thetexasaggiecruiser

Sadly last night, DH was in the oak room and left his camera there when we went to dinner.

 

He quickly realized it had been left behind and left the dining room to pick it up. 45 minutes had passed and the camera was gone. Even worse, so are the pics on the memory card. It is now the next day And so far neither the memory card nor the camera have turned up.

 

What a shame. I can't believe someone would steal a camera. I hope it turns up and was one of those things where someone meant to return it and then got distracted or something. Or finally feels guilty. So sorry that happened.

 

Istanbul is starting to cause some concern for some passengers. I have heard some say they are now not getting off the ship! Apparently 20 were killed last night!

 

Captain Andre has come on today ( we arrive in Istanbul at 6 pm) to advise that they have been in close contact with tour operators, local authorities, Seattle, etc. and that the old town and the port area have not been affected by the demonstrations. We have a private guide who is number one on tripadvisor, so we are hopefully in good hands for our tours tomorrow and the next day.

 

Hopefully the weather improves.

 

I hope you have a safe and uneventful time in Turkey. Sounds like you all are in a good area and have put yourself in safe hands.

 

Thank you again for all the updates!

What a great itinerary! Glad you arrived safely and hope you have some restful days before boarding. Looking forward to the updates!

We climbed to the top and it was so wonderful being up higher than the tree line.You can see for miles. We did this several years ago and we are lucky to have been able to climb to the top! Now you are not allowed due to the erosion. At the time one side was unable to walk up to top, and there was another side to be able to climb up. Very, very narrow steps! I held on to a guide rope going up and down!

 

I didn't know you couldn't climb it any more - like you, I'm glad we went when you still could. Boy did I ever hold on to that rope! I went down backwards.

 

Some of the local tour companies have an option to fly directly from Cozumel to Chichen Itza. Obviously more expensive, but that's the option we chose when we were there because we didn't want to spend so much time on the road.

It should be really quiet - we had a cabin near the elevators on deck 5 (but aft) on the Noordam, and didn't hear anything from the elevators. Also, there is a picture of cabin 5050 from the Noordam on halfacts.com, it should be the same on the Westerdam as far as layout, etc.

They do charge for Wi-Fi in the rooms, unless you are a Hilton honors gold member, or have paid the upgrade.

Thanks all for your help. Yes Capt BJ, thats why I wanted the (free) e mail rather than a transatlantic call! Looked on the website ashland, but as Capt BJ says, no sign of an e mail. All I really wanted to do was e mail and ask them to put us in a port or pool view room when we are there next April. Reservation is already made, but I couldn't find a 'special requests' box on the booking form. Perhaps I'll bite the bullet and ring them nearer the time.

Thanks again

 

Simon

 

I called the hotel just now to see, and they do NOT have an international toll-free number or e-mail address. Just weird. 1-800-HILTON is the toll-free reservation number, and the gentleman I spoke to said you should be able to get specific questions about your reservation answered that way. Hope that helps!

I looked at this itinerary for 2015, so it's great to read this thread to see how it goes. I hope the rest of your cruise goes well and thank you for the travelogue. Such a pleasure to read.

Funny story - the Spa often runs "specials" that include a spa treatment and one hour (or more) of access to the Hydro Pool and Thermal loungers. On the day our ship ran it, I happen to be in the Hydro pool by myself.

 

A lady and spa attendant come in and discuss the pool details. About 2 minutes after the attendant leaves and the lady is just getting into the pool, the spa jets turn off (normal as they run for about 15 minutes and then you have to start them up by pushing a button). They lady turns to me and asks "what does that (jets turning off) mean?". I start to get out of the pool and respond "it means that our free hour is up!". Needless to say, the lady was not too happy!!

 

I know - I am MEAN, but I just could not help saying it...

 

HAHA - my DH would do that for sure. How far did you let her go before you told her you were kidding? :)

They are, indeed. My only regret is that we didn't find them until recently. They're good at home for cans of soda and bottles of water, too. If you use an ice and water mixture, you can quickly chill a bottle of wine in about 10-15 minutes.

 

There's a link to the bag in this post. Just scroll down to the section under Equipment.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=42091494

 

 

If you buy one of these bags, make sure you buy the Ice Bag brand ones. They're much sturdier. (Often imitated, never duplicated! Available in many fun colors! And all that... :))

 

Shoot - I read every word of that thread when you started it, and I had totally fotgotten you included that information. I did some Googling this morning and had figured name brand was the way to go. Last cruise I went WAAAY to DIY with bubble-wrap wine carriers and great big ziploc bags for chilling. Complete negative ROI. So thanks, twice over!

I called Ships Services to ask about that for our December cruise, and they only offered the 14-day package prior to boarding. The price he quoted was really high, so we passed, as I'd read here that you can sometimes get day passes onboard - though I understand they are limited.

 

He also told me that they don't offer deals on board, but that I know to be untrue, not only from posters here but from our last cruise when we saw the specials.

Once you have paid your corkage, you can either give the wine to your wine steward, or you can chill it yourself. We go the latter route because we are picky about the wine temperatures. We use an Ice Bag Collapsible Wine Chiller, but you can also request a wine cooler full of ice from your room steward. The Ice Bag has the advantage of cooling further up the bottle neck, thus avoiding the dreaded warm first glass. The wine chiller bucket from the ship has the advantage of being free and one less thing to pack, although the Ice Bag does fold flat..

 

Those are awesome. Love the "dreaded warm first glass" comment! I see us purchasing several soon. Last time we had a great steward who kept our ice bucket filled, but it gets messy dealing with the condensation over and over.

So they are really planning on the 6 day cruise :( , they simply don't want to cancel 7 days if the ship can make a 6 day cruise...lots of revenue on the line here...

 

All those pax flying to Boston ( or riding, or whatever ...) who are not aware...hotel will be expensive Saturday night near the port and the airport.

 

I bet you are right - and I'm sure HAL will cover the cost of those nights, if needed, but what a logistic and Customer Relations challenge.

 

I'm betting you that there is a swat team formed at HAL to deal with this, and there are already contingency plans in place. But, I doubt that information has been released to the end-user support reps. Like most corporate escalations, I imagine HAL wants one communication to go out once they make a final decision. Finding each passenger who will need to be informed is going to be crazy. I feel for the poor person who may be greeting individuals at the pier.

Yeah, we'll have to get a 5pm reservation at the latest, but it sounds like it will be worth it. We'll test it out for you and Kellie!

Just got off the phone with a HAL rep, and she said we are set to sail. She said she just got an email saying the situation had been resolved and we are sailing on the 4th as scheduled.

 

Great news!

 

Surgery today is over, kidney stone is gone, and so am I on Friday!:)

 

Bill

 

That's great news! I hope you enjoy the next couple of weeks. Glad the surgery went well also - all coming up roses, it seems.

Oh my goodness! I think that's a bit more excitement than you or Sarah had ever hoped to have. I'm so glad she's okay, and that all of the medical sign off activities were finally complete. I hope you guys can enjoy the rest of your cruise, and so so glad she wasn't seriously injured. It's nice when those situations turn into a great story to tell instead of something worse.

Wow! How beautiful. Thanks for posting these. In my part of Texas, we have only two seasons-summer and fixin' to be summer, so we don't get the color!

[quote name='HollDoll']I have a question about the luggage direct service...I just can't remember this... When using the service, do you receive your Boarding Passes while you are on the ship? It seems to me we do, but I'd appreciate knowing for sure. Thanks![/QUOTE]


We last used luggage direct in 2011, and I am pretty sure we did receive our boarding passes on board. Probably worth a call to ships services to confirm though. We loved the service, because packing lightly is not in our vocabulary, and we had quite a bit of time before our flight out of Fort Lauderdale, so we grabbed a car and went to Miami for a while. Didn't have to mess with anything but our light carry-ons until we got back home. It was worth every penny.

Our first HAL cruise was our honeymoon cruise on the Veendam many moons ago. What a tough set of circumstances.

 

I hope those of you booked for Saturday get to board, and I agree, great job by HAL on compensating the passengers.

Was there at beginning of month Took wife there for Birthday. It was good as they say . Had drinks 4 courses plus dessert . Waddled back to hotel a lot of food Dinner took almost 2 hours . Do not miss it

 

 

Thanks for the input! I'll be sure to reserve our dinner with plenty of time to enjoy.

We had 5148 on the Noordam on an 11-day Caribbean. We absolutely loved it. It is just at the elevators, but we didn't hear a sound. It was convenient and the balcony had just enough cover to provide shade but not so much that we couldn't enjoy the Caribbean sun if we wanted.

 

If you are doing the Wayfarer cruise, that's the itinerary we took. We loved being on the port side of the ship for that one.

 

Enjoy, and be sure to look at deck pictures on halfacts.com for examples of the different balcony cabins on the Noordam.

 

Edited to add: I believe that cabins VA5156-5138 and VA5153-5137 have much smaller balconies than the other cabins on deck 5. There was a thread where that was mentioned but I can no longer find it. Can someone more knowledgeable than me confirm or disprove that?

We've decided on Marmalade as well. The reservation system through Open Table doesn't book this far out, so I'm giving them a call today. We have a 7:30 p.m. all-aboard, so I have to figure out how many courses we'll want to enjoy and times.

Ingrid got us to Eze before any tours so we had the magical place all to ourselves. Eze has an interesting history. Because of the Pirates on the Mediterranean long ago, the people who were tired of being raided moved into the hills away from the sea to try to avoid being attacked. Unfortunately The village rose so high in the air that the Pirates could still see it and broke in via the spot where the donkeys entered the walled village loaded down with their goods from the fields. Eventually Eze was pretty much deserted with just a few inhabitants until Walt Disney arrived. Yes, this is a true story. He was enchanted with the place and suggested to one of the few residents that he buy up more of the houses and turn into a hotel. Despite the fact that the man thought Walt was crazy he did it. Now, Eze has 31 residents and two 5* hotels each with Michelin restaurants! Entrance is forbidden except to guests, but of course our guide knows everyone and our group of six got a glimpse of beautiful scenery and delightful decadence. Gorgeous terraces overlooking the hills and water. The entire city is walled with many steps and cobblestones and quite a hike so I give dull credit to our group for climbing all the way to the top for the fabulous views. Ingrid was very conscious of the steepness and constantly checked or found something interesting to see as we took little breaks.i really feel for those who have to provide room service and clean the rooms as it is a Hike!

 

I didn't know the Walt Disney connection! Many moons ago DH and I visited Eze when we got engaged in France. I told him about your post last night, and we reminisced about the wonderful glass of wine we had on the terrace at one of the restaurants that looked out over the ocean. As we recall, it was a restaurant for hotel guests only, but the staff was kind enough to allow two bubbly, newly-engaged Americans partake of the beauty.

 

Sounds like you are having just a wonderful trip, and the tour planning has been perfect. Thank you so much for taking the time to write the review.

Today we received an email from the "Upsell Fairy" with offers to upgrade to either an obstructed, regular ocean view, or verandah - at v-e-r-y attractive rates. Well, after a few minutes on the phone, we will now be sailing in a Verandah cabin as we see Spain, Portugal, and cross the Atlantic.

 

Congratulations on the upsell. We got one last week too, a Cat H on the LP to a Vista suite on deck 6. We go this Saturday on the Volendam.

 

Congratulations to you both! Upsell fairies are so awesome, I hope everyone gets a visit.

Thank you so much for these updates! The pictures are wonderful (did your underwater camera dry up, or are you using a different one for the landscapes?) Looks like you and your Daddy are having a ball. The helicopter tours look awesome.

I think in the event of a real emergency it's going to be "every man for himself". It behooves each of us to know exactly what we are going to do, and not imagine there is going to be a crew member with a list or scanner checking everyone off to make sure we are all saved. That's one reason it's so important learn what to do. All those other people around us, talking and causing confusion, are not going to know what to do when the time comes, and there is panic all around.

 

Another thing to do, now that there is a new type of life jacket, is to try it on in the stateroom, and probably practice putting it on with eyes closed!

 

I'm one of the people who reads the safety information card every time I fly, and I fly quite a bit! I made DH practice with his life vest in the room on our last cruise, and we'll do it again. Because I agree, in a real emergency situation people will panic.