14 months and counting Posted June 29, 2013 #1 Share Posted June 29, 2013 We are on an Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver and next month. How do you open the room safe on the Volendam? Some ships have numeric key pads and some have a magnetic strip that require a credit card. Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randyk47 Posted June 29, 2013 #2 Share Posted June 29, 2013 Slowly but surely HAL has changed all safes over to the numeric key pad model. In the past we used one of our frequent flier cards that had a magnetic strip on it, not much information on that. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sail7seas Posted June 29, 2013 #3 Share Posted June 29, 2013 I thought they had switched all the safes over to four digit code but a few weeks ago learned Zaandam still has the magnetic strip system. Thus, it is possible Volendam, being her sister, might also. I'll be interested to hear from someone who has sailed her very recently. I always have a card from an out of business department store in my carryon just in case we need to use a magnetic strip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storylady Posted June 29, 2013 #4 Share Posted June 29, 2013 We just used our room key as we always had it with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowsby Posted June 29, 2013 #5 Share Posted June 29, 2013 We are on an Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver and next month. How do you open the room safe on the Volendam? Some ships have numeric key pads and some have a magnetic strip that require a credit card. Thanks for your help. The Volendam has the magnetic strip kind.......I used our AAA travel card....I think any card with a magnetic strip will work...... We took this trip in May and it was great.....!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sail7seas Posted June 29, 2013 #6 Share Posted June 29, 2013 The Volendam has the magnetic strip kind.......I used our AAA travel card....I think any card with a magnetic strip will work...... We took this trip in May and it was great.....!! Thanks. After learning about Zaandam, I suspected Volendam could still have the old style as well. Any card with a magnetic strip works. I don't use room key as it might be possible any room key could work on the safe. I haven't tried it and won't but don't want to take the chance. Easy enough to take along a useless (for any other reason) magnetic strip card and have more confidence it is more secure. I am sure someone will tell us the HAL key card used on the safe is the only one that will work and they are likely right but I don't think it a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxurysailer Posted June 30, 2013 #7 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Thanks. After learning about Zaandam, I suspected Volendam could still have the old style as well. Any card with a magnetic strip works. I don't use room key as it might be possible any room key could work on the safe. I haven't tried it and won't but don't want to take the chance. Easy enough to take along a useless (for any other reason) magnetic strip card and have more confidence it is more secure. I am sure someone will tell us the HAL key card used on the safe is the only one that will work and they are likely right but I don't think it a good idea. We were on Volendam the last two weeks of March, and the room safes were opened and closed with a magnetic strip. We were instructed to use our room key. I don't think there should be any serious worry about other room keys opening your safe. If my wife locked the safe with her key, mine wouldn't open it. And vice versa. This could present a problem if whichever one of us had locked the safe wasn't in the stateroom if the other desired to open the safe. BTW we,ve been cruising with HAL for twenty years, and this was the first time we didn't use a four digit code. We like the four digit code better since either of us can always enter the safe regardless of whichever locked it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sail7seas Posted July 1, 2013 #8 Share Posted July 1, 2013 We were on Volendam the last two weeks of March, and the room safes were opened and closed with a magnetic strip. We were instructed to use our room key. I don't think there should be any serious worry about other room keys opening your safe. If my wife locked the safe with her key, mine wouldn't open it. And vice versa. This could present a problem if whichever one of us had locked the safe wasn't in the stateroom if the other desired to open the safe. BTW we,ve been cruising with HAL for twenty years, and this was the first time we didn't use a four digit code. We like the four digit code better since either of us can always enter the safe regardless of whichever locked it. Curious..... Who instructed you to use room key card? We've never had anyone make any suggestion whatsoever what card we should use. That is not a good idea for people to KNOW many guests may be using their room key for the safe. You give a good example of one reason to not use room key. When we need to use a card, which has been a while, we used an out of business department store card and we both knew where it was kept. We've had over 80 cruises on HAL ships starting in about 1991 so we're not brand new cruisers either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
14 months and counting Posted July 1, 2013 Author #9 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Thanks for letting me know the Volendam's safe needs a magnetic strip card to unlock it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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