foggycat

I did a 45 day South Pacific cruise on the HAL Zuiderdam in fall 2022. It was a horrible cruise and one of the worst ever. HAL skipped several ports without explanation and scheduled the trip during the rainy season in French Polynesia. The heavy rains destroyed a lot of fun in the islands and we skipped more stops. The Zuiderdam is an antique ship that should be put out of service. HAL has the WORST treatment of its long-time cruisers and offered us ZERO compensation for a really awful trip. Beware of HAL in general but especially on a long cruise, such as this one. Never again.

This is a loooonnnngggg cruise on the old tub, Zuiderdam. Three days ago HAL, with 11 days before sailing, radically altered the itinerary. i tried to cancel, but am stuck since they were comletely unhelpful about carrying funds forward when the itinerary is restore on this cruise even if it's in 2-3 years. HAL has always been the tightwad of cruise lines, but I am going and hope to do my best to enjoy this expensive cruise even though they deleted 4 major stops of great interest. They have almost no excursions either. I hope there are some gay guys on board to socialize and drink and dine with since it now sounds like a pretty blah cruise with 24 (!) sea days.

Will be on the 45 day South Pacific cruise from San Diego to San Diego on the old HAL Zuiderdam. Hope to meet fellow cruisers to help me get through this long journey.

I was just on HAL Zuiderdam (Mexico), April 2022, and NCL Dawn (Tampa to NYC), April 2022, and Emerald Princess (British Isles), May 2022. These are current updates on the steam/sauna facilities situation in these three ships. The Zuiderdam is an old tub and it has a free male sauna that will hold about 4, maybe, 5 people. It was mostly unused but I had a couple of pleasant conversations on the 12 day cruise, I hope it improves since I am on it for 45 days in the South Pacific with lots of sea days in October/November. The sauna is a bit tricky to find, and it's out of the way and has a noisy outer door and one shower and some hooks. The NCL Dawn has an amazing setup, one of the best ever: a very nice sauna and excellent steam Both are modern and clean. The only negative is when someone hold the steam door open too long, it sets off a very loud alarm that a crew member has to turn off. Sauna and steam are male only and free and are in an alcove off the male dressing area, there are three showers. They are quite private. Unfortunately during the 11-day cruise, they were very little used. The Emerald Princess has a free male steam room and sauna. Both are spacious and are off the male changing room and have 3 showers. Again, they were barely used on the 12-day cruise, but there was some visitors.