Jalex63

Yes.

Our experience on past HAL cruises was that you could make dining room reservations up to three days in advance. If you want a prime time, 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm, you have to beat it down to the dining room and get your reservations in right away. Otherwise the prime times go fast and you end up having to go basically to an early dinner or a late dinner.

Of course your other option is to just show up and take your chances, but sometime the wait times are fairly long.

Now I know, thanks

We just became four star mariners recently and I note that we now get a 50% discount on Mini-bar purchases. You know, we have never ever purchased anything from the mini-bar and so now I am wondering, how much do they charge for mini-bar alcohol purchases to begin with?:)

Final payment for the cruise in question (Feb 11) falls in November when I will be on the Rotterdam. However, if as one responder mentioned I can access HAL thru an onboard computer I will be fine. Also, as far as I know this cruise is not an Explore 4, unless they added it after I booked. At least I know we don't have it.

Thanks for the responses. However, if it is 90 days out I am going to have trouble because we will be on the Rotterdam on our 42 day cruise at that time.

This raises the question, is there anyway to book dining reservations on an upcoming cruise through the front office of a different ship? The real bottom line is that we want to book the Pinnacle for a group of six on Feb. 14, St. Valentines (our 30th anniversary) and I know that reservations for that night go fast.

Is there a certain time frame, say number of days out from the cruise, that HAL opens up the booking capabilities on their cruises? I am booked in Feb on the Niew Amsterdam and am still unable to book a reservation to the Pinnacle.

This is quite new news to me, no Explorers Lounge/Library on the Konigsdam? This is one of my favorite things about HAL ships. I had thought that I probably would never book a cruise on this ship just due to it's size and number of passengers, but now I know I would never sail on her:mad:

Speaking of Specialty dining, does anyone know how far out from the cruise Specialty dining options may be purchased thru your booking? I have a cruise in Feb that still will not allow me access to specialty dining.:confused:

If you are shopping, there are better deals to be had, remember that once you purchase the HAL insurance there is no refund, even if you cancel the cruise prior to final payment.

Hopefully being an Alaskan cruise there won't be a lot of early morning noise from the Lido deck. However, we have been in aft cabins under the Lido where it has been annoying. We are booked in one of the aft Neptunes in Feb and I purposely chose the Rotterdam deck to avoid any problems.

We took the Rotterdam cruise to Tahiti a couple of years ago and as I recall we had the same TV stations as are offered on other cruises. I don't think they use the same satellite for TV and Internet, but am not positive.

n order to see the price change I had to go back after entering my mariner number

If I invite quests to dine with me in the Pinnacle at my expense. Will I be charged my rate for all or will I be charged based upon each couples mariner status?

Another question that I will throw in here is about tipping. Should one tip the waiters in these venues?

We had been eyeballing the Atlantic Adventure a couple of years and last year I had some health issues pop up that precluded consideration of going. So, was watching it again this year. The base published price for an OV Obst was $4499. Then last week I received an email about a private sale and the Atlantic Adventure was listed. I clicked on it and was sent to the normal cruise info page, indicating prices etc.. The page indicated a sale price on the OV obs of $3999. (I printed out the page) So, I continued to go through the booking process and when I reached the part of entering my Mariner number the price of the cruise jumped back to the original $4499. What is going on here I says to myself? So, I closed my browser and went back to the email and clicked on the Atlantic Adventure again, this time I did not get the sale price but rather the original $4499. I printed this page out and decided I would let my TA sort it out the next day (yesterday).

Got my TA on the phone yesterday and started explaining all of the previous to him and asking him to look in to it. He asked if the email had a promotion number on it, which it did and I gave that number to him. Then he shocks me completely when he comes back and said "I can beat both those prices". He had the OV Obst at $3579 and I ended up with an F cat full OV for $4079. with an OBC of $375. As there was only one Cat F cabin remaining, I snatched it up and we are now booked on the trip. Crazy or what?:cool:

Really don't know where I am going wrong, I had done this easily in the past:confused:

Well now I have managed to fix it and I see that it is retroactive to my previous posts:)

Obviously not:confused:

Really don't know where I am going wrong, I had done this easily in the past:confused:

Having trouble with this myself. Tried copying one and pasting it, now want to see if it works:)

Obviously not:confused:

Having trouble with this myself. Tried copying one and pasting it, now want to see if it works:)

From two different sources on our last cruise we were led to believe that the Veendam is either for sale, or has been sold. Anyone?

We just returned from a two week cruise aboard the VEENDAM. This was our second trip in the last two years aboard her, having transited the Panama Canal on her in Nov.14.. We also note just in the two year period things have changed a lot. Much, much less staffing everywhere. Food quality definitely gone down hill. We had one of those Not Suites, a Vista, which is merely an extended verandah cabin with a few perks. Since we were not in an SA or SB suite we did not have access to a concierge directly and had a button on the phone labeled "at your service", but all I got when I used it was the front desk

Our major problem began when we attempted to make decent dinner reservations on the open dining. No matter when we called 88, we were told only two options were available 5:30 or 7:45. I called the concierge to help us and got no help what-so-ever. So, my wife promptly went to see the Dining Room Manager Phillip and he took exceptional care of us. We received a 6:30 reservation for the remainder of the trip.

One other thing about this trip is that I am certain that the Veendam went aground on a sand bar when departing Aruba. First off the ship sounded an alarm whistle of one long blast followed by three short blasts followed by one long blast. When I observed the motion of the ship, she was dead stopped then slowly reversed her course in order to free the ship from the bar. I would suppose that there was a pilot aboard at that time and it wasn't a big deal as I am certain that 99% of the passengers were unaware that it even occurred. Anyone else note this?:eek:

Of course everyone has their own opinion on where best to locate for the trip thru the locks. But, in my case where I have limited ability to move around I find the aft facing "wake" cabins the best choice. From the comfort of your balcony you have an 180 degree view.:)

What about embarkation, regular line or Suite line (sometimes the regular line seems shorter than the Suite line)?

I just went back to the deck plan of the Veendam, looking at the amenities on the Vista and all the things that have been talked about are listed. I guess we will just see what we end up with and make the best of it?

I also think the previous post about the double day credit was correct. Since I purchased the suite on an upsell looks like I won't get the extra credit. Too bad as that would have raised us to the four star Mariner level. However, maybe the concierge will be able to help us out on getting decent reservation times in the main dining room? I had thought that this was the first time for us in a suite, but I just realized that we had the same room category on the Amsterdam on our first HAL cruise to Alaska.

:)

oops my fault, the Suite is on the Verandah deck. I think I confused it with the cruise I just booked on the Nieuw Amsterdam for next year.:)