Just back from the Amsterdam Christmas/NYE Panama Canal cruise - review & questions

[Infi]

Just back from the Amsterdam's holiday Panama Canal cruise, San Diego to FLL, yesterday morning. We had a fabulous time and were so sad to leave yesterday. This was our 6th Christmas cruise, but our first one with HAL and I can say that it was probably our very best one. We were both very excited to sail the freshly dry-docked Amsterdam and she did not disappoint. We have truly enjoyed all of our other HAL cruises, but after this one, I will say that the Amsterdam is just on a different level than the other ships. From the crew to the maintenance of the ship to the smallest details, you can tell that she is the flagship of the fleet and gets extra care and attention. I have always wanted to do a world cruise, and being on the last cruise before the world and seeing some of the effort that goes into that cruise, I’m even more intrigued now – someday soon!

 

 

For those who are curious (as I was) about exactly what HAL does for Christmas, here is a rundown of the celebrations on the Amsterdam:

 

 

• Christmas carols and tree lighting ceremony on embarkation night
  
• Christmas eve: Christmas carols singalong, with performances from the International, Indonesian, and Filipino choirs.
  
• Christmas eve: Catholic and interdenominational midnight masses
  
• Christmas day: Christmas carols and Santa’s arrival, with a gift for every child. Complimentary egg nog, hot chocolate, Christmas cookies, and stollen were also served.
  
• Every inch of the ship was decorated for Christmas: dozens of trees, each with different ornaments and themes; a forest of trees, life-size crèche, life-size Nutcrackers, and a sleigh full of presents in the atrium; a gingerbread village and train set in the Lido; wreaths, garland, and decorations were everywhere. You couldn’t forget it was Christmas on this ship! I will try to post photos later, but the decorations were really beautiful – just above and beyond anything I expected.
  
• Special dinners for Christmas eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Each of these nights, the tables and dining room were decorated and the staff was also dressed in festive attire, like the Yum Yum Man dressed like a toy soldier for Christmas or the waitstaff dressed in black and silver suits for NYE. On NYE, we all received hats or tiaras and noisemakers. Christmas eve and NYE, everyone received a glass of sparkling wine and the staff put on a parade with desserts.
  
• New Year’s Eve: parties were held in the piano bar, Crow’s Nest, and Queen’s Lounge. We attended the party in the Queen’s Lounge and it was decorated beautifully, with balloons everywhere and plenty of hats and noisemakers. (For those who have been on the longer cruises where they have the formal balls, it was very similar to those.) The champagne (sparkling wine) never stopped flowing, with servers handing out glasses and constantly refilling drinks for everyone. (This was in sharp contrast to our last NYE on Princess, where they didn’t hand out any champagne at all.) We had a small snafu when the net of balloons on the ceiling that was supposed to drop at midnight instead bit the dust at 11:45 when the ship hit a wave. They also had an elaborate buffet of international dishes in the atrium at midnight – very similar to the dessert extravaganza.
  

 

 

The excellent:

 

 

• The crew on HAL are always very attentive and wonderful, but the Amsterdam crew went above and beyond. The staff always has such pleasant attitudes and have incredible memories. We were spoiled! Most of the crew was staying on for the duration of the world cruise, and I can see why, as they truly were some of the best.
  
• After her drydock, the ship looks brand new. New carpets throughout, and new cabin furnishings and linens in the rooms on deck 1 and 2.
  
• The food: we are big fans of HAL’s food and think it’s the best of all the cruiselines. This cruise had some of the best food we have ever enjoyed, and the selections were extremely generous. In 15 days, prime rib was served 4 times, lobster 3 times, and shrimp cocktail was offered practically every night. It got to the point where most of our table would joke about how they were “sick of prime rib”!
  
• The Panama Canal transit. I’ve done the Canal 5 times now, but this was by far the best. From the constant narration to the little touches like a Panama Canal “swim” at midday to the tables set up on all the outside decks serving coffee, juice, and Panama rolls in the morning and iced towels, water, and iced tea at midday, HAL really went the extra mile. Very impressive!
  
• Onboard activities: we had both the travel guide and a guest lecturer on this sailing, and both were very good. The lecturer Charles McClelland gave presentations on the history of the Aztecs, Maya, Panama Canal, and other topics – one lecture per sea day – and was so enthusiastic about the material. The travel guide, Barbara, does HAL’s world cruises each year so she was very experienced and knowledgeable about the ports of call and also had a lot of passion for her work. We wish HAL had the travel guides on every sailing!
  

 

 

The so-so:

 

 

• We had dinner in the Pinnacle for the first time on this cruise and though it was nice, it didn’t blow us away. We have had lunch in the Pinnacle before, and in all honesty, both of us preferred that experience to the dinner. The Amsterdam has changed to the new menu, so no more tableside prep and the choices seemed significantly pared down from the menus I had seen in the past. I enjoyed my halibut and shrimp scampi and DD had a nice filet mignon, but there was just something missing from the experience. Lastly, the manager of the PG, Sam, was downright rude to us when we arrived, seemed annoyed he had to seat us, and was very phony and insincere in his dealings with other diners as well. He has no rapport with the guests – ugh!
  
• Most of the entertainment and other staff was just on for the holiday sailing and disembarking before the world cruise: a skeleton crew, essentially. The CD, Kieron, especially seemed checked out and put in the bare minimum of effort.
  
• Some little touches were missing: for example, we never received the standard HAL tote bags. We have plenty at home so this isn’t a loss for us, but it’s more of a missed opportunity for HAL in terms of free advertising. Most of the passengers ended up walking around with free Invicta tote bags from the gift shop instead – it looked like our passengers came from that cruise line instead! We figured HAL had gotten rid of the tote bags, so we were surprised to see the NA’s passengers in Grand Cayman walking around with them.
  
• As has been reported here, no dessert extravaganza on this sailing, but its absence was mitigated by the NYE buffet.
  
• We had very rough seas after exiting the canal and on and off until FLL. Not HAL’s fault, but it put a damper on the last half of the cruise to have most of the outer decks and pools closed.
  

 

 

The bad:

 

 

• Internet service was bad to non-existent for most of the cruise. The crew claimed a new system had been put in during the drydock, and we were the unfortunate guinea pigs. There were many unhappy passengers and lots of lines at the internet café waiting for refunds. I just hope they have less trouble on the world cruise!
  
• The production shows need work. The quality of the singers and dancers is fine, but to have them up there with limited costumes and no sets at all just looks cheap, IMHO. We were not really fans of the content of the shows, either: most were very obscure songs from Broadway or blues/jazz. The guest acts ranged from very good to poor. One night we had a vocalist who did a dead-on impersonation of Frankie Valli and never stopped for a minute, and the next night a solo guitarist who told jokes so corny and old an elementary school kid wouldn’t be caught dead telling them.
  
• While the overall food was very good, the desserts were pretty darn bad at times. We have always enjoyed HAL’s desserts (in contrast to many on CC), but the ones on the Amsterdam lacked flavor and were often dry and tasteless. Classic case of “looks better than it tastes”!
  
• Customs and immigration at FLL was horrendous (not HAL’s fault, but worth noting). At one point, there were only 2 agents working for a ship of 1300 people. We went for about 45 minutes with no colors being called because the lines in the terminal were so backed up. We were scheduled to get off at 9:15-9:30 (the last color) and were finally called at 10:20. We didn’t make it through customs and immigration until 11:05am, even though we used the handicapped line. Thankfully we live in FLL, so had no flight to catch, but this was really pathetic. If I were flying out the day of the cruise, I would be booking a much later flight just to be on the safe side.
  

 

 

We visited Puerto Vallarta, Puerto Quetzal, Corinto, Puerto Caldera, Panama Canal, Cartagena, and Grand Cayman on this cruise. I’m feeling a little tired from typing this up now, so I’ll write more on those later if others are interested.

 

 

If anyone has any questions about the ship or ports, I would be more than happy to answer them!

[BumperII]

 

Wow! Now that is a a very professional, objective review. Thanks for sharing your observations. And yes, many of us are really interested. We have sailed the Amsterdam before and are booked for Alaska in August. Like you, we had a great experience. Not a perfect experience, but still a great cruise. It was good enough that we booked two more cruises before disembarkation.

 

[BellBoys]

We are sailing the Amsterdam in June and curious if the Pinnacle has any windows as we couldnt tell from the deck plans. If not it seems a shame to sit in a windowless room while cruising in Alaska.

[trikeman]

Thank you for the review. I do have a question, could explain what a "Panama Canal “swim” at midday" is?

[aliaschief]

Enjoyed your very well done review. Thanks for sharing.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for your review of the Christmas/New Years cruise on the Amsterdam. We found her also to be a wonderful Hal ship, probably one of the best. Glad you enjoyed her and your cruise.:)

[startwin]

Thank you for an excellent review. I have wanted to cruise on the Amsterdam for some time - probably because it's the World Cruise ship:o. I am quite surprised to read your comments about Sam in the PG. He was the PG Manager on our last cruise, and was very pleasant, though sometimes a little condescending.

 

It sounds like the Amsterdam has way more activities during a canal transit than I experienced on the Zuiderdam. And how lovely, all the Christmas celebrations you had onboard.:)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for taking the time to write your review.

Glad you had a wonderful time overall.

I haven't liked HAL's desserts in years.

This is getting to be normal in Ft Lauderdale -- I had asked questions about this. They have 5 officials on duty for self-disembarkation and then cut back to 2 when it is time for all other passengers are to leave the ship. We were on the Nieuw Amsterdam in November and it was worse with more passengers.

We sailed on the Norway (long gone) many years ago and she had tons of trees all decorated in various themes. Really beautiful. Other ships don't do that.

Yup -- dessert extravaganza is gone. There was just too much wasted food.

[2bout2c]

We are sailing the Amsterdam in June and curious if the Pinnacle has any windows as we couldnt tell from the deck plans. If not it seems a shame to sit in a windowless room while cruising in Alaska.

No windows to the outside. Only windows to a hallway. The Pinnacle is on the same desk as the front desk, theater and the kitchen.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[kazu]

What a fabulous review. Very well done and very interesting.

 

Thanks you so much for taking the time to do it and letting us know what the Christmas & New Years' celebrations were like on board. Always been curious about that!

 

If you don't mind and have time - could you let us know what you did in Corinto and your impressions?

 

Thank you again and welcome home :D

[puppycanducruise]

Thank you for posting your review. It's nice to read one that's balanced with both good and bad.

We've never been on a Christmas or New Years cruise, so it was interesting to read about it.

We are hoping to do a full transit of the canal in 2015 although it will probably be on a different ship, but your review was very informative.

[Infi]

Thanks all, for reading and all the kind comments on my review. I'm glad to hear it was balanced, because upon rereading I was a little surprised to see I had commented on so many negatives. Honestly, I would rate this cruise as one of our best. We are very go-with-the-flow people and the little minuses we encountered on this cruise barely made a dent in the whole experience, despite the fact I noted them here in such detail. Just wanted to add that to make sure I represented our experience accurately. If the normal HAL ships provide a 100% experience, the Amsterdam gave us a 110%. :)

 

Thank you for the review. I do have a question, could explain what a "Panama Canal “swim” at midday" is?

 

Trikeman, it was an activity in the aft pool where everyone who jumped in and swam got a certificate for "swimming" the Panama Canal. A little silly, but cute and a nice touch.

 

Thank you for an excellent review. I have wanted to cruise on the Amsterdam for some time - probably because it's the World Cruise ship:o. I am quite surprised to read your comments about Sam in the PG. He was the PG Manager on our last cruise, and was very pleasant, though sometimes a little condescending.

 

It sounds like the Amsterdam has way more activities during a canal transit than I experienced on the Zuiderdam. And how lovely, all the Christmas celebrations you had onboard.:)

 

I can definitely believe the condescending part, that was the attitude I got from him as well. Sam was very rude to us from the moment we arrived in the PG: he barely acknowledged our presence when we walked in and made a huge production out of making sure we had a reservation (which we did, DD had made one the first day of the cruise). He escorted us to our table like it was a bother and told us to "just sit down already". He also checked on all the other tables in the PG during their meals but ours. At that point, neither of us wanted anything to do with him, but still, that's bad practice. The next day, we saw him off to the side yelling at the PG waitresses when they were helping with the handicapped passengers for disembarkation - clearly a moment when he thought others weren't looking. Just left a very bad impression.

 

Interesting that the Amsterdam had more Panama Canal activities than the Zuiderdam, considering it doesn't do this route very often. I found myself wondering how the Zuiderdam and other HAL ships handled this itinerary, so thanks for sharing.

[Infi]

We are sailing the Amsterdam in June and curious if the Pinnacle has any windows as we couldnt tell from the deck plans. If not it seems a shame to sit in a windowless room while cruising in Alaska.

 

Don't know why I wasn't able to reply to this in my last post, but yes, there are no windows in the Amsterdam's PG. The only windows are ones to the hallway outside, and we were seated at one of those tables. We thought it was strange for a specialty restaurant not to have any windows, too. :confused:

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for the review. I do have a question, could explain what a "Panama Canal “swim” at midday" is?

 

 

DH has done this a couple of times on our full transits of the Panama Canal.

The time will be listed in the daily program as to when to report to the aft pool. Those who get into the pool sign a form that they have swum in the Panama Canal. A couple of ships we were on actually hauled a couple of buckets of water from the Panama Canal and dumped them into the pool.

DH has a couple of certificates.

I can't ever remember having this "swim" on a partial cruise.

[puppycanducruise]

They had 'the swim' on a partial Panama Canal cruise that we took on the Amsterdam back in 2003.

Hoping to do the full transit next year.

[Comptech]

On another note... avoid 3385 on deck 3, it was right under the kitchen and we could hear them moving stuff around at all hours of the night.....

We too enjoyed the cruise and agree with the OP on all comments...

[mcmarya]

Since someone mentioned a bad cabin, I'll mention a good one--3326. Looking at the plans, one might avoid it as it is adjacent to the forward stair/elevator lobby and a short distance from the atrium. But, we had no noise issues other than the crew washing down the deck a bit early one morning. The location was very convenient to almost anything. The only thing I don't like about these cabins (deck 3 outside) is that you can't leave your curtains open at night due to light from the deck outside.

 

The entertainment was good and not so good. The dancers were better than the singers imho and song choice for the production shows was poor--perhaps due to royalty costs? The pianist, Juan Pablo, was lots of fun and Colleen Williamson was excellent. The Dancing With the Stars at Sea show was more entertaining than I anticipated--only went because I'd finished packing.

 

Apparently the New Years Eve party was great--I was feeling a bit under the weather due to the very rough seas so I went to bed. My husband said that Keiran, the cruise director, did a mean Elvis. Speaking of Keiran, I enjoyed his enthusiasm and especially that he did not take himself too seriously.

 

According to Barbara, the Travel Guide, it is an honor to be chosen to work on the Amsterdam, especially the World Cruise, since it is one of the flagships.

 

We had marvelous weather other than the winds that produced the rough seas in the Caribbean. There was not a drop of rain while in port or going through the canal. We were down right hot for about 10 days of the cruise--sorry we could not box it up and bring it home.

 

We opted for self embarkation and got off just before they called the first color group shortly before 8 am. Since there were only a couple of people in front of us, it did not take too long to get through. But, it was obvious, with only 2 agents working and not too quickly, that we had made a good choice to get off when we did. With 8 ships arriving in port that morning, there was the potential for major delays.

 

We had a fabulous time on the cruise and enjoyed meeting many wonderful people. My husband, the cruise lecturer, appreciated having such an engaged audience--everyone was so excited to be educated even though they were on vacation.

Edited January 7, 2014 by mcmarya

[Aruba]

We are sailing the Amsterdam in June and curious if the Pinnacle has any windows as we couldnt tell from the deck plans. If not it seems a shame to sit in a windowless room while cruising in Alaska.

I don't believe there are windows in PG on any of the ships in that class -- Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Zaandam, or Volendam. There are exterior windows in PG on other HAL ships.

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

[Mary Ellen]

I don't believe there are windows in PG on any of the ships in that class -- Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Zaandam, or Volendam. There are exterior windows in PG on other HAL ships.

The S class ships (Statendam, Maasdam, Veendam, or Ryndam) don't have them either. PG exterior windows are only found the Vistas/Signature and the Prinsendam.

[castellina]

Veendam's Pinnacle has windows. We sat at the window a few weeks ago. Pinnacle was very mediocre, but by golly, it has windows.

[Vict0riann]

Ryndam's Pinnacle had windows, too. We sat there by a window for breakfast every morning in July.

[erewhon]

The S class ships (Statendam, Maasdam, Veendam, or Ryndam) don't have them either. PG exterior windows are only found the Vistas/Signature and the Prinsendam.

 

The Statendam Pinnacle Grill has windows.

[erewhon]

Infi,

 

Thank you taking time to review your Christmas cruise on the Amsterdam.