POA1

When you are booking a cabana, try to have the map handy. That way you can choose one in the location that best suits you.

😁 Yes, yes they are. But, didn't you feel safe once you got inside? Mogol hordes with a battering ram couldn't interrupt your business.

As far as Wi-Fi is concerned, you can pre purchase the Premium plan for roughly the same price you'd pay for the lower tier Surf plan. It's a decent savings and what I bought for the Nieuw Statendam two weeks ago. The speeds were good, and greatly improved over the old satellite system. One bit of advice: As you move from ace to place on the ship, disconnect and then reconnect to the Wi-Fi network. That way, your device won't try to keep the connection to the previous access point on the NieuwStatendam-Guest network. Theoretically, your device should hand off tu the access point with the stronger signal, but that doesn't always happen.

The extension cord is a special services item as the CPAP use. If you booked through a PCC or TA, they can add then for you. There's no charge. Adding the cord in advance assures you that you'll have it. Adding the CPAP note is a heads up for the ship and your room stewards. There are special services items for many things, ranging from scooter use to sharps containers if someone is insulin dependent. If you booked online, call the general HAL number and have a rep add the items.

The welcome back offers are tied to everyone's Mariner ID. If three people share a stateroom, they can each use it when they get back. They don't have to sail in the same room, or even on the same ship. They just have to book within the time period of the offer. The discount is not tied to the post cruise survey, but that's how most people find out about it.

They really don't change the layouts often. Also, some of the files are clearly newer because there are 3 ships that weren't around in 2014. A hard and fast rule is that fixed dining is in the upper level of the MDR and open seating is in the lower.

To put the expurgated version of the Guide to Cabana Living to bed, I'll close with restroom information. (Thrilling conclusion, right?) Each of the Retreat Cabana areas, and the Cabana Club on the Eurodam*, have their own restrooms. For the most part, they're located in the cabana area and you do not need to go back inside the ship. On the Pinnacle Class vessels, the restrooms are located forward in the cabana area, on the port side of the ship. (This is where we get the term port-a-potty.) The shower is located on the starboard side. We've clearly got to do a better job of cataloging the Retreat earlier next time. The weather messed with our schedule because I waited, thinking we'd have time during the last two days of our cruise. *- The Eurodam is the only ship that calls their cabanaland the "Cabana Club." The Eurodam also has an alternate color scheme in its cabana area. The Eurodam is also the only ship that does not have a corresponding place name in the Netherlands. It's probably acting out due to an inferiority complex.

Fortunately, we have never had an issue getting additional glasses of bubbly. If you saw our earlier post on caviar in the Pinnacle Grill, you may recall that we each ordered a glass of the Chateau Ste. Michelle Brut and our waiter left the bottle. (It was a tacit admission of, "Look. I know you're going to kick this whole bottle. You're know you're going to finish it, too. In the interest of efficiency, here ya go. Have at it!") I was only up in the cabana area twice at champagne time, but I always had at least one refill. Our project plan for the Rotterdam is to see how many times we can get them to offer us a refill. It's challenging work, but fulfilling nonetheless. There was a stack of towels by the outdoor shower. There were towels on all the chairs, too.

Thank you for your review!

Is it hard to walk around with all the cameras scattered all over the deck? 😁

Are you sure? There is a 14 on the NS & Rotterdam. It's not on the deck plans, but it's definitely there. Deck 14 on the Nieuw Statendam. Photo taken of Deck 12 from Deck 14 on the Nieuw Statendam. (Or, was I able to leap a la the 10 Lords from the 12 Days? 😉)

Well, since you are anxiously waiting - and we all know the holidays can be stressful - let me assuage your anxious feeling. 😃 Here is the current list of Retreat Amenities that your PCC or TA has from HAL. (It's current as of 12/26/2023. It went into affect at about the same time the prices went up and the cabana PDF disappeared from the HAL site.) CABANA AMENITIES Includes following daily services: 1 bottle still water or 1 bottle sparkling water (San Pellegrino) Cut fruit plate Guacamole & chips Coconut passion fruit parfait Dive-In & NY Deli Pizza Menu Available Complimentary two glasses of sparkling wine Breakfast - Continental offering Mid-morning Snack - Virgin pina colada smoothie & chocolate cookies Lunch - Seafood boil, Nami signature maki roll, California roll, spicy tuna roll, salmon nigiri Afternoon Service - Watermelon & pineapple skewers, Ice cream selection Cold hand towels Pool towel setup Our experience on the Nieuw Statendam: 1 bottle still water or 1 bottle sparkling water (San Pellegrino) (We received at least one bottle of water per day. If we drank it, they gave us an additional one.) I'll give this a plus +. Cut fruit plate (We did not see this, but there was always a fresh fruit basket.) I'll call this a wash. Guacamole & chips (Did not happen. If it had, we would have definitely ordered beer and taken photos, 'cause that's how we roll.) This is a minus -. Coconut passion fruit parfait (Nope. Michelle probably wouldn't have been wild about the parfait, but Brian loves him some coconut.) Also a minus -. Dive-In & NY Deli Pizza Menu Available (In addition to these, lunch also included the full Lido menu.) Absolutely a plus +. Complimentary two glasses of sparkling wine (We received these and they refilled our glasses.) A plus +. Breakfast - Continental offering (We didn't take our breakfast in the Retreat, but they offered the full room service menu, not just continental breakfast.) This is a plus +. Mid-morning Snack - Virgin pina colada smoothie & chocolate cookies. (Never saw these.) A minus -. Lunch - Seafood boil, Nami signature maki roll, California roll, spicy tuna roll, salmon nigiri. (We joked about this. Sushi under the tropical sun? BotulisYum!) I'm not sure how to score this. On one hand, we did not get this. On the other hand, we would have passed on on seafood under the sweltering sun.) Let's call this a push. Afternoon Service - Watermelon & pineapple skewers, Ice cream selection (This sort of happened. There were grapes and chocolate covered strawberries, but no ice cream, pineapple or watermelon.) I'll call this a draw. Cold hand towels (We did not see these, but it's possible we missed them. We've had them on other ships.) Pool towel setup (We had these.) Thoughts: We were perfectly fine with the amenities we received. The things that are on the list wouldn't have added much to the overall experience. Well, except maybe for the gauc & chips. Paired with a nice cold beer, that would have put something in the plus column. As Michelle mentioned, the cabana guys weren't the best we've ever had. We usually took 10 or 14 day cruises, so there was more time for relationship building. We don't have any complaints about the cabana service, but it's the first time I haven't felt compelled to write separate thank you notes to the cabana stewards. The fact that the last two days - a sea day and Half Moon Cay - were a wash out didn't help things. Of course, We can't really ding the crew or the ship for the weather.

Thank you, and a belated Merry Christmas, a timely Happy Boxing Day, or an early Happy New Year! Poohby Joe enjoys donning his oh-so-tiny Santa suit on Christmas. He's one of those hard-to-fit sizes. He's quite a bit smaller than a standard teddy bear. We did manage to find a tuxedo and Santa suit for him though. His bow ties are from a set of infant's bow ties. (We have to wrap then around his neck a couple of time before we close the clasp. When I think about what Poohby Joe goes through to look sharp on dressy nights, I realize that I have it pretty easy,)

There is a list of "enhanced amenities" for the Retreat Cabanas available from HAL. I'll try to get it later today. It's what your PCC or TA would send you. I had a copy, but I did not save it. The list came out at about the time prices went up. I guess it's supposed to soften the blow of the rise in cost. The problem is that I don't think the enhanced amenities made it to the ships. (I spoke to someone on another sailing and their experience mirrored ours.)

Among the amenities for the Retreat are daily sparkling wine and little snacks such as frozen fruit or chocolate strawberries. The cabana stewards were pretty good about making the rounds with the "champagne," and usually made enough passes that you could have more than one glass. The wine was a cremant, perfectly acceptable but you certainly weren't going to mistake it for Dom Perignon. We never got around to stress-testing the sparking wine service to see if there was a limit to the number of glasses they'd serve us. I guess we can put that on the list of future experiments.

No. We were just on Deck 7 on the Nieuw Statendam, but never made it up that far forward. A lot of the ships have access somewhere up front. You won't know whether or not you can get up front unless you try. Obviously you'll want to pay attention to crew only signs if you see them.

Check forward on deck 7 to see if the small front wrap deck is open. It's balcony width.

DW's dad would be supremely pleased to see both ham and turkey on the dinner menu. If you give him those two proteins, he'd be merry & bright. (If there was some leftover apple cobbler, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, to go with the pumpkin tart, he'd be thinking "Christmas miracle.")

Merry Christmas, everyone! I put this in my Live From so that the CC Grinches wouldn't move it over to the generic holiday board. I think that they don't want Cindy Lou Who and all the pals down in HALville to have their own yuletide wishes. 😉🎄 Let us hope that this post is taken in the tongue in cheek spirit of the Season with it intended.

Nope. Twenty-some years ago, when the Zuiderdam launched, she was supposed to be a year round Caribbean ship. She sported a Joe Farcus-designed interior. Farcus was Carnival's chief interior design architect. The ship was quite a departure from HAL's typically classic design. The Zuiderdam sailed 7 day Caribbean itineraries for 4 years until it became pretty obvious that the HAL demographic wasn't wild about warm weather itineraries in summer. A little light reading on the subject: https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2022/12/holland-americas-zuiderdam-completes-20-years-in-service/

Shouldn't there be an asterisk attached to something? There's just an asterisk about Gelato juice - hanging out all by its lonesome self.

I hope you use a loofah. It gives you the cleanest citrus.

The cabanas were sold out for our cruise as they have been for most of the cruises we've been on. We usually book ours as soon as we have confirmed our cruise booking. One of the risks you run is that you might lose some cabana time to bad weather. We lost a day and a half. The terms & conditions say that you acknowledge that you are getting the cabanas weather permitting. I'm not sure how they'd handle it if you lost a significant chunk of your paid time. The normal operating hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Our cabana stewards said that we could use them outside of those hours. On other sailings, we were told that you were limited to the hours when the cabana stewards were working. The orange tote bag in the photo was a Lancome promo from about 25 years ago. It has served us well over the years, but it lacks the splendor of the Club Orange tote.

Your cabana service includes breakfast service and lunch service. The breakfast menu is basically the same as room service. We did not take advantage of cabana breakfast because we ate in the Club Orange dining room most days. There are tables around the cabana area on the Pinnacle Class ships. The other ships have tables both around the cabana area and there is a table & 2 chairs inside each cabana. I prefer the set up on the older ships. The cabanas are deeper, holding both two loungers and a table with two chairs. The newest ships just have two loungers and two small side tables. Lunch is served from either the Lido menu, the Dive In, or NY Pizza and Deli. Drinks come from the Crow's Nest.

You get a water set up each day for your cabana. It's a liter glass bottle. This is down from 2018 when you got two. They were plastic bottles back then. I'd prefer two bottles of water, but the cabana guys brought out a second bottle if you finished the first one. There is also a coffee and tea set up. There are pitchers of juice, including fresh orange. The two larger dispensers are infused water. Most of the time it was orange on the right and apple on the left. The apple was sometimes replaced by lemon. We take Yeti tumblers with us and the cabana guys kept us well stocked with ice. For the most part, we drank infused water over ice. We took the glass bottle back to our room.