Newbie-Turkey Greece from Venice

[ConnCruise]

Howdy Holland America fans,

 

We're experienced cruisers who mostly sail on Royal, Celebrity and NCL. Never have a bad time and enjoy both freestyle dinning of NCL and the more traditional options at Celebrity and Royal.

 

We're looking to possibly book for the Greece-turkey trip on the New Amsterdam out of Venice at the end of may.(wow-what a trip) We've done one other western Med cruise on Celebrity and were pleased with the seeing Europe from a cruise ship concept.

 

So what can we expect from Holland-America? We're both in our mid 50's. We don't party or drink. (but we're still fun :) )

 

Thanks for the imput.

[jtl513]

We just did this itinerary in Sep/Oct on the Nieuw Amsterdam. It's such a port-intensive cruise (just 2.5 sea days out of 12) that you don't get to experience the ship as much as on other routes ... but we thought everything was great on the ship. We've only done one non-HAL cruise, and can't compare it to Celebrity etc. Are there any specific questions that you have?

[ConnCruise]

We had the exact same reaction on our western Med cruise. Very port intensive. But that was a good thing.

 

Questions: Is dinning formal, set dinner times. Are there casual options? Formal nites? If yes, can I just wear a dark business suit.

 

Nationalities of cruisers? (Our dinner table on the med cruise had couples from Britain, Ecuador, South Africa and America-very cool)

 

I'm assuming the staff is very customer service oriented on HA?

 

and since you did this itinerary, did you use HA's shore excursions.

 

Since I'm totally unfamiliar with all ports except for Venice, would any be truly resort like, places we could just go to the beach/snorkel/swim. (I'm looking for one or two days of that)

 

any bad stuff we need to know?

 

Thanks in advance

[catl331]

Our cruise ports were Venice, Split, Athens (Pireus), Istanbul, Ephesus (Kusadasi), Santorini, Mykonos, Katakalon (Olympia). We had to miss the Split stop. Istanbul and Athens (on our own) were very city-oriented tours for us. Mykonos had a beach right in the town but we were there in Oct. and water was too cool. We took ship tours of Santorini, Ephesus, and Mykonos. We had a private all day tour of Istanbul and night cruise on Bosphorus via ship excursion. Katakalon was our quiet day or just walking around town and having lunch. We did take a horse/cart ride on the beach that almost ended in a disaster as another's horse went a little wild. Never heard of any of the passengers going to the beach or snorkeling.

[jtl513]

Questions: Is dinning formal, set dinner times. Are there casual options? Formal nites? If yes, can I just wear a dark business suit.

If you book early enough you can choose Fixed/Traditional dining times, or Open Seating where you can go to dinner anytime between 5:15p and 9:00p. The Fixed tends to book up early, and after that everyone gets the Open seating. On a 12-night cruise there are three formal nights and the rest are "smart casual". A dark suit is fine on formal nights. In fact, they will be in the majority. Even on formal nights you can dine casual in the Lido buffet restaurant.

 

Nationalities of cruisers? (Our dinner table on the med cruise had couples from Britain, Ecuador, South Africa and America-very cool)

Primarily US and Canadian. I would guess maybe 5% from elsewhere.

 

I'm assuming the staff is very customer service oriented on HA?

YES!

 

and since you did this itinerary, did you use HA's shore excursions.

We did HAL excursions in Kusadasi, Mykonos, Santorini, and the first day in Istanbul (a boat ride on the Bosphorus). For the second day in Istanbul we joined a private (8-person) excursion organized by another CC member. All were fine.

Since I'm totally unfamiliar with all ports except for Venice, would any be truly resort like, places we could just go to the beach/snorkel/swim. (I'm looking for one or two days of that)

We found a small beach in Katakolon, and there is a public beach in Mykonos, but I would think the water would be pretty cold for swimming in May.

any bad stuff we need to know?

Can't think of any off-hand.

:)

 

Edit: the previous post is from my DW, who was faster on another computer! :)