Daisyloo

We always put our HAL luggage tags on after our flight.  Less chance of them getting ripped off during their trip through the airport.  If you stay at a hotel after your flight, most hotels will give you a stapler to attach your tags. Or you could take a small stapler or a roll of tape to attach them to your luggage yourself.

Tamarind is our favourite restaurant.  We always dine there at least 2 nights on any HAL ship that has it.  The setting is lovely and the service is wonderful.  Everything we have eaten there has been delicious.  They are very careful about allergies and always ask if we have any dietary concerns.  

Our next cruise is on a HAL ship that doesn't have a Tamarind and it makes us sad!

On 8/2/2022 at 3:29 PM, ladocevita said:

I’m going to England and Athens pre cruise are sea sick patches available there?  Not available in Canada anymore, known as Transderm here. Any other suggestions? Very sensitive so gravol, wrist bands and ginger won’t help. Thanks in advance! 

I buy Bonine (or the generic meclizine) and it works great for us.  It isn't available in Canada, but we live close to the border so we can go across and get it in any US pharmacy.  Very reasonably priced.  We also have ordered it online for Amazon.com. (not .ca)    The other option is to buy it on the ship  - we have seen it many times in the on board shop. 

We used the patches once and hated them.  Awful dry mouth and just a funny feeling overall. 

If you can change cabins I think you should do it.  BB Kings and the Rock Room  are LOUD.

We just booked our covid tests for our September cruise to Alaska at the Shopper's Drug Mart near our home.  Anyone coming to Canada and needing a test to cruise - try Shopper's Drug Mart.  They are a Canada wide chain and many of them do offer testing. They charge $40 per test for the antigen tests, more for the PCR.   You can book it all online.  

You could use the leftover credit to upgrade to a higher cabin category.   You can use it to pay for flights if you booked air through Princess. You can use it to buy the Princess protection plan - that's what we did with our unused portion.  Our TA said anything that is added to the invoice can be paid using the credits.  So probably Princess transfers would count too.  

I would vote to go ashore on HMC.  We love it there.  They do a bbq lunch that is good.  They have the big shoreside  tenders there so it goes faster than if you had to use the ships tenders.  

The beach is gorgeous and very clean.

Grand Turk is nice too, but in our opinion not nearly as nice as HMC.  

We would pick Tamarind.  

We had a TA cruise booked and then we tacked on the first Caribbean cruise for that ship.  Our TA roll call is fairly active, but based on the roll call for the Caribbean cruise, I figure we are the only people on it!

Your pre purchased shore excursions will count towards earning Mariner points.

On 5/9/2022 at 2:48 PM, willoL said:

Unfortunately, my initial experience with Verifly was negative, too.

 

I'm a software engineer by training who is comfortable with her smart phone. The app installed fine, it was easy to create my account and add my second stateroom passenger, but no form of QR code was accepted by the app. (I tried using the digital copy on my phone, taking a screenshot of the phone's copy, scanning it from a screen, and printing it before scanning off of paper.)

 

Especially irritating is the fact that there is no FAQ about the error message I got. ("Sorry. An unexpected error occurred. Please see the log files" with no error logs I could find to check in the app's settings.) My only option was to contact tech support. Ugh!

 

Deleting and re-installing the app didn't solve my problem, either.

 

BUT, here is one good thing to say about Verifly. Their Help Desk responded very quickly (within an hour) and explained *my* issue. You can't upload your vaccine record until within 30 days of a cruise!

 

Of course, a better app would have responded to my attempt to upload documents outside the allowed time period with a MEANINGFUL MESSAGE that explained the problem. Instead of "unexpected error," Verifly should pop up "It's too early to upload this document." Then, I would've had a more positive impression of the product overall.

 

--willo

Thank you for this!  We have been trying to figure out why we couldn't upload our vaccination proof.  It would have been nice if the app told us it had to be within 30 days of embarkation!

Back in 2010,  we had a very late boarding because our ship had come back into Port Everglades late.  It had been involved in a rescue at sea.  We were in a huge line waiting to board and could see and hear lots of unhappy people disembarking. I am sure many missed flights that day.  

If my memory is correct, there is an outlet in the bathroom.  It is high up and marked for shavers only.  It would probably work for a water pik.  

When we were on Koningsdam pre covid they had happy hour in the Billboard bar.  

So happy to hear this.  My husband got the mixed doses and we have been concerned that he may not have been able to cruise next year.  Now I just need to see the cruise lines saying they accept the mixed doses.  Hopefully soon.  

That is nice that you want to donate the dresses.  I think people are just starting to think about getting back into cruising, so hopefully someone sees your post.  

On 6/22/2021 at 4:12 PM, Vict0riann said:

I think they have adjusted the angle a bit on Nieuw Statendam.  They must have had one or two complaints!

Yes they have,  The angle on the Nieuw Statendam is slightly different and hitting our knees wasn't an issue.

My husband is 6"6" and I am 5'10".  We both had to sit slightly angled on the toilet to avoid hitting our knees on the glass shower wall.  Not a good design!  However, it was a very mild inconvenience, and did not prevent us sailing on the Koningsdam 4 times already, and we have booked on her for our 5th time in 2023.  

There should be different options to do things on the app or on your computer.  The app works on my phone but not on my husband's phone.  His is slightly older iphone 6.  Not sure if that is the issue or if it is the app itself, but regardless, it won't work on his.

On 2/6/2021 at 12:12 AM, scottca075 said:

 

Reschedule when you can, it is a marvelous trip!

We will.  Someday.

On 2/3/2021 at 9:37 PM, scottca075 said:

 

Way bummer......  We got off the ship 2-27-20. I was ready to go back on the 3-13 sailing....  and then the world as we knew it ended.

At least you got to sail - ours was cancelled. ☹️

Our cruise was for March 13.  We cancelled on the March 9,  and Princess cancelled the cruise on the 11th.  We got our taxes and port fees back with a few days, but we are still waiting to see the FCC in our account. 

I don't get it.  Haven't these ships been at sea with no passengers for longer than 2 weeks?   And no illness?  So why won't they be allowed to disembark their crew who are US citizens?   I would think these people would be safer to let into the population than letting people from another state that hasn't had self isolation.    

I think for the most part the cruise lines do a pretty decent job of cleaning and sanitizing.  At least Princess and HAL, the lines we cruise on.   I blame the passengers who bring the bug on board.  They that don't wash their hands after using the bathroom - I have seen it many times, and it freaks me out.  Or the passengers who lick their fingers and then touch utensils in the buffet that others touch (ladles, serving spoons etc).  I've seen that too.  Or the lady who touched all the bread looking for "just the right piece".     Again, I think the ships do  good job but they can't police every inch of the ship all the time. 

What a great video.  It makes me realize how much I miss being on a HAL ship.