oceanmom

We usually tip at the end of a 7 or 14 day cruise. Amount depends on how much we've interacted with them. There are usually two and I give each a note and envelope. I often give the same amount as we give the room stewards which is usually about $20 per week per person--but again it depends on how much they've done for us.

4 minutes ago, Tampa Girl said:

 

You are asking for why there is no evidence?  How do you prove a negative?

You prove a negative by having a reason for the lack of the positive evidence. Perhaps HAL uses a cleaner fuel with less production of residue, perhaps they have special equipment that catches the soot on it's way up the funnel, perhaps a cabin on one side or the other is less likely to get soot, a technological reason there might be for less/no soot. There are several ship experts on this board who could offer a reasonable rationale for why less/no soot if there is such a reason on HAL that other cruise lines might not do/have.

Our first cruise (6 years ago) was on another cruise line with an aft Neptune equivalent. I noticed a problem with soot on the balcony. Is that not a problem on HAL, and if not, why not?

Once in your life, you should do the luxury car on the White Pass train. Leather swivel chairs, tour guide in the car with you, mimosas and other goodies, no crowding, it was great! I think there were 12 of us in all.

It is not a wrap-around deck cabin.  The link below should take you to a map of that deck of the ship, you can zoom in to the aft/mid/forward sections of the ship. The cabin is next to an exterior door with a stairway to the Lido deck and the Retreat area.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/cruise-ships/ms-rotterdam/6.html 

May 2018 there was no priority boarding for Neptunes in Vancouver BC. The most chaotic, lengthy boarding ever.

2 hours ago, rangeley said:

I called in March to transfer a booking to our TA. Just called HAL gave them TA info and that was it. 

The process of transfers to a TA changed in April, 2019.

I can confirm the $2100 and $2800 refundable OBC from a TA. We have two cabins (Vista and Neptune) booked on an upcoming 14 day cruise and will have $3,000 in refundable OBC (based on cruise cabin cost only) plus $2200 in cash or check rebates (calculation includes air and hotel) from the big box store due to using the store travel agency and store credit card.

We found getting on the ship in Vancouver BC was not the easiest embarkation experience (sent hither and yon all over the building) but getting off was so easy. Wish it had been the other way around.

(Love my Starfish leggings, too.)

4 hours ago, DaveOKC said:

One advantage of a Signature Suite - it puts you in a great position for upsell offers to a Neptune Suite!

 

 

I've booked  Signature Suites twice and both times got impossible to refuse upsell offers to a Neptune.

(And the flower cooler is also used as the morgue when required.)

Depends on the airline. Delta has shown us as confirmed ever since we booked 11 months out. Haven't checked for price changes on FlightEase as the FlightEase price is less than half of any of the published fares I've seen on Delta's website during the last nine months. If I had seen any changes in flight times/prices that caused me distress, I would have called FlightEase to deal with them but I don't book short layovers especially when going through customs/immigration. The names on the tickets should be what your FlightEase confirmation shows so you should deal with problems at that time.

We received that new bag on the Nieuw Statendam in December in a Neptune. Daughters in a Vista did not.

There is hope!! I just (June 9) received an email response from the Mariner Society for an email I sent on May 3 with several issues. They say "We apologize that an unexpected increase in email inquiries resulted in a delayed response time."

10 minutes ago, richwmn said:

The rules you agree to when you buy a Future Cruise Deposit state that they are good for 4 years and that if a cruise is cancelled the deposit will go back to your Future Cruise Deposit bank. I have cancelled a cruise and had the FCD returned to the FCD bank. I don't think that there is a mechanism in place to cancel the FCD early and get a quicker refund.

We've cancelled two different cruises and the Future Cruise Deposits went back into our HAL FCD bank.

Laundry has been reported to be $7 per day for unlimited and $20 per bag in US waters, and $9 per day and $30 per bag in Europe. Hmmm, wonder what it is in Asia/S. America/Africa, etc? We usually book a Neptune which has laundry included and are approaching 4* which gets free laundry...

Safest to call Flight Ease with the number on your confirmation to check on options.

Same price. Just need to mark the laundry slip the first time you send out the blue bag of laundry for unlimited or by the bag.

2 minutes ago, RuthC said:

I was on the last Alaska cruise of the season once, and found all the shops still open. As long as there's a nickel to be made, the vendors will be selling.
Maybe I was just fortunate, but the weather wasn't bad my year. Lightening might strike twice for you!

We did a mid-September cruise one time and found sale prices everywhere. The next AK cruise was in May--definitely more snow on the mountains and fewer sale prices, and the next one booked is early September 2020. And the weather, while not clear blue skies and warm temperatures, was very acceptable.  On the other hand we do live in the Pacific NW between Portland OR and Seattle, so it was much like home weather wise.

18 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I've never seen wines run out during a cruise, but if you're at the end of a restocking cycle that could happen. What does happen is that the list online isn't always up to date. If some wines on the list become unavailable,  then they substitute. Like kazu, I wait until I'm on board and see the actual list before I choose a package.

 

Nieuw Statendam wine list at Christmas was sparse. The wine steward kept offering us bottles from a higher level package because they were out of the bottles we wanted. And even then, the reds were almost gone. We got the last bottle of Meomi on board. He commented that there were a lot of wine drinkers on that cruise.

Nope, I always have problems with Firefox and have to switch to Edge. 😀

My PCC also transferred to another office at HAL. (I still haven't gotten a formal notice about the change in PCC nor have I heard anything from the new PCC.) So I called the reservation line to make a reservation and it was a total disaster. She didn't know how to do FCDs, I wanted to give my husband's mariner number but she said she didn't need it, so he did not get the FCD OBC, she spent a lot of time mumbling "I don't think I should have done that". When I got the emailed confirmation, I found I was charged for transfers which I specifically declined, along with three other problems. When I called to cancel the reservation, I got a top notch agent. Luckily, this agent asked if I would participate in a survey so she got a top score from me. The first agent never offered the survey--but I have her name written down....

I'd suggest avoiding the issue at check-in as I believe those are port employees? and not able to deal with printing new cards, etc. If talking to the PCC route doesn't work--which was a different situation, wait until you are on-board and work out the key issue there.

We have often had extra keys made for our daughters or us to have access to the other cabin. Do not just switch cards with each other if you try to get off the ship or for specialty dining or even the MDR as the photos pop up on the computer screen and questions may arise (as SunNFun says above).  The extra keys were plain white.

It may be a hassle for you, but we have been able to have the room folios (on-board accounts) all put on one room and then we sort out who owes who how much later (although we do it to have the refundable OBC all go to us since we pay for the second cabin). The folio will show the name of the person who is making the charge to the account.

Hopefully your cabins are next to each other so the kids will go in the same lifeboat as their parents.

Agree with the idea to go with a TA, perhaps a local TA who could guide the recipient to the appropriate cruise line for the individual as well as make all the arrangements.

Sorry you got a snarky PCC, that has not been my experience. I did get an obviously untrained, new, id*** agent on the HAL reservations line the other day, finished the transaction, discovered several errors on the email confirmation form, called back and got a very impressive agent who did a wonderful job (and was appropriately commended by me on the survey at the end of the call).

8 minutes ago, SempreMare said:

 

I called it "my reservation" - it actually is the invoice for my reservation.

 

 

And, HAL titles it a "Guest Booking Confirmation"  😀