Navybikermom

41 minutes ago, fox02554 said:

The thought had never crossed my mind ... until now 😳

I saw a horror movie once where a guy had a mental breakdown and stuck his hands in one…. that’s what was on my mind the first few times I used the hand washers!  😣

I was a bit creeped out the first time I used them, but then I got over it. I put my hands in too far once and could feel the swirling mechanism at the bottom, but it wasn’t like the blades of a food disposal so I was quite relieved ☺️. I love using them now - much nicer than sticky, wet, smelly hand sanitizer. 

I have been on both those ships and prefer the Zaandam. I thought the NA was not laid out well at all, with the Exploration Cafe way up in the Crow’s Nest. Zaandam has the cafe/lounge in the promenade deck area, where all the other venues are. It has a great library in it, with those great views and puzzles. The Explorer’s Lounge across the passageway is where there was a classical duo most nights (Jan. last year), and the Ocean Bar had a great band that played in the evenings. 
 

I can’t speak to the Neptune suite, but the Zaandam did get the new interactive TVs when I was last on her, so it’s probably nicer than what the video shows, unless it was taken very recently. 
 

I don’t recall how good the pizza was on Zaandam, but it did have a taco bar in the Lido pool area (across from Dive In) that was quite good. HAL is experimenting with “pop-up” restaurants for the ships that don’t have them, so there’s a good chance that there might be a Tamarind pop-up. 
 

if I had my druthers, I’d sail on the Zaandam over the Nieuw Amsterdam any day. 

Thank you! This will be my first time on a Pinnacle ship, so I shall post my observations at the end. ☺️

It will be a shock to my system going from temps in the humid 80’s (F) to the blustery 50’s and 60’s… 🥶. That’s why we left Michigan - too cold and dreary. 

I will be there next week. What webcam are you viewing?

No ads on my iPad, using Safari, no 3rd party ad blockers although the Safari settings shows the pop-up blocker is on (Settings - Safari - Block Pop-ups). You could try deleting cookies by going to Settings - Safari - Clear History and Website Data. If you’re using a different browser, the process is similar. 

3 hours ago, POA1 said:

@richwmn, taking time from his 134 day Volendam cruise to call into CheerHQ this morning.  The menus you see on the ships are on the server:

 

navigator.hollandamerica.com

 

whose DNS resolves to a private (Intranet) IP address.  That means that server name can only be accessed on the ship.  This is why you can see menus in Navigator without an Internet package.  If you try to access that server from the outside world, you'll get a Sever not found error.

 

Externally, the server name is:

 

moapp-navigator.hollandamerica.com

 

There's some pass-through API code that normally pulls the PDFs from HAL server and delivers them to those of us using the app.

 

That code is either broken, it isn't directing to the right file location. That's why we get the 404s when fetching the page.  The server name resolves, but there is no page/PDF at the URL.

 

I'm sure that someone is seeing all the 404 errors. Web servers log them by default.  (Or, no one knows to look at the logs.)  It should be an easy fix.

 

That explains why they don’t work now. Someone did some backend updating and broke it 😡. Thankfully, @VMax1700 has been kind enough to post the ones on his cruise so at least I can see what’s for dinner next week!

1 minute ago, Lauren and John said:

Hi. A note to Navybikermom:  the food has been great, but for some reason the babaganoush serving size would fit into a thimble. Just a heads up to ask about the size in advance!

Thank you - I will order more! 😁

1 hour ago, EVNKEEL said:

Totally agree with Petronillus; the chamber music ensemble is a start but falls short with only two performances on a 14-day crossing and now a 7-day voyage. Classical should be a daily feature of HAL’s “Music Walk” offering. Pre-Covid and LCS, there was Adagio on every sailing - violin and piano, with several daily performances.

 

 

I miss the Adagio… 😢

4 minutes ago, hollyeplake said:

I actually found two dresses on Amazon. 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPL9415F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C539M9KK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

Ooooh I love the second one. Decided I need it for my next cruise 😁. Just wish it had pockets. Why do they hardly ever put decent pockets in women’s clothes? 🤔

3 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Here are the files

 

north_europe_dr_menu_07_reformat.pdf 224.9 kB · 2 downloads

 

m9-day9-_lido_lunch_north_europe.pdf 101.98 kB · 3 downloads

 

baltic_themed_dinner.pdf 176.86 kB · 3 downloads

 

day_2_lido_late_snack (1).pdf 104.08 kB · 2 downloads

Thank you for posting the menus. I’m seeing some interesting new items that I can’t wait to try on the Rotterdam next week. I saw baba ghanoush on there…. my favorite! 🥰

I guess it depends on what you’re doing. I logged into it just now using Edge on my tablet and was able to access my current booking and view shore excursions. I use a travel agent, so I’ve never had the experience of trying to book anything. 

23 minutes ago, Cruise Suzy said:

Thanks. Love Stroopwafels and Bosche bols are a favorite from the Grand Dutch Cafe. Glad to see Bosche bols are coming to non-Pinnacle-class ships.

I’m not a big fan of stroopwafels but I can’t wait to try one of those Bosche bols on my upcoming Rotterdam cruise! They look awfully big though…

I saw that too and was tickled! I’m half Dutch, so was even more happy to read that. 

My favorite ship 🥰.

1 minute ago, 57redbird said:

But as @ger_77 found out - it's not available in Canada.

I guess I didn’t see that in this post… I thought the poster was talking about transdermal patches. Can Canadians order it from Amazon or won’t it make it through their customs? 

19 minutes ago, Vict0riann said:

Is dymenhydrinate meclazine?  

No, that’s the drug in Dramamine. Meclizine is sold over the counter, usually in 25mg chewable tablets. It’s my go-to treatment for motion sickness!

2 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Today was Indonesian Tea at 3pm.  After reading about how this event is greatly missed, we were looking forward to a nice event.  Major disappointment. The only difference to the usual afternoon tea was the top layer of cake/pastry/sweet things.  Sandwiches and scones were identical.

 

 

I have noticed that the teas have really gone downhill. Quite sad, really. However, much better for my waistline, since I save my appetite for dinner instead ☺️.

1 hour ago, POA1 said:

The Navigator app for Android updated today. I can't tell what the miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements were though.

 

The one thing that I know was broken - and still is - is some dining menus for upcoming cruises. It's a file location problem and not an app issue, so I guess we'll just need to wait until they get the files in a location available off ship. We're trying to see Nieuw Statendam menus. I know they can be seen on the ship because Colin is posting them in his "Live From" thread.

The Apple version updated also. They still didn’t fix the one thing that has annoyed me more than the broken menus - you still can’t do any check-in functions without being punted to your browser and being forced to log in again to that. Why have it there if you can’t do it within an app? 🤔

I just received the same thing for our May sailing out of Rotterdam. Not at all happy with the 2pm time slot. Our hotel is near the terminal and we probably have to be out of the room by 11am, so we have to bide our time with our luggage until 2! Ugh….. well, that’s what I get for getting a cabin in steerage I guess.

10 minutes ago, POA1 said:

 

I read an article about randomized MAC addresses being a big problem with certain ISPs, so I would not be surprised.

 

A lot of large networks have issues with randomized addresses. In fact, if you search for how to turn it off, you'll find a lot of results from universities.

 

I bet it's causing significantly more problems than people realize. After all, this is not a super obvious problem. It took me a day and a half to figure out what the issue was. (In fairness, I was not working on the issue full time, and I did upgrade my beverage package....)

 

If turning off MAC randomization does, indeed, fix your mail issue, give yourself a pat on the back. That's some quality problem solving!

I turned it off on my devices for my home network, which is a very simple one - a single DSL modem that broadcasts WiFi - and immediately noticed a difference. A word game that I like to play was always asking for a login to FB after the latest update. It no longer does that! Maybe my calls won’t drop as often now, since I have to use WiFi calling (no cell signal here in the boonies). Thank you!

The lunch menu has changed! I shall miss the roasted cauliflower dish I always used to get 😢.

34 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

It was demoralising for those who were staying in the Nhow hotel, just next door to the terminal.  Their faces as they exited the hotel and looked at the line.  Really felt for them.

Lol, and that’s where we’ll be! If I see that, I’m going to turn back around and have a seat at the hotel bar until it clears up… 🍹

10 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

No it was one line, which stretched from the bridge to past the terminal and then doubled back to the terminal door.  It was painfully slow.

 

Ugh… we’re staying at a hotel right on the pier so at least we won’t have to fight vehicular traffic if the protest situation continues. 

Thanks for the heads up!

Was there a different line for those who were carrying their luggage aboard? I hope they settle the protest issues before we board in May 😒.