Joanie's Alaskan Adventure 2011 has begun:)

[CowPrincess]

Great reporting Joanie. If the Amsterdam is experiencing the same weather and rock and rolling, perhaps it is a good omen that we got caught in the Tucson Monsoon last weekend and had to cancel.

 

Have been reading this thread with horror! :eek: My friend and I are now extremely glad the price of this cruise didn't come down enough for us to consider it "affordable" or we'd have been on it. NOT the kind of trip to Alaska either of us would have wanted.

 

Let me repeat :eek: ;)

[erewhon]

Joanie,

 

Thank you for your thorough reports.

 

Did the Chocolate Purse taste delicious?

 

Sorry that you did not leave the ship in Skagway, we discovered a shop there with items made in Alaska, which we were pleased to buy...... good gifts.

[cruisinggranmama]

Joanie, love your outlook on adverse weather and seeing nature. You have a great attitude.

 

We cruised Alaska in early September 10 years and only saw the sun on the day we were in Glacier Bay. I know we added 2 inches to Ketchikan's water table the day we were there.

 

I look forward to your next entry.

 

I'm sorry the weather was uncooperative.

[RuthC]

Thanks for the photos of the Chocolate Purse. It's not at all as I imagined, and not something that, had I seen it served to someone, would make me drool. But your description sure did!

I've never noticed it on the menu, but will look for it on my next cruise. Based on your recommendation, it will be ordered!

[kazu]

Oh Joanie - that desert is absolutely decadent! ;) i don't know if i could handle it but i am sure Ruth could:)

 

I just love your glass half full attitude. I haven't been to Alaska yet, it's just not on my bucket list with our short summers here and my plants and my garden - but i have not decided when i go it will not be in September:rolleyes:

 

sorry for your bad weather and i admire you for taking it with a grain of salt:) Hope the seas smooth out for your soon and the sun shines:)

[SuiteTraveler]

Thanks for a great and entertaining thread!

 

Have there been any noticeable damages to the ship from all this? Broken glass, furniture or dishes? Are you being tossed about in your stateroom a bit? When we did the BoB last May we had a bit of a wild ride and I went headfirst into the closet - luckily the door was open and I caught myself on the frame - phew! I also had a close call with the raised vessel sink in the bathroom. It's all about being careful! LOL!:rolleyes:

[LVSue]

Hi, all! We sure have had some weather all right... Not at like Las Vegas, but that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.

 

We had a rather blustery whale watch in Juneau, but a lovely float trip in Skagway, and even saw a bear walking down the road on our way to the Taiya River. We had a special window of nice weather for our float, because the minute the van arrived back at the ship, the wind whipped up and then came the rain...

 

Yesterday leaving Glacier Bay, we had ventured out on the aft Lido deck only to see a lounge chair fly across the deck. (this was right before the captain ordered outside decks closed) Good thing the capt. kept us out of high seas till the middle of the night.

 

Today in Ketchikan, it wasn't too bad. Our big bargain: 5 T-shirts for $10, good brands, too. My son loves his Alaska T-shirts, so I'm replenishing! Anyway, not much rain or wind. Actually, there were some sucker holes this morning (that's Alaskan for little patches of blue sky that trick you into thinking it might be a nice day).

[Overtime4me2]

I've been enjoying your posts, but really feel for all of you up there this week, on ALL of the ships! What a week! You have had both ends of the spectrum between last week and this week. I love your positive attitude, that's the way I try to be.

 

Hope you have a decent night tonight....hang on.....! ;)

[MrFunInTheSun]

Nice review. Even with the tough weather sounds to be an awesome adventure!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MrCruze]

It's amazing that we were on the Amsterdam a week ago, and the seas were fairly calm - only some minor swells a couple of nights the entire cruise. We also had virtually no rain in any of the ports for the full 14 days (maybe an hour here or there)! The staff were saying it was one of the nicest cruises weatherwise in a while.

[aliaschief]

Joanie thanks for sharing your cruise with us. If everyone had your great attitude at sea there would be no such thing as a bad review! Enjoyed your live and wild ride post. Can't wait for our MS Zuiderdam cruise in November.

[solocanadian]

Joanie: Regretfully I will not be able to visit you in your hotel. Saturday was the only day I could get to see the dental surgeon, which is a must. However will phone you in afternoon. Sorry, Gail

[spacepotatoes]

Thanks for taking the time to report on your experiences over these last 2 weeks, Joanie! It's been fun cruising vicariously through you :) Given the crazy weather you've all been having, I think I'm glad to have just followed along online. Great to hear that you've enjoyed the trip, despite all of the ups and downs (pun partially intended ;))!

[startwin]

Joanie - as you requested - The Beaufort Wind Scale.

 

Wind speed in knots - nautical miles per hour.

 

Force 1 1-3

Force 2 4-6

Force 3 7-10

Force 4 11-16

Force 5 17-21

Force 6 22-27

Force 7 near gale 28-33

Force 8 gale 34-40

Force 9 Strong Gale 41-47

Force 10 Storm 48-55

Force 11 Violent Storm 56-65

Force 12 Hurricane 64-71

 

Winds do go higher but annomometers usually break, visibility is limited by spray & water vapour & you hang on hoping the engines keep going.

Also it is hard to hear due to the noise of the wind.

 

You just got caught by some steep seas combining with the north Pacific swell. It can get far worse.

 

A roll on a cruise ship of 20 degrees is not good. -

but not as bad as 30 or 40degrees which can happen at sea.

 

Ships ROLL & PITCH - rock & roll is a dance.

A list is a fixed state - goes to one side & stays there.

 

Thanks for the great posts.

John

 

 

Just got off the Zaandam, and the storms had a major affect on our cruise.... you might be interested to know that the captain actually took a photo of whatever it is that gives wind speed readings on the bridge.... and it was 92 nmph. No wonder we were rocking and rolling:D

[msm0908]

Thanks for posting Joanie, saw the Zuiderdam in Ketchikan, we were on the Oosterdam and due to the storm and wind, we had to cancel Sitka and headed to Ketchikan one day early. We also sailed the Inside Passage to Victoria (our captain didn't want us to feel like we were in a washing machine anymore) and saw the Zuiderdam heading towards the open waters! Sounds like you had a wonderful time even with all of the rocking and rolling! We had a good time too on the Oosterdam but I do miss the Zuiderdam!

[Himself]

Joannie thank you for a very good and enjoyable report. I am sorry about the weather but I guess it is now winter in Alaska.

[kalliekae]

I enjoyed your live reports, Joanie. We sailed to Alaska in early Sept several years ago and had perfect weather so you never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at you. Love your positivie attitude and that you passed it along to the British woman who was complaining. :)

[IRL_Joanie]

Just a real quick note. I am home and downloading everything from my net book and getting ready to go to my PC and upload everything to there so I can finish the blog and start answering questions.

 

I will say that while the last week of the season was miserably cold an rainy with the 3 typhoons, it was the MOST AWESOME cruise we could have had!!!

 

OK time to post this and get my behind in gear:)

 

Joanie

[RuthC]

Glad you got home safe and sound, Joanie. Thanks for checking in.

And thanks for allowing us along on your wild ride!

[Krazy Kruizers]

Glad you got home safely Joanie!!

[kazu]

Thanks Joanie - love the attitude despite the wild ride :)

[IRL_Joanie]

Thursday 22 September and Friday 23 September 2011

 

Ketchikan continued.....

 

BAD News for all of us aboard a ship in or near Alaska!!! We are once more preparing to batten down the hatches for yet another bad storm. We've been told to expect 50-90 mph winds this evening and that the storm coming across the Pacific is going to be even worse than last Sunday or Tuesday's storm .............. It is expected to hit Ketchikan around 1 a.m. local time and they say will last through at least 4 days.

 

Good news though..... I have a few thousand of HAL's recipes!! I have for the Lido, Pinnacle Grill, Main Dining Room and even quite a large number of Special dishes for Holidays and Bar Appitizers and Canapes. It is going to take me months to copy the recipes and convert them, but it will be so much fun and well worth the effort to insure we all get to continue with the delicious food that we all love so much:) Hubby has suggested a great idea of my creating a Recipe of the Week and I think it will work out nicely ONCE I get all the recipes uploaded to my main PC, which will be when I get home on Monday.

 

OK, we are heading off to a Special In Room Dining experience (same as hubby and I had on Nieuw Amsterdam back in November-December) with Butterfly Girl, Vicki, and her hubby, Mons, Ramon, in their stateroom (It is a larger SA, so more room for the staff to bring in the Verandah Table to set up all the PG dinnerware.)

 

At Sea late night Ketchikan heading to our last at Sea Day and then Vancouver on Saturday.

 

WHAT AN AWESOME time we had with Vicki and Ramon!!! None of us could remember who had ordered what course (except for dessert *LOL*) so we kind of shared/tasted everone elses courses (except the soups and Desserts) We had Christian, the In Room Dining Manager (BTW, Room Service is NO LONGER a term used by HAL, it is strictly called In Room Dining!!) and a young man who's name we could not pronounce so he asked us to call him Scooby Doo. He and Christian were an absolute RIOT as a team!! They had us almost rolling on the floor with their tales and jokes throughout the evening!! They brought the verandah table in and set it up with the white table cloth and then made sure that all the dinnerware, flatware and stemware from Pinnacle Grill was set in there correct places and then they placed our appetizers in front of us and waited while we decided that none of us could remember who ordered what so we shared, as brothers. Christian left us his phone number so that we could call him when we were ready for dessert. In the meantime Scooby Doo stayed until we fininshed the appetizers, then served us our salads and entrees before he then left us to return with dessert when we called Christian.

 

While shopping in Ketchikan today the locals had warned some of us (I think those that asked about the weather) about a HUGE storm due to hit town around 1:00 a.m. They told us that winds in excess of 50mph and heavy rains were expected and that they'd been told to expect the port to be closed on Friday so we, the Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam was also there because of a Port change due to the incoming weather, they'd missed Sitka, Amsterdam and a Princess ships were the last ships to make the port of Ketchikan for the season. So there were definitely excellent sales to be had for all of us!!

 

When we were leaving port this evening the Captain let us know about another Typhoon that had come up the Bering Sea and was bearing down the coast of Alaska. He said that we would be staying in the Inside Passage the entire trip to Vancouver without venturing into any open waters at all (not even to dump Gray Water.) He stated that we would be hitting the first of the rough seas right around 10:00 p.m. and he was right on the money!!

 

We were in Vicki and Ramon's room when the seas started us rocking and a rolling so ... Hubby and I bade our goodbyes to our good friends with promises to see them Saturday Night at their Sutton Place Hotel for our Chocolate Buffet dinner at 7:30 p.m.

 

Just as hubby and I reached our room the waves and winds started hitting with a good force so we prepared the room and duct taped everything closed and went to bed where I think we had the best night sleep of the entire 2 weeks.

 

Friday morning At Sea was INTERESTING to say the least!! I opened the curtains a crack and saw the the verandah door separating my stateroom of 7142 and 7140 had blown wide open (it had been locked) towaeds my port side stateroom, and was being held in the open position by ALL of our verandah furniture *YIKES*

 

There was quite a bit of damage taken around and aboard the ship due to this week's 3 typhoons. I know verandah dividers were broken, at least 5 loungers and several chairs from the Lido Aft went flying over the railing before they could be tied down, and a number that did not go flying overboard were damaged, lots of dinner plates and other dinnerware and stemware. In staterooms there were lots of stemware broken along with several glass mirrored closet doors that literally flew off their tracks and blocked doorways, trapping passengers inside their staterooms. I know the last as a fact because it took nearly an hour to rescue the 2 elderly British ladies in 7134 next door to us AFTER the winds and waves had calmed enough for the maintainace ment to go from our verandah to theirs. Poor Jill and Lavinia may never cruise again after this last week, though I did try to convince them that this was NOT normal for Alaska.

 

Hubby did manage to take a photo of the TV screen with the winds listed at 82 mph!! And this was AFTER they'd started to calm down!!

 

I went down to the Sports bar and sat there and took photos of the waves as they broke past the windows at some levels higer than the deck it is on (Deck 2). The photos are not that good since they were taken through the windows, but you'll be able to see just how high the waves were in the Inside Passage.......

 

The rough weather broke sometime before 4:00 p.m. and our Ship Hosted Q&A open bar for the Cruise Critic Members who'd been at the M&G and those that I had stateroom numbers and last names for (many who signed up for the M&G did not give either myself or LVSue their info so we had no way of contacting you *Sorry, but that is why we ask for Stateroom numbers and for you to email us your personal info, if we'd had your last names, we'd have been able to find you*)

 

The Q&A, I think went well. We had many of the Ship Officers in attendance to include Kees, the Hotel Manager, Kenneth, The Bar & Beverage Manager, Rebecca, The Shore Excursions Manager, the Public Relations Manager (I cannot for the life of me remember his name), the First Officer (I never did hear his name) and another Officer who hovered in the background.....

 

Some of the questions asked were:

 

Interactive TV Screen. The answer was straight forward and to the point.... HAL is not even considering that feature at this time and not anytime soon.

 

Noro Virus and how well are the Code Orange procedures working: NOT ONE case of Noro Virus reported on any HAL ship since the inception of Code Orange Procedures. Actually what Kees saod was, "There have been No Code Yellows or Code Reds on any HAL ship since the Code Orange went into place."

 

For me the most important question was regarding the SMOKING POLICY CHANGE on January 15th 2012. I asked the following:

 

With the No Smoking in the Stateroom Policy going into effect on January 15th 2012 and the fee if you are caught smoking, is the policy going to be $250.00 PER time caught smoking or is it a ONE TIME Fee that I can pay and be allowed to smoke whenever during my cruise??

 

The Answer was: IT WILL BE A ONE TIME FEE!!!! Just like any hotel you will be charged a cleaning fee (ONE TIME ONLY, and YES you will be able to pay it in advance by calling HAL.!!)

 

I also asked for those of us who do not or will not smoke in the stateroom UNLESS the Open Decks are closed, which means you cannot even go onto your verandah due to the possibility of you being washed overboard, Can or will that $250.00 fine be waived?? Kees said he did not know but would email me the answer as soon as he hears.

 

JUST AN IMPORTANT FYI for Smokers. After January 15th the Sports Bar will be 100% SMOKE FREE!!

 

The only Smoking indoors will continue to be the Casino.

 

When asked why the Casino is also not Smoke Free now or in the future we were told, the only answer they could give us was, "It is HAL Policy." I kid you not those were Kees words exactly. He said he knew that was not the answer the non smokers wanted, but it is the only anwer HAL Headquarters will tell him.

 

We broke for dinner at 5:15 and headed to the Main Dining Room where tonight, by an earlier request we were at a 4 top since we were having dinner for the Master Chef's Dinner with Vicki and Ramon.

 

I know many of you detest the Master Chef's Dinner, but I absolutely love it!! It is so good to break loose and have fun with the entire Dining Room Staff and let loose with a few whoops and hollers. The food is awesome, the entire staff even more so!! To see them having fun and to let us enjoy it at the same time is lots of fun for us!!

 

One thing I have to mention that was different for this cruise than even last weeks was the Chocolate/Dessert Extravaganza!! It was held ALONG WITH Dutch High Tea in the Vista (Main Dining Room) at 3:00 p.m. today instead of last night. I BELIEVE it was because of last night's weather.

=====================================

 

Saturday 24 September 2011

 

I HATE TODAY!!!!!!!

 

I had to get off MY SHIP:(

 

I absolutely fell in love with Zuiderdam!! She is so well taken care of and maintained. The food is the best I've ever had on a HAL ship. The Pinnacle Grill's food is now to die for!! The NEW Le Cirque Menu is OMG SO GOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDD!! The Crew..... From our Stateroom Stewards, Tichon and Nyuman, our Dining Room Steward SaiPaul (prounounced SighPull) to his Assistant Yogo, the Maitre De Tre and His Assistant Dining Room Managers Teca, Bernie, Chandra and Imam (Our own Hunky Dory), to all of the rest of the Crew and Officers who have already been mentioned. This was an awesome 2 weeks and I am so looking forward to cruising again in March 2012 in the Caribbean with our Cruise Director, Shane Michaels and his new bride (they are getting married Dec 10th), Rene, My favorite Bar man Ron Bongan (He kept me supplied with lots of coffee) and Jenny the Port Shopping Ambassador who will all be aboard the Noordam, and then again the last 2 weeks of May to Alaska in 2013!!

 

I can understand if there are quite a few bad reviews of this last week's cruise. Not everyone can take this weather we've had and see good of it and I will not even say that they are in the wrong because I saw it differently. I made Lemonade out of the lemons habded to me and had a blast.

 

OK, I think I've babbled on long enough and need to get this posted to my Semi live Blog.

 

Will read all of your comments and questions in a couple of hours. Gonna take me that long to check my emails as I've not even thought about them until today....

 

Joanie

[IRL_Joanie]

Just got off the Zaandam, and the storms had a major affect on our cruise.... you might be interested to know that the captain actually took a photo of whatever it is that gives wind speed readings on the bridge.... and it was 92 nmph. No wonder we were rocking and rolling:D

Annette, GLAD as Heck to see you made it home safely also!! I was thinking of you when we were a rockin and a rollin also. MAN OH MAN WHAT FUN!! Good Thing I Love Roller Coasters:D:D

 

Joanie

[IRL_Joanie]

Thanks for posting Joanie, saw the Zuiderdam in Ketchikan, we were on the Oosterdam and due to the storm and wind, we had to cancel Sitka and headed to Ketchikan one day early. We also sailed the Inside Passage to Victoria (our captain didn't want us to feel like we were in a washing machine anymore) and saw the Zuiderdam heading towards the open waters! Sounds like you had a wonderful time even with all of the rocking and rolling! We had a good time too on the Oosterdam but I do miss the Zuiderdam!

 

LOL, I saw you guys and an NCL ship behind us all the way through the Inside Passage Thursday night. Captain said we had a Princess ship in front of us also.

 

Were you outside when we sailed away in Ketchikan?? If so did you hear the one lone voice screaming Zuiderdam Rules several times?? That was my BIG Mouth:D:D Though it might have been hard to hear me over all the Aussies on our ship hollering Oy Oy Oy:)

 

Joanie

[LADYLAYLA]

Thank you Joanie for taking us along with you on your adventure!