riverrat

Peanut sauce and prawns in Mozambique, a tailwind on the corners walking the teak, the picture in my mind of cake tipping and deco flew, Everyday with your words I so enjoy sailing the world with you. 🙂

I plan to start giving this reply everytime I am asked. I so agree with you. Lets ask for wide decks.

They have a nickname for the cruisers that do the south pacific cruise repeaters..... Someone on here will know.

Do you have a Favorite cabin... other than suites

I took alot of videos of the tenders trying to safely complete that mission. Frustrating work battling the sea, wind, current etc safely. On Tales of South Pacific 10/23 Fakarava was rain out. Several tenders went over and some brave soles walked down the road in the rain but our excursion was cancelled. The tour guide did come tell us under the eave where we sheltered from the warm pounding rain. LOL Nuka Hiva was dry and our last connect to social media and we sat drinking in portside in open restaurant/shop area listening to the island band in the shade. This trip was soul touching for us and we were sad to be headed back. The islands, the customs just wonderful to breathe in from a cabin on the side of a big blue ship.

on the Zuiderdam the meeting room had a wall of windows. What a view but hard to pay attention to my bridge playing. LOL

Oh we're going to a hukilau Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau Everybody loves the hukilau Where the laulau is kaukau at the lu'au LOVE this part of the cruise! So much fun. Yall LOOK GREAT.

Guest services punched a hole in mine on 11/26/23

We will be following along with you!! Have a great cruise. We board next week.

Supposed to be a tropical storm and go right into the Bay of Fundy...... ya'll will be riding the wave HURRICANE LEE (noaa.gov)

We would like to take the Noordam b2b from Vancouver but hesitate at the extra cost to fly direct. Flights into Seattle and Bellingham are much more reasonable from Phoenix. Really only thing holding us back is what would be the best way to get to the port?

Procurement is very tricky. Imagine a Large Box Store ships 8 containers Tacoma to Anchorage, Alaska on two ships a week. One ship goes out of service for two weeks and everything is competing to go onboard the once weekly ship. Everyone wanting to ship to Alaska, get in line... then the Military pops up with cargo that bumps half your containers. Your stores won't get Easter candy or lilies so you send 4 containers on trucks down the Alaskan Highway at 3 times the cost. Often its delay delay delay and this is all in North America. So where are HAL's containers.... IMO, in line with everyone else....

Zuiderdam Oct - Nov 14 - there were no quarantine cabins.

thank you.... I have now. I tried it this past week in Vegas and it worked great. Thanks!

I used clay mounting putty.

IMPE, If it is for a medical use. Bring it. If in luggage write a note declaring it is medical. I bring mine as I am diabetic and get leg cramps. Declare it if it's in your carry on

50% of the nights we order room service and stay in. We feel like we stay in constant motion all day so evenings we like going to happy hour in Billboard, then sitting on the balcony listening to our music, watching the ocean, doing spa stuff, wearing pjs, catching up on the internet at home or with the news. We mainly relax and prepare for the next port.

1. Is there a future with HAL visiting more coastal towns close to debarkation port? - Noordam - has (1) one preAlaska itinerary that stays all day in Victoria :), Astoria and Seattle. This allows enough time to see Buchart Gardens. Koningsdam did California coastal cruising. The view sailing under the bridge and an overnight in San Francisco was legendary. 2. Could someone aim to make Sundays a seaday whenever possible? - In many ports everything is closed

We like following along with the blogs even when on the cruise. There is so much to do and see and no one does it the same way. We are enjoying so much thru your eyes.. ty

So enjoy being along for the cruise thru your blog 🙂 One of my treasured memories from Tales of the Pacific last year was the beautiful tour guide putting her arms up in the air, smiling ear to ear and singing out to our bus "Welcome to The Kingdom of Tonga - Where Everything is Free". When we asked, she stated, we are all the same poor, we share everything.

Thanks for sharing this... loved reading your insight. We visited this past fall. Never in my life have I seen coral that equaled the color I saw in Moorea. It was mind blowing. I hovered in 5 ft of water watching families of 500 baby fish in different heads of coral, then swam up to a staghorn that was a 4 ft work of perfect art.

Agree. I took a planned capsule wardrobe on a 6-week cruise. You know 3 pants, 4 LS, 4 SS, 4 shorts etc. I got super tired of wearing the same four long sleeve shirts over and over on sea days! The other thing to note is some stretchy fabrics do not fare as well through on board laundry. We had a joke among some of us ladies that we must be losing weight as our shirts were growing. Just guessing but thinking the elastic fails from the hot laundry press?

I think they hear us, just slow to react. Haven't been able to search for "Heritage Cruises" yet but it does say rolled out over the next year. I'm excited to see the list. 2022 News | Holland America Line Introduces 150th Anniversary ‘Heritage Cruises’

I know you were right under that helicopter as were we. It was so loud and INTENSE being aft. That was some day! I watched from the Crow's Nest with naval friends then came back to the room right before the helicopter lifted them all off the lido deck. Hope all is well. Miss seeing you guys in the hall. 🙂

I only wish. It is my understanding they opened the container in San Diego Oct 3rd to find none of the liquor on the manifest. They hoped it would catch us in Pape’ete. Are you all drinking on the Zuiderdam this week? I would think we would have heard as 1000+ have the drink package this trip thru the canal.