Banditswife

When we have a drink pkg I like to try the drink of the day or a non alcoholic mojito. But my all time fave is a caramel latte (iced or not) from the Grand Dutch Cafe on ships that have GDC.

Yes, probably 2. We had the same experience last April- Navigator claimed smart casual every night, but once on the ship it became 2 dressy nights. We board Koningsdam right after you - 11/25. Ours is a 10 night, I am thinking there will be 3 dressy nights for us. Enjoy your cruise & keep the ship in good shape for us- LOL

We did our 1st HAL cruise in 2017 for the itinerary. We came off that cruise & said never again... but here we are. On that cruise it wasn't the older demographic that bothered us, it was the entitled wealthy & I am pretty sure, the pretending to be wealthy group. They complained about anything & everything. I had 1 older guy decide that he wanted to sing to me in the MDR. I just want to enjoy my dinner, please. Several fellow passengers were down right snoody. Fast forward to 2021, we get an excellent offer from HAL that we couldn't pass up-which turned out to be our most favorite cruise & fellow passengers of all time. Maybe because we are older now, or the passengers have toned down their attitudes. Since our 2021 cruise we have sailed HAL 4 more times & have 3 more booked. So I have learned to not judge a cruise line or it's passengers by 1 cruise. Carnival gets a bad rap as the "party ship" or Walmart of the seas, but that isn't totally true. We've had some wonderful cruises on Carnival & will continue to sail them as well as HAL.

This is one of the things we like about HAL, in most cases servers serve us. Very few things are self serve in Lido.

No skills here, but in my dreams I'd like to be the cruise director. I would add a bunch of fun activities & enrichment seminars, more port talks. As a passenger, I enjoy the craft classes (painting, calligraphy, etc) so I would add more of these & make them more diverse.

I love to read, but have never read from a ship's library. I am afraid I wouldn't finish reading it while on board. So what are the rules? Book exchange? Does the book exchange usually have a good selection?

Is this also where you send proof of veteran status? We verified my husband last year, so I don't think we need to verify his military status again, I just don't remember where we sent it.

Yes, luckily I had packed a bar of our favorite soap. But usually that is for the shower because we don't like their liquid soap, but had to use it at the sink this time as well as the shower. Menus seemed new to me. As stated before, last CCL cruise was Sept of 23. The food & service was definitely better than we experienced on the Magic in 23. Everyone in our group enjoyed the food. We ordered frog legs for an app on our last night, I don't remember seeing those before. The Everday menu included a sirloin steak & chicken breast & of course chocolate melting cake.

Yes, others have said they have gotten bar soap. We might just have had a poor cabin steward. He was definitely not up to the service caliber we have come to expect from CCL. Our cabin steward was the worst we have ever experienced on CCL, HAL or RCI.

About deck 5: yes, "pig & anchor" - Guy's BBQ place was open on sea days & embarkation day-yummy. It was even open on a late port day, well worth a try. Ocean's plaza on deck 5 was always busy with the for a fee coffee being sold there, always a big line until mid afternoon. The Alchemy bar never seemed to have any crew stationed there, at least when we were in Ocean's plaza doing trivia. Smoking is permitted on deck 5-outside on the opposite side of the BBQ place.

I would think by early Dec, she will be decorated for Christmas, enjoy your cruise.

It might help to remember: when ordering a drink with a cost above the $11 SBP allotted price, you only pay the difference in price. ex- a drink costing $13 would only cost $2 plus 18% gratuity.

We have used OBC in the casino by charging our room while at the slot machines. But evidently this doesn't always work. We do check our account frequently while onboard. Just an FYI about gratuities: they are deducted daily, not in a lump sum. So if you have pre paid or OBC, it shows as a credit, then deducts daily. My son got confused on this- he saw a bunch of credit (pre paid grats) then it disappeared on a daily basis. I wish they would just deduct the entire amount at the begining. But I guess deducting daily allows us to remove tips if needed- which we have never done.

I forgot to add: The ship was decorated for Halloween & several events having to do with that-costume judging for one. This was a bit of a surprise to us, since it was early Oct.

I can't remember his name, but he was good. Visible & not obnoxious that we saw. He made announcements, but short ones. He was at the Plat/Diamond party & did a good job.

We didn't have any bar soap on the Breeze last week. Maybe our cabin steward just skipped us.

I didn't read all 6 pgs, so this might have been mentioned. No bar soap in cabins, no soap dispenser near sink. You have to reach into the shower for soap which is a pain if your cabin mate just happens to be in the shower. At least install a small soap dispenser near sink if no bar soap.

We are platinum on CCL, but have been sailing Holland most frequently since the restart. We have been trying to get our adult kids to sail with us for awhile & finally succeeded in getting them to book. They chose this 5 day cruise out of Galveston & we just went along for the ride. We had never done anything less than 7 days, so this was a 1st. Our group included our daughter, son in law, 2 of their friends (all in their 30s,) my husband & I (over 65.) 3 of the 30ish had never cruised before, 1 had cruised once prior. We were able to drive to the port from Missouri for them & Kansas for us-13 hour road trip with a few over night hotel stays. Parking- After dropping off luggage, we parked near the port in "Lighthouse" parking lot #3. Lighthouse shuttled us to/from the ship. I would give Lighthouse parking a high rating, they were courteous, efficient & on time. No complaints, even when returning to our cars with lots of luggage, everything went well. Boarding- we arrived at the port around 11 AM & basically walked right onto the ship with our Platinum status & a 10AM check in time. We had done our check in online, & with the photo recognition system we didn't even need to show ID. The newbies had a bit of a wait, but were able to board around noon with no issues. None of them had passports, but used enhanced drivers licenses & birth certificates. Food- we were pleasantly surprised by the food quality & service in MDR. We had dinner in the Saphire dining room (anytime) every night. On our previous Carnival cruise-Magic in Sept of 2022 we were a bit disappointed in service & quality of food in MDR. But the Breeze exceeded our expectations on service, quality & selections available. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a table for 6, even though we had not previously linked our bookings. The "Hub" app is required for making reservations for all dining room meals. We had breakfast in the Blush dining room 3 of the 5 days- food was always as ordered & with great service too. We didn't eat in Lido buffet very much, nor any of the specialty places, but most of our food was good or better wherever we dined. Entertainment-production shows were "88 Keys" & "Flick." I am not sure if there was another production show, if so we missed it. Both shows were great, exceeded our expectations on special effects & energy of the players. We had seen both these shows on other cruises, but I think the Breeze cast did it better than previous players. They had "deal or no deal" on one night, & B2B comedians on another night, but we did not attend these, so will not comment. The younger people in our group loved the comedy shows in the Limelight lounge, but we didn't go. We did play multiple games of trivia & enjoyed the music venues. There was a variety of music available, but I can't remember the names of the groups. Our cabin- we just had a lower deck inside cabin, it was fine with plenty of storage space, mini fridge, safe. We had no real issues, except that our cabin steward was not as good as we've had previously. I had put the large for a fee water bottles in our closet to get them out of the way, while we drank from our free water bottles that we kept in the min fridge. So when our cabin steward saw the missing for a fee bottles, he charged us for them. He was never available to show him that we hadn't drank them, so this required a couple of trips to guest services to have the charges taken off our account. The other complaint I had with our cabin steward was that I tried to get him to take our free laundry on the 1st night, he wouldn't, said he would get it the next day during his cleaning. This was not a huge problem, but we had been traveling for a few days & would have liked to have our laundry done sooner. He was rarely anywhere to be found to ask for ice or clean towels. He seemed a bit stingy with the towels. I usually put a clean towel on the stool by the dressing table & leave it for the entire cruise- he took it away every time he cleaned & didn't supply 1 to replace it. I have never had a cabin steward take the towel w/o giving an extra to replace it. The other complaint is with Carnival- no bar soap, plus there is only the soap dispenser in the shower -so you have to reach into the shower for soap to wash your hands-inconvenient. Luckily I have learned to pack my own bar soap. Ship over all- seemed to be in pretty good condition for her age. Ports- we just had stops in Cozumel & Costa Maya. Both port days were extremely hot & humid. I felt port time was a bit short on both days. But getting off/on ship was easy & relatively quick. We stayed on board in Cozumel, but the younguns enjoyed a beach day & shopping. In Costa Maya we joined the youngun for a beach day & shopping- my biggest complaint here was the never ending vendors trying to sell their wares, it was difficult to enjoy the beach. Over all we enjoyed this cruise, especially experiencing it with some 1st timers & our daughter. Because of the timing & short cruise, there were quite a few children on board, but all seemed well behaved & didn't cause any trouble.

Cruise101-enjoy your cruise. Hope your questions were answered.

What is a recommended arrival time for a 3PM sail away? We are only 3 star & have no other priority status. Even if the example list in post # 6 is for a 4 PM sail away, 3 PM or later seems too late. We prefer to avoid the masses.

Your laundry pkg question: laundry pkg is computed for the cabin, not per person. The total cost depends on the itinerary. I believe it is higher in Europe. For Caribbean, Mexico, Alaska & other itineraries it is $8.50 per day times the number of days (14 in your case.) We usually do "by the bag" option, but that is your choice.

After our 1st HAL cruise we felt similar to you- just not our thing. Fast forward a few years & we are cruising HAL most of the time. I would still prefer a more active daily program, but have decided the other positives out weigh the negatives. I hope you enjoy the rest of your cruise, thanks for sharing your experiences.

I remember in the early days of cruising, that our cabin steward seemed like a ninja. Every time we left our cabin & came back our cabin had been tidied up. They are not able to do this any more- too many cabins to tidy.. but we are still amazed at how good they are at their jobs. And it seems like they truly enjoy doing it.

There is a fairly active roll call for this cruise. Hope to see you on board. I am beyond excited to experience a "holiday" cruise.

We found the chairs on NS to be way to heavy & difficult to move. Are they the same style on the K?