OlsSalt

Function wins out over form?

G-F requires no cross-contamination and separate cooking facilities and equipment. One of the reasons we no longer have freshly made bread dough on HAL ships - no way they could control the cross-contamination of wheat flour in the galley spaces.

Good point about capacity and actual bookings. Both Celebrity (not yet sold out) and Royal Caribbean (sold out) are embarking passengers that same day, for one last 7 day Alaska run. Good thing our first Noordam 14-day port stop is distant Kodiak Island, so by the time we come back down to the more routine Alaska ports, the rest of the big ships will have been gone.

Wonderful report. May I share your post with our Roll Call group?

Canada Place - Sept 17 - 9,266 expected arriving and departing passengers to handle - which makes a possible total nearly 20,000 to pass in and out that day? Let alone any crew transfers. ---Viking Orion - 930 ---Celebrity Eclipse - 3420 ---Noordam - 2366 ---Brilliance of the Seas -2580 Are these other ships loading up for another Alaska run, or taking their ships back on repositioning cruises to warmer waters? Maybe they will not be fully booked. Noordam is loading up for a 14 day last Alaska run on that day, so it is fully booked. Come on, Canada Place. I know you are now up to this. Which docks will get assigned will be another interesting factor at what looks like the close of the 2023 Alaska cruise season. We come back to Vancouver Canada Place two weeks later, when we share port with only the Nieuw Amsterdam, as we continue on down the Pacific Coast.

I think I would rather jump in later.

Good point about other ship traffic that day. Just checked the Canada Place port schedule. Yikes, four ships and two of them are Big Ones. Don't know if they are arriving or departing, or both ....yet. Looks like it will be hurry up and wait, regardless. Good thing we are stay at the Pan Pacific and can get a feel for what might be unfolding that day.

I wonder if "Group A" is assigned by sheer age. Give the verified old folks extra time to get onboard? Since I will be having my four score milestone now met before a few days before boarding, and DH has already exceeded his. We know the upgrade fairy works in mysterious ways. Who runs the boarding time Master Assigner?

Indeed, this is Canada Place. Thanks for the feedback.

Walking down the hallways when the doors were open to the Konigsdam inside cabins, I had to do a double after seeing how small they were. A compact cubicle - they looked dark and oppressive. But efficient. All the basics were there. Then I thought about my own 60 day experience in an inside cabin on my first long cruise in the 1970's (MS Gallileo) which was a set of bunk beds, a small sink and two very cramped broom closets for two people. That was it. The adventure being onboard s made that inside cabin doable, since all I needed the cabin for was to sleep in, brush teeth, change clothes and use the full bathroom down the hall. This cramped inside cabin did open the door to ship travel for me, and for that I shall always be grateful.

Just saw this printed in black and white on our boarding pass - assigned check-in time Group A - 10AM. Is this an invitation to simply hurry up and wait? Can't imagine any real boarding will take place before 11:30 or so. Anyone else have experience with an assigned 10AM check-in?

Only if you like small, dead sounds too. It could work.

I see Crystal is now back in the game, with just one ship for more high end cruising with emphasis on dining. Cost differential between HAL, let alone number of passengers served and your preferred cruise line choices should have been a good clue what to expect at their competing pre diem costs.

Which ship are you on? This matters, when it comes to various Club Orange amenities that can be included already in your Neptune Suite status. Welcome back. Looks like you will have a very nice return to cruising experience, regardless of any Club Orange details. Neptune Suite status I believe covers most of them. But this can be ship-dependent. From my own observations, there is nothing about Club Orange that is or is not a deal breaker if you miss out because Neptune already covers most bases. Even on a ship that had no dedicated Club Orange space, we were offered a special Club Orange entree on our menu in the main dining room as Neptune guests. Which confused us since we were not "Club Orange". It was never really anything particularly special, just another menu option.

Cunard appears to be more of a point to point transit transportation line, than a cruise line. If one still wants to travel to various fairly fixed places around the world by sea, that is what they best offer. Not unlike most of the historic maritime lines before "cruising" took over the industry after the 1970's. Sea travel was how you got from point to point. And a very fine offering at that. Between a long cramped TA flight and jet lag, if one has the time and resources then a Cunard slower passage between continents is really a very nice option to have. Connecting the former global "British Empire" and still robust Commonwealth connections is still big business. My friends out there in the far flung "former British colonies" often still keep nostalgic ties to the Mother Country, even though long independent. Family members generations removed still keep those ties alive too.

No laundry hamper in the cabin, but each bathroom has a retractible clothes line over the tub where you can hang things to dry. There is a large open basket that we use to store our dirty clothes before we send them out a laundry bag. The open basket is found in the closet, and I believe it is originally intended for shoes to be left in the hall way overnight to be polished. (!!!! Has anyone done this?) There is a hamper in the spa changing room, to deposit the complimentary robe that was provided in your spa locker.

Lots of variations for Sicilian cassata shapes - but basic ingredients pretty much the same combos, but in different ratios. Usually less candied fruit/citron for more western tastes, but still a hint of the haunting Fior d'Italia flavoring. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sicilian+cassata&t=osx&ia=images&iax=images

I struggled with pronouncing the umlauted Ü versus the unaccented U when learning German. Until my teacher drew a picture where the tongue was to placed against the teeth or not, when making the Ü sound. Made all the difference, which I could not pick up just by listening to the two very different U sounds. Italian pronunciation also likes hearing at least a hint of every vowel, even when strung together in short words. As well as a slight explosion of separation when pronouncing double consonants. English has its weird rules sometimes, but is pretty straight forward in most pronunciations.

Is the "marzipan thingy" the Sicilian Cassata. Almond paste over a dome-shaped sponge cake base?

Dive-In is more than Micky D's. Hope you enjoy the range of their "hot sandwich" offerings, with fries. Their portobello garden burger is very good. Though my own go-to comfort food just happens to be Micky D's Fish Sandwich, with fries and a coke. Often after long trips, or even in the middle of them, that MacDonald's meal is always my touch of home anywhere around the world. Amazingly consistent product no matter where one buys it.

We always eat a fresh orange every day - either bring it down from the Lido or ask for "just oranges" from the steward. Found it makes a good enough afternoon snack to hold over til' dinner, when the Lido cookies seem to be also calling my name.

Please HAL - a swim suit water extractor. Thank you. Eg: Suitmate: extract 95% of the water in 8 seconds. https://suitmate.com

A prior poster suggested HAL should provide a "swim suit spinner" for the thermal spa dressing room, so one can leave with at least a partially dry swim suit. Even a hand-crank wringer like days of yore would be handy, if one has a simple suit to wring out with no internal construction that could be damaged. Let's all agree to put that in our post -cruise surveys and maybe HAL management will take note. Dear HAL, Please put in a swim suit spinner in the Thermal Spa dressing room. Thank you. Or whatever else it is called.

Had the same reaction, a small laugh ourselves. NA is as big as we will ever go now on HAL ships. It is nice ship, but miss the onboard intimacy and ease of the real HAL ships, down the food chain. Never do another Pinnacle, that is for sure.

Hard to spell words with unknown pronunciation for a general English-speaking customer base can be a drawback. Just saying. "Nieuw" is a bit of a tongue twister for the uninitiated. But easy as pie once one learns it is pronounced "New". (Or is it, in Dutch?) Could pie really be pi-ee? I remember a Swiss friend who had fun with English pronunciations. He would always say "close - ed", for closed. They had learned the English suffix "ed" often called for a separate pronunciation, so it got separate billing when they saw it in a word. Close- ed. The store is close- ed.