Hunwolf

Thank you! :)

Thank you so much for the information. We are really looking forward to it. I'll look for the roll call.

One other thing since every line does it different it seems, are the standard gratuities added automatically to your onboard account? And then additional tips at your discretion?

Thx again!

Hello everyone. We just booked our first HAL cruise for Christmas on the Eurodam. It's the 3 of us (me, the misses, and our 14 year old daughter). We've been on many cruises mainly on RCCL and Princess.

A few questions:

1. We took advantage of the current promotion (shipboard credit and dining package). When can you start making reservations for the specialty dining venues?

2. Are the excursions available for registration a certain time period before sailing?

3. Any specific suggestions (must dos) for the Eurodam or on the HAL ships in general?

We are not much into gambling but we like to get plugged into the activities (trivia, group games, etc) on the ships.

4. Suggestions for our daughter's age group?

5. Is there a CC meet and greet similar to the RCCL groups?

We are really curious to try a new line. I'm assuming the dress code is similar to Princess for a 7 day cruise?

Thanks for any advice!

I dug a little deeper and went into the info and "interests" section of the my princess section and filled out some of the missing information. When I did that it switched my name back to the formal/full name even thought I didn't change my name at all and then everything worked fine.

LOL

I'd call and make sure your booking matches your passport.

Yep. I'm going to do that, and thanks for suggesting. I believe it does because when I include my full name and booking number it comes up correctly. When I try to bring up through my email and booking number it shows up but won't let me access it though.

Very strange.

Yep, I figured it out.

Apparently my booking number is attached to my official first name (Christopher) but the person who put my information in the system during the book put me in as Chris in the personalizer so it wouldn't let me access the booking.

Weird though because it let me do it a few days ago. I wonder if they did some kind of upgrade to the security that is stricter about the name matching.

It's weird. It shows everything correctly, recognizes my login and says I don't have access to my own booking. LOL

Has anyone else run into an issue accessing their current booking?

My booking shows up fine but when I try go into the personalizer I keep getting:

"You do not have access to Booking ID {id omitted}. Please verify the passenger name and retry."

Any ideas or similar experiences? I was able to view it just fine the other day.

Thanks. :)

Just wanted to say thank you for the review.

I hope you guys never lose your enthusiasm for Disney or cruising! It'll keep you young...but perhaps broke. :)

This thread verifies the old Chinese proverb:

"give a man a fish he'll eat for a day; give a man a cruisecritic account and he'll bitch for a lifetime"

Sadly, no concierge lounge on the Monarch. Instead, we were invited to the nightly Diamond Plus event in the Viking Crown Lounge, which I found rather dull.

That's a shame. The VCL is a great venue on the Royal ships and is often woefully underutilized or poorly utilized IMO.

Go Wolfpack BTW...just had to throw that in there...:D

Great review BTW.

Our daughter's first ever cruise was essentially this same itinerary...Disney for a few days followed by the Monarch.

She is really bummed out that the Monarch is leaving the fleet since that hooked her on cruising.

HAHA - I was going back to edit that. Hoped no one had caught my mistake. Drat! I was TOTALLY thinking of Florida. (My boyfriend would be so ashamed)

 

But yes, Clemson is the ACC Champion. Florida State didn't even make it to the championship. We played Virginia Tech.

ha...ha...no problem. I graduated from NC State so that one caught my eye...:D

ACC Champs? Clemson is the ACC Championship team. Florida State is in the SEC... and LSU is the reigning SEC Championship team. Maybe you're thinking of a different year....

LOL...what? ;)

Just off the Liberty, the first night there were dozens of young teens running the ship, apparently doing a scavenger hunt. One group took a rolling desk chair from the internet area for a long elevator ride and across the promenade, then back. More annoying to me was that their parents were stepping back out of the way and watching them run loud and out of control. With that said, my oldest son (21)was out around 1am walking alone and was stopped by security, and had his ID checked. Reminding him of the 1am curfew for 21 and under. I was happy to see it being enforced.

Oddly enough, the youth (and adult) scavenger hunts are ship sponsored events.

they have rules including no running, pushing, shoving, etc but they aren't followed.

I've seen it get crazy, but I've also seen people knock each other down at the Quest show too.

Ever wonder how those photos that get taken at random all over the ship (and even ashore) magically end up in your photo album on the ship without them ever having asked your name or stateroom number? ;)

That explains why all my pictures for the whole week were associated with a girl who sailed the previous week. I guess it isn't full proof.;)

They should taser anyone out after curfew.

At this very minute...Princess is scheming a way to now charge for these. ;)

Anything under 30" should fit fine.

Doesn't HAL go there every once in a while?

Honestly...I can't imagine it's any worse than Freeport. Unless they throw you overboard from the 10th deck to send you ashore. ;)

I am a full time wheelchair user and my home was custom built - some parts very open but I still have many rooms with walls.

 

Although I have not seen this CV, I wonder if it was an afterthought as they usually make the rooms larger to fit in the amenities. Let's hope the bathroom has some walls. My deluxe balconey has a bathroom with walls, surely, this one does, too.

 

I would rather book two rooms to have two separate sleeping areas, but that is not possible for a wheelchair user who wants courtyard access. It's a trade off that I'm not sure I am willing to pay. Maybe if pics are posted, I may think differently.

That is your answer right there. No need to sidestep it. In many cases...the needs (including near equivalency) of the wheelchair bound are ignored. We purchased our home from a couple whose husband was confined to a wheelchair. They had made some (many) adjustments to account for this...but it still had walls and separate rooms. The major changes were the heights of most things were lowered. Not a deal breaker for us as we were looking to remodel anyway.

No, not at all. NCL's corporate offices are renowned for having incomplete information.

 

Reservations is part of NCL's corporate offices.... although there are some PCCs who work outside of Miami.

 

Most of those people have never set foot on the ship, and even if they had.... the likelihood that they'd have seen this specific room (of the 2000 rooms available) is slim.

 

That's why I can't wait to see photos of this room.

I'm not sure whether this is a sad commentary on the corporation or sad on the behalf of the patrons who accepts this as "standard operating procedure".

Very discouraging state of affairs...

Overall, I think threads like these are very good. Input from the people most impacted (the handicapped cruiser community) are very important.

I see the awareness among the posters increasing as these threads progress. Hopefully, the cruisers and specifically the members of CC can help to educate the folks of NCL about the importance of this matter as it seems their training and education is severely lacking. It seems that everyone is in agreement there...and this thread is definitely a step in the right direction.

In spite of the failing of the cruise line (in this instance and a few others that have been already pointed out)...the cruise community is quickly becoming better educated. In a few cases...I've called the cruise line directly and booked a room based on a sale or getting a good rate and not even cared about the cabin number or location. That's not really important to me...as I've assumed the individual on the phone had the situational awareness and character quotient not to place me in a valuable handicap accessible room that I didn't need.

There are definitely some crowding issues at times in the largest Princess ships based on our experience on the Emerald. In particular...the way the dining rooms are placed causes congestion, there will be crowding/waits for elevators at times, lines at the buffet, etc.

Having said that...we didn't find these issues to be a major problem overall. Just what you would expect with a ship that size.

Now...if they wouldn't try to do cheasy portraits in all the high traffic areas nearly EVERY day of the cruise it would be much better. But that's a story for another day.