vicd1969

Schipol has been a mess since June. Took me almost an hour and a half to get through immigration when in mid June. Hope things get better for you. Trains are working fine however.

Bon voyage Lisa. Sailed the Rotterdam two weeks ago and it was one of my best cruise experiences ever. Also, your colleague Holly and others were so patient and good to my family group over the past 3 years when we originally booked our Norway cruise and had to keep canceling and rebooking.

We landed at Schiphol on June 17 and took almost 2 hours to get through immigration. Was afraid our luggage would have been already picked up and placed somewhere far from the designated conveyor but it turned out we got unintentional baggage synchronization and only had to wait about 5 minutes for them to come out - two wrongs made a right in this case! My sister and her husband arrived on one of the earliest arriving flights from the US, about 1.5 hours before us and got through immigration fine. The later your arrival is the worse it may get.

It was at a white shack about 100 meters from the ship. I bought my bus ticket around 1 pm for a 3 pm bus transport to Voringfossen - comfortable double decker with only 1/3 full but they stopped selling tickets about 30 min after mine since my brother in law supposedly got the last one for our time.

Ha ha I did hit two grocery stores at Eidfjord as well. Found reindeer sausage in the second one.

One of our traveling group was able to make their flights only because they had expedited check in with their Delta status, which KLM accepts. They felt 4 hours would not have been enough otherwise. One of the ground staff told them that a lot of security staff were out due to COVID, there were only 2 x-ray machines operating in the entire airport security zone. You may want to look into taking the train to Brussels or Paris and then flying out of there the next day if you are able to rebook your flight or haven't yet booked it.

Van Gogh sells out sooner than Rijksmuseum. You may be able to get a timed entry ticket for the latter the same day in the morning. Very unlikely to find one available for Van Gogh same-day or even next-day unless it's in the winter offseason. I spent about 2 hours at Rijksmuseum and still missed a few key exhibits like the ship models.

I paid about $33 for the bus tour that allowed us about 45 minutes at the waterfalls. One can rent a car all-day for $250, or $200 for 3 hours. You could also hire a cab but the wait times are pretty limited 30 minutes or under. Whatever you choose to do, you won't lack for photo opportunities at Eidfjord if the weather cooperates!

Eidfjord was a relatively long stop. I did do the relatively flat hike to the iron burial ground but was done by around noon. Spent some time catching up on internet stuff with the nice free wifi around the dock area, then took a bus tour to the Voringfossen falls in the afternoon. Very impressive sight. It was sunny and in the 80s, so your mileage may vary lol. There are a lot of tour options available with the local operator near the dock, so no pressure to book through the ship.

The last time I sailed with HAL was in spring 2017, and between those 5 years I did a handful of cruises with Celebrity and Princess. I originally booked in late 2019 a HAL Norway cruise for summer 2020, and then got rebooked and rescheduled more than 3-4 times to eventually sail on this itinerary. I was worried that I would find a very different HAL, but it ended up feeling like going back home. This cruise on the Rotterdam fully met my expectations and was very worth the wait. Memorable highlights Club Orange staff. Raymond our waiter was amazing and my nephew can't stop reminding us that our meals for our land trip now are not as good because "Raymond didn't serve it". Franco and Elena were outstanding dining room managers and I'm envious of whoever is sailing on the 14-day Midnight Voyage right now and has Club Orange for 14 days. We actually felt that the overall dining experience was better in CO than during the Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto nights that we also had. Terrific weather for 3 of the 4 ports - Geiranger, Alesund, and Eidfjord. Had to wear shorts for Alesund and Eidfjord and definitely overpacked with cold weather wear that I barely used. Won trivia once due to getting bonus score of getting the right number of HAL ships named Rotterdam. Thank you Cruise Critic. Chocolate souffle in the "Dressy Night" dinner. All our 11-person group ordered it and unanimously gave it a thumbs up. Pulling out the curtains at 6:30 AM and having a huge mountain greet us on the way in to Geiranger, with the seven sister falls shortly afterwards Waterfalls galore at Geiranger and Eidfjord. Amazing scenery that words or even photos can't do justice. Good old HAL stuff Cabin attendants Made and Hoytoro were the usual HAL level of top notch service. My fears of inattentive or lack of service due to cutbacks were not realized. We got service twice a day, since my nephew's sofa bed had to be set up. Unlimited laundry was the usual blessing. We learned to request multiple sheets that list the items, those were harder to come by than the bags. Main dishes at Club Orange were about 80% hit, 20% miss. Didn't notice significant drop in quality other than lack of lobster. Easy access to outdoor spaces to view the scenery. Especially an unique experience for the young people in my group to be able to play basketball with the fjord mountains as backdrop. BB King had a large following on the ship and delivered as usual. Good new HAL stuff Rolling Stone rock room was very enjoyable. Vocals could have been stronger but the guitar playing did rock. Great vibe with the crowd. Embarkation went rather smoothly after we got our bearings to which part of the Passenger Terminal to go to (The Celebrity Apex was using the main wing). Club Orange priority line helped a bit, though some tech glitches to take our photos delayed us for about 5 minutes. Total time under 20 minutes from Terminal front door to cabin. Official check in time was 1 PM but we came around 1145 AM without a problem. Dutch café was a nice alternative to Club Orange for those of you who prefer a later wake-up time. Areas for HAL Improvement Navigator App didn’t work well. Chat was down half the time, especially near port. Scrolling the day’s activities was inconsistent. User interface like font color and menu tree also pretty poor. One silver lining was that the charges in the billing statement were quite up-to-date and helpful to give reassurance there were no improper charges. I got the premium internet but did expect slow service in the northern reaches of the world. What I didn’t expect was it being down in 3 of the 4 ports we docked. It was fine for using Facebook or WhatsApp, but online gaming and streaming is definitely out. Mixed Drinks a bit too sugary in the Lido bar. The best for me were at the Exploration Café and the Aft sea bar. I didn't try the half moon bar though, not a big drinker. In fact I think the most I used in a day was 10 drinks (mostly non-alcohol) out of the 15 allowed with the signature package. Lunch buffet could use more variety, but it’s not a big deal since we had awesome breakfasts and dinners on most days. Dive In fries recipe changed from what I had in previous sailings. They were more alike the Dutch style of French fries, to accommodate the approx. 70% Dutch passenger mix. Hope they revert to the original recipe in other itineraries, I missed that on this sailing. Maloy didn’t have many activities to do. Given the change in the itinerary a month before sailing, there wasn’t much tourist infrastructure it seemed. Completely understand if the change was to lessen crowding in other Norwegian ports, but hope more tour options become available in the future. Overall, it was a fantastic 7 days that will always bring back fond memories. I didn't really experience major cutbacks in service or food. If I sail on HAL, this trip has made me prefer to sail exclusively on Pinnacle Class ships with Club Orange.