The thrifty cruisers Canada/New England review 4/29-5/6

[cgolf1]

So is anyone interested in this? I have all the daily sheets and the main dining room menus. 
 

I will include the exceptional to the head scratchers and give our honest opinions as a first time Hal cruiser, but our 19th overall. 
 

It will take a week plus to get it finished, and I will start tomorrow as I start going through pictures. For some reason just tired today after traveling all day home. 
 

Overall it was a great cruise. 

[spleenstomper]

3 minutes ago, cgolf1 said:

So is anyone interested in this? I have all the daily sheets and the main dining room menus. 
 

I will include the exceptional to the head scratchers and give our honest opinions as a first time Hal cruiser, but our 19th overall. 
 

It will take a week plus to get it finished, and I will start tomorrow as I start going through pictures. For some reason just tired today after traveling all day home. 
 

Overall it was a great cruise. 

We are really tired today too. Hilton upgraded us to a one bedroom suite so that’s been nice. We didn’t live Montréal like we thought we would. 

[cgolf1]

11 minutes ago, spleenstomper said:

We are really tired today too. Hilton upgraded us to a one bedroom suite so that’s been nice. We didn’t live Montréal like we thought we would. 

Due to late afternoon flights on Friday we got to our hotel near the port at around 11:45 at night. We did walk down to the port area at 8:30 in the morning to know where we would be going and hot a lot of nice pictures of the older buildings with all the details they now longer add to buildings. That was a lot of fun, but it was basically a straight walk to the port and we didn’t explore any more than that. 

[Mary229]

27 minutes ago, spleenstomper said:

We are really tired today too. Hilton upgraded us to a one bedroom suite so that’s been nice. We didn’t live Montréal like we thought we would. 

Where is your hotel?

[canadianbear]

You review and I’ll read!!  It’s been quite a few years since we did the Canada/New England cruise but we really liked it.  Ours was from New York to Quebec City though.  I’d love to end up in Montreal on our next one as our daughter & family live about 30 minutes outside of there.  I’m not one that cares about the dailies or menus but I’m sure others would.  I do enjoy seeing photos people take though 😁

[spleenstomper]

 

I meant today we were upgraded to a suite. Downtown Boston. 
 

In Montréal we stayed at Hilton garden inn. A lot of closed shops and plenty unhoused around. Like a lot. They didn’t bother us but we had to walk around a few. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Where is your hotel?

 

[Mary229]

14 minutes ago, spleenstomper said:

 

I meant today we were upgraded to a suite. Downtown Boston. 
 

In Montréal we stayed at Hilton garden inn. A lot of closed shops and plenty unhoused around. Like a lot. They didn’t bother us but we had to walk around a few. 

 

 

 

Years ago we made the decision to always stay in old town. It is always a pleasant stay but you do pay .  I live in a big city and have little tolerance for urban issues while away.

[cgolf1]

2 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Years ago we made the decision to always stay in old town. It is always a pleasant stay but you do pay .  I live in a big city and have little tolerance for urban issues while away.

We were down by the port, I believe old town, and saw none of that. Felt very safe walking around everywhere. Did see the tents set up in Halifax while being bussed to Lunenburg. 

[Mary229]

4 minutes ago, cgolf1 said:

We were down by the port, I believe old town, and saw none of that. Felt very safe walking around everywhere. Did see the tents set up in Halifax while being bussed to Lunenburg. 

Yes that is old town.   The area is great for wandering around and walking right to port.  The only Canadian places I saw tent cities last year was Chinatown Vancouver and Chinatown Montreal.  We spent our time in Halifax at the gardens, fort and back down to the waterfront. 

[Seanat]

Boarding Zaandam on the 20th so looking forward to your review and info.

[FreesiaE]

As a member of club Frugalite, I'm super interested in your take. We'll be on the ship in July.

[Blackduck59]

I'm interested in reading your thoughts. We are on Zaandam in late August, doing the 11 day Boston to Montreal that includes a stop in Newfoundland.

[beach spring]

Oh please post!  We are on the May 27 Boston to Montreal and I want to review  all the help/advice/opinions I can get.  I'm just needy that way.  OTOH, DH just may not even know the name of the ship until we board, LOL. 

TIA 

[coldinerie]

Yes please post, I am on the ship on the 20th of May!!

[Mary229]

7 hours ago, Blackduck59 said:

I'm interested in reading your thoughts. We are on Zaandam in late August, doing the 11 day Boston to Montreal that includes a stop in Newfoundland.

Which stop?   

[puppycanducruise]

Looking forward to reading all about it.  Thanks.

[rodndonna]

12 hours ago, spleenstomper said:

We are really tired today too. Hilton upgraded us to a one bedroom suite so that’s been nice. We didn’t live Montréal like we thought we would. 

 

Aside from their hockey team (you are a HABS fan or you are NOT a HABS fan, there is NO in between), everybody seems to like Montreal.

 

Should you ever return, as other have said, spend you time in Old Montreal which is really the reason to visit Montreal.

[cgolf1]

About us, I am now pushing 50 and wife is still mid 40s. This is our First HAL cruise. This was our 19th cruise overall. Onboard we go to relax and don’t do lot of the more social activities. It was the same pre Covid, we just love a nice cruise. The Eastern Canada is a bucket list trip for us, especially a land trip to Oak Island once tours open up again. We were excited about the full promenade deck to walk on since many newer ships forget about these. 
 

We booked this trip last minute, a month out, and my wife’s parents decided to join us for the first time. As you probably noticed there were lots of questions from me, especially what would happen once we fly into Canada. We have been binge watching How to catch a smuggler on Disney+ so we had some crazy thoughts about how it would go. Also researching on Canada’s website makes it sound really difficult. 
 

I have been gluten free for 16 years and right before the trip I got a blind test of eating gluten again and it made me physically ill. We had bought a sour cream based dip on clearance, never seen one with gluten, and I was having a rough week before the cruise. Thankfully my wife found the source of the problem, the dip had wheat, and I started to feel better right away and by day 2 of the cruise life was good again. It was a great test to remind me I can’t ever stop the diet, but wow the timing could have been better. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by cgolf1

[Nickelpenny]

Yes please post your review!  I board in Boston June 10th!! 

[bakcd]

Please share your experiences with the gluten free diet on your sailing.  We will be on the ship later this month.  Did they have gluten free beer?

 

[Shalandara]

33 minutes ago, cgolf1 said:

I have been gluten free for 16 years and right before the trip I got a blind test of eating gluten again and it made me physically ill. We had bought a sour cream based dip on clearance, never seen one with gluten, and I was having a rough week before the cruise. Thankfully my wife found the source of the problem, the dip had wheat, and I started to feel better right away and by day 2 of the cruise life was good again. It was a great test to remind me I can’t ever stop the diet, but wow the timing could have been better. 

I actually have a had a friend experience this as well with a onion/sourcream commercial dip -- so they will only do homemade dips now since they do not want to risk it ever again.

[cgolf1]

1 hour ago, Shalandara said:

I actually have a had a friend experience this as well with a onion/sourcream commercial dip -- so they will only do homemade dips now since they do not want to risk it ever again.

 

What made this worse was that wheat was the second ingredient on the label. We are always very careful, but got in a spot where we each thought the other read the label and neither of us had. 

[cgolf1]

So I want to start this with we will definitely be sailing HAL again, but I want to give our 100% honest feedback about everything, including the bad stuff.

 

We started sailing Disney and got sucked into the Disney is magical thing, and once the cutbacks happened with the price increases, Disney used to be very thrifty, we branched out to RCCL and our eyes were opened wide once we realized that Disney isn't the best at everything. We then branched out to Celebrity and they have become our gold standard, especially with how they handle the gluten free experience. 

 

That said we have never had a perfect cruise, and we will be chasing it for a long time. Every cruise has its bumps in the road.

 

I even had a bad cruiser moment when we had a reservation for the 4 of us and it sounded like we would be seated with another couple. I complained while walking up the steps, not loudly, but was essentially in panic attack mode. I get along very well with people I know, but when in a social situation with people I don't know, I say very little, and probably come off as rude. I just don't have the social gene in me. So if that couple is reading this and overheard my freak out, I do apologize. Not proud of it, but I said that I would be honest and that includes me having that moment.

 

That said we did have a lovely couple from Halifax added to our table one night that were very easy to talk to and gave us lots of good intel on Halifax. We did have some bad matches in the past on Disney, so that is why we like to eat alone whenever possible.

[BetsyS.]

I have a peanut allergy and my travel agent notifies HAL at final payment. 

My stepfather and I eat in the MDR for dinner and we have the same table 

every night (except for specialty dining). The waiters give me the next night's 

menu after I finish dessert. I choose what I want for the  next night. When I

get to specialty dining, the servers know about my allergy. So I think HAL 

does a good job with this.

[cgolf1]

6 minutes ago, BetsyS. said:

I have a peanut allergy and my travel agent notifies HAL at final payment. 

My stepfather and I eat in the MDR for dinner and we have the same table 

every night (except for specialty dining). The waiters give me the next night's 

menu after I finish dessert. I choose what I want for the  next night. When I

get to specialty dining, the servers know about my allergy. So I think HAL 

does a good job with this.

I will get to the gluten free in a bit, need to do some outside work in the beautiful weather here, but I will say that we never had the same table. We had notified them before the cruise as well, and we were very surprised we were always moved around. For 5 of the seven nights we had a set 5:45 reservation. On other lines we always have the same service team, even with anytime dining. 

 

This was one of the complaints about the cruise was the moving to different tables each night. It didn’t allow the servers to set a routine with us, and also limits the extra tips they get.  We generally tip our servers above and beyond, but in this case we didn’t because we never got to know any of them. I feel for the dining room crew in this case.