regnig

ALL in-transit (B2B) passengers get a letter like this. Please review it for readability, understandability and whatever else you may think makes it nearly impossible to understand! (not much, huh???) Then, while you are waiting in the "cattle pen" at Port Everglades on Sunday morning, and waiting for the stragglers to get off the ship, ask yourself again, What the heck was so hard to understand here?????? But rest assured, there WILL be someone who just doesn't get it, or just doesn't read it, or just doesn't care, and will delay the in-transit process. I strongly suggest you "rag the heck out of them" for their actions as they disembark, then ignore them for the rest of the cruise!! ((Probably won't make a difference to them as they are brain-numb anyway!))

ROFLOL!! Truer words I've never read. Well said, okay typed, Larry! :D

Helen I'm also sending good thoughts your direction. Having been through the same situation I know the pain you are feeling. If you read this, and to be perfectly honest you shouldn't be, let me offer what my eye doctor had me do. Put dark light blocking patches on BOTH eyes. I know, that will blind you for the time being but everytime you move your other eye (remember they travel together) the inside of your lid rubs the surface of your injured eye. You really need to keep the traveling of you injured eye to a minimun and that's the only way to accomplish that. Simply closing the injured eye while using the other eye is not going to allow it to heal. Mine got so bad before I went to the doctor that he had to leave my patches on for a full week to allow the eye to heal. When I had a minor reoccurance of the situation about 1 year later 24 hours of wearing the patches was all that was required to heal the abrasion. Remember, you can not successfully rest just one eye.

Well at least somebody tried to decorate the bridge but if in competition with other decorations around the ship I don't think it would win. ;):D;)

The Royal docked at Crown Bay.

Dave thanks for clearing up the mystry for me. :D If one were to eat all that beautiful food you've photographed they would need to use that contraption at least 23 hours a day! ;)

All of your photos are WONDERFUL but don't forget to take time to enjoy your cruise!

Sea Day pics

 

Okay Dave inquiring minds :confused: just must know…. What the heck is that apparatus the fellow in the hat is sitting on? Some kind of exercise equipment perhaps?

We have eaten dinner in the Lido several time on the Westerday & the Noordam and many times they have several items that are on the dinning room menu. There will be a menu posted by the elevators mid-afternoon that you can take a look at. Must admit I've never seen the lobster but I've never looked for it either. While it is a "buffet" the servers will make up your plate with the individual items you select. I've also discovered if they are serving steak or lamb chops they will happily cook them to order for you. Once seated someone will come by your table to take your drink order or you can just get it yourself. The only other thing you will "serve" yourself (after Code Orange is lifted) is the salad.

Thanks for the link!

Is it everyone's opinion that the following quote from that link means that the B.B King's show will start on the Noordam Dec. 16, 2013?

"Enthralling guests with its musicianship and quality, the B.B. King’s Blues Club band will return to Eurodam for an open-ended run starting on March 23, 2014, following their current run through Dec. 8, 2013. The Club will be onboard Westerdam now through April 5, 2014, and Zuiderdam now through March 17. Noordam and Nieuw Amsterdam begin open-ended runs of B.B. King’s Blues Clubs, with launch dates of Dec. 16 and April 6, respectively."

DH will be thrilled but I don't want to let him see this if I'm misreading it.

Thanks

And yet you still smoke. Sounds like a major addiction to me

Oh really do I? And you make this assumption based on what? Your statement certainly comes across as mighty judgmental based on nothing. Just because I haven’t voiced the same condemnation as some other non-smokers does not mean that I’m a smoker. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I’m just a considerate non-smoker who chooses not to partake in the dictatorial rhetoric of others?

My purpose for posting on this thread in the first place was only in an attempt to lower some of the vitriolic dialogue that was bound to ensue. Your post proves I wasn’t too successful with that.

Your argument would hold far more weight if you hadn't chosen to ignore half of the definition ("feelings of other people") that you yourself provided. As I said in a previous post, there is a fundamental difference between being policy compliant, which I full agree all balcony smokers are, and being considerate, which some smokers (by no means all) clearly aren't.

 

Oh how wrong that I ignored the words “feelings of other people” in the definition. I read and understood them and while I was tempted to remove them I left them in to prove a point. While the word “considerate” should define both smokers and non-smokers alike it is exclusively directed only towards the smokers in the form of accusations of being inconsiderate. Many non-smoker posters in the plethora of threads on the subject not only don’t accept the “policy compliant issue” but also disregard that smokers also have “feelings” and get darn tired of being berated, lectured and generally made to feel as if they are the scourge of the earth. Proof of point, when did you ever read a thread started by a smoker complaining about their fellow non-smoking cruisers?

For those of you non-smokers who accept (even if you don't like it) HAL's policy and who have honestly posted that it didn't ruin your cruise or make you violently ill my hats off to you for you are truly considerate.

..........let's just say this day has been terrible. We were led like cattle in a huge room after we went through immigration and stood in lines for almost an hour. ..................... Oh yea, while we were waiting in the cattle line....I called Holland America and voiced our opinions of this and were told the ship was still not cleared, which I knew already. ............. A lot of people were also upset. It turned out that 2 people chose to not go by the instructions and I suppose Holland had a hard time of locating their room to get them off the ship. I heard one gentleman say that the couple should be fined!

HAL is prohibited from letting you re-board by US Customs & Immigration until the ship is zeroed out - everybody including the B2Bers. In other words everyone must be off the ship and accounted for. The 2 very very inconsiderate people who chose to selfishly disregard the directions are the cause of you miserable experience. If they were also doing a B2B they should be not be allowed to continue on the second leg. We’ve done B2Bs before and never had anything but a very easy and well orchestrated experience. You could probably take at least a dozen more of them and never encounter a similar experience again.

Glad you upbeat attitude has returned and I wish you a wonderful next 7 days.

I think that plaque needs to be removed from the Westerdam A Deck and given to the Eurodam. Since that is where Captain Henk is at now. I am sure we will seem some nice tooting tomorrow.

Lisa I thought you did give it to Captain Henk and not "the ship". HAL needs to have him conduct training classes for all the other Captains. Tooting should be a requirement!

:( No good tooting! :(

......so "smoke makes me violently ill" sounds like it might be a little bit of an exaggeration? :confused:

Oh heavens you don't think the poster exaggerated just a little itty bitty bit do you? :rolleyes:

But of course, I forgot, they are avoiding the "smoking areas" :rolleyes:

:rolleyes:Guess "they" are all avoiding any area out on deck. Heck why are they only complaining about the awful people in the stateroom next, above, below or on the opposite side of the ship instead of going after the inconsiderate captain for putting the ship under sail and creating "whatever" (fill in and tell us it will kill you) from the funnels. :rolleyes:

Notice how the goalposts keep moving?

Now that you mention it I haven't even mentioned just how "violently ill" the smell of perfume or men's aftershave makes me! :rolleyes:

While I’m really loath to post on a “smoking” thread my irritation with the verbiage being used has reached its limit. The definition of considerate is ”thinking about the rights and feelings of other people”. As you will note, I have bolded the word “rights”. Under HAL’s current policy it is the right of anyone who books a balcony to smoke on it PERIOD. As a non-smoker it is not your right to attempt to deny or disregard the rights someone else or to belittle them for exercising their rights. That makes you the inconsiderate person. HAL is upfront about their policy and when a smoker books a balcony stateroom they are afforded the right by HAL to smoke on it. If a non-smoker books a balcony they are giving up their rights to possibly have a smoke free environment. If someone does not agree with the HAL’s policy then they shouldn’t spend their money on a balcony. But, by all means please, please, please stop calling those who paid for the right to smoke on their balconies and then do so inconsiderate.

Ditto Joannie!

Wow, that's a big drop, congrats! We had always found that Princess was very good in offering either the lower fare or OBC when that happened.

Have they been dropping the prices on all the Royal upcoming cruises? If so does that mean that people are canceling like crazy? :confused:

Personally never have had anything shrunk. If in doubt do as advised above and request cold water wash and low heat dry.

I too get a kick out of that! A couple of weeks ago I found one of those tags in a nightgown, that I hadn't warn in months..:):) Taking the same one on our next cruise..

Loved it!

I've had to be real carefull about that too. We have some clothing that we only wear on cruises. When we sailed Princess we had gotten to the point of having free unlimited laundry and I would alway have them laundered onboard so that once home I could unpack and stow them away in what I refer to as our "cruise closet". Nothing beats arriving home with suitcases filled with clean clothing! :D On our 1st HAL cruise I discovered I had to check carefully before sending anything out to be laundered (paid for unlimited) to make certain that I removed Princess's tags. :eek: Now that we are approaching our 3rd HAL cruise I believe I've gotten them all but still take time to check!

Depending on the garmet the numbered tag may be ironed on... I recommend you attempt to remove it when you are putting your clean laundry away. The longer it remains on the material the greater the chance it will leave residue when removed. Sometimes that tag will be applied with a pin.

If it matters please know they have never lost a single piece of our laundry and since we always do the unlimited we send it out several times during our cruises. And, in our opinion, HALs laundry service is GREAT!

I'm not really surprised you couldn't find socks because we tend to wear sandals/slippers year round ;) LOL My guess would have been to shop at Nordstrom or Macys for your socks.

 

Bill wasn't in search of "socks", they were looking for "slacks" as they forgot to pack them! :D

We've had aft balconies on the Emerald, Sapphire and the old Royal (sister ship to the Ocean and Pacific) and never had an issue with soot. We have one on the new Royal (Dolphin deck) in December - it's an owners suite and if the balcony is uninhabitable I will be a very, very unhappy cruiser.

Have you been reading Bob's comments about the OS on the live from thread? Think this was his 1st one http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=40252790#post40252790

While he loves the balcony he is most unpleased with the suite itself. Believe at some point he referred to it as "two closets". And, Bob is not the type to throw about meaningless complaints.

Our group of 3 cabins has had Explore4 added to our bookings for 3/10/14 with no problem, no additional cost even though current price is less than we paid, or loss of OBC.

Our TA advised us that "Holland has been bombarding us with the information about Explore 4" so she was well aware of it when I sent her an email on Monday.

How many beers do you get for a wine exchange?

I believe it was 6 but not impossible it was only 5. It was 2 years ago and since I don't remember what I had for breakfast today :o I'm really just guessing. Since then, she has just gifted us with OBC making life much easier.