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8 hours ago, LMaxwell said:

Was this the holiday week cruise and were some of the issues related to number of guests onboard vs number of staff to handle things? 

It was the week before the holiday, guessing the ship was close to capacity.  The lines were not as long as what we found on a "mega ship" but they were very noticeable.  

Hello Folks,

Myself any my wife spent last week on the Nieuw Statendam sailing to the Southern Caribbean.  This was our first cruise post COVID and my 8th cruise, 3rd on Holland.  This will be a short review, just some bullet points to how we enjoyed our trip and if anyone has any questions, I'll do my best to answer.  

To start, we had a Verandah booked, category VE. Four days before sailing we received an upgrade off for an Vista Suite for $300.00 more, I called to see what rooms they offered and the one I took was an AFT view Vista Suite category AS.  (The day before I was emailed an offer to upgrade to an Neptune Suite for $898 more, I passed).

The Vista Suite was nice and the AFT view was amazing, but I do not see the extra money justification if it wasn't AFT facing.  Personally I would not pay extra for a VS over a Verandah again.  Cabin stewards were great but still offered only once per day service, we picked morning service.  (I was hoping since gratuities were higher for suite guest we would have seen something extra, but nothing extra)  I am sure we could have pushed the stewards and gotten both, but I know they are overworked as is.

We had the HIA package, once onboard I upgraded our drink package to Elite as I have seen mixed messages about how they handle drinks over the package price.    

We upgrade to Elite before we had any drinks and we asked at one of the tables upon boarding that offered the drink packages.  (this was $82.60 each)

Each drink we got, we had to sing a slip showing the price of the drink and a spot to add an extra tip.  The drink was then zero on the statement and a line for Additional Tip.

There are signs at most of the bars stating "Have a Beverage Package?  Order any cocktail or glass of wine and now only pay the difference on drinks that exceed your package price limit."

I did inquire with one of the bartenders about if she could tell how many drinks I have had and she said, no the system doesn't keep track, I would need to check with guest services if I lost count myself.   I asked what happened if I exceeded the 15 as part of the package, she said we would be charged full price for the drink.  I never reached the 15 so I could not test it.

(If doing the trip over, I would not have upgraded to Elite)

Also with the HIA package was internet, I did not even try to use the internet that came with the package and selected to upgrade to the better plan for $40 for both mine and my wife's phone ($80 in total).  Even with the better plan, I would call the internet access sketchy at best, while I could access all the sites I tried it was painfully slow 99% of the time.  I was up at 4am on morning and it was moving along pretty good.  

Food...  I do enjoy a good meal but I would not call myself picky.  Overall the food at the lido and the main dinning room was very bland.  We wanted to try the  specialty dinning options and ate at 3 of the 4 on the ship.

1.  Pinnacle Grill - Very good meal, service was a bit slow.  We booked it for the first night of the cruise, we both enjoyed the meal and the view.  (Extra appetizer was a charge)

2.  Canaletto - Again, another great meal, service was the best of the 3 specialty dinning. 

3. Tamarind - Beautiful restaurant, good was very enjoyable, service was a bit slow as well. 

(if doing the trip over, I would pay the extra for all 3 of these again)

We only went to the main dinner room one night, dragging a meal out for 90plus minutes for "OK" food, not our way that we wanted to spend out time.  The other nights that we didn't have specialty dinner, we at the lido.  Pizza was pretty good, fresh stir fry was my favorite.  While the food was good from the Dive-In, it closed at 6pm.  Using the app was a great away to reduce the time waiting in line for pizza or burgers. 

The ship was beautiful, laid out well, and the crew were great.  I believe the ratio of crew to guests needs an improvement, waits at the bar, guest services, dinning were my only complaint.  

Will I sail Holland again?  Yes, but they are not my only option. 

Let me know if anyone has an questions, I will do my best to answer.

Anyone seen a list of movies for December for dive in?

How does that work? If a flight is missed due to a late return does Carnival help with that?

Nassau / Freeport would be great.

Anyone able to post current Fun Times please?

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address for cruise terminal

2001 E McComas St, Baltimore, MD 21230

Google maps put's in the correct location.

Thank you dtown...

Anyone have any from a Freeport - Nassau Trip?

Anyone able to post fun times from the pride?

Thanks in advance

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You are not crazy, we have taken 3 cruises without passports. It's a chance we have been willing to take of not being able to fly home if needed. To me it isn't wroth the money knowing we are not planing to fly outside of the US.

Can you answer a question about noise in the room? With the Lido deck above you did you have any noise issues in your room?

Just paid our next cruise off using gift cards. Buying them discounted at 10 percent off helped save a few dollars.

Our last cruise I took about 1200 in gift cards and had them added onto the sign and sail account once we boarded.

We didn't have to worry about a large tab at the end, anything left over on the last night I cashed out in the casino.

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On the Legend last year, the doors open just fine.

Seriously OVERPACKING!

Like bringing 6 pairs of shoes once!

My wife would seriously disagree with you. She has one piece of luggage just for her shoes! She doesn't mind carrying all the extra stuff required for her 3-4 fashion changes throughout the day, but thanks for the fuel for my argument! :D

Have a great Cruise

We enjoyed the Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary, Eagles & Totems, at $90 per person we felt it was a good value for what we got to see on this tour.

What is a mocha chocolate getaway?

Ingredients:

3/4 oz Irish Cream

3/4 oz Dark Rum

1/4 oz Butescotch Schapps

1/4 oz Kahlua

2 1/2 oz Ice Cream Mix

Chocolate Syrup

Directions:

Line the inside of glass with chocolate syrup.

Combine all ingredients in blender. Blend with ice until smooth.

Top with whipped cream and a cherry.

I understand the wait... Thanks.. :)

We have sailed with Anytime dinning in the past but have never made a request for a specific table, we always sat where told or we have asked to be with the same wait staff.

My question is we would like to have a table with a window view, is that request possible with Anytime Dinning?

They sold sweatshirts, jackets, gloves, hats, ect, as I recall they only said "Alaska", no port names.

September 2015 they opened on the Legend.

We bought FTTF for our Alaska trip last year.

We arrived early to the terminal before they began boarding and waited for a bit. Once they called boarding for FTTF we went straight to our room to drop off our bags and the room was ready.

I used the express line for guest services a number of times. This was a nice time saver as each time the line was pretty long.

I would and will purchase FTTF again no matter what port.

We are traveling NOLA to Jamaica, Cayman, and Cozumel this summer. It would be so much cheaper to get passport cards for our kids. Has anyone ever successfully used these on a cruise? Research says they are OK but I'd like to hear from someone who has used them.

We have used them on our last 3 cruises, they are the size of a driver's license and convent to store in your wallet or bag.

As others have said, you can not fly with them.

The question is ... if you are away from home on vacation and hand an accident can you afford not to have it?

For around a hundred bucks it gives us peace of mind knowing if something happened we have medical coverage.