slabeaume

What are your thoughts on Mambo Beach? This will be our first time to this beautiful island and would like to find a beach with amenities to relax and enjoy the day.

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

I can't reply on Mambo Beach, but I can talk about where we ended up going which was Blue Bay. Even though we were skeptical at first because of the beautiful sandy beach (not usually great for snorkeling). We were talked into going here by the cab driver and had such great snorkeling the previous days that we decided not to be too picky. Turned out to be great---even the snorkeling--once we went around the bay on either point. There were plenty of amenities here, too, although we were too busy snorkeling to enjoy any of them. If you'd like to see some pictures of Blue Bay, check out my day at Curacao here in my blog:

http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/2015/05/2015-april-17-may-1-southern-caribbean.html

Curacao was our last port, so skim down to the bottom to find it.

Noone collected a fee from us. The taxi ride was about $50 rt for the 2 of us. It dropped us off at the entrance to Blue Bay resort. We walked to the beach and put our stuff under a tree and took off snorkeling. Perhaps they would have hunted us down if we took a chair. If you'd care to check out our day, I blogged it here: http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/2015/05/2015-april-17-may-1-southern-caribbean.html

Curacoa was our last port, so that day is near the bottom of my blog.

Blue Bay isn't a bad choice. We ended up there and LOVED it. There is a little snorkeling actually in the bay, but it gets a lot better if you go around the points of the bay. There's another shallow bay around the left of Blue Bay and kept us occupied for quite awhile. I even saw a lionfish there.

We ended up at Spice Resort on our April 17-May 1st cruise and had a fantastic time there. We spent most of the time snorkeling. Even saw a couple Lionfish. You can even catch a ferry over to Noname beach from there for $15@, but we just snorkeled up and down the coast by Spice resort. Our taxi fare there was $5@ one way which was reasonable. If you'd like to see pictures from there, check out my blog and scan down to our day on Bonaire:

http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/search/label/HAL

Alberta quilter---so sorry to hear you both came down with the virus. Thanks for reporting your experience, though. Sure hope they get rid of it soon!

Re Future Cruise Consultant on the Maasdam May 1-16

 

Fellow cruisers, I am amazed at the attitude of this person, so foreign to my newbie experience with 2 happy HAL cruises under my belt. As someone who was planning to purchase FCD’s on my upcoming Maasdam October Atlantic Adventure I find this very unsettling.

 

Let me say that as one who has had 42 years experience working with the public our best defense is to document these unfortunate substandard performances by copying and pasting the aforementioned posts (#313, 314, 317, 330, 332) into a document. By taking them along on our next Maasdam cruise we will have published testimony of past unprofessional performance. These copied testaments, publicly posted by Maasdam passengers, should put us in good shape if any glitches develop with our forthcoming Future Cruise Deposits.

 

Good Luck to all. --Charles

I believe she would be more than happy to help you if you actually book another cruise with her, but if you just wanted to put down the Future Cruise deposit, she didn't want anything to do with that. In the past, they were always happy to help us with that.

Hi there

I complained about the future cruise person in my survey but am also writing a letter.

I went to her about the future cruise credit and she gave me the same story about the forms coming out 2 days before departing. I told her that I wanted a different credit card used. So she reluctantly found a form almost threw it at me and told me to fill it out I did and she just took it, I did get the certificate before I left the ship. I told them on the survey that she needed to retire.

 

We had problems with her on our April 17th cruise, too. This is the first cruise we didn't purchase a future cruise and it was because of her not letting us do the deposit when we wanted to.

Thank you so much. Fabulous photos. I was on this cruise 3 years ago and loved it. It was so nice to relive that experience. I loved Blue Bay too but your pictures are so very clear and close. Very beautiful. My brother and his wife were aboard with you and said they didn't get sick either. Glad you had a wonderful time. m--

In my research ahead of time, Blue Bay would probably have been my last choice of places to go, but we sure did enjoy ourselves there!

Is stockholders OBC is refundable?

We've been to Half Moon Cay all the other times (4) that we've been on a Caribbean cruise, so I can't complain too much about missing it this time. But I do love that island, too. We had such good weather and surf the rest of the time, though, that I'm not going to complain too much. Even with the Code Red, I think this was my favorite cruise yet!

Finally got my blog done with lots of pictures. We had a fantastic time on the Maasdam and at the ports from it's last Southern Caribbean cruise of the season: St. Thomas; St. Barth's; St. Lucia; Barbados; Grenada; Bonaire; Curacoa. Great snorkeling ports and we did lots of it. Only downside of the cruise was it going into Code Red a week into the cruise. Fortunately we didn't get sick!

http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/2015/05/2015-april-17-may-1-southern-caribbean.html

Are you thinking of the Explorations Cafe? The food from that display case is served by the staff at the counter. I was speaking about the Explorer's Lounge where the Adagio play. There are, on the Amsterdam, truffles and/or other chocolates there for one to help themselves.

My mistake! Yes, I was thinking of the Explorations Café. Never spent much time in the Explorer's Club.

As for the film on everything, that was only noticed after we went into Code Red. They even leave the tables in Lido dripping wet with the sanitizer. Surprisingly, I don't remember the flowers in the Lido disappearing, but did realize they were gone on the last day of our cruise.

They had chocolates in the Explorers lounge of the Maasdam every night that I can remember on our cruise in April, along with little bagel sandwiches and cookies and such. But they were behind glass and the beverage steward had to get them for us.

I know about the Dive In, but what is the sandwich place?

The lido buffet closes at 2pm, but the deli sandwich section stays open awhile longer. They also have a bunch of pre-made sandwiches after the lunch buffet closes.

Weather looks warm for at least Newport, RI next week. Don't know about farther north. I'll be boarding for the day in Newport to visit my daughter.:)

Wouldn't happen to be Jordan, would she? Very nice young lady.

Just got off the Maasdam today. We went into Code Red a week ago and stayed in code red. Saw on the news tonight that 60 passengers and 11 crew members got sick. My hands have never been so clean!!!! The poor crew had the added work of cleaning every thing---walls, chairs, carpets, tables, ... . I understand this cruise will start in Code Red until they see if anyone gets sick. Fortunately we didn't get sick. They also close the self serve laundry and hot tub while in Code Red. All in all, we had a great time! Will write my blog with pictures in the next week.

I plan to be there, too,---on the ship! Yea!!!!

slabeaume, just stop by, then you'll know who we are! (I just posted over on our roll call thread an idea for a last-minute meet & greet so we'll see you there too if that works out for everyone.)

 

We got an upsell offer too, but it wasn't a good value and we declined. We've certainly enjoyed some great upsets into a Neptune Lounge-eligible suite in recent years, on various HAL ships, but we decided to pass on this one; it was not that much of a deal. We're very happy with what we lucked into from a GTY booking, and very late at that. We should be 5-star at the end of this cruise, so it's a nice milestone sailing for us.

I'll have to go check out the roll call.

The upsell we just got wasn't like the $199 we've gotten before on the big ships, but we were going from an OV to a Vista suite, so I splurged a little to get that verandah. Actually, I'm surprised we got the offer since there was only 1 suite showing available. Looking forward to this--only a few more days to go!

Thanks for posting the information about 065 as that's our cabin starting April 17! I think we'll be really pleased with it and I was happy to read on your blog that there had not been a problem with wayward smoke from the smoking area on the Lido deck below.

We loved that room---so convenient to the pool, elevators, lido, and easy to find being the last room. I would be really jealous of you guys, but we managed to get a paid upgrade to a vista suite yesterday. Probably paid too much, but love having a verandah. It was listed as an "A" suite on our cruise this time last year. After our cruise, it was changed to a "BC". I would still list it as an "A". I kept waiting for those to go on sale to possibly upgrade to, but I guess I missed it. I'm sure we'll see you on board---although we won't know who you are! :)

Thanks for your reply.

Verandahs and Lanais are quite different. Lanais open to the Lower Promenade Deck which all passengers may use, a Verandah is only for the use of the stateroom occupants, unless of course they invite others for a visit.

Our main vacations are to Hawaii. There your lanai isn't used by your neighbors---hopefully. At our home in the midwest, we don't have lanais or verandahs, just a porch if you're lucky.

I did not use the internet on the ship, so I don't know how it was from our verandah.

I guess my pictures are better then my words. I guess I mean the lanai cabins, not verandah cabins. I thought verandahs and lanais were the same thing.

I probably didn't say it correctly---the verandah cabins that open up onto a deck where there are no dividers between the cabins. People can walk around the boat on that deck and pass right in front of the verandah cabin doors.

We were in Maasdam vista suite 065 -- the last suite in the back. We really liked it. The last 2 or 3 cabins don't have the Lido jutting over the balcony, so there was more sky to see. We also liked it's location close to the stairs to Lido and just steps from the aft pool area. I was worried there might be noise, but we heard very little noise---about 5 minutes in the morning while they moved chairs overhead and there was a door banging the first night by the elevators (which they finally fixed about 5am). When we were in the Lido for the late night snack, we could hear the basketball courts overhead very loudly. I imagine the suites right below the Lido (towards the middle back) could also hear it---and there were some late night games going on. But we didn't hear it from our room. I was hoping for an upsell to those suites for our trip in a couple weeks, but only got an offer for a balcony with shared patio for way too much money. I would definitely upgrade to the last few cabins again! I would probably pay the extra $900 to go from an inside to a vista suite. If you'd like to see pictures of the room, location, and our cruise from last year, check out: http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/2014/05/2014-april-11-22-maasdam-southern.html

I, too, am amazed at how they know everyone's name. Although the one time I was in a Neptune suite the Neptune concierge kept calling me by someone else's name. I corrected her a couple times, then just figured she was talking to me.