{"id":6803,"date":"2011-02-18T01:13:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T09:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=6803"},"modified":"2011-02-18T01:13:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T09:13:26","slug":"holland-america-early-embarkation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=6803","title":{"rendered":"Getting to Your Stateroom\u2026Early?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How important is embarkation day to you \u2014 once you’re on the ship? We need a little help with this one, because getting into your room quickly is either very important or not a big deal. As in\u2026very important not to have to sit around the ship waiting for the staterooms to be available\u2026or not a big deal because, besides staying attached to carry-on luggage, all you do is hang around the ship waiting for departure. Like, where else are you going to go?<\/p>\n

So, we’d like some input.<\/p>\n

At Holland America<\/a>, passengers must have made it a big deal. Starting now, staterooms on Holland America ships could be ready as early as 11:30. Wow, we’ve had embarkation days when we’ve still been packing at 11:30.<\/p>\n

Usually, boarding starts around the middle of the day, right? Usually, departure is around 5 p.m., which means the cruise line wants you on board by no later than 3:00 or 3:30. Usually, staterooms aren’t available until 2:30 or 3:00. Usually, in the middle of the day is when line-ups are longest, for security people to make sure you don’t have a candle (lighters are okay), and for medical people to make sure your nose isn’t running.<\/p>\n

We’re told the most expedient time to board a ship is with the earlybirds (be waiting in line when they roll out the gangplank) or with the latebirds (just before they roll up the gangplank). We’re habitually latebirds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So how is Holland America changing the sheets so quickly? First by changing housekeeping schedules. Also…<\/p>\n

“Staterooms could be stripped and cleaned very quickly if we had all supplies on hand and ready,” says Hotel Manager Rene Tuinman on the ms Volendam<\/a>. “Every staff member needed to be aware of our goal, and waste no time looking for or gathering supplies. Simply by doing that, we greatly streamlined our housekeeping\u00a0functions.”<\/p>\n

Holland America calls it Stateroom Direct Service. We’re still okay with Stateroom In-direct Service. We didn’t know having three hours without carry-on bags was that important.<\/p>\n

How about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How important is embarkation day to you \u2014 once you’re on the ship? We need a little help with this one, because getting into your room quickly is either very important or not a big deal. As in\u2026very important not to have to sit around the ship waiting for the staterooms to be available\u2026or not… Continue reading Getting to Your Stateroom\u2026Early?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,19,15],"tags":[533,86,35,534,23,407],"class_list":["post-6803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-people","category-ships","category-stories","tag-arriving-for-cruises","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-embarkation","tag-holland-america","tag-staterooms","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}