Oosterdam Tampa Cruise February 3 – 17, 2017

[billbunger]

We arrived at Tampa airportaround 5:30pm on February 1, 2017 and had our luggage and a cab ride to theAloft hotel in downtown Tampa by 6:30pm. The ALoft is right on the River Walkand close to a variety of restaurants in the downtown area, after walkingaround to get an idea what was available we decided to try Holy Hog Barbecue.They were out of brisket so I had burnt ends, a side of Mac and Cheese and aside of Brunswick stew, my wife had smoked turkey breast with a salad. All inall I would not spend my money at Holy Hog again, the burnt ends where dry andthe smoked turkey was so dry my wife needed extra dressing just to get it wet.The two sides were all right, some what better than the meal entrée’s. Then itwas back to the Aloft for bed as we had been up since 3:00am for our longtravel day.

We started February 2, 2017out with breakfast at a place called “The First Watch” just a few blocks awayfrom the Aloft. It was a busy place full of locals and tourists. The food wasgood and the price was reasonable we ended up going there on embarkation dayFebruary 3, 2017 because it was handy and the second meal was as good as thefirst.

We had the day to betourists so we decided to take the TECO Line trolley from downtown to Ybor(ee-bor) City. For $5.00 each you can hop on and off all day and if you wantjust a one-way trip it is $2.50 each. The downtown TECO line station was just a couple of blocks from theAloft so we walked and decided on the $5.00 all day pass. We took the trolleyall the way to it’s last stop in Ybor City just to see what sites where on theway. Then traveled back to the Tampa Aquarium and the Liberty ship “AmericanVictory”. We also saw that the trolley stops right outside Cruise Terminal 3,how convenient!

We liked the aquarium andenjoyed our visit there, but the Liberty Ship was a disappointment to us, wefound it cluttered with junk that had nothing to do with a floating museum andit was a self-guided tour so there was no one explaining the history of theship. We have toured other museum naval ships and thought they did a betteroverall job of telling their tales of history.

We hopped on the trolley andwent back to Ybor City to explore. What we found when we got there was that a lotof the bars, restaurants’ and clubs do not open until the evening. There wasstill some interesting sites and architecture from the past when it was a Cubanenclave in Tampa. They still have cigar shops with cigar rollers working in theopen so you can watch them. There where still a number of tourist type storesopen and enough restaurants open to have a choice for lunch. We decided onHamburger Mary’s for lunch and we both had a good meal and some good cold beer.Mary’s is a LGBT bar so a word of warning to some who may be offended or havestrong anti LGBT views.

 

We had planned on going to ahockey game between the Tampa Bay Lighting and the Ottawa Senators at theAmalie Arena but my wife took a tumble when she tripped on a steel platesticking up on the sidewalk and we ended up spending 6 hours at the Tampa BayGeneral Hospital to see if there where any broken bones in her left hand andwrist along with a bad bruise on her left cheek caused by her glasses when shefell. It turned out there where no broken bones just a bad sprain so she endedup wearing a wrist and arm brace for the rest of the trip.

[billbunger]

We got up at around 8:00amFriday February 3, 2017 and went to the First Watch restaurant for breakfast, then it was on to the River Walk for a walk about. Check out time at the Aloft was 12:00pm so after our stroll we got our things together checked out and walked with our luggage to the downtown TECO Line Trolley, paid $2.50 each for the one way trip and the trolley dropped us at the door of Cruise Terminal 3.Embarkation was quick and simple we walked onto the ship into our cabin by1:00pm.

 

We have cruised a number oftimes and have always been in Neptune, Signature or Veranda Staterooms but this time we decided on a change and booked an inside cabin. We ended up in cabin 7109 on deck 7 and when we first walked into it you could definitely tell it was smaller than we had become used to. After we considered the room lay out we asked our stewards to separate the bed into twins and we went of to explore the Oosterdam as this is the only Vista class we had not bee on yet.

 

The Captain announced that we would be late departing port as there was a large vessel that needed to get into Tampa with the tide so we had been bumped but the delay did not affect thetrip at all.

 

 

We returned to our cabin and when we walked in we could not believe that it was the same cabin we had initially walked into. With the queen turned into twins and each twin against a cabin wall the whole middle of the cabin had opened up giving us a major gain in cabin space. By the end of the cruise we realized that we had not missed a balcony and we are perfectly happy with an inside. Next time round we will try another inside or an Ocean View stateroom just to see if there is much difference. All in all a good day and it was off to bed after the show and a late nightsnack.

[aring75]

Considering a trip out of Tampa for our Fall cruise. Enjoying your review and will be following it with interest. Thanks for posting and terribly sorry to hear about your wife's injury so early in your trip! Hope she didn't have too much trouble with her wrist on the cruise. That sounds awful. :(

[billbunger]

I will continue the review over the next couple of days. I apologize for the bad formatting of the first two message. I created them in word and pasted them here and apparently this board does not like some of the spacing format of word.

[RenaeInCA]

Can't wait to hear more of your review. We are going on the Oosterdam from Tampa on 3/31. Spending a few days in Tampa beforehand, and one night on the return.

[madera1]

We board the ship Friday so interested in your review.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[billbunger]

Reviews of this type are always very subjective so "Your Milage May Vary" if you have sailed or will be sailing on the Oosterdam.

 

We had never been on the Oosterdam nor had we sailed out of Tampa before. Tampa was a nice change from Fort Lauderdale and we would definitely cruise out of this port again and possibly stay for two full days instead of one just to do the tourist thing.

 

The ship was what we have come to expect from HAL clean and neat and smiling friendly crew. In fact we felt that this crew was the happiest we have ever encountered on a cruise. They were always smiling, friendly and willing to chat and they interacted with each other in the same manner. Our stewards did a great job as did the staff in the Lido Market and The Crow's Nest. In fact one of the bartenders there made the best Wang Wangs' I have ever had.

 

The Oosterdam has had the latest retrofit with the updated casino and Gallery Bar as well as the music walk and changes to the Lido Market and Exploration's Lounge. We liked the Gallery Bar and the music walk is a definite change from the old Sports Bar and piano lounge. We had no issue with the Billboard Piano Duo playing while we were in the casino and they attracted a lot of guests into the Billboard Bar and the hallways leading to and from the casino.

 

There have changes to the Explorations Cafe, library and computer lounge. The library as has been noted in posts across the line is fading away and there are now only 4 computer stations left. They have configured the seating to be compatible with the Exploration program which is not functioning yet. There is also a retractable dividing wall with a door way through to the Crow's Nest. The divider was in place on embarkation day but was opened up later in the day and was not closed again the entire trip.

 

We did not notice a huge change in the Lido Market as compared to the old Lido brand. We felt that the changes that have been made are good ones. The ready made sandwich bar was well received by the passengers and we found the various sandwiches to be good. Depending on the meal being served there are still fruit, cheese and appetizer plates available for self service along with bread, buns and pastries. My wife really appreciated the custom salad line and was able to put together some very good meals with grilled chicken breast from the Dive In. Deserts are still self serve with ice cream and bread pudding by request. The rest of the lines are as before in the Lido the pizza station the meal stations, and the Eggs Benedict station in the morning still turns into the Asian station at lunch time. We always found something we liked at every meal and have no complaints about the food over all. We also like the changes they have made to the Lido Market dining areas. They have installed bus stations through out the venue and this really helps the staff be more efficient when it comes to bussing tables and serving beverages.

 

HAL has been advertising New York Pizza the new pizza venue on its ships. As far as I could tell there has been no change made on the Oosterdam yet. There was no signage advertising the new pizza joint and the pizza that was served was the same as we have had on other HAL ships. I only saw three varieties of pizza while on board, double pepperoni, four cheese and vegetable. I was going to ask about the change but forgot (I'm old).

 

We decided to have a much more casual holiday this cruise and only went to one Gala night and the Mariner luncheon in the main dining room. The rest of the time it was the Lido Market or the Dive In with good cold beer on the Lido aft deck area. We had intended to go to the last Gala Night (3 this cruise) but when we found out that the Lido Market was serving lobster that night we canceled our reservation and went casual.

 

We are tending to want a casual Caribbean cruise and have been attending the Main Dining Room less and less. There was a good number of people on board wanting the same thing and the Lido was generally busy at each evening meal. As for the people choosing to participate in Gala night we noticed most people dressing smart casual and far fewer in suites and tuxedos as compared to other cruises we have been on. We also found that the dinning room was still enforcing dress codes, on the Gala night we attended a fellow behind us in line was turned away for wearing a cowboy hat t-shirt and shorts.

[billbunger]

As with food, entertainment likes and dislikes are subjective so once again YMMV.

 

We have seen good entertainment all the way down the scale to horrible entertainment on HAL cruises. Our last cruise on the Eurodam saw some of the worst singers and dancers we have ever encountered on a ship. People streamed out of the shows the performances were so bad.

 

The B.B. King Blues Club was once again top notch with very proficient musicians. As of this sailing the Oosterdam Singers and Dancers are the best we have seen and they put on some very good shows, the piano duo in the Billboard lounge where good and attracted good crowds. The "Band" (formally the HAL Cats) definitely are the best HAL band I have seen or heard all excellent musicians with excellent sound. We did not stop to listen to the Lincoln Centre group perform, anecdotally told to my wife and I, the group was very good.

 

The solo acts we saw were piano player Brett Cave and Juggler Benji Hill. Both had us laughing and tapping toes during their shows.

 

As some have mentioned earlier, evening game show entertainment was very limited there was a game called Majority Rules that was interesting the rest was mostly trivia. They had team trivia at least twice a day, foodie trivia and name that tune trivia most days.

[easyboy]

Glad your wife did not suffer any major injury from her pre-cruise accident.

Will be following along.

[billbunger]

We have been to all but two of the ports of call on this cruise so Key West, San Juan and Charlotte Amalie all were walk abouts looking for things we missed the last time we there.

 

Antigua was new to us and we took the island tour to Nelson's Ship Yard via some look outs over the sea and Ship Yard harbour. We found the island to be dirty with junk strewn everywhere, it seemed every open space had a broken down vehicle and garbage strewn around. I would rate the tour a 5 out of 10. We never saw any of the resorts so those areas may have been cleaner than the rest of the island.

 

In St. Lucia we docked at a different pier than the last time we visited the island and it was a further walk to the downtown area of Castries. One thing we noticed was that the down town area has been cleaned up since our last visit. The last time we stopped here there were drug dealers all over and hucksters and shill's on every corner. This time there was a police presence where ever we went the only bother some group was the cab drivers barking for business.

 

When we cruised by the Pitons the sailing cruise ship Royal Clipper was in Soufriere Bay and was in the midst of un-furling all her sails to get under way very interesting to watch.

Edited February 21, 2017 by billbunger

[Krazy Kruizers]

I am enjoying your review.

Sure glad that your wife didn't break any bones.

[billbunger]

After St. Lucia we had a sea day that went perfectly with beer and Wang Wangs this was to be the second Gala night and we had booked a table but decided in the early afternoon to cancel and just stay casual.

 

The next port was Willemstad, Curacao and we had never been so we decided to do a walk about during the day and take a shore excursion in the evening called Willemstad by night. A lot of the stores where closed because it was a Sunday but one of the shop merchants we chatted with said that more stores are usually open Sunday's when ships arrive but HAL ship passengers have a reputation here of not spending a lot of cash so some merchants just take the day off.

 

The shore excursion was enjoyable, we drove to some scenic viewing areas and the night panorama of Willemstad was beautiful. We then drove to the Mambo beach area and had a group of dancers perform various styles of island dancing old and new. They were very entertaining, good dancers and the crowd appreciated their performance. I would recommend the tour to anyone.

 

I have attached a couple of pictures, in one of them you can see the Oosterdam in the distance.

[billbunger]

The next port of call was Aruba and even though we had been once before we decided on a shore excursion and we picked the Kukoo Kunuku Fun Bus. It was an island tour with a beach stop over. We had a lot of fun on the open school bus, lots of loud music and shaking maracas all the while punctuated by hoots and hollers from the passengers. It was a good island tour and we went to Moomba Beach after the drive about which is located in the resort hotel area of the island. We had about 2 hours of beach time and as our Aruba stay was short 7:00am - 12:30pm we left the Bech just in time to get to the ship for the 12:30 all aboard. I would recommend this excursion as our entire bus full of folks had a good time and as a bonus we had an excellent driver/guide.

 

We had another sea day after Aruba and once again it went perfectly with beer and Wang Wang's. Then it was George Town, Grand Cayman. We have been here a couple of times and at first we didn't think we would take the tender ashore but after some discussion we decided to go walk around a bit. We gave it our best shot and looked around for about 3 1/2 hours, the down side of the walk about was that there happened to be six ships in port that day. Three Carnival ships, a Thompson ship, a Royal Caribbean ship and of course the Oosterdam. It was so busy and crowded we finally headed back to the ship for some cold beer and a bite to eat.

[billbunger]

The last day was a sea day so we just relaxed had a few drinks and wished that the cruise was not over. I seems to me that when you cruise you wake up and it's time to go home way sooner than you wanted.

 

Disembarkation in Tampa was reasonably fast considering that they only had two or three Border Security agents on duty. We got to the airport around 9:15am and our flight left at 1:50pm. We got into Toronto a bit early changed planes and got home around 10:00pm CST so not a terribly long travel day.

 

And for those who enquired my wife had a couple of rough days after her fall but the warm weather and cold beer helped her forget and by the end of the cruise she was in pretty good shape.

[kftw]

Happy to hear your wife was doing better. Thank you for sharing your cruise.

[Sequim88]

Thanks for the Oosterdam info. Very much appreciate all reviews of her and yours had good details.

 

and they interacted with each other in the same manner.

This is a great observation. Crew HAS to be nice with the guests but only a truly happy crew will be the same with each other. We've been on cruises where the crew/staff seemed to almost be at each other's throats - hostile stares, snippy or snarky remarks or just plain ignoring each other. Makes all the smiles and pleasantness wit the guests seem a bit fake. Always nice to cruise on a genuinely happy ship. :)

[Clarea]

Following your interesting review.:)