Skim0733

We were on the cruise. We learnt about this incident when we DID receive a letter of regret from HAL Captain about an incident on Jan 13th night and that the crew member has been apprehended. The letter stated HAL and the Crew are saddened and to contact him/office for further reassurance.

I am going by the Captain's letter it is the Ship's crew; but somehow all you HAL apologists are coming out of the woodwork and claiming the Charter group could have brought their "own" entertainment crew, etc. Btw, we had the same "entertainment" as in other HAL cruises.

I commend the HAL's ship staff, for taking this issue seriously and for cordoning and moving passengers out of 14 Cabins elsewhere on the Ship.

Regardless of how big a font you use, this alleged incident that you keep referring to was judged by the Captain of the Vessel.

How many times have you received a letter of regret from the Captain about a violent incident attributed to a crew-member in every Cabin ?

I was happy HAL was upfront about it. There were a lot of rumors about it on the ship and I don't want to repeat it. I find it weird that so many of you are so defensive about HAL, even though the cruise line has acted appropriately !

ahem, this alleged perpetrator looks more guilty than you want believe, because the Captain put it writing about this "incident" in an apologetic memo to all the Cabins during the cruise and how distressed that he and the rest of the crew are about the incident and that this crew member will be kept in isolation until Florida !

We were surprised to get the memo and assumed that he cleared it Holland America Corporate before he sent the memo which would be plaintiff attorney's delight !!

The memo also asked passengers to contact his office in case of their distress too.

We are actually flying into Orlando and driving to Miami in a rental car (because flights into Orlando were cheaper for us). I just did a little research and realized that the Miami Rental Car Center which you mentioned is not IN the airport, but near it. I'm wondering if when we drop our car off at the rental car center, if Element's free shuttle would pick us up THERE, or if we have to make the trek to the airport just to be picked up.

 

Or does the rental car place do drop offs within a few miles? It's my understanding that the Element is pretty close by. Thanks for any advice you can give me!

Even though the Rental Car center is in between the the Hotel & the Airport, it might be faster to take the MIA Mover(monorail) back to the Airport and pick up the Element Shuttle there.

In fact with our Rental Car we had to loop through all the Airport Terminals, before we could reach the Rental Car Center(Rental Car Buses have a special entrance though). There is still a lot of construction and they may be changing the roads in the future.

Glad to hear the positive reviews of this hotel! (Although anything has to be better than La Quinta East). We will definitely be taking the shuttle service to the port as long as it hasn't filled up by then.

We stayed in this Hotel for 2 nights before our Thanksgiving Glory Cruise(right next to Miami's new Rental Car center). We enjoyed our stay a lot(we did use Starpoints & booked it when it was originally a Cat 2 Hotel).

The breakfast spread is pretty decent(liked the Cuban breakfast items one day) and they have nice Juice smoothie also. Loved their Espresso machine too. Nice pool(did not use it) & decent exercise room. The room we were had a full size refrigerator, kitchen, dishwasher(did not use them either).

The neighborhood is probably a "iffy" location; plan to eat elsewhere. Can see the runway from some rooms, but they are well insulated( a bit wary initially when I saw earplugs next to the bed !).

On cruise day we just returned our rental Car to the nearby Miami Rental Car center at 10AM(we had rented the Car at Ft Lauderdale Airport) and took the free Alamo shuttle to the port.

If you are not renting a Car, just take Element's efficient & free Van Shuttles to the Airport (3 minutes away) and take a Taxi to the Port(flat rate $24). Their Port shuttle waits for 4 passengers at least & the Taxi would be almost the same for 2 passengers.

Somewhat disappointingly you seem to get tortillas to use as bread. Even on Splendor where they make up naan for the tandoor. The rest of it is all great though, however I felt the butter chicken was better aboard Spirit than Splendor - it probably differs slightly depending on which chefs you get.

We ordered the Indian food option on Victory out of San Juan(DH is from India). The food was excellent and tasted home-made; we did not specify the spice level and it was fairly spicy . We did not get any Naan; we were served tortillas or Roti every day.

Our table-mates from Miami started liking our food and we started sharing it with them as the week progressed. DH's favorite meal on the ship was Lobster with Spicy Daal !

We did not get Indian food on the first day, since it was open seating for everyone because we left the port at 10PM.

We used priceline for 4 nights March 23-27(pre-cruise) at $115/nt.

Started at $95 and was glad to get it at $115.

Post-cruise we booked a 1-night stay at Sheraton Old San Juan using Starwood's cash + points award -- $60 + 4000 Starpoints.