terrydtx

Last year I was where DrKoob is, after the horrible and uncalled for way my wife and I were treated and lied to by HAL and the Oosterdam guest services when she got Covid the last week of the cruise. I posted a long live thread here about the whole experience and said many times we were done with HAL forever. After a few months and receiving some unexpected compensation from HAL and reflection of the non Covid part of the cruise we booked our upcoming Koingsdam cruise and next year's Volendam Canada cruise. I even apologized here and ate a lot of crow when some in this forum threw my comments back at me. My lesson was never say never!

Here is another solution to bad tap water:

Before I retired, I was in the water filtration business for 25 years and I do not drink tap water on land or on any ship because of what I know.. I drink only RO filtered water in my home and outside my home it is bottled purified or filtered water for us. Many here will say that the tap water on a cruise ship is safe to drink, but what the OP has experienced on the Equinox is proof that is not always true. At least the Celebrity drink packages include canned and/or bottled water in their packages. We sail in suites and with the premium drinks package we keep our cabin stocked with Evian bottled water as we will do next month on the Equinox.

Thank you, we are very familiar with the HAL product. We only cruise with 3 cruise lines, Celebrity, HAL, and Oceania and we have 7 future cruises booked on all 3. They all have their particular pros and cons, but we find the pros out way the cons, most of the time. Last year we cruised on the Oosterdam and Celebrity Reflection from Italy.

When CO rolled out 5 years ago it cost $50pp per day and it was a hard sell.

Absolutely it works, last year we had the anytime dining on the Oosterdam and not once did we make a reservation. We usually walked in between 6:30 and 7:00pm and we were a group of 4, got seated right away with no problems. Not once on any cruise line have we made a reservation in the MDR with anytime dining and we have used anytime dining for the last 12 years.

I could not order it myself when I called HAL, was told my TA would have to add it which she did.

Tip: Get Club Orange before it is sold out.

For our San Diego cruise we are spending the night before at the Hilton Embassy Suites, about a 5 minute walk to the cruise terminal. Hope we get at least an 11am boarding time with CO.

The problem is if you want to cruise the inside passage and go south to North or North to south between Vancouver and Whittier you have to use Vancouver as embarkation or debarkation. Most cruises from Seattle are round trip and they cruise in the Pacific west of Vancouver Island and miss the beautiful inside passage. I hope by later in the season the workers in Canada Place have their act together better than this week of opening the Alaska season.

I believe part of the problem with Vancouver leading to overcrowding and made worse by understaffing, is that many people from the east coast and the mid west fly in for the cruise easily the morning of the cruise. They then go directly to the cruise port from the airport ignoring their assigned boarding time, jamming up the terminal. In July 2019 when we boarded the Noordam in Vancouver, our party flew from DFW at 9:30am to Vancouver the morning of the cruise embarkation. We usually like to fly in the day before or two for a cruise but hotel prices anywhere close to Canada Place cruise terminal were outrageously expensive. We got to the terminal at noon and it took us 2 hours to get boarded, the worst of any cruise to date for us.

With anytime dining you do not need a reservation to dine, just show up on your time. We have never had any unexpected waits for a table when we show up after the 5-6pm rush is seated (in the 6:30-7:00 window) and not once have we made a reservation for anytime dining in the MDR.

We never do fixed dining on any cruise ship, early is too early for us and late is way too late for us to enjoy our dinners. I have heard that boarding in San Diego isn't much better than Canada Place, but I believe and hope having Club Orange will fix most of the errors for us in November. Nothing like long lines on and off the ship to make a cruise less enjoyable. We get on the Celebrity Equinox in FLL next month, but we avoid the long check in lines in FLL by booking in Retreat suite with Celebrity. I remember several years ago waiting in line in 90 degree heat to get on a cruise ship in FLL with no suites or loyalty priority boarding.

We used our 1 HIA included SD to book Tamarind on the Koingsdam in November. We are so bored with both Pinnacle and Canaletto and Tamarind is only on 5 HAL ships. Our August 2024 Volendam cruise we have 2 SD HIA credits, one for Pinnacle and one Canaletto which we hope has changed their menus by then.

We had already booked CO before I read this thread so I am not worried about any lines. We have sailed primarily in the Retreat suites with Celebrity post Covid and hope CO gives a little of the premium feel we love about the Celebrity Retreat.

We will sail on the K'Dam in November from San Diego for the California Coastal and we are looking forward to our first Pinnacle Class ship, no matter the negative comments here.

Once the sun sets, nothing can be seen out the window anyway.

Arriving later has never been an issue for getting a waiter to wait on us promptly and it still beats waiting inline from 5-6pm to get in. I can sit in the bar from 5-6pm and have a predinner martini, a better use of my time.

The issue is and always has been with anytime dinning, people line up way before the doors open so they can be the first to get tables. We have always waited until 6:30 to 7:00pm to enter the MDR and never waited for more than a few minutes. Last year on the almost full Oosterdam this was our experience and a couple of nights when we entered, we were taken upstairs to the traditional dining room as there were many empty tables there by that time.

Thank you for this information, I just sent a request to my CC for a pin to use in Amsterdam when we visit in September.

We sail from Rotterdam in September, flying into the only airport that serves both Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Schiphol. We will stay for 3 nights in Ams and then have a private transport booked to Rotterdam the morning of embarkation for our group of 4.

I will bet to get any streaming or Wi-Fi calling you will still need to upgrade to the premium Wi-Fi. Upgrading is still way cheaper than using Cellular at sea.

On the Oosterdam last year in Italy and Greece, once I upgraded to the premium Wi-Fi, I was able to make and receive phone calls and text messages though the "Wi-Fi Calling" mode on my Samsung phone. The surf Wi-Fi that came with HIA was useless and did not work for Wi-Fi calling. I was able to use the Wi-Fi calling feature to call my wife on the ship too. The messaging app in the HAL app is totally useless. In 2019 when we did the same cruise the OP is asking about, we had our AT&T cell service when we got to cities in Alaska and some very spotty service while we cruised the inside passage.

Our AT&T account includes Mexico and Canada.

Each post like this just makes my paying $25pp per day for Club Orange a better bargain. Will be handy for our K'Dam November cruise from San Diego. We are planning on a HAL Alaska Cruise in 2025 and no way we do not pay for Club Orange for that one now.