Torquer

@TravelBluebirdSince you have a good Nikon camera, let me ask you this question. On warm weather cruises, I often have a problem with my lens fogging when I have it in the air conditioned cabin for a while and then take it out on the balcony. Have you had problem, I guess it would be in the reverse direction, coming into the warm cabin from the cold outside? The temperature differential is much larger in Antarctica, but on the other hand the humidity is probably less. Just want to know what to expect and how much lens paper I might need.

Very interesting comparison. However, I think your analysis may be flawed in claiming that the differences in the route is due to the size of the ship. It may be that Princess wanted a shorter cruise. According to Cruisemapper, both ships left Punta Arenas on January 16. The Princess ship goes straight to San Antonio with no further port stops and gets there January 20. The Azamara ship has port stops in Puerto Chacabuco and Puerto Montt and gets to San Antonio on January 22. So there are two extra days of cruising so it makes sense that can get into the fjords more, and in fact the two extra ports are in the fjords. I am following a blog for a similar size Holland America ship to the Princess ship, it takes 6 days to go between those two places and goes to the two extra ports Azamara goes to. All that said, I agree with you that spending time in the fjords is better than cruising the open ocean. We are preparing for a cruise next month on Oceania (about 50% more passengers than Quest), and we spend 7 days between Punta Arenas and San Antonio, so even one more day than Azamara.

@Unhappy campersI fully agree with you. Since the cruise itinerary changed dramatically, such that they had to change the title of the cruise, you should be entitled to a full refund. I would keep complaining, including writing a letter the president of O (use US mail, not email). Now some people will probably state the cruise contract allows them to do this, and legally then can, but it is just not good for their business.

When they process your request for OBC, is it normal to get an email back from them to confirm the credit has been issued? I submitted our request for credit 14 days ago. Other than an initial confirmation email that they received the email request, I have heard nothing from them. On the other hand, when I go to the booking for our upcoming cruise, I do see a $250 credit. But I can't be sure that this is from owning NCL stock, or a credit from our travel agency.

Just curious what you mean by "processing"? Do you mean just some simple cropping, or something else? Most of your photos, especially the ones taken while outside, are excellent.

I think you should ask this question in the general Celebrity forum, since the answer will likely depend on the cruise line. There will be lots more Celebrity cruisers there than here, and although you are thinking of doing this in Ushuaia, it really applies to any tender port with Celebrity.

This topic has been discussed many times on the general HAL forum. Here is one good discussion which talks about chromecast, but the general topic is more about how to use the HDMI ports: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2977566-how-to-get-your-chromecast-connected-and-streaming-on-hal-rotterdam/#comment-66533558

No that is not correct. It was an actual test being done on the Oosterdam. The NL concierge was quite explicit on this point and told us we should write on the survey how much we liked this perk so that it might become a standard fleet-wide perk. See my first post in this thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2872521-oosterdam-testing-new-perk-in-neptune-lounge

Thanks. That will likely to come in very handy for our cruise next month when there are 5 ships in port with us. A general tip for everyone...if there is a long line for anything, don't just get on the line unless you know there is no better option. We always have one person in our party get in the line to hold our spot, while the other members go scouting to the front, sides, etc. to see if there is another entrance or another way around the line. Don't be a lemming! There are often other options.

The only time we have ever seen free alcoholic drinks in the Neptune Lounge was our cruise on Oosterdam in August 2022. It is very unfortunate that this was never propagated to other ships in the fleet. HAL is very much behind other cruise lines in this regard for their upper-level suites.

Thanks...I missed that.

Do you mean you will use your HIA to get cocktails for the two people staying in the other cabin? That is technically not permitted. Now you probably could go to a bar, get a drink with your HIA, then take it back to a seat and give it to someone else to drink, but that is certainly frowned upon and could be quite awkward if you get caught. According to the rules, the HIA drinks are only for the consumption of the person that has HIA.

@LocoLoco1Are all 4 of you staying in the same cabin? You did not make that clear. If so then you all get the 4-star benefits. Otherwise, only the two people in the 4-star cabin would get it and the other two people would get nothing specific to their cabin. You can read the full list of benefits in the link below. One item that no one mentioned so far is the 50% discount on the mini-bar in the room. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/plan-a-cruise/get-ready-for-your-cruise/mariner-society

A link to which TA forum you are referring to would be helpful.

I can certainly see how you would be disappointed by that view. That would bother me as much as it does you and I agree it really detracts from a lot of your photography. On the other hand, I'm not sure it needs to be called an obstructed view cabin. It probably wouldn't bother a lot of people. It really amazes me how few people you see on their balconies for sail-aways from ports. And as for photography, half the people believe taking photos is done by holding their cell phone vertically, and don't even bring a real camera on a cruise. So I guess we both learned that you really need to do your homework when picking a cabin.

Does anyone know of a good cheap sim card (physical card, since my phone doesn't use esim) for Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay? I have looked around on Amazon and other places and can't find one. I really want to be able to get it before I leave home, since I don't want to waste time finding a shop when I am on the cruise. Right now, it looks like I am going to have to use my Verizon plan at $10 per day to use it. We will need it for about 10 days out of the 20 day cruise, so it will cost about $100 for the entire trip.

Can you post a link to the roll call? How are we supposed to even know what cruise line you are talking about.

Which National Park or parks had the bad mosquitos? If I remember, the only one we will be in on our upcoming cruise is Tierra del Fuego. Thanks so much for your detailed blog and the great photos. It gave us lots of ideas on what to expect. Hope you get over your cough quickly and it is not covid.

Does anyone know if they have crutches in the medical center to either borrow or purchase? I am currently dealing with a foot injury and my doctor has me wearing a walking boot or crutches when I am not wearing that. It is improving, and hopefully I won't need either when our cruise begins next month. However, if the problem flares up again on the cruise, it would be good to know there will be a way for me to at least hobble around. I really hate to take my own folding crutches or walking boot along, since either takes up half a suitcase of space. Unfortunately, depending how I feel, we may have to scale back our port adventures.

You probably should ask this question on the MSC board on Cruise Critic. But I would think you would tip the crew members in the same currency that you are using for other onboard payments. So for your cruise, that would be US dollars. From the MSC website: For cruises in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Antilles, Dubai, the Emirates and Oman, as well as MSC Grand Voyages departing from Europe, the onboard currency is the Euro (€). For cruises in the Caribbean, South America and South Africa, as well as MSC Grand Voyages going to Europe and to Australia, the onboard currency is the US Dollar ($).The onboard currency for MSC Virtuosa summer season cruises through October 2023 will be the British Pound (£).

@NorbertsNieceNow that you have been to all 3 countries on the cruise, I want to ask about money. Do most stores and food vendors take credit cards? If not, do you use the local country currency or can you use US dollars? When we go to Europe we always get Euros or the country's currency from an ATM. However, for the South America/Antarctica cruise we have booked for next month, all the local tour companies only want to be paid in cash in US dollars. This makes me wonder if US dollars might be widely accepted, especially in Argentina after what just happened to their currency. Any advice would be helpful for our cruise.

Non-alcoholic drinks are free in the Pinnacle Suite; you still need to pay for alcoholic drinks. Plus the non-Pinnacle-class ships have a very large refrigerator and it seems like more variety of every thing in it. The Pinnacle-class ships have the small mini-fridge like other cabins, although as I said, the non-alcoholic drinks are free.

You definitely need to do your own research on this, and it takes time, but can be well worth it. As was suggested by others, go to the specific airline you are thinking of booking and see what they say about the different classes; then check out Seat Guru, and the Points Guy websites. Sometimes, you can get very close to the business class experience for the price of premium economy; SAS airlines comes to mind. In other cases, you will be paying a lot extra and not get much for your money.

Going back to the original question that was asked, hopefully without creating any more controversy...is there a different policy for the top suites (OS, VS, OC)? We have not cruised on O since before covid, and I don't ever recall having to wait to drop our carry-on bag in our suite, before going to lunch. Just want to know what to expect on our upcoming cruise and not violate any rules; we are staying in an Oceania Suite on this cruise.

I am resurrecting this old thread to ask another question about paying for shore excursions. We have only ever taken one O excursion in the past, since we prefer private tour companies, but on our next cruise we will be taking two O excursions; we will not have O-life or Simply more. I know it has to be paid for now with credit card when we book it, but when we get on board, would it be possible to switch the payment to use some of our OBC from our TA and as NCL stockholders? We have done this on another cruise line, and we want to know if we can do this on O.