Torquer

@NorbertsNieceWhat website or app are you using that shows the ship's track over many hours or days? The ones we have used in the past only showed the current position of ships.

Just be sure that when you tell the room steward what you want your fridge stocked with, that it is one of the normal items that comes with the default setup. If it is something else, you will not get the Mariner discount. So for example, if you want a beer other than Heineken (the default on most ships for the mini-bar), they will be happy to stock it but you will not get the discount. Since Coke and Diet Coke are standard items, there will be no problem with those.

There are very few flights to/from Trieste; it is a small airport. You will almost certainly use the VCE airport. If using O, there will be bus transport to Trieste. As others have said, there are other options for getting from Venice to Trieste also.

We know fresh orange juice is included in the CO dining room and in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast at no charge. It is interesting that you got it in the MDR for breakfast as part of HIA. Also see post #31 above from the OP where they say: "Yes, we did follow up with Guest Services and were told that fresh OJ anywhere on the ship was not covered under the drinks package we had." So it seems like HAL is being inconsistent across their fleet.

And more importantly, the asterisk says "not included from Gelato Juice bar." As we now learned from this thread, fresh orange juice is also not included with breakfast in the MDR. That seems so wrong to me that they are not clearly stating this.

This is really quite shocking. Did you ask them where this is documented in writing, so that someone who has a drink package would know this? To further complicate things, fresh OJ (i.e., not from concentrate) is served by default in the Club Orange dining room on Pinnacle Class ships and in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast on other ships for suite guests. I seem to remember you can request OJ from concentrate if you don't like the pulp.

I thought they stopped making Segways 2-3 years ago. So I'm not how many tour operators would still have ones that are working. Of course, I could be all wrong about this.

I'm just curious why you don't want to give them your passport number. I have never heard of a scam or ID theft that involves a passport number, and I really keep up with these things. I'm not saying that you should give it to a tour company, but I just want to learn in case I am missing something.

I assume (hope) that is by your choice, rather than the stewards are not doing it. This topic has been discussed elsewhere, with a few people saying they weren't offered it, whereas most, think it is by the guests choice.

We have the same question, but are traveling on Oceania. We go to Europe a lot, and always get Euros or the local currency from an ATM in that country. The interesting thing about this trip to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay is that all the private tours we have booked want cash in US dollars. We have also learned that these tour guides will happily accept tips in US dollars too. So we are now wondering if we even need foreign money here or if we can get by with credit cards and US dollars. We are certainly glad we didn't get Argentinian pesos prior to now, since the government just devalued them by less than half of their former value.

It may also depend the type of cabin or suite you are in. I know the top 3 levels of suites have real king-size beds that do not separate.

Which side of the bus was the "wrong side", the left or right? We are probably using a different tour company when we are in Montevideo in March, so it may not matter. Still it doesn't hurt to sit on the opposite side than you did in hopes of seeing more sites.

The interesting thing is that you can almost always find a better private tour than the one offered by HAL for less money. By better, I mean it sees an extra attraction, or it is longer duration than HAL's so more time to see things, or even a smaller number of people on the tour bus/van than HAL's. But because it is not exactly like HAL's I assume they will deny a claim.

@NJCoupleForFun Thanks for posting this very amusing and entertaining question...takes us away from the usual repetitive questions. I'm surprised no one asked you to post a photo of your fiance in her thong so we can just for ourselves. 😉

For suite guests there is no need to get a tender ticket...just show your room key. If in a Pinnacle Suite, you might get special service from the Neptune Lounge concierge. On our last cruise, she escorted us to the head of the line in the theater for the immigration check at our first port in the UK, which happened not to be a tender port. But then at South Queensferry UK, she took us down in a crew elevator to get to the front of the line at the ship's tenders.

Wonderful photos/info about the Evita museum. Unfortunately, I guess we will not get to see it on our upcoming cruise. When we disembark in BA, we have an 8-hour tour booked before taking us to the airport, but that museum is not on the itinerary.

The reply from @1985rz1 was to my question. To recap, we are staying in a top suite that includes 6 bottles of wine/liquor, and I asked if it is OK to take glasses of that wine to dinner. Obviously, there is no corkage fee since O provided the wine to us, and I never read anything that says this wine must be consumed while in our room. So I think it is technically OK to do this, but will we get dirty looks from people who think we are gaming the system by walking around with wine glasses that they think it is our personal wine we brought aboard the ship? If a crew member questions us, I guess we just shown them the color of our room card that shows we are staying in a suite, but it is kind of awkward. Previously, we just consumed this alcohol in our room, but what do other suite-passengers do?

We always stay in one of the top suites; on our next cruise, we will be in an Oceania Suite that includes the 6 bottles of wine/liquor plus beer in the fridge. Is it OK to take glasses of wine from our suite to dinner with us? If so, how would someone know this is wine that came with the suite versus our personal wine we brought aboard with us? In the past, we have always consumed it in the suite, but maybe that is not necessary. And it is certainly wonderful to have it supplied as part of the suite instead of having to carry it aboard...but of course we are paying a lot of money for this convenience since these suites are not cheap.

The only problem is that, unlike Panama Canal cruises, most people are not on the cruise to see just the Suez canal. They are on the cruise because the cruise travels from Europe to Asia, and going through the canal is essential to maintain the cruise schedule. It is likely that cruise lines would have to make major changes to adjacent cruise schedules due to having to take the many days to circum-navigate Africa.

Correct. Owners, Vista, and Oceania suites get free beer in the fridge. And of course these also get 6 free bottles of liquor and/or wine in their suite.

In the top 3 level suites, the fridge can also be stocked with regular beer or non-alcoholic beer, at no charge. Your butler will ask you what kind of beer and/or soda you would like it stocked with on the first day of the cruise.

@chengkp75Thanks for all the information here, but now I am confused. What do you mean by "passenger laundry facilities" versus "ship's main laundry"? Everyone knows there are no longer do-it-yourself laundry rooms on HAL ships. And I have been in the, what I thought was, the only laundry facilities on HAL ships many times on behind-the-scenes ship tours (pre-covid). The laundry facility does passenger laundry, sheets, table cloths, bathrobes, etc. I don't explicitly remember crew uniforms being washed here but it is likely I never noticed. Are you saying some of these washing machines in this room use different water supplies than others? Or are you referring to something else? Perhaps they all do use the same water supply, but HAL needs to conserve water while in the Amazon so it prohibits washing passenger laundry?

First, since this has nothing to do with HAL, you will probably get more and better info in the appropriate board for that port here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/472-mediterranean-eastern-western/ With the exception of the port in Albania, which we have not been to, all are perfectly safe. Obviously, you do need to be careful nearly anywhere in the world, but I felt much safer in any of those ports than say, walking around New York City. Although you can do any of those ports by just walking around yourself, you may find something more interesting on a tour, either from the cruise line or a private tour company (we nearly always do the latter). Here are some world-class sites not directly in the port city itself: Malaga - Alhambra palace, Caminita Del Rey hike (google it if you never heard of it) Cadiz - Seville is pretty far from the port and the Alcazar Palace and other sites are not close to each other

On a cruise years ago, our waiter told us a different fruit crisp is available every night in the MDR. If it isn't on the menu, just ask your waiter what it is that night. Since then, I have had fruit crisps many nights, even though it is often not on the menu, since I'm not a big fan of chocolate.

That is correct that the Pinnacle Grill breakfast is only for NS and PS suites; you cannot go there if you have just purchased Club Orange. However, I'm not sure what several people have said about capacity is true. Without actually counting tables, it does seem that the Pinnacle Grill on non-Pinnacle-Class ships has at least as many tables as the Club Orange dining room on Pinnacle-Class ships. So I'm not sure why HAL doesn't allow purchasers of Club Orange to use the PG for breakfast. I'm not complaining since we always have a suite, but it is only ever a few tables being used and very quiet in there for breakfast. I suspect a lot of suite guests don't know about this perk.