Rotterdam April 29th - Anyone back yet?

[Marie-Claude]

As we'll be leaving in 7 days for our May 19th cruise, I was hoping to get some insights from the CCers returning from the Rotterdam April 29th as they did the same itinerary we'll be doing shortly!!

 

Any information on the ship, ports-of-call, excursions taken through HAL or on your own will be greatly appreciated.

 

I hope you all had a fab time!! :)

 

MC

[maggiekam]

We had a wonderful cruise with great weather. Only one rough seas patch - Monte Carlo to Ajaccio. The ship is as nice as we remembered it from two years ago -- same great stewards and even better waiters. The food may even be a little better but fewer courses and smaller portions, elegantly displayed. The ship has been refitted with a new buffet service area with less self serve and more servers, probably for health reasons. There are new mattresses and bedding and towels which were nice. The tv's are new and the coffee bar now charges. The library and computer center are new and really nice and were very popular. We were told we had three formal nights on our tickets, but only had two because we were only at sea two nights and the port days are all casual -- with late times, we just made it back and went to dinner. It may have been informal twice -- the day we left and the day we left port at 3 pm. The really early dinner time (5:45) which we go stuck with was unpopluar and many of the tables were empty. People ate off the ship, in their rooms or at the buffet which is spruced up for dinner. The Pinnacle Grill is very nice and worth the splurge and almost everyone we met gave it a try and enjoyed it. The only problems we had were with the front desk people who made numerous mistakes and where there were lines at times. The ports were all very nice and we did not have to have tenders on our cruise. That said, there were numerous ships on similar cruises and huge crowds in many tourists sights so you may want to plan accordingly. The ship does not always get the best docking site and some of the big tours had to compete with many others at the big sights in Rome and Florence. The docking and boarding at Venice was good when we arrived, but we could not get into our rooms till after 2 pm. The group that boarded when we left 5/9 may have had a much harder time, as we did getting off the ship. Because there were three other ships emptying at the same time, it was a mad house. We were not docked near the terminal-- we had to be bussed, with only 3 slow buses to handle it. We did not get off the ship for our transfer to the bus area of Venice till 10:30-11 and there were many still on the ship waiting to depart. Considering that the breakfast was over at 8 am, it meant getting up early and then waiting around for some time. We were allowed to wait in the room, however. That was the only real down thing -- the slowness of the disembarking that we can find fault with. The Captain was wonderful and very accessible. The other guests were from all over the world, including a large group of Russians. We enjoyed it very much.