Appygirl

Thanks - I just heard back from them today so they're running under 2 weeks response time right now.

And here's the weird thing when I logged in today - my current address is already there. So... that tells me I either got it in before receiving one of those system down messages. Or... I phoned in my new address back in March(don't remember doing that!) and Princess had a bunch of pre-printed material with the old address that was still waiting to go out on their mailers so that's why I thought I didn't change the address with them yet. Oh well! I guess they'll catch up eventually.

Or... do Holland America and Princess update each other on things like this? I know for sure I updated Holland America back in March.

Hi there, does anyone know how many days or weeks it takes to get a response from the Captain's Circle email address.

I moved and am paying for mail forwarding but it expires in a month and I'm not sure if I'm going to renew for a few more months. Most everyone has been informed of new address. Mail from Princess is still being forwarded and its mostly the junk mail/brochures type of mail with the occasional piece in an envelope.

According to the bottom of one of my emails from Princess: "If you wish to make changes to your email or postal address, name, destination preference or other information, please go to My Princess or you may contact us at captainscircle@princesscruises.com."

The "My Princess" in above is a link to the log on page. I did attempt to log on about 3 or 4 times. I was unable to log in due to some technical issue and when I finally was able to log in, it says feature unavailable at this time or something to that effect. So I sent an email to the above address. No response.

Its really no big deal to me one way or the other whether or not Princess gets my new address to keep sending mail. I sold the house and the current owners have rented it out, and neither they or their tenants know my new address, nor will they. Worse case scenario the current tenants are going to get all the Princess brochures and I doubt those are the type of thing you can put back in the mail "return to sender" and it'll get back to Princess to mark as a bad address.

Just wondering if anyone thinks I'll hear back from Princess Circle before mid-July. Thanks!

Dockman's review was accurate. The staff on the Zaandam are very good, always smiling, very polite, helpful. With the exception of 2 women in the food & beverage service. We had nicknames for both. B!tchy worked in the Lido slinging food. And slinging is correct. She'd sling it in your face if she could get away with it I'm sure. The other one works in the beverage service and appears to be a senior employee. We called her The Scowler. I was in the pool, roof open, and it was very windy and a bottle of beer rolled off the table and crashed on the tile. I could smell it all the way from the pool. I've never seen anyone carry on over the death of a bottle of beer the way she did. You'd have thought her pay was going to be docked for a year! That little act she put on was more entertaining than some of the lecturers!

Dining room service for dinner is slow, due to cutbacks I guess, and food usually arrived cold to barely warm. The food would have been pretty good if it had actually arrived at the temperature it should have been eaten at.

The Zaandam is the only cruise I've been on where passengers cornered the dining room manager and reemed him out over the long waits and the cold food. I heard that screaming go on for over 10 minutes. I think it could have been handled a little more professionally and quietly but I can see how people get ticked when they're paying good money for a cruise expecting good food and service similar to the rest of the HAL fleet, and the Zaandam doesn't cut it. One night the dining room manager brought around complimentary champagne and apologies due to the slow service resulting in the cold food. Took too long to get to our table and we left. After 3 nights of dining room service getting progressively worse, we took our chances with B!tchy and ate our dinners in the Lido where the food was served at the right temperature.

I'm not sure why the Zaandam can't get their act together in the food services area. The rest of HAL can get it right, why not the Zaandam. I've never been on a cruise where the food & beverage staff when not dealing with passengers, gathered in little groups and spoke angrily in their native language. After an unpleasant encounter with the hotel manager, I think I have a big clue why the food & beverage staff are unhappy.

The Zaandam has great destinations. When cruising the Zaandam, its all about the destination. Not the food.

I think they did away with it a year ago. The last time I went to the one on Zuiderdam was 2 years ago and it was packed with people. I agree probably discontinued due to cost and too many leftovers. I see why. At 10:30 at night I'm not too hungry. All I'd take was a couple of strawberries. And I live chocolates and dessert.

I also agree go to Discount Hawaii Car Rentals. http://www.discounthawaiicarrental.com/

Book ahead of time. I booked 3 months out and my rental was around $30 for the day. Someone else booked a few days before arriving and the cost was over $100 for the same car I had. The various car rental companies send shuttles back and forth to the pier, so depending on the timing, if you just missed the shuttle, you could be waiting 15 minutes for your shuttle. The driver checks the reservation list. If your name isn't on it, and if they're sold out, they won't allow you on their shuttle. The reason being why give you a free ride to the airport only for you to scout out another car rental company and take your business there. There might be some drivers who allow you to board, depends if their company is sold out or not.

Its about a 5 minute drive to the airport. There was no one in line when we arrived so it just took a few minutes to check in. It was about a 30 to 40 minute drive to VNP. We stopped for a coffee before leaving Hilo, so your estimate of arriving there by 10am is doable.

We rented a GPS at all islands, cost $12 or $13/day. They were already preprogrammed with popular spots so we could just go to the menu and hit where we wanted to go. I think one time a restaurant we wanted wasn't listed and we entered the address. There were also preplanned routes you could choose if you wanted and the GPS guided you on that tour. We rented from Thrifty/Dollar and the GPS units were preprogrammed with music and narrative. The GPS picked up where we were and a narrator would talk about the area or area of interest or give more about an approaching tourist attraction, so I suppose a person could make a last minute decision to stop somewhere based on the chatter from the GPS. When we fly and stay in Hawaii we don't rent a GPS, but did find it useful for the day trips at each port. Also very handy was the GPS was preprogrammed with the rental location to return the car to.

Whatever happened to "write what you know"?

As a writer, I can tell you that the real money is writing what you don't know. It means interviewing experts. I'm not a realtor nor do I know more about real estate than the average lay person who's bought and sold a couple of houses, but I've been well paid and published in a real estate magazine - by interviewing my expert. That's just one example. If writers wrote only what they know, that would be an essay and there aren't too many markets for essays and most don't pay well.

Travel writing articles are generally written by someone who has traveled to a destination, but more common these days are travel reporting. The writer might not have traveled there but has interviewed a person who has. I've done travel reporting too, again through interviews.

Just throwing it out there that the majority of writers do not write about what they know. Most of my writing income is from selling magazine articles. I have written some fiction books. One of my series takes place in Ohio where the main characters live. Aside from driving through Ohio in 1977 on our way to Ontario, I've never been to Ohio.

Research is necessary. For my novels I've interviewed experts to get a more realistic feel for something. For example a California surfer I interviewed to get the name of an L.A. beach good for beginners and what it feels like to wipe out. I took an hour's worth of surfing lessons in Waikiki Beach in 1978 which didn't make me an expert, but I have a bit of a feel and an interview with someone who could help my writing not appear fake helped. So it is possible to incorporate write what you don't know into fiction writing too.

To the op - pinkincc is correct. Do your research by reading some threads (Norwegian, Princess, and HAL) and talking to people who have cruised. There's a big difference between writing a realistic scene set on a cruise in Hawaii versus a fictional town set in Ohio.

I just noticed that Murder on the High Seas is free on Kindle this weekend.

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-High-Practical-Caregiver-Capers-ebook/dp/B0082CIMCQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1413078488&sr=1-1&keywords=murder+on+the+high+seas

Let me give everyone a hint. That's the best price for it. If you go there and its gone back to the regular price, give it a miss.

This book might be a good example on why its a good idea to know about cruising before writing a book that takes place on a cruise ship. I think its possible the author might have taken one cruise. Or perhaps talked to someone who's cruised and incorporated that information. It doesn't really matter. Same as with the Love Boat, its fiction, the author/screenwriter can take whatever allowances they want. Doesn't have to be factual. But when its not factual nitpickers who actually know the industry come out to nitpick. Ahem, that's why its called fiction.

The main flaw with this book is its title. There is no murder to solve, no whodunit. And what happened actually happened in Bermuda, not on the high seas at all! LOL! As a short story for entertainment and if its free and you can overlook the flaws, its OK.

To your questions - the cruise director and/or their staff interact more with passengers than the pursers. Depends on the ship but the cruise director and/or staff are usually running various entertainment options and mingling with the passengers before/after shows and games. The only exception would be the last time I was on the Zuiderdam and I can certainly understand why that C.D. slunk off and avoided the passengers! Worst C.D. EVER!

Luggage is brought to the rooms whenever on embarkation day. The ship usually blocks off half the elevators and has all kinds of staff hustling to get the luggage where it needs to go. I've always got my luggage before sailing and unpacked. Probably had it all done before lifeboat drill. Others seem to have their luggage take the scenic route and it doesn't show up till after dinner.

Well at least you're in the Zuiderdam. They have about the best food and food service on the HAL fleet.

There's other options for eating besides the main dining room if you absolutely won't accept anytime dining. I'm a vegetarian, no allergies, and the Zuiderdam has never been a problem for me getting enough to eat. I eat in the main dining room about half the time and always anytime dining. The rest of the time I just go to the Lido. After a day out on shore I don't usually feel like dressing up and sitting through a lengthy dinner.

If everything is on time and no lines I think you'll be fine.

You preclear US Customs at Vancouver Airport. One time my husband got pulled for secondary screening. I was given the choice of going with him or going to the gate. I stayed with him. We went to another room and sat down for 30 or 40 minutes during which a Homeland Security background check was going on the computers. They called us up and said enjoy your trip and take that door to your gate.

So you never know when you're going to be the lucky number for secondary screening and that can hold you up a bit. Fortunately we'd arrived with plenty of time to spare - flying to Fort Lauderdale to catch a cruise the next day.

I've booked guarantees with HAL twice. Got room assignment once at the pier and the other time about 12 days before departure. The ony time I've booked a Vista suite I chose the cabin because I didn't want to buy a guarantee and end up getting whatever location was leftover after everyone else chose their cabins. And they still tried to move me a few cabins down and give me $100 off and I said oh no you don't, put me back in the cabin I selected. And they did.

Really what difference does it make? To a kids eyes cruise ships are all the same. There's a kid club where they can play with other kids and there are swimming pools. There's not too much else on board to interest a kid. There are fancy pants dining rooms where they're forced to dress up and sit for up to 2 hours while several grown up food choices take forever to show up and get eaten when all they want to do is eat a burger and fries and be done in 15 minutes so they can get back to their friends. And don't forget those boring shows at night where they watch singers and dancers or listen to a lame comedian telling jokes they don't understand. Kids tend to be doers more than watchers. It would be more fun to race each other up and down the show room stairs than watch the act.

You and your wife choose the ship that has the itinerary and price you like the best. It'll all be the same to your kids. Like most kids, I had no input into vacation planning. When I was a kid we went to places my parents wanted to go and did the things my parents wanted to do. My lucky friends went to fun places like Hawaii and Disneyland. I get it we were fortunate to be able to afford vacations at all, but as a kid I would have loved to do something fun for a change instead of visiting museums and art galleries. To my kid's mind you seen one old church you've seen them all. To your kid's mind, you seen one cruise ship you've seen them all, so either way, really what difference does it make which one you choose.

That last tour wholesaler I worked for also took on selling a "Mexican" cruise and I can tell you not a single person in our Vancouver office ever went on it but the staff still sold those cruises which were published in all our brochures and advertised in the newspapers. It was offered with an air package and after 20 years I don't remember which cruise line it was with but it was either 3 or 4 nights from Los Angeles, or probably Long Beach, and went to Catalina and Ensenada.

The company tried to hire people who either had some travel industry experience or had gone to travel school. Back then there were tons of travel schools offering bogus one month classes. The reservations manager said they'd go through the resumes and usually the people with experience had already found a job elsewhere by the time they were called. Then they go down the list until eventually they're at the bottom of the barrel which might be just graduated from high school students looking for their first job. And yes they were there working the phones. I walked into the washroom one day and one little girl was in their crying her eyes out because someone on the phone had treated her badly. She quit shortly after that poor little thing.

I had 3 interviews with this company over the years. The first 2 times they called me back - probably within a month of the interview - I already had found a job with another company. The 3rd interview a few years down the road the manager laughed they were going to have to move fast. But you know I always sent them a resume when I was between jobs because I did want to work there (stupid me!). If people are any good they'll be in demand for this kind of job especially back then when more opportunities existed. Always keeping their eyes open for better paying opportunities. As I said before the low pay and the abuse you take aren't worth it.

I worked for several travel wholesalers in the late 80's to the mid 90's working on the reservations call centre. I hadn't traveled to most of the destinations we were selling but that didn't stop me selling ski vacations to Austria and Switzerland. By the time I started working for an outfit that sold mainly charters to Reno and Las Vegas I had been to those places but not the hotels we sold, though throughout my time there I did go on fam trips and stay at these properties. But by that time I was working in the accounting department and not reservations so I wouldn't be much help to the callers I dealt with. Not many reservations agents went on fam trips. This only happened if the plane was not sold out - think summer months for Vegas. Reservations agents had binders with hotel information that they referred to rather than actual experience, or maybe asked another staff member who'd been there if they knew the answer. There is a high turnover because these jobs pay maybe .50¢ to $1 over minimum wage. There are less stressful jobs out there for the same money and of course there are better jobs out there all together. I left for a job that paid $1000/month more than what I was earning at my last job in the travel industry accounting department and I thought I'd hit the jackpot!

Very few employees lasted more than a year and that had nothing to do with them getting fired due to customer complaints, just getting fed up and quitting. I saw notes res staff left on files so just putting it out there that there's 2 sides to every story and res staff do deal with angry people.

I'm not sure why someone would carry a grudge to the extent of wanting to see someone fired. That does sound petty. And what satisfaction can that bring a person to bring misery to someone else's life. I could see if an employee put someone's life in danger or did something to break the law then action like that would be appropriate but just cause someone took a tone or argued is such a heinous act that the person should be fired. Petty.

I'm a vegetarian and am disappointed with Princess in that department. You're going to get a bunch of people tell you to make sure you put on your cruise personalizer that your daughter is a vegetarian and alert the head waiter but these people don't say what their own personal experiences are at their advice so I'll cover it. I always put on the cruise personalizer that I'm a vegetarian. It doesn't make any difference. Princess does not acknowledge the vegetarian passenger in any way, such as a quick letter that they got it, or anything that pops up on the computer and alerts the maître de when coming into the main dining room and giving the cabin number. But to be fair, Princess is not the only cruise line out there that doesn't care about vegetarians putting that information in their personalizer. I do it for every cruise I go on because everyone says that's what I have to do. I'm sure that somewhere out there is a cruise ship that actually cares about their vegetarians and getting the notice on the personalizer about it, but so far I haven't sailed that line!

So I did the next thing us vegetarians are supposed to do the first night at sea and alerted my waiter who said he'd have the head waiter come over to discuss vegetarian options for the next night and so on. He never showed up. Now whether or not my waiter spoke to him or whether he got the message and decided it was just another mf'ing vegetarian and not a priority, who knows. I've never bothered to alert the head waiter again.

I always choose anytime dining on any ship I sail. Perhaps someone choosing one of the fixed seating times with the same table and waiter will get better service when alerting them of being a vegetarian.

Princess posts their dinner menus sometime in the afternoon so you can go down to the dining room ahead of time and take a look. There will be a few appetizers and starters a vegetarian can choose from. From the entrees there will be one vegetarian item. If I decided that one item didn't interest me - for example the night the vegetarian option was the leek and ricotta cheese tart - then we'd go upstairs to the Horizon Court.

Breakfast - lots of vegetarian choices.

Lunch (Horizon Court) - put it together yourself salad fixings, breads, fruit, etc. They made incredible looking gourmet salads and sandwiches. Unfortunately with meat. About every 2 or 3 days there would be one gourmet salad or sandwich suitable for a vegetarian.

Dinner (Horizon Court) - again salad fixings, breads, fruit, and there are a couple of chefs who can put together something hot for a vegetarian.

There's a grill that serves burgers including vegetarian burgers. The vegetarian patty is very thick, about an inch and a half to 2 inches. It doesn't get cooked all the way through and is very mushy and not pleasant to eat.

Room service has a very nice vegetarian sandwich.

The good news is a vegetarian is not going to put on weight on a Princess cruise!

I'm sorry to hear you're going through all this added stress with Princess/nanny when you have to deal with this terminal illness in your family.

Call your credit card company and see if they'll chargeback Princess. That's your best bet at this time.

Princess is the absolute worst when it comes to getting a credit card refund so its easier all around to call your credit card company and get them to reverse the charges. Then if Princess comes back to you to pay the 20% then you can deal with them then and send in a signed authorization of that amount only - make sure the actual dollar amount is written down. Princess will email you the form but won't allow you to email it back. You have to mail or fax it. Like I said Princess is the worst.

A few years ago my husband booked a surprise cruise for me directly with Princess. He used his credit card at the time for payment and the same number for the cabin and any charges while on the ship. Prior to the cruise we decided to use my credit card for onboard expenses for both of us. At the Fort Lauderdale check in we asked to do this and that was no problem. The clerk took my credit card and I signed a form. You'd think that was that, wouldn't you? A day or 2 into the cruise we received a letter at our cabin saying my husband had to report to the purser station to advise how his onboard charges would be made. So we both go down, I whip out my credit card, and again I sign a form. Once again you'd think that would be it, wouldn't you. But nope. Around day 15 or 16 my husband gets the same letter asking how he'll be paying for his onboard expenses and back we go to the purser station with me providing my credit card and signing a form for the 3rd time.

Now everyone can probably can see where this is going. About 2 weeks after the cruise my husband checked his credit card statement online and there it is, Princess has charged him around $300 for his onboard expenses. I check my card and it appears that only my onboard charges are on there so we weren't double charged for him. Its just that Princess screwed up and put his onboard charges on his credit card instead of mine. You'd think after 3 times of me providing my credit card and signing the form that all room charges for both of us were to go on my card they'd get it right. So I'm not sure how many times one has to go through that process, but 3 times is not enough.

So we started off calling Princess and asking them to reverse the charges on his credit card and put them on mine, you know the credit card they were authorized 3 times to put the charges on to. Sounds simple right? Nope. This is Princess we're dealing with. After 2 weeks and several conversations my husband told them if they hadn't reversed the charges off the one card and put them onto the credit card he'd be phoning the credit card company and requesting a chargeback. Princess said if he did that then they wouldn't help him. He pointed out Princess wasn't helping him now anyway.

The deadline came and went and he phone the credit card company and put in a chargeback. The credit card company then contacted Princess and asked for proof of signature which we knew Princess couldn't come up because it was my credit card imprint and my signature that was provided 3 times. Princess decided to try to fake out the credit card company and instead of sending them my husband's requested signature that authorized the charges, they sent a bunch of marketing material with upcoming cruises. That gave the credit card staff a good laugh. And then they reversed the charges.

Eventually Princess got around to asking me if they could put my husband's charges on my credit card. You mean like I'd authorized those 3 previous times? Well I had to authorize that one more time.

So the moral of the story is even though you and I have different types of issues with credit cards and Princess, Princess will do nothing for you. Call your credit card company and explain the situation and see if they'll chargeback. Failing that, I think as some of the others have suggested take legal action against the nanny. And I hate to point it out, if they go ahead and take the cruise, and if you used your credit card to approve the onboard charges on that cabin, even if they provide their own credit card at check in or multiple times on the cruise, you're still going to end up getting charged for whatever they buy onboard and the daily tip. So be prepared to another round of chargeback with Princess.

Good luck with that! And good thoughts for everything that you and your family are going through right now.

Maybe it depends on the cruise ship but one day at lunchtime on the Island they had a sushi bar in the Horizon Court with crew serving. We love sushi. Unfortunately this was about the worst sushi I've ever had. Think about the sushi you can buy in a package at the grocery store after its been sitting a couple of days. I couldn't eat it - the Island sushi that is, the grocery store sushi might have been better! After asking a few questions we found out they made the rice the day before or at least that's all they would confess to. It's my guess they made the majority of the sushi the day before too. I've eaten sushi on other cruise lines that was fresh, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to try it on Princess again. Well maybe I'd convince my traveling companion to try it first and see if it passes the taste test and then I'd give it a try. It sounds like the specialty sushi restaurants on the above mentioned ships would be the best bet for good sushi on Princess.

Around $35. There are lots of traffic lights and slow traffic between Canada Place and Vancouver Airport. If its a weekday rush hour or a holiday weekend and you have a slow driver who catches every red light it could cost more than $50.

I never knew about the SRI form. 2 years ago my father (82 then) and I boarded the Zuiderdam in Vancouver. A couple of weeks earlier we bought him a wheelchair for distance. He walks - slowly - with a cane. It was just easier to keep him in the wheelchair and do the check in process and then go up the gangplank. I'm in my 50's and at no time during check in or approaching the gangway did any crew member stop me from pushing father aboard and tell me to wait for assistance. I nearly got him to the top of the ramp when a crew member walked the last 6' down to us and offered to push him on board for me. Father could have walked up with one hand on his cane and the other on the railing but we would have had a crowd of people behind us and I would have felt rather silly pushing an empty wheelchair. At Juneau no crew member insisted on pushing his wheelchair on or off. At Skagway he wanted to stay on board so I can't say whether they'd assist in that city. In Ketchikan we ended up at the 4th berth, the lousy one with the steep ramp up to the sidewalk. A crew member did take Father's wheelchair and push him up the ramp. Actually 2 of his buddies in street clothes were disembarking and the 3 of them pushed and made a game out of it. And returning to the ship as I started down the steep ramp a crew member rushed up to take the wheelchair from me so I was very grateful just due to that slope.

I can't remember if there were little packets of it in the Horizon Court (free). I think there were but I can't say for sure because I didn't take any. The only day I saw free hot chocolate being served was on Glacier Bay day in big pots and I tried one and it was watered down and gross. It was for sale in the IC but I didn't go in and buy one. Though I did buy a hot chocolate one day in port.....

The things I'll mention are probably subjective, someone else might think its opposite.

You know what the food is like on the Zuiderdam. Its not as good on the Coral.

The entertainment sucks on the Zuiderdam. Its way better on the Coral.

Everything else is very similar when it comes to service from the room attendants, dining room staff, etc. The Coral has a few extra features that the Zuiderdam doesn't have, like the sanctuary and movies under the stars, which may or may not be dealbreakers depends if you plan to use them.

For me it would probably come down to the price and maybe the ports of call which are similar anyway. I'd go with the better deal.

If everything was equal I'd probably go with the Coral. And that's partly because the Zuiderdam keeps getting dogged with air conditioning and plumbing issues on this itinerary. I've only been on the Zuiderdam twice and I didn't have any problems. You might not have either, but usually people cruising to Alaska aren't complaining about the air conditioning unless its working a little too well!

Either way you're going to the Panama Canal. How could it not be a great cruise!

The entertainment on the Zuiderdam sucks. They were doing the same game show, the same song & dance numbers, the same magician, and juggler doing the exact same routines I'd seen 3 years earlier. The comedian was new to me though. I even recognized one dancer I'd seen from the last time but the rest of the singers/dancers were different. Just doing the same old tired routine that has been done for years.

The line ups for the beverages are the same for the first 2 days on other HAL ships but sometimes I've seen 2 staff members pouring coffee and iced tea and water. You forgot to mention the long line ups for the dessert station on the Zuiderdam. The last time I was on some man comes up and orders 12 bowls of ice cream so that took the server awhile to get them and the line up got even bigger. I mean talk about a pig. As the server got a couple of bowls ready the pig hustled them off to a nearby table and kept coming back for them as they were dished out. It would have been more considerate if he'd just ordered a coupler bowls at a time, consumed them, and went back for more.

The Zaandam probably has the best entertainment of all the HAL fleet so if that's your main criteria - good choice!

If you're looking for a good price on a balcony then look at other ships because Zaandam only has 2 floors with balconies. Also based in Vancouver, the Zuiderdam is built for scenic cruising and has several floors with balconies so better chances of finding a better price on a balcony or other room categories on this ship. The entertainment on the Zuiderdam sucks when compared with the Zaandam. However the Zuiderdam food and service in the main dining room is much better than the Zaandam. They also do different routes.

For a similar itinery as the Zaandam and with just as good entertainment and with lots of balconies you should also check out Princess, the Coral and Island and I think the Golden do similar routes.

On our full transit there were about 10 children, most under the age of 5. With these longer cruises the majority of cruisers are retired and have the time to travel. If any in that age group were cruising with their children their kids would be more likely to be in their 40's or 50's! In our early 50s we were among the youngest on the cruise, but being self employed we could take more time off. For working people our age or in their 30's and 40's it's tough to get more than a week or 2 off work. Those full transits are a long time to take kids out of school. My parents once took me out of school that long but I was only in grade 2 and missing school at that age back then was so much more different than it is now. When I got into my teens my parents wouldn't take me out of school for travel, only traveled on school holidays. I think that's still the general consensus with parents these days which is why you don't see many kids on longer cruises while school is in session. It's really hard for kids to catch up. A girl in my class went cruising with her parents during the school year, gone about 3 or 4 weeks, and she never caught up and ended up being held back a grade. I've always remembered that. But what an incredible opportunity for your kids. Enjoy your cruise.

The times I've taken the Zuiderdam out of Vancouver it has gone very well, on board in 20 to 30 minutes. The worst boarding experience I've ever gone through was in Vancouver boarding the Zaandam. Now most of the fault does not lie with the ship. We arrived at 11:30am. There were 2 other ships in port and the Zaandam got stuck with the lower level boarding, one flight down from where the ships normally board. This was a first for me but maybe the Zaandam always get that no matter if they're the only ship or if others are in port. The line up for passengers to go through security snaked down the sidewalk of the underground parking. After standing in line for close to 30 minutes we got out of the underground parking and inside where you walk through the metal detector and your bags go through the screener. Mabe 15 more minutes once we got out of the parcade and through security. Now they send you to another line for US customs. My father was in a wheelchair - uses it for distances, and in this case handy cause he had somewhere to sit due to the lines - and normally persons with limited mobility go through another line up that is usually shorter. In this case I've never seen so many walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, and canes on any other cruise. The fully mobile people had a shorter line up but they wouldn't let us get in line there. We finally get through customs and into the section where we're checked onto the cruise. Again we're shuffled into the handicapped line but it wasn't going any faster than the fully mobile persons line up. The reason had to do with HAL's computer system that was extremely slow. All the staff were complaining. It must have been very frustrating for them. It took us over 2 hours to get on board the Zaandam. So yes I'd definitely say if you aren't up to standing for a long time get a wheelchair. You never know when the computers are acting up and slowing down the boarding process. Hopefully you'll get lucky and you'll be boarding upstairs where it's a lot larger and nicer and faster.