Trish Traveler

Thank you for this thread and for this post! Could have used a nice warm sauna in Norway recently. That one with the windows is fabulous.

Thank you. The pictures are a combination of pictures from my Google Pixel 3a phone and a Canon Power Shot SX740HS. I use the Canon as backup because my battery drains fast on my phone when I'm snapping so many photos on long port days! Wow, I see your other post that you were on 21 days...that sounds great - 7 days was too short to really enjoy the ship when all our energy was spent in ports! The Rotterdam ship and crew was great!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

I posted my review on the HAL board, but thought that more people interested in Norway on other cruise lines might be interested in my fantastic experiences sailing the Norwegian Fjords out of Amsterdam on HAL's Rotterdam: Ports: Eidfjord, begins on post #27 Alesund, begins on post #31 Geiranger, begins on post #43 Bergen, begins on post #64

I posted my review in the HAL forum, but I thought I would post the link here for those of you interested in the Amsterdam portion. We stayed 3 nights in Amsterdam which you will find described in the beginning of the review with photos. It was our first time to AMS and it was fantastic. I definitely recommend spending several nights in this easy to tour city before/after any cruise! Enjoy!

Both lines moved well. I can't tell you exact times because I didn't specifically note them other than the whole thing from ship to exiting security to the gate area was about 90 minutes for us on that day. At the terminal, we walked right out the door to where the taxis stage and were immediately assigned one. We definitely felt very lucky to have this going so well.🤗 "Your mileage may vary" We used the kiosk at the airport for our boarding pass and luggage tags. The thing that was different right after this point is that we waited in a short line to check our luggage in self-serve machines. However, we immediately attached our luggage tags like we do in the US, but we then needed to pass an employee who was scanning the tags that people were holding in their hands. She did scan ours on our luggage. In addition, when we got to the machine, we found out that we had put our luggage tags in the wrong spot - in the US we always put them on the top handle the long way on normal rectangular luggage. For the machine, you place your luggage on its side, so they apparently want the luggage tags on the side handle so the machine can read it. I may have missed a sign that indicated this.🧐 We weren't the only ones who got this wrong.😬 Anyway, not a problem, as an employee just had us move to her kiosk to check them in the traditional way we are used to in the US. But, it could waste precious time if you are counting minutes.

Sorry to hear about the Covid! That's awful, especially because you were proactive. I noticed more coughing as the week went on. I am dumbfounded by the amount of people who still cough and sneeze straight into the air. We just came out of a pandemic! I literally dash away from rude people now who do that. You have the crook of your elbow if nothing else (even Kindergarten kids learn that). I understand that some people might have non-contagious coughing from asthma, COPD, smokers cough etc.- but they should still cover too. I also wish they would place an employee at the buffet entrances to enforce hand washing or sanitizing. Many pax skipped that also. I guess it is a good thing that HAL serves most of their buffet food. We used to sometimes enjoy table sharing in the MDR, but now avoid it for this reason. My DH got a mild cold (not covid, we tested) 3 days after we got home, but that probably was from the long flight home. I was fine. Glad that you had good treatment from HAL on the ship! Hope you're feeling better now. I'm happy you enjoyed my review. 🤗

Glad you enjoyed it!

You're welcome. It was a fabulous cruise!

If HAL's NS has the same Deck 12 Explorations Central & Cafe/Crow's Nest as the Rotterdam - it is a fabulous forward-looking lounge! I didn't capture a picture of the whole lounge, but I'm sure they're easy to find online. My photo in post 21 shows the tripod mounted binoculars up there. Comfortable window facing lounge chairs, as well as many tables/chairs. Plus you can get either cocktails or coffee up there. Yes, we are planning Panama Canal, so I will definitely be on the lookout for your review! We had a great experience on our last Princess cruise in March. Here's the link to that review.

You're welcome. Enjoy planning your cruise - it's amazing!

My pleasure!

Thank you! I have often been inspired by your detailed photo reviews and have used them in my cruise planning in the past! I'm pretty sure you and Carol are going to enjoy HAL. 👍

FINAL THOUGHTS Overall, we loved our first HAL cruise! Would definitely sail with them again. In fact, we have a Panama Canal cruise booked already on the Rotterdam for 2024 which we are hoping will be able to visit the Panama Canal due to the low water levels there. We are trying to monitor the news on that situation whenever we find it here on CC or elsewhere. We will make a decision before final payment is due. We loved the smaller size of the Rotterdam ship and thought it was gorgeous, which we would expect being pretty new. And I already stated how much we loved the wonderful art. Our cabin was terrific; the only thing that was bothersome was the balcony door as opposed to sliding doors. It was heavy to push open and often I would have to move the little table to get out with drinks, etc. (but overall a minor inconvenience) We liked our location slightly aft of the aft elevator/stairs. The bed and pillows were really comfortable. That large shower was most excellent and includes a little bar for shaving your legs. The Rotterdam crew was wonderful. Hardworking, professional and friendly service throughout the ship. We really liked the HAL style of Cruise Director and thought she was great, as well as her team. The evening entertainment while not as varied as some cruise lines did give us enough choices. And one strength is definitely the Music Walk with 3 live music venues. DH’s top pick is the Rolling Stone Rock Room Band. Music-wise the only thing I missed is having something more quiet like strings or piano for when you want a calmer atmosphere. There are plenty of bars onboard and we had mostly short waits to get a drink. We really were focused on the ports and scenery this cruise, so we really didn’t participate in the many offerings of activities during the day. I saw several that sounded great for another time perhaps. And I love the Lecture Series at Sea type talks but again we only saw the one Origins, which we loved. I just wished they would show those on repeat on the TV to be watched in the cabin while packing etc., as I have done on some other cruises. The average age for this cruise was more in the senior citizen range, but we still saw plenty of younger 30-50’s also. Very few children especially since most have just returned to school in August/September. We loved visiting these Norwegian ports and liked that two were cities for more culture and history (although they still offered plenty of nature opportunities) and two were the majestic fjords and small towns with lots of nature exploring. And of course, Amsterdam was amazing (just watch out for those bikes!). The whole cruise, and the weather we lucked out with, totally exceeded our expectations. We loved the people of both the Netherlands and Norway, as they were welcoming, friendly and helpful. And we certainly can learn from them about a healthy physical lifestyle. Food is always so subjective, but our experience was wonderful with a wide variety of food available for fine dining and casual venues. Overall we are easy to please and eat a variety of foods. As with anywhere, a few things were off, or not to our particular liking, but you just choose something else then. They did have a really good selection of fish in both the Lido Market buffet and MDR. And the Port to Table choices offered was a special touch. I love being able to try new dishes that I don’t make at home as well as different ethnic foods. I can’t really say that the HAL food stood out as being exceptional better, but certainly equal to our most recent cruises in the last 18 months on NCL, RCCL, Celebrity and Princess IMHO. The drink package worked out fine as it also included water cartons and specialty coffees. Not sure if we totally got all our value on this cruise as we were off the ship a lot and were very tired in the evenings. Overall the quality of drinks was excellent and most everything we wanted was within the $11 limit. The wine choices were very good within the limit also, to our simple wine palate. We tried several Merlots, Cabs, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blancs. The only cocktail that was really off to me was the MaiTai and I tried it twice at 2 different bars. I think that covers it…finally! Much thanks as always to the Cruise Critic community for your invaluable expertise and advice when researching cruises. And I thank God that we are still blessed with our health to be able to travel the world and enjoy other cultures and His magnificent creation. I hope that my review can be helpful to others with their planning. The End

Saturday, Sept. 16 – Disembarkation 😢 Set our alarms to wake up very early, while it was still dark out (slept through the Ijmuiden Locks this time). Enjoyed seeing the beautiful lights along the river as we sailed towards sleepy Amsterdam. We had a 12:25pm flight booked out of Schiphol. We were told by HAL Customer Service back when we booked it that you should allow at least 4 ½ hours from the scheduled 7AM arrival (which would be 11:30am at the earliest) and that we should be fine with that flight. It sounded reasonable, but we were still concerned knowing that large international airports can get really backed up. So we were moderately concerned and decided to do the independent walk-off with our luggage. After buffet breakfast and my last mini chocolate croissant for a while, we walked down to Deck 2 to see where exactly the line would form for walk-off, near the mid-ship area. Back in the cabin before any announcements, we decided to go wait on deck 2 and when we arrived at 6:55am, we were able to walk right off with a short, moving line in front of us. The only challenging part was a length at the terminal where you are on a rubber type slat floor that makes it difficult to roll the luggage. We quickly got a taxi with an interesting guy who gave us lots more Amsterdam info. Interesting to see more of the very modern architectural buildings which are such a cool contrast to the amazing historically old buildings of central Amsterdam. The ride was about 20-25 minutes for about 81 euros. By 8:30am we were through the whole check-in process and security and now had 3 hours before boarding to explore Schiphol Airport. Lots to see including many shops and restaurants and even a free Rijksmuseum exhibit. We were thrilled at how well it all went, but remember your experience may vary. Although we flew United going, we chose KLM to fly home because their flight was about one hour later, and we wanted to experience “the Royal Dutch Airline” while visiting the Netherlands. It was a smooth flight and very similar to the United, same jet style, with plenty of movies to watch, a complimentary meal and later snack, beer and wine also included. Almost looks like a cruise ship, but it's actually a sneaker shaped building!

Thank you! I'm glad you "cruised along" 🤗

Cont'd. Friday, Sept. 15 – SEA DAY We arrived for MDR dinner just as the crew was doing a musical parade through the dining room for the last night of the cruise. So glad we caught that and were able to thank them for their outstanding service! Since HAL does not offer lobster as a free/included item, I decided that I would pay for the reasonable $15 upcharge for the two Lobster Tails. They were very good. I paired them with a nice crisp Sauvignon Blanc (one that I really liked this week was the 13 Celcius, which I first tasted at the Lido Market bar) . DH enjoyed his Rustic Home-Made Lasagna. Most all the food we had this week was very fresh, expertly prepared and tasty; but nothing is ever perfect and you will see the brown lettuce I picked out of my Caesar Salad (I ate the other fresher half). I could have just sent it back, but I knew I had a full meal coming anyway. Even though it was the last night of the cruise and I understand produce is hard to keep fresh, I think this salad should not have left the kitchen looking like this. While getting a cocktail later at the Half Moon Bar, I noticed several people at the window taking photos. My brain thought “Maybe it’s a whale”… It turned out to be an oil platform, which did look pretty lit up with a sunset pink sky behind it. I attended the last World Stage Show: Off the Charts which once again featured the dancers, with the added talents of the two piano players from Billboard Onboard and for one song the female singer from the BB King’s All-Star Band. It was entertaining. I then joined DH back in the Rolling Stone Rock Room for one more fantastic set from that talented group. Rock On!!

Friday, Sept. 15 – SEA DAY Soon it was time for our last buffet lunch. I saw that they were having Fried Shrimp and a variety of Asian appetizers like Spring Rolls, Egg Rolls and other tasty savory treats. The odd thing was that they served these items in the small, Sweet Spot which became very crowded. I mostly ate the Asian dishes which were all delicious. I took a bunch of photos of many of the other lunch offerings that day. It did get sunny in the afternoon for our journey back to Amsterdam with pretty mild seas. We can never get enough of that aft view. Ahh! Time for afternoon coffee and a special treat from the Dutch Café – this time we thoroughly enjoyed the perfectly prepared Triple Berry Pannenkoek (like a crepe). I finally made it to one trivia game and played just for fun, while I enjoyed a Gin’s Cup which was a recommendation from the waitress for the least sweet item on that particular menu. I find as I get older, I prefer less sweet drinks and more with bitters or more tart flavors. We really wished we had a few more sea days to relax, recover from all our physical activity and enjoy this beautiful ship.

You're welcome. Yes, I know there is so much more to explore in all of those places 🤗 That sounds amazing to see summer solstice and more of the northern ports. Another dream would be to see the Northern Lights. Maybe someday.

Friday, Sept. 15 – SEA DAY It was nice not to have to set the alarm this morning. However, we did wake up in enough time to enjoy a sit-down breakfast in the MDR only served 8-9:30am. HAL has a great breakfast menu with many items tantalizing me, but I just wasn’t that hungry to try more. My usual to try once on every cruise is the Eggs Benedict, which was very good, but had regular ham, not the traditional Canadian Bacon. I generally don’t care for those pressed type hash browns, but was pleasantly surprised that it tasted almost like a potato pancake. DH had standard fried eggs, bacon and hash browns. Lovely to be served breakfast. There were plenty of activities on the Daily Program that looked fun/interesting, but I wanted to get the bulk of our packing completed so I wouldn’t have to think about it the rest of the day. We then walked with our luggage to the mid-ship elevator bank where HAL provided a scale to weigh your luggage. We hadn’t added anything that heavy, but I just wanted to make sure I had it within the 50# airline limit, so I wouldn’t have to fiddle at the airport. Scale near elevators mid-ship We did a little shopping for T-shirts and stuff at the “Rotterdam Bazaar” shops sale. It was cloudy and cool outside, but we walked some of the outside decks to explore more (even though it is a fairly small ship, we were so busy this week; there were still some areas we hadn’t seen yet). We also enjoyed more of the wonderful art throughout the ship. I once again had trouble getting WIFI, so I went to the Guest Relations desk to have them fix it so I could check in for my flight. Notice the oil platforms in the sea: Below are some screenshots of the info I saw thru the week, although the second one is more understandable while in the fjords I guess:

Cont’d. Thursday, Sept. 14 – Bergen - 8am-5pm Time to get ready for another Dressy Night. Back to the MDR with a short wait with no reservations. Our delicious choices for the Gala Dinner included Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail, Sunchoke Soup, Cracked Pepper Tenderloin w/Grilled Shrimp, Fruit Crisp and Dulce de Leche Coconut Tart (the tart was dry and not that good – I didn’t need the calories anyway). The World Stage show this evening was Step One Dance Company again, called In Tandem: tango, etc., which we did not attend. We found that for us, our favorite nightly entertainment was definitely the Rolling Stone Rock Room Band. Surprise… Chocolate!! It wasn’t until 10pm, but be on the lookout for some chocolate in the Music Walk area. I ended up with those extra calories after all!

Cont’d. Thursday, Sept. 14 – Bergen - 8am-5pm It began to get more cloudy, windy and cold with drizzle beginning to fall. Umbrellas up. We decided we had plenty of time for one last touristy stop at the Magic Ice Bar. It was a bit of a walk but sounded like fun even though it is a bit kitschy. They do take reservations, but since I wasn’t using cell service, we decided to take out chances walking over there…in the rain. We figured since this may be the most Northern place (close to the Arctic Circle) we ever visit then an Ice Bar seemed to fit the theme. It cost 300NOK with one drink included. They give you a large, hooded cape and gloves to wear in there. It isn’t real large, but it also wasn’t crowded when we were there in the middle of the afternoon, so we could easily walk around and see all the absolutely cool frozen art! Then we got our icy drinks at the ice bar and sat on fur skins on an ice bench with an ice table. It was perfect to end our day in Bergen. But first we had one more hilly walk back to the ship where HAL had hot cocoa waiting for us. It was awesome to see the Rotterdam plugged into the port electric shore power. We had logged 20,000 steps already, so it was time for a hot tub soak and then a Margarita! Enjoyed our sailaway from beautiful Bergen which is a fascinating city with so much to explore, of which we only saw a portion. The pilot stayed with us a long time as we saw the pilot boat come to pick him. Cool to see the Rotterdam plugged in! View from our balcony before sailaway: Pilot Boat:

Cont’d. Thursday, Sept. 14 – Bergen - 8am-5pm I forgot to mention earlier that we also used some of the Rick Steves Bergen touring information videos we found online which was really helpful in our planning also. We were hungry now and on a mission to find the 3 Kroneren food stand we had read about online for their famous Reindeer Sausage, which is not far from the harbor. It is served on a bun like a hot dog and comes with mustard, lingonberry sauce and fried onions. Really delicious, especially paired with a Bergen Hansa Beer. There is lots of eclectic street art and murals in Bergen to enjoy as you walk the streets. We continued on to a large square where we found the impressive 4 sided Sailor’s Monument, which is very detailed and covers a lot of Norwegian history. The art below was across the street from the above McD Sailors Monument: Hey, she's not part of the monument! 😊

Cont’d. Thursday, Sept. 14 – Bergen - 8am-5pm Continuing on we walked the wharf to see the colorful, old Bryggen buildings which are also on the UNESCO World Heritage List. You must take the time to walk through the wooden passageways to see more shops and scenic wooden architecture, and feel the cultural history of this place. We saw some walking tour groups back there. This whole main street has lots of shopping and restaurants. We walked further along and saw the beginning of the Fortress property and a military ship which Google says is a NATO warship Frigate Brandenburg F215 sailing under the German flag – that’s interesting. The Bryggen passageways:

Cont’d. Thursday, Sept. 14 – Bergen - 8am-5pm Since we could see the steeple, we headed over to the Bergen Cathedral/Domkirken, which unfortunately was closed even though the hours online showed 10-2. Onward to the bustling harbor area which was colorful and historic. We walked through the Fish Market to see the interesting offerings of fresh seafood. They offer many ready to eat dishes, as well as ready to cook for locals. Bergen Harbor: First peek at the pretty wooden Bryggen buildings: Wow, what an interesting boat that is!! Bergen Fish Market: