Nieuw Statendam

[richwmn]

11 minutes ago, philliesgirl48 said:

What kind of trivia do they play? General or topics like Friends, Harry Potter etc?

There have generally been two games a day. The first, afternoon, has been general trivia and has not had a theme. In the evening we have had music trivia with a theme. The themes have been:

1. Decades

2. 50's & 60's

3. 70's

4. 80's

5. Movies

6. Beatles

7. TV Themes

Second week, same themes in the same order.

 

 

[3rdGenCunarder]

24 minutes ago, philliesgirl48 said:

What kind of trivia do they play? General or topics like Friends, Harry Potter etc?

 

I didn't go to trivia, but a couple at my table always went to the 4:00,, and then they'd ask us questions. It seemed like a lot of literature and not a lot of sports-- a good combination for me. Like most trivia on ships, there were a few so easy everyone would know, lots of medium, and then a few that were difficult. 

 

One question I remember because I knew it right away and nobody else at the table did. What is Zorro's real full name?  Didn't anyone but me watch the  Zorro series???? (I can still sing some of the old Disney series theme song. Geeez, I'm old!!)

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by 3rdGenCunarder

[kazu]

1 minute ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

One question I remember because I knew it right away and nobody else at the table did. What is Zorro's real full name?  Didn't anyone but me watch the  Zorro series???? (I can still sing some of the old Disney series theme song. Geeez, I'm ol

 

Well, at least that’s one trivia question I could answer 😉 

[richwmn]

Last evening's entertainment was Illusionist and Visual Ruben Vilagrand. He puts on an entertaining show of slight of hand magic. He has an interesting twist, he didn't say a word during the entire performance. He moved quickly from illusion to illusion and was pretty good at them.

 

I was at the late show and was impressed that the comic, Ken Boyd, from earlier in the week came in to watch the show. He sat in one of the uppermost seats and chatted with others until the show started. He was funny off stage as well as on.

 

Koningsdam shared the berth with us in St. Thomas. She left after we did, but appeared a little later on our port side and sailed with us for a while. Very pretty site out on the open ocean. We will share HMC with her tomorrow.

 

Today is a nice day at sea. Time to finish up everything as the cruise is ending this Sunday. It has been a very nice time.

[rklinstiver]

Has anyone tried the Whiskey Bar NOTES yet? Any report on price or selection of Whiskeys? Thanks for the help.

[eroller]

I haven't looked at all the MDR menus, but do you recall by chance if Beef Wellington was ever offered?  It's a favorite of mine and I would want to make sure I dined in the MDR the night it was offered.  Thank you ... enjoy all the posts and sailing on NS this Sunday.  

[Crew News]

1 hour ago, rklinstiver said:

Has anyone tried the Whiskey Bar NOTES yet? Any report on price or selection of Whiskeys? Thanks for the help.

 

FWIW, I didn't see anyone around to serve the different selections.  Here is the selection photo from Konigsdam:

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Crew News

[richwmn]

I forgot to carry a camera with me today, but the picture posted by crew news looks about right. On this cruise, and the previous week, there has been activity there most evenings at least from a bit before 7 to around 8. I can't say about other times as I didn't notice.

 

I just looked a today's schedule and there was a Connoisseur Whiskey Tasting at 6pm, so the people around there at 7 might have participated and were still around talking.

 

Today is the second formal night, and the dress goes from shorts to Tuxes, something for everyone.

 

Sorry it's a bit late, but today's menus are attached. I can't answer about the Beef Wellington, I just don't remember.

 

The Koningsdam is still sailing with us. For a while this morning she was, by the Captain's announcement, about 2 miles directly behind us. Later in the day she was again off the port side and a little behind. We are both scheduled to arrive at HMC at the same time tomorrow.

 

The show tonight in the World Stage is Step One Dance Company - Humanity. It got rave reviews last week, so I'll try to make the 10pm show. Hope everyone has a great evening!

 

[Overhead Fred]

1 hour ago, eroller said:

I haven't looked at all the MDR menus, but do you recall by chance if Beef Wellington was ever offered?  It's a favorite of mine and I would want to make sure I dined in the MDR the night it was offered.  Thank you ... enjoy all the posts and sailing on NS this Sunday.  

 

They had it at least once on our 14 day B2B Jan 6-20. I tried it and was a little underwhelmed. The meat was fine but the pastry seemed a bit soggy to me. I cannot recall which night it was served. 

[rkacruiser]

55 minutes ago, richwmn said:

The show tonight in the World Stage is Step One Dance Company - Humanity.

 

I was very much underwhelmed by what I saw.  An extremely poor use of the supposed capabilities of the World Stage was what I think.  

[eroller]

52 minutes ago, Overhead Fred said:

 

They had it at least once on our 14 day B2B Jan 6-20. I tried it and was a little underwhelmed. The meat was fine but the pastry seemed a bit soggy to me. I cannot recall which night it was served. 

 

 

Thank you.  At least I know it's a possibility they may offer it.  I'll ask onboard and see if anyone knows.  

[richwmn]

I just left the World Stage and the show Humanities. I'm not sure why it was called Humanities, except that the first song was "I'm Only Human". The show was an interesting mix of Modern Interpretive Dance and Technology. However, the dancers were not the ones interpreting the music. Someone did that, maybe a year ago, and the dancers learned to interact with the images on the screens. The music was good, and the dancers more than capable. I agree to an extent with rkacruiser that it isn't the best example of what the technology is capable of. It is though, the only example I have seen so far that actually uses that capability. The other shows could easily have been on the stage of Zuiderdam, Zaandam, or even Veendam.

 

It would be interesting to see other, maybe better, uses of the stage and screens. Actually, thinking back, I watched part of the christening ceremony and I think I remember better use of the screens then.

[3rdGenCunarder]

41 minutes ago, richwmn said:

I just left the World Stage and the show Humanities. I'm not sure why it was called Humanities, except that the first song was "I'm Only Human". The show was an interesting mix of Modern Interpretive Dance and Technology. However, the dancers were not the ones interpreting the music. Someone did that, maybe a year ago, and the dancers learned to interact with the images on the screens. The music was good, and the dancers more than capable. I agree to an extent with rkacruiser that it isn't the best example of what the technology is capable of. It is though, the only example I have seen so far that actually uses that capability. The other shows could easily have been on the stage of Zuiderdam, Zaandam, or even Veendam.

 

It would be interesting to see other, maybe better, uses of the stage and screens. Actually, thinking back, I watched part of the christening ceremony and I think I remember better use of the screens then.

 

I saw that show on the K in January. The dancers are very talented, but I found the LED screens to be painfully bright, so much so that I had to close my eyes at times. What's the point of going to a show with dancers if you can't watch??? I left with a headache after 30 minutes. I kept thinking about the seizure warning on video games...

 

You're right that the interpretation is driven more by the tech than the dancers. It gives a good illusion that the tech is following them, especially in the first song, where the dancer drags her hand along the stage and the projected "leaves" seem to blow away from her. The tech is set in advance, and like an actor, she had to "hit her marks" to keep the illusion going. But then, the choreography would have been done in advance with or without the tech, so I guess it's kind of a chicken-egg thing.

 

One night, we had a pianist who played piano arrangements of great opera arias. The plan was for the screens to show relevant paintings. But they got out of sync, and the paintings didn't go with the first song. Then, when she played the second song, the songs that were obviously for the first song appeared. Then the paintings were turned off until the techs got it figured out. When relevant paintings began to appear, I could feel that people in the audience wanted to applaud the techs for FINALLY getting it right. But nobody did, as that would have been very rude to the pianist, who already must have been distracted by the "light show" being messed up. 

 

[Himself]

I am looking forward to sailing on the Nieuw Statendam tomorrow evening.

[richwmn]

I don't usually go ashore at HMC, and today is no exception. My comments will be based on views from the ship. It is now over two hours since tendering operations started, so anyone who wanted to go ashore has.

 

Looking at the beach area from the observation deck of Nieuw Statendam, the area right around the entry point has quite a few people at it. But going just up the beach it looks empty, even though it is still within the built up area. So it seems as far as the beach area is concerned, there is plenty of space for the 5,300 passengers of the two ships - or at least those who wish to venture ashore.

 

I hope someone will report on services ashore.

[rkacruiser]

Both of richwmn and 3rdGenCunarder's recent posts concerning their experience at the World Stage on 2 different ships support my opinion that HAL spends major money on their main showroom's stage and technical aspects supporting the entertainment offered on that stage and, then, either don't know what to do with its capability or under-utilize it.  Just as one example, the initial shows on Nieuw Amsterdam (anyone remember Cantare?) demonstrated the stage's capability.  During more recent Nieuw Amsterdam cruises, I didn't see anything close to the performances that I saw on that first Nieuw Amsterdam cruise.

[Crew News]

2 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

Both of richwmn and 3rdGenCunarder's recent posts concerning their experience at the World Stage on 2 different ships support my opinion that HAL spends major money on their main showroom's stage and technical aspects supporting the entertainment offered on that stage and, then, either don't know what to do with its capability or under-utilize it.  Just as one example, the initial shows on Nieuw Amsterdam (anyone remember Cantare?) demonstrated the stage's capability.  During more recent Nieuw Amsterdam cruises, I didn't see anything close to the performances that I saw on that first Nieuw Amsterdam cruise.

 

I really enjoyed the original Contare and even bought their CD for those long plane rides.

[rkacruiser]

3 minutes ago, Crew News said:

 

I really enjoyed the original Contare and even bought their CD for those long plane rides.

 

Cantare was, with no doubt, the best performance that I have ever witnessed aboard any ship at any time.  

 

 

[Alberta Quilter]

Its been a while since I last posted to this thread.  It's been a busy few days.  In St Thomas, we took a taxi into town.  In particular, we were looking to make some alcohol purchases as we had gotten a great deal several years ago.  Alas, the great deals are no longer, at least, not for what we were looking for.  We had checked the pricing in Havensight prior to getting our taxi and found it to be the lowest than in town.  Town was busy, both Koningsdam and the NS were the only two ships in port.  Along the Main Street, there were many hawkers trying to get you to go into their jewelry shop for a free gift.  After saying no to many, I thought why not?  So I started to go in, get the free gift and leave.  Some won't give you a gift if you don't waste time looking at something.  I kept on walking out the door.  I do t need a cheap trinket that badly.  Some would show me stuff like earrings and I would point out that I don't have pierced ears.  I ended up with a couple of pendants and a pair of pearl earrings (pierced, of course).

 

Upon returning to Havensight, we looked at more liquor stores.  One was really expensive.  The first one, right outside of the port had the best prices that we found. They wouldn't give us a break on multiple purchases so ended up with only one bottle of gin.  We also purchased something else for the family member with the significant birthday coming up.  I hope we got a good deal on that.  We'll have to do more research when we get back home.  It was US$30 cheaper than that expensive store also in Havensight.

 

As expected, ship personnel took the alcohol away from us when we reboarded.  It annoyed us that they opened the carefully packaged alcohol but, I guess to cover their butts, they write down what was purchased.  It was returned to us in good order this morning.

 

We had dinner in the dining room because liver was on the MDR menu and DM loves liver. It was not available in the Lido.  We actually went up to the Lido for appetizers because they had shrimp cocktails (every night) that the MDR didn't have.  This particular night, they had prawns in the Lido and no shrimp whatsoever in the MDR.  After dinner, we went back up to the Lido to get little rum cakes for later.  They were really good!  It was quite an interesting dinner with the back and forth between the Lido and the MDR!

[Alberta Quilter]

Yesterday was a sea day.  It was a little weird that we didn't regain the hour we lost before Puerto Rico but we thought, maybe tonight, before HMC.

 

This was a very busy day!  I slept in which is quite unusual for me.  We finally got upstairs for breakfast close to 9 am.  Ask the Captain was at 10 am.  Trivia was at 11 am, followed by the Mariner reception.  We missed part of the reception because of the overlap with trivia.  We won, for the second time, by the way.  I had a quick lunch because I had a date, with ten other people, and the CD, for the Behind the Scenes tour of the ship.  We met at 1 pm in the Crow's Nest.  Then we went to the Bridge for about 45 minutes.  We stayed mostly on the port side wing, where we had our photos taken with each of us "driving" the ship.  Most of the presentation went way over my head but it was still fun.  In the middle, back of the windows, there's a computer room where they have an interactive map of the ship.  When an alarm goes off somewhere, they can pinpoint where, and look at the security cameras in the vicinity very quickly.  Then they'll send out crew members to investigate, if required.  This is done prior to the pax bring alerted.

 

Then we went to the World Stage for a tour of that.  The crew was busy setting up for the evening show.  We saw where the various bands can rehearse without disturbing pax.  We also saw the dressing room and went up to the control booth.

 

After that, we went down to B or C deck, to the tailor shop and the laundry.  The four tailors had to make uniforms for all 1000 crew members very quickly.  They can make an officers uniform in only six hours.  An officer gets three uniforms.  The uniforms for the crew members need to be made for them when they start their contract on the ship.  Those that have a nine month contract basically wear out their uniforms by the end of the contract.

 

We then went to the engine control room, and we even got to see the engine room.  I didn't get to see that on my last tour, on the Noordam eight years ago.  There are four engines, each one is the size of a double decker bus.  It's really noisy in there.  We had to wear ear plugs, of course.  This part would be very tricky for anyone either mobility issues.  We had to go up and down some very steep stairs but they're more like ladders because they're so steep.  We were advised that it's easier to go down them backwards.

 

Then we had a tour of the trash/recycling room.  We saw bags of shredded glass and plastic which will be taken off when in the turnaround port, such as FLL.  The organic material is pulverized and released in the ocean when in international waters.  They compact, shred, pulverize and incinerate anything and everything just so it can be stored until it can be removed in port.  They even have cold rooms for storing lobster/shrimp shell debris and bones so they don't smell until they are removed.

 

We only saw the exteriors of some of the provision rooms which was unfortunate.  On my last tour, we were able to see the storerooms of fresh goods and pantry items as well as where the liquor was kept.

 

We ended our tour with the galley.  The 2nd executive chef explained to us how the whole dinner service could go sideways if the one cook who was responsible for preparing the green beans did not hear the request from way down, in a busy, noisy kitchen, that more green beans were needed!  As usual with a galley tour, it ended with walking through the PG kitchen.  This one, however, is shared with Sel de Mer.  The SDM kitchen is about one third of that galley with two thirds for PG.  And these are not large kitchens!

 

We were offered a Beverage of our choice at the end of the three hour tour and provided with a goody bag.  That consisted of a HAL thermal coffee mug and something else that I haven't quite figured out yet.  It came with a straw so it really can only be a drinking vessel.  It's in the shape of the ship's funnel.  My guess is that it is for cold beverages but I haven't been able to get the lid off or open the top where the straw goes into.  I'll try again at home.

 

[richwmn]

Well, it is Saturday Evening. The luggage is packed and has been placed outside for pickup. It has been a very nice day. I met some very nice people on this trip, as usual, and the crew was very good.

 

Tonight's menus are attached to finish out the two weeks.

 

Tomorrow morning I will leave Nieuw Statendam. After a very short trip and about a two hour wait I will board Nieuw Amsterdam for another week, pretty much a duplicate of this past week.

 

Safe travels to everyone leaving the ship and returning home on Sunday and Monday.

 

It's been fun!

 

Feb23dinner.pdf

Feb23Lidodinner.pdf

[Caribbean Chris]

Richwmn, thank you for starting your thread, very helpful for all of us with upcoming cruises on the new ship. Thanks also to Alberta Quilter and others who added great input. We’re looking forward to sailing!

[kazu]

8 hours ago, richwmn said:

Well, it is Saturday Evening. The luggage is packed and has been placed outside for pickup. It has been a very nice day. I met some very nice people on this trip, as usual, and the crew was very good.

 

Tonight's menus are attached to finish out the two weeks.

 

Tomorrow morning I will leave Nieuw Statendam. After a very short trip and about a two hour wait I will board Nieuw Amsterdam for another week, pretty much a duplicate of this past week.

 

Safe travels to everyone leaving the ship and returning home on Sunday and Monday.

 

It's been fun!

 

Feb23dinner.pdf

Feb23Lidodinner.pdf

 

Hope your embarkation is as smooth as silk and you enjoy your next segment on the N Amsterdam 😄 

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to share so much terrific information and experiences with us 🙂 

[Dismomx5]

Oh, my goodness! That second week seemed to fly by. Thanks for sharing!

[rkacruiser]

Many thanks to richwmn and Alberta Quilter for their very interesting posts!