunded for the shortened day , etc...

And they changed our intin before embarking at least 5 times.

I heard last years 5 day Bliss wasn't a picnic either. 

On the ship, staff were not as attentive and knowledgeable.  Seems like they picked up new crew too. 

Just wish NCL was honest that someone higher up messed up. Instead they made excuses that seasoned cruisers were not buying.  I'm surprised we didn't have a riot on that cruise.  There were ALOT of angry people on board

I've sailed NCL quite a bit. This cruise was not my favorite. 

On 10/9/2019 at 1:46 PM, Dulciana8 said:

I can’t compare HAL to Princess, but my son loves HAL kids club. He’s cruised on HAL and on Disney, and between the two, he enjoyed HAL the most— in fact, his first HAL cruise was on the Oosterdam last year over Thanksgiving when he was four. We are booked this year on Nieuw  Statendam. If you’re going over a school

holiday, you will find a greater percentage of school children on board— still not many, but last year our of ~2000 passengers there were ~200 children. 

 

We found Club HAL to be structured yet very accommodating to our son’s individual desires, so for example— if everyone in his group went outside to play on the sports court, he still had to go, but he didn’t have to play ball, or whatever. He got tons of personalized attention from the Club staff, and even more attention from the crew— HAL is not known for being a family line, but they excelled. Excellent kids menu, waiters bent over backward to get food our son wanted, and the excursions staff were so knowledgeable and helpful with helping us locate activities. Truly the whole week felt so personalized to our son’s wishes and desires, it was wonderful for him to experience the high caliber of service that HAL is known for, and we love. My husband and I cruised Princess before, so we are also familiar with the laid back style— HAL is also very laid back, maybe more so, with excellent service and this extends to the club areas. It’s all very chill. 

 

If you have specific questions, I’ll try and answer. 

That is one thing my daughter mentioned about Princess that she loved. She is a art buff and did not like being forced to play games for 3 hours. On NCL everyone has to do what everyone else was doing. No matter what.

On Princess, I could not keep her out of the kids clubs. She loved it that much. I had to make her stay with us for family time. I am hoping she will like HAL just as much. 

Oh my goodness.  Thank you all so much for such detailed responses!! It was mentioned that HAL is not open the same hours as Princess.  Do they close for lunch and dinner? Are they opened all day on port days??

Does Hal attempt to do a educational based club? Princess tries and educates about each port through thier discovery partnership.  I and the children enjoy that greatly. 

I heard about kid cooking classes. Is that through the kids club or do you sign and pay separately for it? Are the classes offered numerous times throughout a 7 day cruise?

We scored a great deal for Mexico.  It was too good to pass up. We have 3 sea days. My kids do enjoy vegging too. The TV , cards, and a few books  should help with veggie mode--should the kids club end up being a bust!

Does the club offer pagers? How do they get a hold of you? 

Do they have dance classes? Do they plan any family events around the ship?

Some one mentioned the kids menus.  Are they filled with items like pizza and hamburgers or are the items offered a little more healthier?

Thank you all again for answering my numerous questions!!!!

We were on that cruise too! We wanted to give Holland a try. We are now booked to sail her on a 7 day in December.  We used the 1 day to connect to a 6 day on the Bliss.

Our Bliss cruise was intresting😑.  (Im being nice here) Wished we had stayed on the Oosterdam! Especially since we were in a Neptune Suite.

My twins are 8 . I thought about ordering the UDP for my 10 night cruise on Ovation. 

But I'm not keen with the kids eating hamburgers and hotdogs every night . On NCL the dinners from kids menu wasn't the most healthiest. 

What does the kids menu look like ? Is it full of hamburgers etc. Or just smaller versions of the adult menu?

On 10/6/2019 at 3:29 PM, TAD2005 said:

In March 2019, HAL ran en experiment on 4 of its ships, where they would charge a guest $10 for a 2nd entree.   On 2 of the ships, the $10 surcharge was on all main entrees.  On the other 2 ships, it was only charged on nights when they had lobster tails.  You could get as many appetizers or deserts as you wanted.  And this surcharge did not apply to the Lido Market, where you could go back as many times as you want for 2nd, 3rd or more helpings.

I was on the Eurodam in March when they ran that trial, and the MDR staff hated it, and the Food & Beverage Manager was not speaking in very positive terms about this policy.

Thankfully, the experiment ended in the first week of April and has never been heard of again.  May that policy, and the moron bean counter in Seattle who devised it, rest in peace.

We have never had a problem getting an extra entree to share with DW on all HAL cruises, even the Eurodam last March.

Does HAL serve lobster in the Lido Market on Gala Night

We found a great price on Holland Oosterdam for a 7 day Mexican Riveria cruise this December.  My kids adore Princess Kids Clubs. Is Hollands Kids Clubs Similar??

I would love to hear any and all details about your experiences.  My Husband is concerned that the kids will be board.  

They have sailed princess so they are use to a ship minus water slides etc. But the kids club usually makes up for the lack of amenities.