On a Med cruise now with kids on HAL

[boulders]

We are on the 4th day of our Med cruise on HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam. I'm not very good at long reviews, so I though I'd give some impressions of HAL with kids. Most of the reviews that I saw before we sailed, and there weren't many, were of grandparents with kids. I'm a single mom, with 3 kids, ds16, dd13 and ds7.

 

Nieuw Amsterdam is a 2 year old ship. She's 86700 tons. She holds 2104 passengers. On this sailing, there are about 200 kids. They tell me that this is 3X as many as usual. On a RCCL or Disney ship, this would be a very low number. HAL has the reputation for having a lot of walkers, scooters, wheelchairs etc. I've seen one scooter and one wheelchair. The majority of the passengers are in their 50's-60's. About 1/4 are families with kids. There are very few people who are over 70. This may be due to the length of the cruise. We are on the ship for 24 days, which is a collectors' cruise of 2 12 day cruise. HAL sometimes packages 2 or more cruises as collectors' cruises. There can be a significant savings vs booking the 2 cruises separately.

 

HAL kids club: DS is in the 3-7 age group. As usual, he's been there as much as possible. He doesn't seem to mind being with the little kids. Sometimes, they combine the 3-7's with the 8-12's. Since they have video games in the 8-12 room, ds loves that. The rooms are not nearly as large as the rooms on Princess, but they seem to be big enough. The 8-12 room is especially nice with a New York taxicab parked in it.

 

DD checked out the loft which is the area for 13-17 year olds. She was not impressed with the room, but did go on the first night to make some friends and has hung around with them some.

 

Stateroom: A lot of people on the HAL board highly recommended the main deck interior J cabins, promoting them as very spacious. We've got 4 people in one of those cabins. It is reasonably fine except: the pullman bed pulls out over the top of the 2 regular beds. This makes it impossible to sit up in bed when the pullman is down. The nice sofa has a single sofa bed in it, which when pulled out, takes up half the floor space. The stateroom attendant suggested that DS7 just sleep on the sofa without the bed pulled out, but ds would have none of that.

 

Unlimited laundry: We spent 5 nights in London, England before the cruise and I had the kids only bring about 8 days of clothing each. HAL has an unlimited laundry package which includes laundering and pressing. It costs $9x#nights of the cruise. The price is per cabin, so is well worth it with multiple people in the cabin.

 

Smoking: As I walk around the ship, I can't really smell any smoke anywhere except the casino. Unfortunately, we are under the casino and I can smell smoke in our room when the casino is open. Occasionally, I can smell smoke in the room even when the casino is not open.

 

Food: The MDR is as good as any other MDR I've been in, except maybe Princess. The desserts are much better than RCCL.

 

Internet: I got a 1000 minute package for $250. It might last me half the cruise.

 

I'll try and post some more later.

 

Boulders

[maui_zaui]

Thanks for the update. We are going on the same ship come August for 12 nights. I have a 2 year old and a 7 year old. I am somewhat dreading the time, as I know there is nothing for the 2 y.o. Glad to hear that your 7 year old is fine hanging out with the younger ones. I suspect my older one will also be OK with it.

 

Hope you have a great trip!

[crusinmama06]

24 days! Have an amazing time! I will keep looking for your updates.

[boulders]

I booked a cabana in the cabana club. We saved quite a bit of money by not booking a verandah, so I spent some of it on the cabana for 24 days. The cabana club is a private area on deck 11 with about 12 cabanas , several lounge chairs and 2 waiters. Inside the cabana are 2 lounge chairs and a table and chairs. We get a bowl of fresh fruit, bottles of water, lunch service, bar service and a plate of chocolate strawberries.

 

Today is a sea day. We are going around the boot of Italy. It is very very hot and humid on deck, even though we are moving. I can hear, but not see, that there must be lots of people in the pool.

 

Yesterday, we were in Sicily. I dragged ds16 on an excursion to Mt. Etna. It was a 2 hour bus ride there and a 2 hour bus ride back. We spent just over an hour at some of the craters of Mt. Etna. The scientist in me loved it, but I would not recommend it for younger kids because of the long bus ride.

[maui_zaui]

Hope you are still having a great time. Looking forward to more updates!

[Keith1010]

Hope you have been enjoying the cruise.

 

Keith

[boulders]

We're still having a great time. Today we sail into Venice just after lunch. We plan to watch the sail in from our cabana - should make the expense worth it. Then, we're off to Murano and Burano. I love blown glass and plan to spend some money on Murano. We have a whole 48 hours in Venice on the ship. The 12 day cruise ends tomorrow and the second begins. There are a lot of people staying on for the second cruise.

 

We are in a single inside cabin. So far we haven't killed each other yet. I have booked another long cruise, on the Eurodam for next summer. This one goes to the Baltics, Norwegian fjords and the British Isles. We will be in a verandah on that cruise.

 

Last night was the 3rd formal night. They had escargots and real lobster. The waiters did a baked Alaska parade. I really don't understand the parade -- since the Baked Alaskas aren't flaming, I figure they might as well be parading cheeseburgers. The kids had the baked Alaskas after the parade and said that the ice cream was pretty much melted.

 

Yesterday we were in Dubrovnik. We mostly saw the city from the ship, but it was still beautiful. There were some tables set up on the dock by the locals selling their wares. I attempted to use my Visa for a small purchase, but my bank wouldn't put it through, even though I have plenty of credit available. I had no trouble with it in England, Italy or Greece. I'll try again in Venice, and I suspect it was an issue specific to Croatia.

[maui_zaui]

Glad you have a nice cabana and another 12+ days to go! Sounds lovely. I do have some questions, if you don't mind:

 

Do you happen to recall which nights were your formal nights?

 

Also, did you stop at Santorini? If so, how did you go about your day there? I am nervous about that stop with our 2 y/o in tow.

 

And, finally, have you noticed any places on board that may be appropriate for us to hang out with the 2 y/o in? We also do not have a verandah this time, so I foresee us wanting to be out of the cabin more often than not. Since we cannot bring her to the kids' club, I am wondering where, if any, we can go. I think renting a cabana would be out of the question, since it seems it may not be the safest option for a toddling 2 y/o.

 

Thanks! And enjoy Venice!

[boulders]

Maui zaui, I just replied to your thread on the HAL board. I mentioned the culinary lounge for the trivia games - this would also be a good place for the 2 year old to use up some energy if the area is not in use. It's on deck 2.

 

The cabana club should be fine for your 2 year old. There are no breakables in the area and the whole area is really a large private verandah outside of deck 11. The only stairs nearby are ones going up and they are on the outside of a roped off area. The cabana club seems underused to me, so there's not a lot of worry of bothering other guests.

 

There are 3 formal nights. Two are on the sea days. On the first leg of our journey, we also had formal night on the Dubrovnik night and on the second leg, formal night will be on the second Istanbul night.

 

We haven't been to Santorini yet.

[boulders]

Well, we've had quite the adventure in Venice. On the first day, I wasn't prepared for how early our sail in would be. The info we were given was that arrival would be 1 pm. It actually started long before 12 noon, which was when we got on deck. We had a great view from the cabana club.

 

We took a Murano and Burano tour. This was a 5 hour tour which promised shopping. Yippee! The shopping was only 45 minutes in each location though. Boo! The rest of the time was spent on a boat getting to and from each place.

 

The showroom that we were taken to in Murano was VERY expensive. We bought one small thing in another shop.

 

Our tour guides were very nice as they have been on every ship tour we've taken. I asked one in Murano if she could direct me to an ATM - called a Bancomat in Italy. I'd used the Bancomats in Rome and Florence. She said there wasn't one close by, but there would be a close one in Burano. So, when we got to Burano, I asked her again and she directed me to one around the corner. I got to the Bancomat and slid my card into the machine. It was then that I discovered that I couldn't read the machine's screen. The very strong sun was shining directly onto it. I could only see bits and pieces of the words and my Italian isn't that great. I was able to ask it for money, but did not see the part to enter my PIN. Up popped a screen which said something about 30 seconds and to take my card. Umm, my card's still in the machine. What is the screen saying? I get my ds16 who has just finished his first semester of Italian to see if he can make it out. He's trying to read and decipher this when there's a little whirring sound and the screen goes to the original screen. Um, where's my card? I hit cancel. Nothing. The @#$#@ machine ate my card. Is the bank open? It's 4:30, but the bank closed at 3:45. Oh @#$#$@! I send my son to get the tour guide, she looks at the situation, then goes and gets the other tour guide, who looks at the situation. She goes back to the lace shop to see if the owner of the shop knows someone who works at the bank. Nothing, nada, rien. Now I'm on a cruise for 13 more days, with zero cash (because my credit card didn't work in Dubrovnik), and no debit card. Most main shops will take credit cards, but if you want to buy a drink - which we have been doing A LOT - it's been 95+ degrees in most stops - you need cash. We also need cash for the private tours that we have booked in Athens and Ephesus. We head back to the lace shop and start to look at lace. DS7 says he's hungry. I explain I have no money for anything and he starts to cry. The lady in the lace shop asks what's wrong and when I explain, she goes and gets some crackers for him. After looking at the lace, we head back to the boat, which is not yet ready to leave. DS7 is now very thirsty. I ask the little restaurant if they take credit cards - no. I dig through my purse and come up with 1.80 euros. We go back and ask how much a bottle of water is. It's 2 euros. I beg and ask if they'll accept 1.80 - which they do. And now we have to leave the little island of Burano and travel an hour on the shore excursion boat back to the ship where I'll have to call my bank and see if they can help me.

 

I'll update this saga tomorrow. :o

[junglejane]

Wow sorry to hear about the mishap with the ATM card. Hopefully your bank will be able to help you. I'm sure the HAL passenger services desk and/or casino will give you cash for a fee. Anyway, good luck working it out and let us know what happens.

[crusinmama06]

Oh no Boulders! A friend and I were just talking about this happening to her - but it was Miami - not Venice! The bank said they would send the card to her "home address" and she was saying that was in PA - not Miami - where she needed her card!

 

I hope you are able to figure out a way to get money. I was thinking an advance from the ship as well - I hope they have the card on file.

 

Take care!

[maui_zaui]

Yikes! I really hope you get a new debit card quick! And thanks for all the updates and advice. Looking forward to hearing a good update about your debit card situation.

[lmg1230]

Hi Maui_zaui,

We were in Santorini with our kids last summer on a Celebrity cruise. My kids are quite a bit older - my oldest daughter was 14 and the younger had just turned 8. We weren't arriving in Santorini until late in the afternoon so we decided to book a shore excursion in order to get off the ship in the first batch of passengers which tendered in one spot before the ship moved on to Fira. We were then taken by bus to a winery and then to Oia for free time and then dropped in Fira and given a ticket for the cable car to return to the ship. We had a fairly laid back afternoon which was a good thing because it was incredibly hot. With a 2 year old, I would say that you will be fine on a tender or on the cable cars - I wouldn't think that you would want to ride the donkeys or climb the steps yourself with a toddler. Santorini is beautiful - you will love it!

 

Lisa

[maui_zaui]

Thanks, Lisa, for sharing your exp. at Santorini. I definitely do not plan on riding the donkeys and hopefully avoid the stairs. Glad you had a nice time. I am hoping the beauty of the island will outweigh the perceived transport challenges. I suspect it will.

 

boulders - still hoping you got your atm card issue sorted out quickly and with minimal damage.

[rebeccalouiseagain]

Thank you for your review. We did Zuiderdam in Europe and it was great because of the itinerary. I was glad that the youth program was just so-so because my son did want to get off the ship and explore. When the youth program is great the kids don't. So sometimes a mediocre youth program is a good thing.

 

There were lots of younger folks on our Greece/Turkey cruise in July 2008- because these cruises attract multi-generations since school is out. I did a New England cruise on Maasdam in June of 2011 though and it was full of old people. I think this cruise doesn't appeal to younger people and I loved the scenery but the ship was boring.

 

I would do another Holland for the itinerary but it isn't the greatest for kids. My son hated the Maasdam cruise but I think he would enjoy another one in Southern Europe because of the younger demographic.

[boulders]

I finally have some time to update. Because we were doing a b2b, the next day was changeover day. For us, that meant we had an entire day in Venice because both cruises had an overnight.

 

So, I get back to the ship and immediately get online to try and contact my bank. The internet has been reasonably fast - compared to other cruises we’ve been on. However, because the next day was debarkation, it was extraordinarily slooooow as people printed boarding passes etc. It took me half an hour to get just the phone number off the internet. I was so intent about this that I missed a phone call as ds7 couldn’t crawl fast enough over the beds- more about this later. After getting the phone number, I hightail it to guest services. One convenient thing I liked about our cabin location was it was on the same level as guest services.

 

Guest services allowed me to use their phone to call my bank. Yay! I got through to my bank, they put a withdrawal hold on my card, so no one can withdraw money, then they tell me that no, they can’t send me a new card overseas. Aaaah! I’m on this cruise for 13 more days. I need money! Well, they tell me I can use my credit card for cash advances. Of course, with the ridiculous interest rates. By this time, I’m exhausted and hungry. I go to dinner and go to bed, hoping that the tour guide will be able to retrieve my debit card before we sail. We get back to the room and the message light is blinking. I ask ds16 to retrieve the message, but he can’t figure out sequence of numbers to dial. He is usually reasonably bright, but not today. We go to sleep exhausted.

 

Next day, I wake up and remember that blinking light. I check the message. It’s shore excursions. They offer to take me back on the same shore excursion that morning so I can retrieve my card. The shore excursion leaves at 8 a.m. It’s now 9:15. Arrgh! I’ve missed it. I go to the front desk. They advise me to take a water taxi back to Burano. I go back to the room and get dd13 to come with me. We get off the ship, through the terminal, to the taxi line. They wave in a general direction when I ask them for the water taxis. After half a mile, we find the water taxi kiosk. It’s 140 euros for a water taxi. Eeek! Do they take credit cards? Nope. But there’s an ATM around the corner. I try the ATM, it doesn’t take my credit card. Arrgh. Back to the ship.

 

Front desk again. Can you give me some money off my credit card? Nope. At this point, I’m in tears. After some checking, the agent decides he can give me some money off my bingo winnings. My bingo winnings are in USD. So I’m paid in USD. Then it takes some time to convert to euros. By this time, it’s about 10:30. I go back to the room to get all my kids to come with me. I need reinforcements.

 

We all head out around 11 a.m. On the way, we ask a land taxi driver for the best way to get to Burano. It will take one People mover, one vaporetto and one ferry in the end for us to get to Burano. We land in Burano about 1:15 in a completely different part of town than we were the day before. DS16 and dd13 start heading off. After a few minutes, I ask them if they know where they’re going. Huh? Of course not. Arrgh. I give them a hint as to how to get to where we’re going. How about looking for that leaning tower that was close to where we had sailed in yesterday. We find the leaning tower easily. After a walk, we finally find the bank. Hurray! It closed for lunch 10 minutes ago. Boo. We have lunch in a restaurant until it reopens in an hour.

 

We get back to the bank precisely at 2:30, but it still doesn’t seem to be open. We each pull on the door - nothing. Finally, I decide to PUSH on the door and get in. This is where I discover a feature of European banks that North American banks don’t have - the metal detector. Not just any metal detector, but a metal detector that locks you in a little booth while it detects the metal. Only one person at a time can enter. I hand everything to my kids while I enter with just my passport. I tell the teller my story. He goes and retrieves my debit card and then starts the paperwork in triplicate, photocopies my passport and my debit card, has me sign here, here and here. Finally, I’m in possession of my debit card. We repeat our journey back to the ship and arrive “home” at 5 pm. It’s taken all day (un- airconditioned) to get the card. I do not have warm feelings towards Venice at this point.

[crusinmama06]

YES! I am so relieved you got your ATM card! Now hold onto that thing and don't let it go!

 

What an experience!

[maui_zaui]

phew! so glad to hear that you have your debit card back. Hope it is breeze to get it un-locked/un-blocked/whatever so you can use it for the remainder of your trip!

[travelhound]

Holy cow! What a saga. I hope it's easy to get it reinstated. Sorry you spent your whole day in Venice doing that. You get an A+ for perseverance! Hopefully the rest of your sailing is smooth and enjoyable.

[boulders]

I was easily able to get the debit card active again. Withdrawals have begun again!

 

This week has been packed solid with ports. Sunday - Athens, Monday and Tuesday - Istanbul, Wednesday - Mykonos, Thursday - Ephesus, Friday - Santorini.

 

We had a great private taxi in Athens, Dominic, from athensbytaxi. As it was a Sunday, the city was deserted, except for taxis and tour buses. They were all going to the Acropolis. The Acropolis was packed. Other sites were not. We ended up at the plaka which had some enjoyable shopping :D Athens was very friendly.

 

Next day was Istanbul where we had an overnight. The first afternoon we went on a cruise along the Bosphorus, where we saw the Asian side, the underground cisterns, which scared ds7 and the spice market. The spice market sold trinkets and spices.

 

Next day, still in Istanbul, we had a tour that took us to the Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace, a carpet demonstration and the Grand Bazaar. The Blue Mosque is a must see. The architecture and decorations were wonderful. The area of the Grand Bazaar was very hard sell. We learned not to even glance at the things for sale.

 

In Mykonos, we took the trip to Delos which was a mistake for us Northerners. It was hot, hot, hot. Now, all the ports have been very hot. But in Delos, there is no shade and the land is a total desert and there is a lot of reflective stone. We were only in the open for less than 2 hours, I had an umbrella for shade, and I still ended up with heat cramps. I went straight to bed after getting back to the ship and slept on and off for 17 hours. Unfortunately, the last 5 of those hours were our private Ephesus excursion. I got up to go tell our tour guide we wouldn't be going, paid him, and went back to bed for another long nap. I had been really looking forward to Ephesus, but I was exhausted and so were the kids.

[rebeccalouiseagain]

Thanks for posting. We did the same itinerary in July of 2008.

 

We only had two tours on our cruise- one in Ephesus and one in Istanbul. The other days we did our own thing. I think you shouldn't plan excursions for every port. Kids love the ship and aren't really interesting in touring in the first place.

[boulders]

We're home now! We were ready to go after Delos. :p I am writing up a full review and will post that in a few days.

 

First, I wanted to get opinions on an incident that happened this past week while we were still on the ship.

 

After Delos, we decided we weren't going to do a shore excursion that day. DS7 still wanted to go to the kids club. I ordered room service. It arrived at 7:45. I fed DS, we got dressed, and up to the kids club we went, around 8:10. The two teenagers were sleeping soundly. I got back to the room in about 7 minutes and discovered that my breakfast was gone! One of the room service personnel had entered the cabin while I was gone and taken the tray. In the cabin were dd13 and ds16.

 

Yes, I should have put the do not disturb sign on, but I didn't expect anyone to come to the room at that early hour, the cabin steward never did. However, I was aggravated that he entered the room, and once he realized that there were minors present - he spoke to them, so he definitely noticed them - he didn't exit immediately. I'm a teacher, so I know enough to not put myself in a position where I'm in a sleeping area or bathroom with minors present. Would you have been upset? Would you have spoken to someone else?

[rebeccalouiseagain]

In one of my previous posts- not on this thread... I warned Moms about some inappropriate behavior I noticed on HAL. I have two sons- so nothing untoward has happened to them (that I'm aware of) but I did notice one of the Indonesian crew flirting with girls about 14 years old. Now these girls had braces and didn't look like older teens or young women. They looked like girls.

 

I saw one of the crew members giving this guy a dirty look and appeared to be telling him to cut it out.

 

On one cruise (on Celebrity Galaxy) I was in the buffet getting a tray of food to take back to my cabin. The waiter asked if he could help and I explained that I was taking it back to my room. He took it from me and walked me to the elevator- where i expected him to give it to me. Oh no... he walked me to my room with it. Creepy! Thankfully my son was inside- so nothing happened. I told my tablemate (another single Mom) and she said she knew who I was talking about because he acted inappropriately toward her too.

 

Yes- there was absolutely no reason for someone to come in the cabin. But I'm not clear if the teens perhaps said if they were done and it was ok for them to take away the food.

[boulders]

The teens were still in bed. He woke them up to ask if they were done with the tray. They did say they were done. They weren't even aware that breakfast had been delivered. They thought that he was talking about the tray from the night before.