terrydtx

Your issue is why we use an independent TA, who knows how to handle situations like yours. You can call HAL 3 times with an issue and get 3 different answers, HAL reps are very consistent about being inconsistent. It is not just HAL, Celebrity reps are just as bad.

That is how we added CO, at time of booking on our Volendam 2024 cruise with my TA so we start out with the cabin upgrade we wanted. For our Koingsdam cruise in November we had our TA add CO a month after we booked but since we had booked an aft facing Verandah cabin we had nothing to upgrade to, so HAL gave us a $100 OBC instead.

Yes and the Vista Suites on Zaandam and Volendam are the only cabins except for Neptune and higher that have a balcony. We are booked in a Vista next year on the Volendam. We booked the Volendam and added Club Orange to get the free upgraded cabin, we went from a B Category in the aft end of the ship to a midship A category. The upgrade paid for CO because we would have booked the A cabin without CO,

1) Last year we followed a Celebrity reflection cruise from Rome with a HAL Oosterdam cruise from Venice. We are also primarily a Celebrity cruiser, but last year IMO the food on the Oosterdam was a lot better than the Reflection. More entree choices and just better quality overall on the Oosterdam. The HAL Lido buffets have more choices and at night they offer most of the entrees from the MDR. Room service is still free on HAL while Celebrity now charges non suites a delivery and gratuity charge. Specialty restaurants are a lot less in cost on HAL and just as good as Celebrity. There have been many discussions on CC about how the food quality has gone downhill since Covid restarts. 2) I saw no difference in bed quality between the two lines both were very firm and comfortable. I wish my bed at home was as good as theirs. 3) We never use the pools, so I can't comment. 4) we only chose anytime dinning with both lines, we prefer to have dinner when we want not when the cruise ship tells us to. On Oosterdam we would show up between 6:30 and 7:00pm and not once did we have to wait to be seated on a 14 day cruise. My DW and I are in our early 70's and we are to the point that we no longer care about loyalty status. We now choose a cruise by the Itinerary that is best between the 3 cruise lines we will cruise with, Celebrity HAL and Oceania. We have 6 future cruises booked with all 3 in the next two years, each one was chosen because of the itinerary. I hope my comments help and all I can say is try HAL for yourselves and see what you think. You do not mention which cruise or ship you are considering, but the new HAL Pinnacle class ships are really beautiful and they still have traditional open balconies, unlike the IV cabins in the newer Celebrity E Class ships. We will only cruise on the E Class ships in a Sky Suite with real balconies, because we tried an IV cabin once and it was too much like an Ocean view window cabin and we hated it.

Not enough value for you perhaps, but that means more availability for the rest of us who love Club Orange. BTW on Pinnacle Class ships with CO dining rooms, having dinner there means we enjoy a much smaller, quieter and a better service venue that is more like fine dining instead of dining with 400 hundred people in a MDR that is more like a banquet. We also get one extra entree that is not served in the MDR and is prepared in a totally different kitchen than the MDR. The extra entrees are not shown in advance as the chefs choose and prepare them based on the itinerary of the cruise and availability of ingredients.

i agree anout easier opening of the cans

I know about the people designated on the form, but I was still informed that the majority of what you designate still goes into the pool regardless of what is on the form. I am not arguing the point just pointing out what I was told by the Retreat manager.

Last year so many cruise ships sailed at 60% or less capacity so a free upgrade was more viable, I know some who moved up by bidding less than $50pp in the move up program too.

The upgrade fairy now works for money by the bidding in the move up program.

Yes the included classic drinks package is for the canned water, but you can get more than the one can daily in your cabin by going to any bar and ordering them on you drinks package and taking back to your cabin. I was surprised on the Equinox last month, the canned water no longer had the tin can taste I experienced before on earlier Celebrity cruises. I was told by the beverage manager that Celebrity had recently changed vendors after numerous complaints about the taste of the water in a can.

We have sailed since Covid in suites so we have at least $800 or more OBC. We do not gamble so if we have any leftover OBC, we use it in the ship's stores. The last couple of cruises on Equinox and Reflection, both had a nice selection of Tommy Bahama shirts so I made several purchases. I buy TB clothing at home so they were something I would normally buy. We also primarily only book private shore excursions, stopped using ship tour years ago, so the OBC is of not much use for them either. We do use some OBC for specialty restaurants. I had inquired about using the OBC for extra crew gratuities, but I was told by a Retreat Manager that doing that through guest relations will cause most of the extra gratuity to go into the ship's crew appreciation pool and not all to the person you designate it to.

It's all part of the new Starlink service. Our cabin had a small box connected to the Starlink system and our butler told me every cabin had one.

More cruise ships use Amsterdam as a embarkation and debarkation port than ones only doing a one-day port stop.

We use Welcome Pickups all over Europe. We have them booked for our September Apex cruise. They are charging about 200 Euros for the 4 in our group, picking us up at our hotel and dropping us off at the ship in Rotterdam. They have Minivans for 4 to 5 people and sedan for 2-3 people, Welcome - Making travel easy, friendly, personal (welcomepickups.com)

We were fortunate to have been assigned the new building in 2019. The rooms were huge with bathrooms that had heated floors.

That is about the same for our Apex roll call, the majority of passengers are still staying in Amsterdam pre cruise, like us. A few have moved to Rotterdam pre cruise but they are the minority.

What you wear any other night is 100% acceptable on dressy night. You may see a few tuxes and suits, but the vast majority no longer get that dressy. For me the only thing I wear different from dressy to non-dressy nights is a button up shirt instead of a collared golf or polo shirt.

We were there in 2019 and did not need any reservations, We also walked across the main road to a strip mall that had several dining venues including a good pizza place. We did not have any HAL vouchers for dining as they were such a rip off in pricing compared to what the meals really cost and found the places outside of the resort were better and cheaper options.

We are still staying in Amsterdam for 3 days prior to our cruise and taking private transportation to Rotterdam in the morning of our cruise departure.

Celebrity has already moved most Amsterdam cruises to Rotterdam which is only 30 minutes from Amsterdam. Our September Apex cruise departure was moved there months ago,

Good point, Viking River cruises has a very popular Basel to Amsterdam and reverse cruise itinerary with ships departing almost every day of the week in the summer season. Our Celebrity Apex cruise departure was moved months ago from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, but Rotterdam may targeted next for some type of ban.

Last year we were on two cruises in Italy and gone for over 30days, so I had a 30 day pill organizer that I took in my backpack when we boarded both cruises.

We never book the cruise line shuttles and always book private transportation outside of the US and use Uber inside the US. A good source for Europe private transportation is Welcome Pickups, used them last year in Italy and booked them for this year in Amsterdam, Athens and Santorini.

We also use 7 day pill boxes for both prescription and non-prescription meds and in all the years of cruising not once had a problem when boarding with them.

We had an aft sky suite on deck 12 in 2021 on the Equinox and never had a problem with any noise from deck above. We loved the location and would book again.