OlsSalt

Lots of reports passengers do not like the RCCL "Infinity Balconies", which seems to be one of the key features on their new ships. What makes them so unwelcome? Considering we have so many backs and forths about leaving balcony doors open on HAL ships.

WSJ Style Section this weekend features the Leatherman, claiming this is what "real men" now sport as a favored fashion accessory, showing they ready and able to fix anything. But please don't ask a "real man" today to use the belt hole punch, because they do favor the models that have only "useful" applications. And that can pass security check-ins.

The newly installed Noordam library is directly next to the Explorations Cafe. Your wish came true. Not mine, because I find the noise of the coffee making equipment intrusive if one wants to read, but since they offer so very few chairs in the new library space this marriage made in heaven for you won't be a problem.

Great topic, looking forward to finding out what might be major difference in the layouts (mainly public rooms) among and within the various class ships: 1. R-class - Zaandam, Volendam 2. Vista - Noordam, Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam - the compass rose ships 3. Signature - Nieuw Amsterdam, Eurodam 4. Pinnacle - Konigsdam, Rotterdam, Nieuw Statendam ---Certainly the additional specialty dining options on Signature and Pinnacle class ships. ---Club Orange separate dining room and Dutch Cafe on Pinnacle ---Explorations Cafe and Libraries seem to be all over the place on Vista ships ---Dedicated "Music Walk" on Pinnacle ships Which ones have the Gallery Bar

They are slowly coming back, from others cruise reports.

The ships have have the Gallery Bar area are a great group meeting location. They replaced the former Northern Lights disco rooms on some Vista class ships, but not all. Also on the Eurodam I believe. They have tables set up for board games, some table games and conversational cluster seating.

No, they should not be "staffed to handle it". Do they call in Kelly Girls from offshore? You need to recognize you need to handle what they offer. You are on a ship. It comes with built in limitations. As You Wish Dining sounds like it was well-intended to be "competitive", but is simply not working out. Try other cruise lines where they do a better job, by your expectations.

I like my small contra-angle needle nose pliers - necklace repairs, needed from time to time. So some tools are useful.

Wonder if having more inside cabins is a factor too - people wanting to spend casual sit down time outside their own windowless cabins? Do HAL ships have more inside cabins than Princess or Celebrity?

Even land based restaurant want reservations, so they can be ready for a fixed number of diners at any given time. Just drop into a busy restuarant without reservations and expect a wait. They are not "as you wish" either.

We had that happen once on the sister ship Amsterdam - the smell came up from the balcony scuppers. They would douse it with some chemical flushes from time to time, to keep the smell down. Something coming up from the "bilges " I gather. It is a ship.

Change the name to Open Dining, instead of "As You Wish", since many are not getting what they wish. The current name makes it an exercise in failed expectations, right off the bat. Open Dining might encourage people to enquire upfront about expected waits and pick better times to dine, knowing it is upfront Open Dining is a free-for all, and not everyone can be accommodated ... as they wish.

On our roll call, we are struggling with finding a first meeting location for our budding book group - maybe 6-10 right now. Where can we best gather and have a small group conversation? ----Lunch time MDR on an at-sea was suggested, but really can't take a table for more than the short MDR lunch dining time. ---A Lido alcove table during non-dining times - would we be one of those groups "hogging a table" and interfering with dining staff clean up tasks? ----The ships that have Gallery Bars could offer a great place to have small group activities where one can talk and make a little conversational noise, and not disturb those reading in the ship libraries. ---Not sure what the status of the Explorers Lounge is any longer - since it has often become a multi-purpose room for ship sales activities during the day. Crows Nest again is now chopped up too and competes with other ship activities during the day. Once we get on board, we can get a better feel for the lay of the land and the scheduling interferences. But for that first group book club meeting, what have others done? Thanks.

Whoo, whoo. I took my own advice and checked to see if there are any new shore excursions showing up for our Sept Westerdam Japan cruise - lo and behold, it is also offering the Hubbard catamaran - which just got added: $309 So you never know when this will be offered.

Sounds like there is a great early booking deal as presented above if you wait. However, you will need to constantly check for the Hubbard shore excursion, because sometimes they are not listed until later, and by the time you keep checking in they may have already been fully booked. We just had that happen on a long Westerdam cruise - hardly any shore excursions offered at all except for a few in Alaska, which were mostly fully booked by the time we signed up with 8 more months to go. Someone had been watching for the Alaska shore excursions well before we had signed up. But we are all still waiting for shore excursions to get posted for Japan. Just a few have trickled in - 6 months to go. Looks like there is a Shore Excursion Fairy too, that operates on her own whim and time schedule. So book mark your cruises and check constantly for the Hubbard exclusion if you do sign up for next year.

We do love our "free laundry" and use it a lot on our longer cruises. Typically we pack enough daily and frequent laundry items for 7 days, and then start sending them out on Day 5, and every fifth day thereafter. And add other less frequent laundry need items as needed, in those approx every five day batches. Bad pun: But for a 9 day cruise it is kind of a wash. One bag may be all one needs, to cut down on the daily wash items. So pack for five days to save luggage space?

Keeping in mind the MDR temperature also needs to be a comfortable working temperature for the dining stewards, running back and forth carrying heavy trays. Expect it to be on the cooler side for those of us, just sitting there.

The older ships do struggle for a few days particularly when traveling near the equator. So some of this can depend on where the cruise is going. I suppose they were built for passengers who accepted when they went into the tropics, it would be warmer. Or into the most northern climes it would not always be an instant 75 degrees in the all cabins at all the times. One does get more cabin temperature control on the newer ships. Underscoring yet again, anyone leaving their balcony door open on these older ships will materially affect all the other cabins on their same ventilation circuits - and not necessarily next door or on the same deck. It was part of their intentional design at the time -for fire suppression Best thing to do is immediately report too hot, or too cold so the engineers can check to see if there are open cabin doors open before it sets off a chain reaction among other cabins. They go around with a device that checks to see if air is strongly sucking out under the door in the hallway. that means a balcony door is open. This is all part of the forced air pressure fire suppression system. So when the balcony door says keep it closed, there is a very important reason why.

Best advice appears to be: stop by the Lido and fill your pockets with food, before you go to the MDR. Or arrange for room service to be delivered in the MDR and then you are fully covered. Yes, there can be delays. They do happen. But we found this smooths out later in the cruise.

One does need to at least plan for perhaps a two-day turnaround time when laundry is sent out - often only one day and best of the same day. But a two-day turnaround has happened. Therefore plan the numbers of your items that will need to pack for this 9 day cruise, with this in mind. A 9-day cruise in fact is really a 7 day active cruise, since the embarkation and departure days are included. Day 1 Embarkation Day Day 2 -send items out and at the very worst get them back on Day 4 Day 3 - send items out and at the very worst get them back on Day 5 Day 4 - send items out and at the very worst get them back on Day 6 Day 5 - send items out and at the very worst get them back on Day 7 Day 6- send out items and at the very worst get them back on Day 8 Day 7 - probably not able to send out any more items Day 8 - for certain not able to send out any more items Day 9 - Departure Day You can pay extra for expedited service. So in some ways you need to pack double to cover the lag time between sending items out and the risk of not getting them back for two days. Point being, for long cruises unlimited laundry is a god-send. Not so much on shorter cruises or if one hopes to pack a lot less. Yes, I have too much time on my hands today - it is raining.

Did you like the Zaandam? Volendam is her sister ship. Bigger than the Maasdam, smaller than the Vistas. She is just right. If you want a low key, more intimate feeling cruise experience on ship that is easy to get around, but with fewer bells and whistles now standard on the larger ships. If you are a more self-contained traveler, the Volendam can be your sweet spot.

Why is a shower curtain a "deal breaker"?

It might be an initial error to think one is going to a land-based restaurant with dining in the MDR, and not to a hotel banquet room when traveling on a mass market cruise line. When one chooses to upgrade the experience to an onboard speciality restaurant for a surcharge, is when higher expectations appropriate to apply. And yes, we too have had every possible good or bad experience onboard too. Comes with the nature of the beast. But somehow it all evens out over the duration of the cruise. And whatever new service delivery scheme they are using at the time to try and make it work.

How many times do you think will you need to do laundry during a 9 day cruise? Can depend on the climate where you are traveling, the types of fabrics you like to wear, as well as the ease of rinsing out a few things on your own in your cabin - there is a clothes line in the bathroom over the tub. Coming from the long ago days of traveling when rinsing things out in the sink was pretty standard to evolving now to much more travel-wise clothes and easy care fabric choices. I wonder really how much packing space you will save and how much daily laundry you actually contemplate. A couple sets of underwear, or entire outfits? I hear you about trying to cut down on packing and the ease of handling smaller suitcases. I once did hot and humid Vietnam and found daily rinsing out a 100% linen travel "uniform" in the sink with easy overnight drying was all I needed. And in colder climates, I always take a set of long silk underwear, which also gets the overnight sink and dry treatment too.

I wonder what direction they jog/walk on Liberian flagged ships.