joekerstef

Veendam is on the move! So tiny compared to Giant of the Sea...

Monster of the Sea underway. I guess with 8 ships, I should've expected a lot of hurry up and wait today. :)

Sounds like Veendam will be next.

Zuiderdam quickly sailing away on the SE cam (Fort Lauderdale) if you're sick of love boat.

I hear the Love Boat toots! Guess the Princess ship is next....

Zuiderdam leading the parade today. Have a wonderful cruise Lisa and everyone else aboard!

Is it the Ft Lauderdale webcam or the Port Everglades where you can hear the toots??

i have both cameras going but sound off on Fort Lauderdale to avoid duplication. PE has both microphone and VHF.

Somebody tooted once?

yes, i heard one just like the three that just sounded, but no movement yet.

"veendam nowhere near ready." :(

with 8 ships though, should be no shortage of action. disappointed NA got bumped back to 4:40. anxious to begin the parade!

and immediately after i posted this, i heard my first toot of the day! :D

Conquest just changed to 1730. May be another late day like yesterday.

with 8 ships though, should be no shortage of action. disappointed NA got bumped back to 4:40. anxious to begin the parade!

My cruise went down by $550, which is the price of port fees. worth it to me to drop explore 4, but not sure my mother will call to reprice, even though she's getting less value out of E4 than me (i'll at least make use of the beverage package). time to check the other cruises i had my eye on....

almost missed eurodam; didn't hear the toots! looks very different at night all lit up. good thing they're not going too far with that delay. goodnight everyone!

is that waterslide on the rear end of harmony ots supposed to be a creepy deep sea fish? OMG....

I've actually never seen Prinsendam before; she's so cute! and just gorgeous with the sun on her side like that. Looks like still a long wait for eurodam- 1845 departure now.

Didn't tune in until 4:45 thought I'd missed all the action at FLL. Loved the big waving hand from the crew member on behemoth of the seas. Thought Prinsendam was leaving at 8, but she appear to be on the move right now.

Happy sails to all aboard Nieuw Amsterdam and Koningsdam! I'm not sticking around for Monstrosity of the Seas to leave. Thanks for another dam fine sailaway! :)

I had never heard the Love Boat toots before. Mad props to Princess. That was pretty cool.

...after all, you'll rarely ever get to see an enormodam AND a humungoudam all on the same day!

Ha! So true. But still nowhere near as large as the Ginormos of the Sea.

Those HAL ships just look so nice. Classic, not overbuilt monstrosities like some of the other Ship of the Seas types.

Next time Koningsdam sails away - I'll be on her!!!!

Jealous! No idea how i'm going to deal with a year and a half until my next cruise.

I hear a horn in the background!

I am watching. First sailaway for me in a while as the last time I tried to watch, the site was giving me ad block issues even though it was turned off. glad to see that got resolved. and nice to see the kdam for the first time. :)

Unfortunately tied down to school holidays and annual leave from work so cannot extend. Disappointed as I really wanted to include it in my cruise and thought I had picked one that did.

 

I suppose it will give me another reason to return one day as I would also like to do the land trip.

I haven't been to Glacier Bay myself so not entirely sure what that experience is like, but if you do want to see lots of glaciers on the 14 day cruise, try the 29 Glaciers shore excursion, which is an all-day affair out of Anchorage. Motorcoach takes you to Whittier with a stop along the way at the wild animal rescue place. Nice cruise on a nice boat, plenty of glaciers, some humpback whales, mountain goats, and lots of sea otters. Includes a chicken or fish lunch, which was very good. The trip's a little pricey and we really had far too little time at the animal place but overall my mother and I really enjoyed it.

On the Maasdam they had the sticks but no markings on the deck. I did wonder about it.

Allan

There were shuffleboard markings on Maasdam when I was on in June. But I couldn't find the pucks. We really wanted to play at least once to check that off the cruise experiences list. Ah well.

I really enjoyed the vast majority of the food on my HAL cruise on Maasdam. Some of the standouts though were the lamb and duck dishes and the prime rib in the MDR and the made-to-order omelets in the Lido. One night nothing really appealed on the dining room menu, so I asked my waiter what he thought and went with his recommendation of the oxtail dish. That was really good!

Now the not so good--room service omelets and scrambled eggs (really no bueno). A very undercooked salmon filet in the MDR (couldn't eat anything that night after that). There was also a mushroom risotto that was pretty meh. The pizza in the Lido. The Dive-In burgers weren't all that exciting--not juicy and too much sodium in them and had to wait forever. Also I did a cooking class where the chef made the food that we prepared in class for real and I wasn't too impressed with the main fish dish. Tasted okay but not warm enough.

Desserts I thought were generally good. I ate those appetizer fruit soups as dessert sometimes, really good. There was a sourdough bread pudding with a berry mixture that was really good. The first baked Alaska I had was the best, but they used different combos of ingredients on other evenings that weren't equally successful.

Best drinkie I had was recommended by our dining room wine steward, something called a Miami Vice, which as I recall was part pina colada and part strawberry daiquiri. The first time I had it, it was great, but ordered it again two nights later and it was mixed differently, not nearly as good.

now I'm hungry....

Did this itinerary on Maasdam this June. It was wonderful, would do it again in a second. Great ports, lots of beautiful scenery. We went the first two weeks of June and had absolutely perfect weather. The only downside for going that early is that the salmon were not yet spawning, but saw plenty of that on the webcams over the summer so *shrug*. I have been on (not cruised on) Amsterdam, and she is a beautiful ship. I'd actually love to do this cruise again on her.