Alphen

Did a search through internet and this forum, but could not find an answer to this specific question; does a VF balcony cabin deck 4, have some sort of nightlight in the bathroom? During my search I found answers for Pinnacle class, Nieuw Amsterdam, Eurodam and Noordam, but not for Oosterdam for balcony cabins, specifically Oosterdam VF on deck 4. Thanks in advance.

Very interested to follow your cruise, we opted out this years Japan adventure and cancelled our long planned stay on Westerdam, but still on our list, so following your report, thanks in advance and have a great cruise!

Rich, have been catching up with your posts just now, enjoyable to see your perspective from a first time WC guest, having not done any ourselves. Informative and great reading, thanks for all your work on this, we will continue reading and enjoying your adventures.

I like to think the term "refurbished" is not correct here; Dry Dock is primarily for maintenance for the hull (below water) and propulsion and while the ship is there, also other maintenance will performed, including sometimes larger projects like redoing larger public spaces like outside decks and inside spaces. During this period, also changes in some layouts can be done, but not necessarily. Often a lot of things happen behind the scene, replacing mechanical equipment and so on. During cruises, you may observe routine maintenance is always going on, including re carpeting and replacing items in both public and cabin spaces. It often happens that in larger embarkation/debarkation ports, new items are loaded and later on, during a cruise, slowly replacing items that need replacing.

Yes, from the moment you are on board, so enjoy!

As far as the port and even the exact location, you can find it here, the official Copenhagen port authority, which shows you the berth and the location; https://www.cmport.com/terminals/ships-in-port/ C332

Your welcome, we ourselves were lacking many information in our preparation, so decided share our findings for others to use, so great to find that it is proving useful!

There are also certain pins that they can earn ( I think fellow CC member John, @Copper10-8can elaborate on that), but the 150 years anniversary pins were definitely for all crew members on Rotterdam in October 2022! This is the pin I am referring to, worn by all Rotterdam crewmembers.

They started this on last years anniversary TA on Rotterdam, for every crew member, the did do not have to earn them. Many guest also wanted one and there were rumors that HAL would supply some, but we did not see this happen, maybe individual guests were able to get one.

As stated by you, indeed the structure of tours can differ from tour to tour, ours was land before cruise, Vancouver, Whitehorse, Dawson, Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage and cruise from Whittier. We had luggage options; we could label luggage that you could sent from Fairbanks to the ship, but you could also choose to have your luggage with you all the way. In all cases, luggage was handled by the tour organisation and always either waiting outside your room at the new tour stop, where is was also picked up at the end of your tourstop.

Depending on which route you take, there are more train options that can be part of the Land/Cuise Tour program. On our trip in 2022, lunch on the Mckinley Explorer Denali-Talkeetna-Anchorage, was included. Our second train during our land portion, was the Mckinley Explorer from Anchorage to Whittier, which had lunch at our own cost.

One we used as one of our research bases for our land and cruise tour and found very helpful!

We have done a Land-Cruise Tour Y1L last year on Nieuw Amsterdam, you might find some usefull information on the semi live report we have done here;

I do not understand the pessimism, just replayed video of the Captain talk on MS Rotterdam VII of our cruise in October last year, and he stated during the "Ask the Captain", that Rotterdam is using Starlink!! Since Rotterdam is the newest of the fleet, I have no knowledge what the status currently is on the rest of the fleet.

I could be wrong, but on our last cruise on Rotterdam in October, I could not help noticing that the captain, in one of his talks, mentioned that they indeed were (already), using Starlink!

Why, I am not going, but still interested in what goes on, for future reference.

Maybe a lot to get through, but you may find some tips in our report on our last years land and cruise tour here; in Fairbanks, we walked over to Pioneer Park, which was a nice day out, but closer by the Westmark are indeed museum options, like the Ice museum and the mining hall of fame, both of which we did not visit.

Great to follow along, we know several guests on this years sailing, wishing you a healthy and great adventure.

Seems to be different all over the fleet, some trivia have no prizes, some award drinks, some award bottles of champagne, but have not seen pins lately, so count yourself lucky.

There is a useful option on the HAL website, where you can search in offered cruises, selecting the desired port(s) of call; https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise.html#start=0&{!tag=portsTag}portsOfCall=AS1,HFA&soldOut=false

Librije is still offered on ships sailing from the Netherlands as departure port, like Rotterdam this passed season. But when they left for the transatlantic, they only offered it on the last sailing out of Rotterdam, but not the sailings that do not originate in the Netherlands.

We had the Rijsttafel twice on Rotterdam in October and enjoyed it very much. It was advertised and bookable on board and was priced at $ 35,40 per person, tax included. Appetizer Urup and the Soto Ayam served seperately, the rest on one plate.

We heard the Unexpected Boys / Jersey Tenors in the past, which are similar to what the Jukebox Rogues / Frankie's Guys are currently doing.

We had not seen a performance by Cantaré before on one of our Holland America cruises, so for some this maybe old news, but since we personally were fan of the former Hal Singers & Dancers shows (especially “Droom”), we were pleased to find that Christopher C. Minor is now part of the Cantaré group, performing on our latest cruise on Rotterdam! He has an excellent voice and shines in this performance on HAL! Maybe more of these former members of the HAL SIngers & Dancers found there way somewhere in the cruise industry, but we could not help notice him in Cantaré, which we thought was an excellent show. It goes without saying, that if one likes or dislikes certain performances on the World Stage is always subject to ones personal taste, but since we liked him as a really talented singer, we thought we should mention this here.

Thanks, cannot get there, keep being redirected to Dutch HAL website, which does not mention the increase (yet).