Holland America Nieuw Statendam 3/12/23

[Iamthesea]

"paid a significant amount to upgrade to a suite for club orange"

 

From the above statement, sounds like the OP upgraded to a Neptune because the only suites that come with CO are Neptune and above.  Would have been much less to upgrade to a Veranda and paid the Club Orange fee.  But perhaps there were no other memberships available unless they purchased a Neptune.

 

OP, were children in Club Orange?  

Edited March 18, 2023 by Iamthesea

[terrydtx]

4 minutes ago, Iamthesea said:

"paid a significant amount to upgrade to a suite for club orange"

 

From the above statement, sounds like the OP upgraded to a Neptune because the only suites that come with CO are Neptune and above.  Would have been much less to upgrade to a Veranda and paid the Club Orange fee.  But perhaps there were no other memberships available unless they purchased a Neptune.

 

OP, were children in Club Orange?  

However his first post stated the following which contradicts the above, all very confusing.

 

We did upgrade the room to Club Orange in a veranda since the Bingo free cruise is the cheapest inside state room category.

[Laminator]

47 minutes ago, albingirl said:

Curious. How did you spend 6 thousand dollars on a free cruise?

This is my end of cruise statement from my FREE Neptune Suite, without having a paid upgrade, that ended 2/18. If the pax plays bingo she is probably in the casino also. It can add up quickly.

[albingirl]

2 minutes ago, Laminator said:

This is my end of cruise statement from my FREE Neptune Suite, without having a paid upgrade, that ended 2/18. If the pax plays bingo she is probably in the casino also. It can add up quickly.

yikes.  Another reason why I don't gamble.

[Laminator]

Just now, albingirl said:

yikes.  Another reason why I don't gamble.

Very smart person. Fortunately I have the means to afford my stupidity.

[awesomefat]

1 hour ago, Iamthesea said:

"paid a significant amount to upgrade to a suite for club orange"

 

From the above statement, sounds like the OP upgraded to a Neptune because the only suites that come with CO are Neptune and above.  Would have been much less to upgrade to a Veranda and paid the Club Orange fee.  But perhaps there were no other memberships available unless they purchased a Neptune.

 

OP, were children in Club Orange?  

 

1 hour ago, Iamthesea said:

"paid a significant amount to upgrade to a suite for club orange"

 

From the above statement, sounds like the OP upgraded to a Neptune because the only suites that come with CO are Neptune and above.  Would have been much less to upgrade to a Veranda and paid the Club Orange fee.  But perhaps there were no other memberships available unless they purchased a Neptune.

 

OP, were children in Club Orange?  

No young children in club orange, there was one family with 10-12 year olds, but they were not an issue at all.

[awesomefat]

1 hour ago, Laminator said:

Very smart person. Fortunately I have the means to afford my stupidity.

I don’t gamble, my wife likes to do the manual dobber thing for bingo and I use the iPad and drink.  

[Laminator]

11 minutes ago, awesomefat said:

I don’t gamble, my wife likes to do the manual dobber thing for bingo and I use the iPad and drink.  

I was just trying to let other posters know that the expenses can add up quickly. 

[awesomefat]

35 minutes ago, Laminator said:

I was just trying to let other posters know that the expenses can add up quickly. 

Yea, no worries

 

[PROCRUISE]

5 hours ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

Unfortunately the skip the line seems to be a myth.  I’ve had club orange on my last few cruises.  The line has been much, much slower at the front desk and also with shorex.  I’ve also waited to get into club orange for breakfast most days.  Some days the length has been fairly long.

I guess it just all depends when you're cruising! Was on the NS the first week of last December and just got off the Rotterdam March 8th. Paid for Orange Club on both cruises. Never waited to be seated at breakfast or dinner in Orange Club dining, where we ate all our evening meals, and found the service and food to be excellent. Never waited for more than 5 minutes at Guest Services Orange Club line. This was particularly helpful the first day when there was even a separate long line for those needing help with their iPhones/Internet. Orange Club line, for the same help needed, only waited for one other person ahead of me. Particularly like the Orange Club dining area due to the quietness, attentive staff and food served HOT.

[Iamthesea]

4 hours ago, PROCRUISE said:

This was particularly helpful the first day when there was even a separate long line for those needing help with their iPhones/Internet. Orange Club line, for the same help needed, only waited for one other person ahead of me. Particularly like the Orange Club dining area due to the quietness, attentive staff and food served HOT.

Is there no Internet Cafe on the ship?  What a pain to have to go to Guest Services for Internet help and having to fight the line of people needing help for a multitude of other things.

7 hours ago, terrydtx said:

However his first post stated the following which contradicts the above, all very confusing.

 

We did upgrade the room to Club Orange in a veranda since the Bingo free cruise is the cheapest inside state room category.

I guess we are not going to get the answer of what type of stateroom was booked!

[RuthC]

52 minutes ago, Iamthesea said:

Is there no Internet Cafe on the ship?  What a pain to have to go to Guest Services for Internet help and having to fight the line of people needing help for a multitude of other things.

There is an Internet room on the Nieuw Statendam, but I would never call it a café. It's more like a long closet with three stations (two computers) on one side, one on the other, and one on the end, by the entrance. There is room for someone to sit inside at the empty station, but there is no room for the passenger to stand there. 
Since most people either have a smart phone with which to connect, or bring a laptop or tablet, there is no need to have a person stationed in that room. 

On my cruise on the Nieuw Statendam there were so many problems with people unable to connect (the first few days), that a person was stationed in an open area near the Internet room, in part of the atrium. It was a mob scene there. 

[Iamthesea]

Good to know!   

I am used to the cafe on Celebrity.  Admittedly, the computers there were not used by me because I have an iPad, but there was always someone working that could answer connection problems.  We did use the computers on the last day to print out our airline passes if we were flying out the next day.  Thank you! 😉

[awesomefat]

I guess the lesson I learned here is to not mention anything about specific prices as folks try to reverse engineer everything and focus more on why/how I paid what I did rather than on my comments.  I ended up in a normal (not neptune) suite in club orange.  Since my original cruise was the "free" BINGO cruise its value was the cheapest inside room with zero promotional offers.  After upgrading the room, upgrading to club orange, adding drinks packages and wifi, and all port fees things simply add up.  Regardless...  my original comments stand and my goal was to inform.  I wanted to present my experience to others so they can decide if the things that I liked/disliked were important to them to ultimately decide if HAL was for them and more specifically if the NS was the right ship for them.  It was not for me for the reasons I explained above.  This week I am on the Celebrity Beyond in an Aqua Sky Suite in the Retreat and as speculated the experience is far superior (at a higher cost of course), but it isn't perfect.  I will be posting that review in a different thread with the same goal in mind.  Present my experience, and let the reader decide for themselves if that experience sounds good for them and then they can research the actual cost and decide if it is worth the price to them. 

 

As a final comment, I will say that for those of you who do assume that a "free cruise" is this amazing perk, it has a lot of "constraints" associated with it.  In hindsight, I did find out too late that I could have used the BINGO certificate for a credit toward ANY cruise when the certificate itself says it has to be a Caribbean or Western Mexico non holiday cruise.  I think I could have squeezed more value out of it than I did with this BINGO certificate.  I'd estimate that the perk ended up giving me about $900 in value when all was said and done, and I think that much of that value was lost because I was not able to take advantage of current advertised perks.  I'm afraid to do the math, but it is entirely possible that I would have actually ended up paying less total had I not used the certificate with the current promotions.  In any case, we did have a nice time and I appreciate all of you who had constructive responses and questions.

[Florida_gal_50]

I’d love someone to take $900 off my cruise bill.  All the extras add up for everyone. Thanks for coming back and letting us know what room you were in.

[albingirl]

16 hours ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I’d love someone to take $900 off my cruise bill.  All the extras add up for everyone. Thanks for coming back and letting us know what room you were in.

Me too. I tried to book a cruise the other day and was astonished at the price. Tried looking at it without the perks, and in a lesser cabin, but still very high. No bargains for me, I see.

[robotpony]

Our first "free" cruise experience ended up feeling more positive for us, but we expected to pay for HIA and any other upgrades we made.

 

We received a "free" cruise in August 2022 that we booked for September 2023. With taxes/port fees, a cabin upgrade and HIA the 11 day European cruise was around $4200 (CAD), plus flights, hotels, and such. This seemed like a good value for us, so we were happy with it!

[albingirl]

1 hour ago, robotpony said:

Our first "free" cruise experience ended up feeling more positive for us, but we expected to pay for HIA and any other upgrades we made.

 

We received a "free" cruise in August 2022 that we booked for September 2023. With taxes/port fees, a cabin upgrade and HIA the 11 day European cruise was around $4200 (CAD), plus flights, hotels, and such. This seemed like a good value for us, so we were happy with it!

That's far less expensive than me without a free cruise. Trust me.