crunchii

35 minutes ago, nw gardener said:

The picture of the aft was taken in Ketchikan,  and besides showing the corner aft cabins,  it also shows the repaired deck 4 cabins damaged by the Oopsterdam a few weeks ago.  The captain advised they had just put back onto service for this cruise as some balcony parts had to come from the shipyard in Italy. 

Thank you for posting the picture! I was wondering about this. Wow, so these aft-cabins have been out of service for a few weeks then!

We'll be on Nieuw Amsterdam later this summer. Looking forward to reading the rest of your review!

Here's another pic. This is Westerdam, taken last week in Osaka, Japan.

We're not on this cruise, but we are in Japan right now and went to Port of Osaka to see Westerdam today. We were on her last year, so it was nice to see her again.

Bon Voyage!

We'll be in Japan starting next week (not on a cruise, unfortunately) and plan to visit Port of Osaka to see Westerdam, our first HAL ship. :)

Just noticed "Internet" in the "Manage My Bookings" for our September 2020 Zuiderdam cruise. It lists "Premium Internet Plan - 10 Days" for $143.99.

No such thing for our August 2019 Nieuw Amsterdam cruise though, so it might be just available on later cruises or on some ships.

I guess we ate too fast, because we didn't see this.

When we finished our dinner and left (even had time to thank our servers and hand out the envelopes too), the chefs were lined up just outside of the dining room. It was our first HAL cruise, so we had no idea, but I guess they were getting ready to go in for the napkin waving event!

We thanked them for the wonderful meals as we walked through them. I hope they weren't disappointed that we didn't wave our napkins!

3rd HAL cruise booked! We now have two upcoming cruises

Could you add the following?:

SEPTEMBER 2020
Zuiderdam - 07-Sep-20 - 10-Day Colors of Canada & New England
crunchii & Zarmengar

Thank you!

Thank you all for the information! I was waiting for the price to come down a bit, but now that I know I can re-book later, I guess I can book any time.

Canada / New England itineraries for Fall 2020 are out now. We booked ours

Good to know that it's possible to re-book if the rates go down! Do you call the hotel and ask for the lower price, or do you just cancel and do a new booking?

Thank you all for your response!

So sounds like the regular west-facing room (Deluxe Harbour Room, I assume) would offer the view of the ship too, but Pacific Club Harbor Room is the way to go to ensure the best view (and some extra amenities. )

It's the 15-day eastbound full-transit, correct? We did the almost identical itinerary (Grand Cayman instead of HMC is the only difference) in Jan. 2018.

But we were on Westerdam, so I'm not sure if it will be the same on Volendam, but we had Gala Nights on the first sea day (Day 2), on Corinto day (Day 8), and on Grand Cayman day (Day 14). I was rather surprised that 2 of the 3 Gala Nights were on port days, as we had plenty of sea days. Your Day 14 appears to be a sea day though.

Don't know about the casino. Sorry.

We're considering Pan Pacific Vancouver for our pre-cruise overnight stay. Does anyone have any advice on which room category to book for a good view of our ship in the morning?

Is Deluxe Harbour Room good enough, or do we need to go for Premier Room or Pacific Club Harbour Room to get a better view?

If you've stayed in Pan Pacific Vancouver, could you let me know which category you booked and how the view was?

Note: According to Port of Vancouver's schedule, our ship (Nieuw Amsterdam) is supposed to dock in "Canada Place West".

Due to a somewhat large group taking over our cruise, we had to change our plan...

Could you change the following:

AUGUST 2019
Eurodam - 24-Aug-19  - 7 day Alaskan Explorer
crunchii & Zarmengar

to:

N Amsterdam - 31-Aug-19 - 7 day Alaskan Inside Passage
crunchii & Zarmengar

Thank you!

A somewhat large group (500 estimated guests) has just signed up (confirmed by our PCC) on the cruise we had booked, so we had to switch to a different cruise :(

Eurodam:
24 August 2019 - 31 August 2019 : Alaska : Moody Bible Institute (Inspiration Cruises Group)

http://www.inspirationcruises.com/christian-cruises/moody-bible-institute-alaska-2019

Are you aware that Nieuw Statendam also does very similar itineraries around that time? Nieuw Statendam is HAL's newest, bigger, and more modern ship. Since you're used to Celebrity, you might enjoy Nieuw Statendam more than Rotterdam, which is smaller, older, and more traditional with fewer dining and entertainment options.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E0N14D/J038A.html (May 24 - June 7, 2020)

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E0N14W/J043A.html (June 21 - July 5, 2020)

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E0N14X/J050A.html (July 19 - Aug. 2, 2020)

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E0N14Y/J055A.html (Aug. 16 - Aug. 30, 2020)

Nieuw Statendam leaves from Amsterdam rather than Rotterdam (city) though, so if Rotterdam is a must stop for you, Nieuw Statendam won't work.

Whichever you choose, hope you enjoy HAL!

On Westerdam last Janurary, Captain Smit went around each table in MDR to chat with everyone on one of the Gala Nights (at least for early fixed dining upstairs). It was our first HAL cruise, so I assumed all captains do that on each cruise, but it sounds like that doesn't happen very often...?

We did Panama Canal cruise last January and went to all of the ports you mentioned. We did ship's tours on all ports except for Puerto Vallarta, where we just took a taxi to Malecon and walked around.

You can see my quick reviews of the ports in my cruise review thread.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2597566

(See Post #12)

You can also read about our trip in my blog, if you're interested. Look for the "Ports" section. (Sorry, it's not complete.)

I don't know if the tours we did were the BEST, but we enjoyed them all.

Does anyone know if we can buy the HAL travel mug with SBP?

This thing:

I think most of your questions have already been answered, but I have a couple of things to add.

We got one free 1-liter bottle of water and 1 free bottle of San Pellegrino. And since we don't drink alcohol, we traded the complimentary sparkling wine with a few bottles of water.

They do have alcohol in Neptune Lounge, but they're not free, and I believe you can't use your drink package (Signature or Elite). As I said, I don't drink, so I didn't try it.

We did the Panama Canal from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale on Westerdam last January. Please feel free to check out my blog for details (sorry, it's imcomplete...)

I believe Eurodam has Lincoln Center Stage instead of Adagio.

Yay! Thank you for the photo!

That looks like the mug from the "Coffee Lovers" package, and $9 is much cheaper than the package! ($42.68 - $25 Beverage Card = $17.68)

Thank you for the great live thread/review! We'll be doing a similar Alaska cruise on Eurodam next year, so this is very helpful!

Question about the souvenir mug that comes with hot chocolate. Is the mug ceramic? Does it have HAL or ship logo?

Does anyone know if this tour is offered on Eurodam this year?

I posted the review of my recent Panama Canal cruise here a while back.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2597566

Scroll down a bit for port reviews.

I also posted more detailed review and lots of photos of each port on my blog as well, if you're interested. (Well, not all of them though. I need to finish posting...)