MobyandDick

Dear MobileMac,

Seadays are normally the formal days. We are also on the NA soon in October and we have 2 sea days and the express document printed out, reads 2 formal days. Voila!

We have booked before with an online agent in an other country succesfully.

What you need is an address of a relative of friend and viola! off you go.

Apologiesd to 'spill the beans' answering this question truthfully but we did not do anything illegally. :eek:

Many years ago when online purchases and internet did not excist, many relatives and friends purchased goods abroad and shipped these to us as the prices were so much cheaper for whatever product-it-was.

Maybe a friendly cruise critic member will adopt you? :cool:

We have booked our 3rd cruise (within one year) with the Nieuw Amsterdam.

She is lovely as she offers plenty of space, for us a nice lay-out, staff on board is weel trained and very friendly and as you kindly mentioned the Tamarind restaurant is fan-tas-tic! With the Silk Den for us it creates an extra bit of luxury without paying too much money.

To be honest it is the only HAL ship we sailed with but we are very happy to start our 3rd cruise with her mid-October.

Curious about decision, so please let us know! :)

can anyone help with information on getting from train station in Venice to dock and where the Nieuw Amsteram will be docked on July 11, 2014?

It is more effort to upload and unload via porters for one stop only.

In case you are able to walk and roll your cases along, the walk to the people mover and the walk from the people mover to the ship is the easiest.

Otherwise a taxi can bring you from the station to the port, the taxi rank is just outside the main building where NA is docked.

When you use the people mover, you can pay cash (if you have euros) or pay by credit card with a chip. When we started our cruise we encountered US passengers and we paid their fares in coins as they only had a credit card without the chip.

In return they promised us to sing a song in the Crow's Nest that night, which did not happen :eek: :D :D

We are thinking of trying an aft verandah on either Eurodam or NA on a Caribbean cruise later this year. I thought I had read that the Level 7 balconies were longer than the balconies below, but I can't really see that by looking at the deck plans.

The deck 7 aft verandahs are slightly deeper, it is really not that much.

There was no considerable more vibration.

We stayed at an aft neptune last month and we loved the view over the sea.

Also please consider looking at teh website of halfacts.com where there are some samples/photos etc about both ships' aft cabins.

Also you are near the staircase to go up for 2 floors the to Lido, it is only a quick jump up for meals or pooldip.

For Istanbul: please take the tram and discover yourself, you can read about more on all travel websites. Even youtube shows a demonstration on using the tram: costs are cheap and many trams run the line along the harbour, and stops at all the important places.

I may not use names of companies but we used in Ephesus a guide company which also visits Istanbul to see clients. Have a good look on tripadvisor. We paid (for 2 persons) a price of 120 EUR total for Haman visit, tour of Ephesus and lunch, coffees included with driver and guide. So I guess that their Istanbul rates are not much more expensive.

Whatever you do: please walk around the market and have an apple tea. The locals are sooo nice in Turkey. We found them more hospitable than offered on some Greek islands. We have done your cruise in May and fully enjoyed it, except Santorini and Lesbos esspecailly. Due to local elections was the island 'shut' for a cruise ship arriving with 2,300 passengers. This will not happen in Turkey, they love your business and are eager to make a deal! ps; gogo beach on Argostoli was very nice and only 10 mts away from the quay with a taxi. I am jalous!!!!

Try in Napels the Pizzeria Hostaria A Casa Di Federico, Pizza Place, Via duca di San Donato, Naples Campania.

We have walked from the harbour to this interesting part of town.

It is a tiny side street off a wide street: just view in google maps.

All the locals eat there and is has plastic tables & chairs, but DELICIOUS home made food.

Have some squidd on us ;0)

We were there in two trips and each trip we loved the lunch. Althoug on a cruise you eat well on the ship, this place we did not hold back...

I will let you know after our cruise if it all worked out:D

We will rerturn from Venice on the 14th, so plenty of time to repond

We are there on May 11 and this is what I found written by others on different travel panels:

"We have visited Kefalonia four times - so have now spent eight weeks there - it's our favourite Greek island. We know the island extremely well as we always hire a car and have driven around it many times. There are no beaches you can walk to near Argostoli. I'm not sure how long you are going to be there but suggest that if you are there for a day you walk to the square in Argostoli, take a taxi from the rank at the side of the square and ask them to take you to either Xi beach which has dark red sand or to Lassi which has some of the best beaches on the island. I would choose Lassi. It's no more than 5 euros in a taxi and should take about 10 minutes max to get there. Ask them to take you to the Hotel Mediterranee where we stay. When you arrive at the hotel just go to the beach at the back of the hotel. It's supposed to be private but it's not. There you'll find a lovely sand beach with loungers and sun umbrellas for a small charge. The sea is crystal clear. There is also a lovely taverna which belongs to the hotel at which you can buy a delicious lunch, wine and beers, etc. Enjoy! We're planning two more weeks in Kefalonia next year - it's a beautiful island. Everyone speaks English so you won't have a problem being understood. If you have any more questions I'll be very pleased to help you if I can. Have a very good cruise.

Port to Makris Gialos - 3.7 KM, 9 minutes

Port to Xi Beach - 12.5 KM, 19 minutes (includes ferry)

Port to Lourdas Beach - 21 KM, 32 minutes

Port to Myrtos - 29 KM, 40 minutes

The beaches of Argostoli are renowned for their dramatic beauty and pristine waters. The most famous is Myrtos, within a large bay on the northern coast of the island. This beach sits at the bottom of dramatic cliffs in a gently curved bay with white pebbles on the strand. Very close to Argostoli is the island's most popular beach, Markis Gialos, with many tavernas and lots of water sports available. On the southwestern coast of the island is the red sand beach at Lourdas surrounded by white hills. One of the best beaches for families is Xi to the south of Lixouri, with shallow and calm waters. It is a wide expanse of sand accessible by a ferry to Cephalonia's second largest town and then a short taxi ride."

Room service has never let us down. Maybe on busy port days when everyone is ordering coffee before a certain time, it may be too busy.

Most of these days a letter arrives the night before to inform passengers.

In 2 days we will be on-board and look forward waking up with all the goodies :D

We booked for an October 25th, 2014, sailing through Expedia/AARP with final payment due on August 1st. Are there any advantages to making the final payment earlier? Will we be subject to an upsell or upgrade offer?

HAL's purpose is to make incremental income (by offering upsells) and will most probably not discriminitate which bookinging channel has been used.

HAL's website recommends travel partners under "Locate a travel advisor" :

Denmark

BVTravel Group ApS

Indiakaj 12, DK 2100

Copenhagen Oe

Denmark

Phone: +45 70 200 100

Email: info@bvtravel.dk

Most cruise companies work with intermediairies daily and also depend for business and can not imagine that HAL does not do special get-to-know programmes with this mentioned partner.

Dear Jarand,

Do you know the website http://shipfinder.co/ ?

This website shows all ships that sail around the world.

Go to 'map options' and click the search option and voil'a, you can search your HAL ship and have live tracking. Even if the ship may skip a harbour due to whate ever reason: you know! :eek:

Also I scan my own programme and mail to friends & family who have shown an interest where we sail.

There is also a sister website tracking tracking planes and we found it very handy when we are picking up friends at the airport.

Happy Easter!

We are leaving on NA in May and this is what we found out using cruise critic harbour report:

"Cruise Terminal 103, 107, 108 and 117 are used"

Googlemaps show a good view of the harbour. Kind regards!

Weather should be warm and not too hot. Take your summer clothes including a couple of shorts and t-shirts for day time: it will be warm sufficiently for excursions. Summer sweaters and slacks for evening walks on-shore or deck. We are leaving early May from Venice and our summer clothes will be packed!

Right now we are booked on the Eurodam for the Baltics but with the situation in the Ukraine we are pretty sure we are canceling. We are looking at a Norwegian fjords cruise as a replacement. Tell me about the Ryndam. I know she's old.

Pardon my ignorance: but Ukraine is as far away from St Petersburg as Copenhagen: than all cruises towards Scandinavia in the Baltic should be avoided? A cruise in the Black Sea may not be as tempting. Having said that, we are on a HAL cruise to Istanbul soon and Istanbul is closer to Ukraine than St Petersburg. We are going in spite of the situation.

I've just been on the phone to our TA as we discovered prices had gone down by $400 on our booked cabin on the Noordam so asked her to see what she could do in the way of OBC etc. The advertised price now for the cheapest verandah cabin is for one category up from our guarantee cabin. So we've now been upgraded to a VA (yes, I know, no plexiglass balcony) from the VH. Still not sure whether it's a guarantee but it probably is. OK, no problems with any of that, but the going price for the VH is now $8000 according to the TA, I kid you not. I checked this on the HAL site the other day and found this to be the advertised price. The thing is, there are only four cabins in the VH category and they are right bang at the stern on deck 4 with smaller balconies. Is there buried gold in these cabins? :confused: It just does not make sense.

Can anyone please enlighten me as to what is going on?

 

Ozcruizer

I understand your question and the answer is very simple: the ship devides cabins in main categories and gain in sub categories. Each sub cat. will receive a fictitious price, and slowly will reduce rates to drive sales. The trick is that HAL will monitor which categorie will sell well, as these will not receive a price decrease as otherwise tHAL will need to reimburse all booked cabins.

We booked last year on purpose a VH guarentee as we know that HAL will overbook the categorie and will 'upgrade' them to better verandahs. Than on top we received an upgrade offer, which we took and in the end we had a better deal.

it is a little gamble to take but please remember Always to book the catergorie you are happy with.

We are leaving on the Neiuw Amsterdam for a TA in April. Have not been on HAL for a few years, wondering about MDR menu for lunch. Know the MDR would be a pleasant experience in general.

 

For those who go to the MDR on the first day, is there a standard menu? Do you have a favorite offering?

It is nice to be waited on on your first day: as you have been standing inline to checkin/security check/boarding. Our last cruise (was our first on HAL) we became right away one star mariner (due to Cunard's history) and we were invited to lunch at the MDR. It was very nice: friendly service and delicious food (from a smaller menu). Result? We were ready for a quick snooze in our just appointed cabin....:rolleyes: Vacation started!:p

Does anyone know if HAL offer up sells to non US citizen cruisers? Sorry if this is a dumb question. This will be our first time with HAL and we booked a verandah gty. We sail April 6th and have no allocated cabin yet.

Are HAL likely to contact passengers via email or telephone? We booked directly with HAL so no TA involved.

Thank you

It does not matter where you are from. We are from Europe and booked last year a MED cruise with a VH guarantee. About two weeks out we received an email with an upgrade offer. THe offer mentioned to phone a special number (in the USA) or to contact the local HAL office. We called the USA HAL office and asked we could 'negotiate' the offer and we mutaually agreed after bargaining. So there still may hope we are one star Mariner.

We are traveling on the N/A and can't seem to find out any information regrading the Silk Den, is it just another lounge or something special ? Any information would be helpful.

Thanks

Silk Den is part of the Tamarind Restaurant and is located on the opposite site of the restaurant main entrance.

This bar is more like a " lounge set" in an asian-style. This bar was one of favourites during a Med cruise last year: due to its high location the lounge has great views and the atmosphere with semi-private booths, makes it a nice experience. It is also not a very busy area and therefore causy.

First transatlantic cruise! Any advice on what is the most important or useful items to pack?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Crossing brings a different atmosphere to the ship, as all passengers will become each other entertainment rahter than the destination. We sailed a TA on QM2 last year and of course the weather on teh atlantic depicts warmer clothes for deck rounds ( I brought my favourite comfy sweater to walk on deck or sit at my balcony). TA crossings also seem to become a little more dressy in teh evening as there is more time to dress up. Also take sufficient reading material such as (e)books and magazines, the library on-board is also a welcome alternative. We always bring our favourite games (scrabble & cards) although most ships will also carry games. Maybe bring a different game and you can introduce fellow passengers? As you are not able to stop and buy wine on-the-way during the cruise, a bottle of wine per person may help to enjoy an early in-room cocktail. Enjoy the ship: visit the gym & spa, or spend time at a bar-with-sea-view. Also a little more pocket money as normally you would buy a souvenir on-land? Spoil yourself: order free roomservice trays for breakfast to awake you and have afternoon tea later. Show times are also differently scheduled than normal cruise days.

Have a wonderfulll time!:)

There is a real Kingsize bed,but created with tow wider twin beds.

The Queensize beds in Signature or other cabins is surely less wide.

Patience is a virtue and last fall we booked a verandah and paid an upgrade later to Neptune. It surely was cheaper than booking a Neptune directly.

Of course if there is space later, but we took the chance :rolleyes: