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@Navybikermom Thank you for your detailed review. We will be on the Rotterdam in September. Not crazy about the smoke report. Did you find chocolate in Zeebruge??  Ireland is on my bucket list.

Tripadvisor has a "forum" section that you might find useful when planning self guided land tours, 

7 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

We are searching for a round trip San Diego   to New Zealand or Sydney Australia   .Does such a cruise exost & if so when does it sail  ?

 

 TIA 

The HAL website has this information. Easy to navigate.

We have always booked the Pinnacle once onboard. We have never had an issue getting a reservation.

We received a total of 5 tiles on our recent legendary voyage. The fifth was huge...more like a trivet size. Added a bit of weight to our luggage!

2 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

"Worth it" is purely subjective.

 

The HoHo bus in Amsterdam travels a distinctly different route than the boat, so you are seeing different things. The pluses are you get to see a fairly wide range of Amsterdam. The minuses are the routes are fairly limited...not as wide area coverage as in other large cities we have toured by HoHo. 

 

I would recommend both the bus and the boat as good ways to get around and see the sights. Plan on doing some walking as you try to get to your sights.

 

I think, if I had to choose just one...bus or boat...I would take the boat.

 Thanks, this is very helpful, and you are right, all subjective! 
 

5 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Did it last summer. Do you have specific questions? We have also done it in other cities as well.

 

Anne Frank House needs to be booked well in advance. It is very high demand, and a small place. We ended up being unable to do the Anne Frank House.

Yes, thanks. I have my calendar set for the day I need to try to get tickets for AF.🤞.

I am wondering if the HOHO boat canal tour is worth it or if the bus HOHO alone is more efficient to get around to the major sights.  Alone vs combo tour.

Hello, We will be in Amsterdam for 3 full days precruise. Are must do's include the Anne Frank and Van Gogh Museums. I am looking at the option of a 1 or 2 day pass with the HOHO bus and boat combined. Has anyone here done this type of HOHO? 

Thank you

17 hours ago, electricguy said:

When I have done this only the fare changed.  All perks and OBC remained the same.  My on board bookings recently included a low price guarantee.

We have booked onboard twice recently. Both cruises we tried to rebook at a lower published fare later and were told by our TA that she was informed by HAL that if we rebook at the lower price we lose the HAL OBC for booking initially onboard, because it had to be "rebooked".

That said, after our 2 currently booked cruises that were "given" to the TA, we are on a search for a new TA or book direct with HAL....a story in itself .

On the Noordam last month happy hour was from 4-5 PM...perfect time for team trivia

1990 RCCL's little Song of America. 700 passengers..a great introduction to cruising. 

1 hour ago, asebastian said:

We were literally 2 days from ending the cruise in Singapore so there was a rush to the shops to spend the OBC! I would have preferred the money to be in the form of FCC.

Or automatic return to credit card as the port fees are..

3 hours ago, ron57nie said:

We were on this cruise as well. So many here jumped to the conclusion that the OP had no doubt misunderstood what the captain really said, well he said it, and it was broadcast to every room on the ship, he took full responsibility and did not "lie" about why and what happened, in fact I found his forthright explanation a breath of fresh error. The op's question was "is this fair"?

 

Everyone's fair is different, for me it felt fair. the best whale sighting I have seen on Alaska cruises were in the inside passage, they were close and plentiful, but I have seen them, they haven't and likely never will. If he never said many people would not even know what they missed.

This was clearly a very unusual situation. Clarification of what the situation was, by reading the letter, allows a much better discussion on the facts, rather than on speculation.  You are right that everyone's idea of "fair" is different. 

On another note, you were very, very lucky to see such abundant wildlife in the inside passage. We have sailed the inside passage 6 times and never saw any wildlife and we were outside on deck every time.

Thank you for posting the letter. Of course it is disappointing that you missed the inside passage but you made all your ports, apparently . I would be quite content with the compensation they offered and move on. As mentioned, you will have to come back and do an inside passage cruise. The compensation will probably pay for it!

We embarked the Noordam in March 2024 in Auckland and disembarked in Vancouver just 2 weeks ago. Our luggage tags did not have this disembarkation note on it. We did a HAL Transfer from pier to YVR.

We booked United with Flight Ease last summer for an Alaskan cruise. Because Air Canada codeshares with United, our flight ended up on Air Canada. Once booked you will get notification if that is the case.

3 minutes ago, peajay said:

He definitely did say that they made a mistake I heard the announcement, and we have a letter that states that. We visited Kodiak and Sitka and then after Ketchikan we should have taken the inner passage south to Victoria.

@peajay, are you able to post a screenshot of the letter? It would be most helpful to assess thoughts on this.

I consider myself fairly techie and I struggled with the StockPerks app and decided to try the old fashion way with the CCL email address as used before. I immediately got an automated reply saying to use the SP app. I deleted and refreshed the app, since  I had previously downloaded when first announced, just incase it had been updated to make it easier...and it seemed to have been because this time it was much easier to use. Within minutes I received an email receipt of my request and yesterday, 3 days after applying, I received confirmation that $250 had been deposited in my account. I was also surprised to find it in my account in the Navigator app as I had never seen it listed there before and my booking is 4 months away.  There is hope!

Black Friday sales do not include shore excursions.Best to pre-book if there is an excursion you want. July 25 is pretty far off, so keep an eye out for newly added excursions as time goes by. Excursions are easily cancelled if you see something else being offered later.

51 minutes ago, Petronillus said:

Where did they perform? At what times? Under what name?

 

@Petronillus  They played in the Explorers cafe at 3PM, 4 PM and 7 PM just under the name of "Classical Trio". Most 7 PM performances were standing room only . That spoke volumes to HAL, hopefully.

We were just on the Noordam for the 39 day. Early fixed dining was 5:30 but listed in the navigator as 5:00. We were told we can arrive as early as 5 if we wished. It was obvious that as you wish diners were placed in the upper DR often. 

We just disembarked the Noordam and had a wonderful classical trio . Piano, violin and cello. It was nice to see this again

@kazu Now the I have read this entire thread, that was a fun read..glad you had a great cruise..just a few things come to mind..

I totally agree with you on the escargot situation. On our last few cruises we experienced the same poor quality in taste and they have shrunk in size. I always was excited to order them before but sadly no longer.

The cheese board with no crackers. I have ordered that once.....duh, and why dont they have that as an appetizer rather than a dessert? 

We had dinner in the PG just last week (Noordam). The tenderloin /lobster dumplings were great, service great , but DH's scallops were stringy and chewy. 

I had a great haircut in the spa on the Noordam recently and surprisingly they didn't try to sell me anything. They even put a conditioner on that has sunscreen (we were at the equator) 

Mike Robinson....the funniest!!..we even went back and watched his second show when we saw him on a previous cruise.

Glad you enjoyed Boston, my home town. I learned to drive there but no comparison to the driving in the Washington DC area.

Joan

Bon Voyage! Hope you had  a wonderful cruise! I hope Daniel is your cruise director. he is a hoot.

(this post was way late...)

We disembarked the Noordam last week. Billboard had 2 fabulous singers, Gabe and Meaghan..best we have heard in years. They had several country sets and then there is always the all request shows. They often would do country just thrown in every so often. DH has set a new country station on Pandora for the car.