JB&JLG74

We will be sailing her on the Christmas and New Year's cruise this December and wondered what your thoughts (pictures?) are on this ship? Never been on a smaller ship before and a little apprehensive about activities onboard:) How about the entertainment and if anyone has pictures, I would love to see them (of the ship i.e.:D)

Thanks,

Marise

Prinsendam is our favorite ship. Being smaller one has the opportunity to meet people who you will actually run into again during the course of the voyage. The feel is totally different, it's like family. Here is a link to the blog DH did while on the 2012 Grand S America Voyage on the Prinsendam.

http://grandvoyage2012.wordpress.com/category/68-day-retirement-cruise/

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As for the "it's my holiday so I will do what I like" crowd, they show contempt for their fellow passengers who have chosen to cruise on a ship that has some formal nights and who go to the trouble of adhering to the dress code.

Totally agree. Following the suggested dress code is about respect, which is in short supply with the "me generation."

The taxes are listed on the first page when you pull up the general cruise schedule. The basic price for the 4 or 5 room categories are listed and right under that, to the left, is the tax amount. You see that before you even click the "details" button to take you into the booking sequence. They are just presenting the info in a different way than we are used to seeing. I found it easy to navigate. You are choosing by actual room location and given a price for that. The old way, you chose a price by a letter category and then had to go to the deck plan to see where rooms with that letter were located. This just presents the prices by location rather than letter categories.

 

I guess I am the Lone Ranger here, but I don't see a problem. Just takes getting used to. And I like the fact that if you enter your mariner# it fills in a lot of info they have on file for you.

I guess I just don't get it. I tried to do a booking for the June 7, 2015 sailing on the Zaandam. We like to be forward on the lower promenade, but we want to have a full view. This means a EE room (3319 to 3326). When I ask for forward on the lower promenade the only rooms that show up are yellow (H). It is not that there are no EE rooms. If I enter a specific room, eg 3321, it will continue with the booking and ask for my dining preferences, bed preferences, etc. All can figure is that I need to have the Zaandam's deck plans open in a second window and then march through all 8 cabin numbers until I get to one that is available. There ought to be a way to see everything that is available in my chosen location and deck but it is beyond me to figure out how to do that. And why would they be trying to sell me the cheaper cabin (H instead of the EE)?

I think that you are asking about distance from Felison Cruise Terminal in Ijmuiden. Last year HAL docked in downtown Amsterdam (very convenient), but this year moved outside of the lock at Ijmuiden which is not easy or cheap to get to.

According to

http://www.taxiautofare.com/nl/taxi-fare/Amsterdam-taxi-fare-from-Schipol-Airport-to-ijmuiden

it is an estimated 22 minutes for 29.5 km and will cost you 60 plus Euros

We haven't sailed on Celebrity since the Soltice appeared! We booked a great 3 day deal on the Reflection: all three perks!

 

BUT when we applied for the Stockholder Credit we were told it is not combinable, so kept our original booking perks.

 

Never ran into that w/Princess!! But it is what it is!! Don't want to be too greedy, but disappointed since this is the first time we have ever applied for this stock benefit/lack of benefit!

 

Just sayin....

Ran into the same thing with RCL a few years back. Got a "loyalty discount" and booked over six months in advance. Stock credit was disallowed. My sister booked at the last minute and paid less. She got her stockholder because she did not get a "discount." I understand that policies are policies. So now I have a policy, too. I don't sail with RCL any more.

SJSULIBRARIAN

Thanks for the feedback. The Roll Call for the 9-21-14 sailing indicates that the internet in July in Alaska was as bad as it was on the World Cruise. I was hoping it was the result of the switchover process and would be corrected by 9-21. We have been onboard other HAL ships and suffered through the switchover. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for improved service.

Does anyone know whether the Amsterdam's internet service has been switched over from MTN to the new provider Harris? Or if this will be done prior to the Grand Asia Voyage on 9-21-2014. Thanks for any insight you can provide.

We got off the Holland America World Cruise last month and we were

at sea for 113 days !

 

The hairdressers on the ship were busy - but - I brought 4 boxes of

my color and did it myself.

 

Approx., At the end of each month I would color it and let it sit until done.

then step in the shower to wash it all out.

 

I have done it before on other long cruises and it works great.

 

Maryandi (formerly Wowzo):)

I, too, bring multiple boxes my own color and do it myself. I pack them in zip lock bags and put them in my checked luggage. By the end of the cruise I have extra space for my purchases. I imagine that Maryandi and I have done it on the same cruise (2012 Grand South America).

This has been very interesting. To add my two cents to anyone who is still playing with numbers, at first blush DH and my Mariner numbers appeared to be eight numbers apart but are sequential if we drop the 9th digit. When I enter the first 8 numbers in the calculator, the system's next check number is indeed the number on our accounts. When I enter all 9 numbers, they verify (checksum 0).

We took our first HAL cruise in 1986 and our numbers start with 012. We had taken two Princess cruises prior to this (1984 and 1985).

We lived in FL when we got our numbers, moved to IL but our numbers never changed.

Our Princess and Cunard numbers are the same. I believe they share the marketing function out of Los Angeles.

with this new system the way they have it set up you place your order then wait and wait and wait and wait.. at least with the old system there was a line you could see how many people were in front of you...and you knew how long it would be.. now it could be way too long.. at least for me.. my take... it stinx.. maybe HAL should do their homework before starting something like this..gimme back my old burger..pizza..taco grill ..it was way better

I think HAL did do their homework. I never used to get a hot dog or hamburger because I hated standing in line while they cooked other people's orders before they even took my order. And I told them so in their surveys. Now, they take my order and I don't have to stand around. I can find a table, get my beverage, etc. I ate at the Dive Inn almost every day on the Maasdam and thoroughly enjoyed it. It never took more than ten minutes for my buzzer to go off. And the food tastes great.

Prinsendam is spending Wednesday in Amsterdam as well. All aboard 4 pm with a 5 pm scheduled sailing. A letter came out this morning with onboard credit plus 25% of base fare for this cruise to be applied to a future cruise. Also free cocktails for an hour during sail away this afternoon. A shuttle to museum square also running today.

In addition to skipping Alsuend, the overnight in Reykavik has been cut so we will have only one day there.

Captain and Hotel Manager had a Q&A this morning to a hostile audience, but HAL did have some defenders who also spoke up.

The stabilizer has been successfully removed and they are now working on installing water tight covers. Good thing about Amsterdam is that the Cruise Passenger Terminal has good free WiFi.