Maasdam 10/28/06

No, I'm not caught up yet. Did manage to get some photos uploaded though: http://community.webshots.com/album/555532763fbZkQp

I'm trying to write a trip report but we were very very boring:p Had a GREAT trip though. I haven't even looked on this board to see if any shipmates posted thoughts/reviews yet, but I'll try to fit that in today!!

Hello Hoyaheel:

Hey, there's nothing wrong with "boring"! It means you had no problems, and that's always good, right? Your pictures are wonderful; in fact I haven't looked through all of them yet, but just wanted you to know that you took some really beautiful photos. Plus, you make a nice couple.:) Thanks very much! Welcome back to reality......

Karin

Enjoyed the wonderful photos. So interesting, that I went through the entire collection. Thank you very much.:)

Thanks! I have to give credit to my husband--most of the photos are his. Here's the rest of the review:

Maasdam, Holland America Line

10/28/06-11/8/06

Southern Caribbean

Who, What, Where, When, Why & How?

Who: Me & Husband, age 33 and 38

What: Long-needed vacation, happened to coincide with our anniversary

Where: cruise to the southern Caribbean, all ports except St Thomas new to me and husband

When: 10/28/06 (our 6th anniversary) to 11/8/06

Why: We needed a vacation, debated between our favorite all-inclusive in Jamaica—which just bought a new resort we want to try out—and cruising. We found a great rate on this cruise (we were originally looking at December vacation dates) and jumped on it—decided this would be our “tester” cruise. I haven’t been on a cruise since 1986 (Holland America in Alaska with my parents—anyone know what ship I was on?? I can’t remember!) and my husband hasn’t been on a cruise in 10 years (Royal Caribbean and NCL with ex-wife). We’re not big partiers, don’t have kids and didn’t want to be surrounded by lots of families so we did our research and figured—for the price—Holland America, on a longer itinerary, during the school year would be our best bet. And it fit us GREAT! Yes, there were families with kids on our cruise. We talked to lots of them—they were enjoying themselves too!

How: Norfolk is a bit of a cluster* for cruise departures. They don't really know what they're doing and don't have a cruise terminal yet (it's under construction) We loved it because it's so convenient--3 1/2 hour drive on mostly uncongested roads and we didn't have to buy airplane tickets or get a hotel room. Now, the downside--you can't drop off people or luggage by the ship while they're still unloading passengers (no room) AND they won't let you park at the "official" (city-run) parking lot ($10 a day) if you get there early. We queued up there in the "staging area" because we arrived in Norfolk around 10:30 am. They let us start parking around 11:30, after most of the departing guest shuttles had arrived & those cars had left. I think the biggest problem is the luggage issue--if they get that settled, they could allow people in at the same time as they allow people to leave. Once we paid for parking (in advance, by credit card) the porters loaded our bags onto the shuttle buses (with our cruise luggage tags on them) and we didn't have to worry about them again. The shuttles dropped us off in front of the terminal area (also the Nauticus museum and USS Wisconsin) and we proceeded to id check and then into line for check-in. We were on board by 12:15 and sitting in the Lido bar. Our rooms were ready around 1:00 so we went to our balcony and watched everyone else board with binoculars. We watched one of my bags sit on the dock for at least 2 hours before it was finally loaded onto the ship--other luggage bins just kept getting pushed in front of mine.:rolleyes:

Here's the other downside to Norfolk (or, anyplace on the eastern seaboard north of Florida that has a Caribbean itinerary) You could have some ROUGH sea days. You are in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean--for us, at least 3 days were fairly rough--the pools are drained, people get sick, you feel like you're going to roll out of bed, etc. A lot of people really don't like that, but after the first night, I just upped my meclizine & benadryl dosage and slept through the rolling.:cool:

Day 1: Embarkation in Norfolk, leaving harbor

Day 2: At sea, Atlantic, rather motion-filled

Day 3: Half Moon Cay

Day 4: At sea

Day 5: St. Thomas, too many people & boats

Day 6: Dominica—beautiful scenery, crazy roads

Day 7: Barbados: aah, rum tour

Day 8: St. Kitts: relaxing day on the train

Day 9: San Juan in the morning

Day 10: At sea, icky weather, rough seas, perfect day to build a boat

Day 11: At sea, winning the boat-building competition

Day 12: Boo, hiss, back in Norfolk

Highlights:

v Beautiful large cabin with balcony

v Played trivia three times; won twice

v Won the shipbuilding competition

v Great service with a smile from most of the staff

v Brought a case of our own wine as checked baggage and enjoyed it every day

v Used the spa—hubby had a hot stones massage, I had the lime & ginger scrub followed by a full-body massage. We booked on a port day for an extra discount. Great service!

Lowlights:

v Problems with air conditioning in our room

v Dining room service seemed to suffer during “big” entertainment nights—like the Master Chef dinner

We were looking for a relaxing vacation (so in many ways, a cruise is less than ideal for us, but we wanted to try it and see if we should add cruising to our vacation repertoire). On sea days, I spent a lot of time reading and my husband roamed the decks with his digital camera and binoculars. We did trivia a couple times, went to a couple of the bars & lounges (Crows Nest on Halloween was great! Yep, that was us out on the dance floor doing the Time Warp ;-) We went on the galley tour and did the first cooking class, which we both enjoyed tremendously! The instructor was the chef from the Pinnacle Grill and he was really funny, as well as a good instructor. We competed in (and won) the shipbuilding competition—our boat was made from salvaged materials, which meant I went dumpster-diving in all the ports—great fun! And boy did I make the x-ray screeners laugh when I got back on the ship! We scheduled two excursions for port days through HAL—a bus & hiking tour on Dominica (Dominica’s Best) and the train on St Kitts. We really enjoyed both excursions and have no complaints over the way anything was handled. The train on St Kitts was probably our favorite thing. Half Moon Cay we walked around—over to the stingray cove and then down the beach, played in the water a little, had a drink, and went back to the ship. If I wanted a beach vacation, I would have taken one. My husband had to “coax” (force) me off the ship that day, I just wasn't in the mood--especially after spending the morning at the spa!….On St Thomas, I wanted to hide—too many other big ships in town at the same time (I don't really like people very much:rolleyes: ). We found a bar, had a couple of drinks to build our courage to face the crowds, shopped briefly for trinkets & beads, then walked back to the ship, stopping at grocery stores for beers along the way. Dominica was gorgeous—we took lots of photos and really enjoyed the opportunity to get out and walk a little—up to the Trafalgar waterfalls and up to the Emerald Pool. In Barbados, we took a taxi to the Mt. Gay rum factory and did the tour there--$6, tasting at the end, very nice gift shop to buy presents for all my college roommates who also love Mt Gay rum :p On St Kitts, the train was wonderful—goes 10mph so lots of time to look & take pictures and relax. We sat on top the entire time, but I know the sun (on one side of the train) sent a bunch of people downstairs & inside for air conditioning. The last day, in San Juan—no time to really do much—we just hopped off the ship and walked around for a couple hours (finding my best shipbuilding items so far—the umbrella in a garbage can that yielded the keel, sails & stays for our ship!) then sat on our balcony with a bottle of wine and the binoculars, checking out the ships docked around us & the garbage barge directly below our room.

We caught parts of some movies in our room. We did not see any movies in the theater. We did not see any of the shows in the main showroom at night. Mainly—because of our seating. We started out with the 8:30 seating and the other people at our table were always late so we didn’t finish up until 10:15-10:30 or so. I don’t mind eating at 8:30 (we eat at 7:30 at home so it’s not too much of a stretch) BUT—10:30 is “bedtime” to me, not “finish dining” time. Thankfully we were able to move to a 10 person table at 8:00 (that only once had more than 3 couples dining at the same time—but all the couples that showed up over the week were delightful!) We went to the casino once. When I want to gamble, I go to Las Vegas. I love Las Vegas and don’t enjoy gambling anyplace else, so that wasn’t much of a draw for us. We went to the Piano Bar a couple of times, and the Crows nest, and both were fairly low-key. That just means YOUR requests get played!

Did laundry one day. Wash = $2, dry = $1 (quarters only, I got mine at the front desk) A few of the washers were having problems—I’m not sure how quickly crew were able to fix them. Drinks of the day were $5, regular glasses. We had those a couple of days. Buckets of beer $20 for Corona, I think. On a port afternoon, domestic buckets were $15 (specials noted in the daily program). They had happy hour a couple of evenings (4-5ish) in various bars. 2 for 1 drinks. We went to happy hour on the last night in Ocean Bar and were offered hors d’oeuvres. Not crudités, but not hot hors d’oeuvres either. Cheese, meat, cracker concoctions. Tasty. Most nights we had our own happy hour with wine on our balcony and a cheese tray from Lido or nachos from the Terrace Grill. We ate most of our breakfasts and almost all our dinners in the dining room. We had one dinner at Pinnacle Grill. It was a gift from the travel agent, and it was very nice, but I wouldn’t pay $30 per person extra for it. Most lunches we ate in the Lido buffet—on port days, we got back too late for more than sandwiches & salads, but that was fine.

The weather was very rough the first night out of Norfolk and coming out of San Juan. I’ll post some video if I can—before they drained the pool, water was everywhere! I didn’t get nauseated but I had a difficult time sleeping until I took more benadryl & meclizine!

I know I’m leaving out all sorts of details, so if you have any questions, let me know. I saved all (but 1 I can’t find) of our daily programs and various other bits & things. What can I say—we would cruise again, we would most certainly cruise on HAL (preferably a small ship—we really liked the size of the Maasdam) but it will probably be a few years before we go again—next year I get my beach vacation, and then in 2008, hubby wants to do a European river cruise for his 40th birthday ;-)

Hello Hoya... Really enjoyed your comprehensive account of your trip on the ms Maasdam out of Norfolk. Sounds like you had a pretty good time!

We're going to be on the Maasdam on the 11th of Dec cruise (right before they leave Norfolk for good and go to Ft. Lauderdale for future cruises). What balcony room were you in? We're going to be in a "B" Cat. balcony room, I hope to not get "thrown" out of those beautifull beds during those rough seas that one usually gets from leaving from that area of the Atlantic.

What kind of balcony furniture is on the balcony? How was disembarkation handled? Did you arrive back on time? Did you have any "rainy" days while in any of the islands enough to ruin your plans? Well, thats all the questions I have for now, again, sounds like your trip was pretty decent.

Thanks for the great pictures, we did the same cruise last March. Have to agree that the train on St Kitts was one of the best excursions we have done. Sorry to hear that nothing has changed in Norfolk, we had nearly the same experience. The rest of our cruise was terrific.

Thanks Hoyaheel...

I was interested reading your review since we are off to the S. Caribbean in January on the Maasdam....different itinerary but we are also going to St. Thomas and Dominica. I had just booked a shore excursion to the Emerald Pool the other day and loved all of your pics from the Maasdam and the Ports of call....thanks.

By the way you sound like our kind of people as to how you like to enjoy the cruise & ports except we are old enough to be your parents.....We cruised on the Maasdam before to Alaska - it will be interesting to see how they have fixed the old girl up after being in drydock in the spring.....

Dave

I've had some friends tell us they're "not old enough" to cruise HAL, and my response is "age is just a number"--it was an appropriate cruiseline for us, no matter what our ages--we did our research, looked at amenities & personalities, prices. my goodness--the size of the rooms alone was enough to get us on this cruise!! So yes, in general we were younger than most passengers, but that wasn't a factor in our enjoyment of the cruise at all. And I hope all the "older" passengers weren't upset by our presence:p I swear, I didn't bring a dvd player to the dining room at all!!

Hello Hoya... Really enjoyed your comprehensive account of your trip on the ms Maasdam out of Norfolk. Sounds like you had a pretty good time!

 

We're going to be on the Maasdam on the 11th of Dec cruise (right before they leave Norfolk for good and go to Ft. Lauderdale for future cruises). What balcony room were you in? We're going to be in a "B" Cat. balcony room, I hope to not get "thrown" out of those beautifull beds during those rough seas that one usually gets from leaving from that area of the Atlantic.

 

What kind of balcony furniture is on the balcony? How was disembarkation handled? Did you arrive back on time? Did you have any "rainy" days while in any of the islands enough to ruin your plans? Well, thats all the questions I have for now, again, sounds like your trip was pretty decent.

WIScruiser--we were in Cat B, room 178--very nicely mid-ship and I'm extremely happy I chose it, as on those rough days, you could really feel a lot of movement fore & aft. Our balcony had metal furniture with "sling" (mesh) type seats. One lounger and one chair, and a small round table. I think there's a photo of the balcony on webshots with no one sitting in the seats. My husband went around taking lots of room photos on the last day--to show the size of the safe and the closets and under the bed--in case anyone had questions like thist:p

For disembarkation, on the 3rd or so day (maybe later) you receive a disembarkation form to fill out--wanting to know your plans, so they can color code your luggage tags and plan out disembarkation for the entire ship. Since we didn't have a plane to meet, we just marked off the latest possible time period under the "parked car nearby, need a shuttle to Cedar Grove" option. The front office will give you a color coded luggage tag for your bags the last day and then, on disembarkation day, once the ship has cleared, you just listen to the announcements and disembark when your color/number combo is called. We had breakfast in the dining room then waited in our room, watching the luggage being unloaded (we were on the port side, which is the dockside in Norfolk) and new provisions being loaded. I think we were called at 10 or 10:15. Then you leave the ship, having your room key scanned one last time:( and proceed to the dock to find your luggage, then you walk out through customs (you'll get the form with your disembarkation packet on the ship and should fill out in advance) Then we waited in line for the parking lot shuttle, drove to the lot, and drove away....After making a couple of wrong turns and making a couple loops of downtown Norfolk, we eventually found the correct on-ramp and got out of the city and on the road to home:cool: We definitely arrived on time--they said they'd start disembarkation around 8am and they did.

As for rain--some of the photos are squalls off St Kitts--we had about 5 minutes of rain when we were on the island, but that's the only rain I can remember on port days. Didn't bother us at all. The sea day after San Juan was icky--rough seas, rainy, overcast, etc. Good day for us to stay in the cabin and build our ship!! I "self-entertain" very well, so rain/clouds/cool weather aren't catastrophes for me.

Hi fellow NC'er.

How do you package/prepare a case of wine so it does not get broken?

Did you carry it on?

Would love to take my own.

We will be flying from RDU to FLL.

Thanks,

char&ski, from NC

Hoyaheel Great reveiw and pictures..

Will be in Barbados in Jan. and wanted to go to the Mt. Gay tour.. How far was it from the peir? What was taxi fair? How long did you need to do this trip? Was it a good time/ worth it? Thanks for any answers..

Heyah Hoyaheel! :)

I enjoyed your review and particularly your photos of your Maasdam cruise. I had to laugh when I saw your cabin number. I do believe my wife & I stayed the very same cabin you did when we took our honeymoon cruise on the Maasdam up in Canada earlier this year. It looked exactly the same! Someday I'd like to take the Maasdam for a 10 day So. Carribean cruise. Hopefully that day will come sooner than later.

I've had some friends tell us they're "not old enough" to cruise HAL, and my response is "age is just a number"--it was an appropriate cruiseline for us, no matter what our ages--we did our research, looked at amenities & personalities, prices. my goodness--the size of the rooms alone was enough to get us on this cruise!! So yes, in general we were younger than most passengers, but that wasn't a factor in our enjoyment of the cruise at all. And I hope all the "older" passengers weren't upset by our presence:p I swear, I didn't bring a dvd player to the dining room at all!!

I could not agree more. We're only slightly older than you and your husband (37-42), but we also had a magnificent time on the Maasdam even though we were among the youngest passengers on the ship. IMO, age of your fellow passengers is less relevent than personal preferences in amenities & itenerary.

Barbados Pier to Mt Gay factory is probably 2 miles. Our fare was $10 US I think --more than they told us at the pier, even though we were sharing--the couple we were sharing with were going to the beach next door, not the same spot. The cab we took from Mt Gay to the Careenage (a mile on the OTHER side of the pier) was only $5US, so, well.....We got a little screwed on the first one, but that's ok, we got rum, so it was all good:rolleyes: The gift shop opens at 9:00 and the first tour is 9:30; then the tours are every hour (on the half hour--confused us, because we got there all excited, just before 10, expecting we could do the tour then) The tour itself was about 45-60 minutes (depends on how large the group is, I guess) and then we browsed for a long time in the gift shop, getting all our Christmas presents:p

Wine--my husband is a master packer! He boxed a standard wine case (12 bottles, cardboard dividers) inside another cardboard box and wrapped each bottle in a lightweight packing foam (that he has at work for shipping stuff there) Nothing moved. We checked it in with our other bags and it arrived fine. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable flying with it, since that adds so many more times it's handled, but it did arrive without any problems. I know people talk on the Ft Lauderdale port forum about wine shops nearby, if you have enough time to buy your wine in Florida before your cruise instead of flying down with it.....

Thank you Hoyaheel for your great review and all the photos of the ship and cabin. We will be on our first cruise on 11/19/06 and will have a verandah cabin too. Your photos of the cabin answered a number of questions for us about the balcony, the fridge, safe, etc. We also appreciated your report of the islands and sea days. Hey, do they do the ship building contest every sailing??? I had never heard of that before.

We are very excited and leaving in a few days to fly back to Norfolk. Thanks again for all your great insights!

--Kathy

Kathy--thanks! I don't know if they do the ship-building every cruise--I had read about it (here, of course:p ) but only once--so I don't know if they only do it on longer cruises or cruises with enough port days to gather (buy?) materials, or if there seems to be a demand from cruisers? They might look at how many people are showing up to do cruise staff-run events to see if there would be enough interest in doing the shipbuilding before they set it up. But the cast--who judge the event--on the Maasdam seemed to have done it a few times before;) My husband is now set to bring a full tool box with him on the next cruise--I'll have to talk him out of that! We did ok with a pocket knife and a sewing kit:D

Hoyaheel

Loved the pics. I'm leaving on Nov 30th. How do you get into the cooking class? Do I need to reg before I get on the ship? Also, were there 3 formals??

Thanks

We went to the front office on embarkation day and asked to sign up for the cooking class. The woman at the desk pulled out a list and added our names to it, but she did explain they weren't yet sure when the class would meet or what our menu would be--I said we didn't care. She charged our shipboard acct for the class, I signed the receipt, and off we went. We got a note on our door the evening before the class was offered, noting the time & location (well, location is pretty much a given, right?:p )

We did have 3 formal nights--2 were sea days and another was the evening of the port day in Barbados. We had 2 informal nights and the rest were casual.