Torquer

O has cruises scheduled through the Suez Canal in 2025 and 2026. Now who knows if they will really happen or not. I do know that Holland America has cruises scheduled to go to Egypt this fall, and it has not been changed yet, so it is quite possible it will go. We were booked on one of those Holland America cruises for September, that originally included Israel, and that was totally changed around to other ports, so we cancelled that cruise.

That is certainly an interesting situation. Flight Ease says they will help you to get to your cruise if a flight is delayed cancelled. But I've never seen this severe of a case where you missed the entire cruise. How many days was the first leg of the B2B that you missed? I know that air travel was a mess for a couple days, but it is hard to imagine that you couldn't find any flight to allow you to join after 2-3 days into the cruise. And what does the travel insurance company say, and why are they refusing to pay for the missed cruise? If there really was no flight available to get you to some part of the cruise, then it seems like you missed the cruise due to no fault of your own and the travel insurance needs to pay.

On the other hand, are credit cards widely accepted in Ho Chi Min City? In particular, for restaurants, tourist shops, and maybe taxis?

@GeorgeCharlieThanks for the pointer to your blog. We are now planning for our 2 1/2 days in Lima for our cruise on March 2025. It will be helpful. For one of the days, we were thinking of touring the city on our own and staying late to see the fountains at night. Do you think that is reasonable to consider, from a safety/security point of view? We are very well traveled and have done this many times in Europe and last year in Argentina and Chile, but as I understand it, Peru is more of a 3rd world country than places we have experienced before.

At the beginning and end of the South American summer cruising season, there are repositioning cruises to the US. As far as I know, they are to FLL. We are booked on one for next year from Santiago (San Antonio) to FLL.

As others have said, the USD is best for tipping onboard. But I suppose if you have some Indonesian rupiahs left over, it would be fine to give it to an Indonesian crew member. And similarly, Philippine pesos for a Filipino crew member. Obviously, make sure you know who is who so you don't give the wrong currency.

I can only speak from our experience. We (my wife and I) used 3 Uber rides in Punta Arenas. All were clean and we felt perfectly safe. The are also incredibly cheap compared to other parts of the world...but things in general are inexpensive in Chile. In general, our experience in Chile and Argentina was that they are very safe countries...sort of like European countries. Our guides told us that is not necessarily true for other countries in South America.

I just don't get the OP's position. You booked an obstructed balcony guarantee, and that is exactly what you got. Why would you expect HAL to give you a better cabin at no charge? It just doesn't make sense. Either accept the cabin you booked and be happy, or pay the upgrade fee for a better cabin.

From Google Earth, it looks like about 1 mile from the pier. So you should be able to do it in the other half of your day in port. You might want to take an Uber or taxi, since in addition to the 2 mile round trip, it is a very large cemetery with lots of walking. By the way, there is a charge of about 5 USD per person to enter the cemetery, but we thought it was well worth it. We spent over an hour exploring.

Thanks, but I went to that website and it just seems to be an independent visa service company. As I understood from what others were saying, HAL was getting the visas for cruisers while they were on the ship. I could find nothing specific to Holland America on this website...if I just missed it, can you point out what to click on.

We haven't done it in a few years, since a cruise hasn't coincided with a birthday/anniversary, but I'm sure you can still do it. We used to tell the Neptune Lounge concierge about it and they arranged it, but I'm sure you can tell the Maitre d' also. There is no charge. You will likely wind up with two deserts, the one you ordered plus the birthday cake. But the waiters will wrap anything left of the cake to take back to your room to eat later. Be forewarned it is likely a bunch of waiters will come over to your table and sing "Panjang umurnya" the Indonesian birthday song. Although I have noticed this being song less in the MDR in the last couple years, compared to what it was years ago.

Seems like the unlimited free specialty restaurants in this package would make it nearly impossible for guests not in the package to ever get a reservation at one. I sure hope it doesn't come to HAL.

I can't speak about his "neighborhood", but just about any city tour of Buenos Aires will visit the famous cathedral that is right off the main square (Plaza del Mayo which is also where the Casa Rosada is). The cathedral is quite impressive and has several photos and stories about the Pope. You can also visit it on your own. Our cruise's shuttle bus left us off at Florida Street at Plaza Saint Martin. Then we walked about 3/4 mile down Florida Street, window shopping along the way, to the cathedral and Casa Rosada.

We have a cruise booked for Asia in 2025, where several countries require visas. How do I know if this is a cruise where HAL will obtain the visas for us, or if we have to do it ourselves? The cruise is more than a year away, so maybe they will send us this information, but I haven't seen anything under "My Bookings" about it so far. If HAL will do this, does that means they will do it for all countries that require a visa, or could it be a mix? Last year we went to Australia and New Zealand, and we had to acquire visas ourselves; at least as far as I know HAL did not provide them.

We went to Nao Victoria Museo (Magellan's ship museum). It is a small outdoor museum and not in the greatest state of repair. Still it is interesting to see how small the ships were that made those amazing explorations hundreds of years ago. You will need Uber or a taxi to get there. Definitely don't miss the Sara Braun Public Cemetery. It has an amazing assortment of large and ornate tombs. It is probably better than the cemetery in Buenos Aires where Evita is burried.

Montevideo is pretty easy to do on your own...here are some of the things we did in March 2024: Took Uber to Parque Prado - Nice city park and gardens to walk around and an interesting (huge) pioneer sculpture/monument. Also interesting outdoor signs with photos of the city history. Took Uber back to center city and walked around the Plaza Independencia - Be sure to visit General Artigas' underground tomb. Lots of shopping opportunities in this area. Carnival Museum - Interesting museum with masks and costumes from their celebration Right near that museum is a larger indoor/outdoor market We were there on a Sunday and unfortunately, many stores and museums are closed, so watch out for that. We would have gone to some other places if it were another day of the week.

If you are on a scenic cruising intensive itinerary, and the Neptune Lounge is not important to you, then I would definitely take the aft-wrap NS. In addition to scenic cruising times, you will be able to sit out on the rear part when sailing, and it will be much warmer than a side-facing balcony. We travel in the Pinnacle Suite on HAL ships, but we just completed an Antarctica cruise on another cruise line where we had a big suite in the aft corner, like the Neptune wraps on HAL. We are spoiled because the views from that wrap-around balcony were just so fantastic and we could sit on the back facing part (in winter coats) while sailing in Antarctica where temps were in the 30s Fahrenheit, whereas it was too cold on the side facing balcony to stay for long. So although we love the PS on HAL, we fear it is not going to be as good on our next HAL cruise, because it is not an aft wrap suite.

I have not heard of this before, and your post made me search for it. I could not find anything to confirm that. So I have no idea where they got this information from. In fact the FAA website (https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries) says the following: There is a limit of two spare batteries per person for the larger lithium ion batteries described above (101–160 watt hours per battery). Furthermore, camera batteries are almost certainly going to be less than the 20 Wh limit where quantities are enforced, according to the HAL post. For example, I just checked my Cannon camera batteries and they are only around 7 Wh. Now external USB charging packs can get pretty high and can indeed be around 100 Wh. But until I read about a change on the FAA website, I am not going to worry about it. Technical correction to the OP: Power is measured in watts time hours (usually written Wh)...not watts divided by hours.

Presumably your cruise is between Buenos Aires and San Antonio? We were there in March 2024, so January may be a bit warmer. In our case, the day after leaving San Antonio it was quite cool and not really balcony weather. On the eastern side, it was pretty warm for about 3-4 days before arriving at Buenos Aires. That said, we were out on our balcony for 1-2 hours around the sail-away from each port. Our cruise went to Antarctica, so we were also on the balcony for many hours each day in our winter coats/hats/gloves for the spectacular sightseeing.

Bring up your existing flight reservation in Flight Ease and click "Change Flights". You then have access to the same menus as when you initially booked the flight. Don't worry and it will not cancel your current reservation. Assuming you are booking around trip, after you get the final price for all flights, do not proceed further than that or it will rebook you. If I remember you do get a clear warning screen that you are cancelling your current reservation and booking new flights. Also, I am assuming you are doing this checking before final payment and the flights have not been paid and ticketed yet...if they have been paid for then I would be very careful, since I don't know how this works. BTW, don't worry if your currently reserved flight(s) don't show up or have a higher price. Flights come and go in FE and prices can change daily.

We often arrive at the embarkation port days early so we have dirty laundry when we board. In many cases we have given the room stewards a bag of laundry when we first meet them on embarkation day. No problem at all. Although the first morning would probably work for the OP, I would recommend giving the first bag on the afternoon/evening of embarkation. Then ask them when the last day you can give them more laundry for this unusually short cruise.

Very easy to do on your own...here is what we did in this order: Hiked up Mount Aksla - strenuous but fabulous views of the city Sunnmore Outdoor Museum - we took a taxi there and the city bus back to town Alesund Museum - Small museum in town...interesting story about a historic lifeboat

San Antonio is a small working-class city. It has exactly one hotel: the Enjoy Hotel Casino. We stayed there pre-cruise in February 2024. It is what you would expect from a 3-star European hotel or something like a Holiday Inn Express in the US. It was neat, clean, has amazing views of the harbor, includes a free breakfast, and is very cheap. You can also wake up very early and watch your ship sail into port which is pretty cool. The hotel is about 1/2 mile from the cruise terminal. That is the good part. Now the bad part: the only restaurant you would want to eat at in the whole city is either the one at the hotel or maybe get something at the food court in the attached shopping mall. As I said, this is a working class town and there are no restaurants that we saw that would be suitable for tourists. There is also nothing to do in the town, except walk along the wharf and watch the fishermen at work. All that said, we thought it was fine for one night so we intend to stay there again in March of 2025 for another cruise we have booked that starts in San Antonio. However, we are having problems making reservations...they seem to only be accepting reservations through December 2024 at this time.

Definitely keep checking the flights on Flight Ease, and change them when you find something better. Previously we got very good deals with FE on international business class, compared to booking with the airlines. However, for our cruise next year leaving from Chile we found a much better deal by booking directly with American Airlines, which is not currently available on FE. It is 30% cheaper for a fully refundable fare on AA versus a refundable (until final payment) on FE. So you really have to do your homework. We are still holding our FE booking for this cruise on a different airline just in case something falls through with AA, but we will cancel the FE booking at final payment. On all our cruises, we have never used a cruise line's hotel...it is always much more expensive than booking directly with hotels. And the difference in price always pays for a taxi to the port, with lots left over. I really don't understand why people do this...the extra cost is simply not worth the slight convenience of booking through the cruise line and getting the "free" transfer.

Yes, we have had the concierge exchange the cheap sparkling wine for a bottle of regular wine on a couple of occasions when we received another bottle as a gift from our TA. On non-Pinnacle-class ships, you get to have breakfast in the Pinnacle dining room including free mimosas and/or real squeezed orange juice; this great perk is somewhat documented by HAL but still a lot of NS guests don't seem to know about. The biggest thing I would say is make full use of the Neptune Lounge concierges...they can work wonders to make your cruise amazing. I have never had to go to the front desk, shore excursions desk, or dining reservations for any reason, because the concierge can handle all that along with other problem solving. There are other perks for Pinnacle Suite guests, but you asked about Neptune Suites.