Bill & Mary Ann's Quick Trip to Alaska 9-25-21 to 10-2-21

[flamingos]

Knees always get you alerted.  I have various plates in my arms and one foot, but because they are thinner, they do not set off the alarm.  I always go through first, tell the security guy that he's following me and his knee will set off the alarm, and then watch to see the various ways they react to it.  🙂

[WCB]

Report # 11   Final thoughts   October 3, 2021   Sunday   Sunny & 81 degrees

                                                     

Well, here we are, back home after the seven day Alaskan adventure.  Never has a week gone by so fast.

 

Since most of our recent cruises have been on the Amsterdam, sailing on a bigger and newer ship was rather nice.  Built very similar to the Eurodam which we took to Alaska, followed by a Hawaii cruise, we instantly felt at home here on the Nieuw Amsterdam.  One tiny thing we noticed right from the start was that we did not have a mini-pocket map of this ship in our room.  Yes, it was probably on the Navigator app, BUT, like a small number of us cruisers, we do not own a cell phone.  Nor do we care to.  With that said, we still had real menus in all of the restaurants, and had we asked, we could have seen printed drink menus in the lounges and bars. 

 

One of the best sources of information had to be the interactive TV in our stateroom.  That had to be the biggest improvement over the tiny TV’s we had on the smaller ships.  And the flat screen hanging on the wall was large enough to see everything printed on the screen.  Have to admit it took us a while to figure out how the remote worked, but once we did, we found everything we needed plus more.  

 

Our impressions on the stateroom concerning size were mixed.  This room was situated directly aft on deck five, facing the wake of the ship.   It had a comfortably sized veranda with the two lounges with foot stools.  We spent a lot of time outside, even in the rain, we could stay dry.  And because of the convenience of the veranda, we tended not to get out and about on the rest of the ship as much as we usually do.  Of course, one of us was still nursing a recent knee operation, so that was a good excuse – ha-ha.  Can’t use that excuse forever because it is improving daily.

 

This VB stateroom was narrower than most, with much less space for clothing and supplies.  In our opinion, this class of HAL ships were built for shorter trips, not Grand Voyages.  A person using a walker might find it difficult to get inside and walk past the closet doors with ease.  The only drawer space were the two night stands on either side of the bed.  And there again, the drawers were very narrow.  One plus were the convenient charging plugs for your devices such as cell phones or tablets above the night stands.  Missing were plug for extension cords here.  And there were drawers under the end of the bed to use also.

 

There were empty spaces in the room that could be used for a clothes rack or stacked cardboard boxes to be used for drawers.  Would have been nice to have two extra wall hooks, as there were only two of them. 

 

The desk was located near the window, so if the chair was being used, it was difficult to access the veranda door.  It wasn’t until later in the cruise, we saw that the tiny coffee table could be moved by the couch or block half of the window and refrigerator, making access to the veranda easier. 

 

There would be no stretching out in the bathtub either.  Actually, we never saw such short tubs before.  On one side of the sink, there were three small glass shelves for toiletries, and a shelf under the sink with a trash basket built into it.    We had asked for three sets of towels and wash clothes, and they were there daily……new and fluffy no less.  The shower head was horribly blocked, so we asked our room steward to have it fixed. It took a few days before they finally replaced it with a new one, which worked about 100% better. 

 

In a nutshell, this particular veranda room might be a challenge for storage if this cruise was a Grand Voyage.  Or you would have to pack a whole lot less.  One thing we might mention here is the internet.  We were lucky to have a hotspot outside our room, so we never did have to lug the computer down to deck one across from the front desk, as we did on the Eurodam.  At times it was slow, and other times it did not work at all.  The blame was put on the area which we were traveling.  Probably true, it was frustrating at times.  From reading the previous bloggers on Cruise Critic, we figured the best internet plan to buy was the Premium one.  So that is what we did, mainly because we had two internet credits that we could use towards it.  We hope in the future that HAL sees fit to bring up the quality of their internet, as it does exist on other cruise lines, we understand.

 

All of the dining venues were good, but the Pinnacle Grill and Tamarind had to “take the cake”.  The beef entrees have improved greatly compared to previous cruises……even on the GWV.  Dining in each specialty restaurant twice or three times, every meal was consistently good.  And the waiter service was excellent.  We only dined two nights (both gala) in the main dining room.  Not sure we already mentioned this, but the headwaiters were allowing entrance to the fixed main (deck three), seating guests at 7:30pm instead of 8pm.  Wondering how so many people were halfway into their meal puzzled us.   Now we know.  Our meals were fine, but the entrees were not as hot as we would have liked.  In the specialty restaurants, the plates are very hot, as is the food.  Once again, the wait staff in the main dining room was above perfect.

 

Sorry we cannot report on the entertainment, since we never had the chance to see any of it.  To be perfectly honest, we seldom attend the performances even on a longer voyage.  We can only assume the Music Walk, Casino, and Mainstage were full of guests every night.  The photo gallery is situated where you must walk through it going from place to place.  It has been designed to make it super easy to find your photos and purchase them. 

 

The promenade deck is much wider on this class of ship – wider in most parts, with the lounge chairs set back and out of the way of traffic.  Maybe because we were in cool Alaska, few people used this deck, except a handful of walkers and an occasional runner or two. 

 

In the ports, debarking was a problem for a short time upon arrival, when people crowded the doors to get off. There are always some guests who need to be the off first.  Waiting a little while, if there was a backup, another gangway was opened up.  We never had to wait to get off of the ship, or for that matter, getting back on.

 

If we missed anything here, feel free to ask questions.  Considering that we traveled here to Alaska so late in the season, we consider ourselves lucky to have had such good weather.  A little rain in Juneau was not a problem for us.  Will we come back to this area next year?   You bet we will!

 

Until the next adventure in the Caribbean, which right now, is planned from mid –December through April of 2022, we wish you all well!

 

Bill & Mary Ann  

 

 

[julia]

Hi Bill and Mary Ann... it was nice meeting you at the meet & greet in the Tamarind bar on our cruise. Thanks for such a fun and thorough review of our week in Alaska. 

 

We also were in a VB cabin, starboard side, just down from the aft elevators.  While we loved the location (my choice), I agree that it felt tight. The lack of drawers in the closets and desk were noticeable. The small entry hall had one poorly placed light, and we kept the bathroom open (with the light on) to see into the closet!  Lots of wasted wall space at the sink counter and desk areas.  But... the bed and linens were very comfortable, as was the balcony (used ours a lot too). Our stewards were good and we totally enjoyed our trip, but that cabin was a bit disappointing.

[erewhon]

Thank you so very much for taking time to review your cruise.

 Have enjoyed reading your reports.

[jhsocal]

Thank you for the detailed information. The Mariner welcome at Ocean Bar--was it limited to certain level of Mariner?

[cunnorl]

      Thank you for the detailed and honest review. Always follow your travels and have learned a lot thru your posts. 

[Storylady]

Thanks Bill and Mary Ann for taking us along with you vicariously. I especially liked your wrap up of the Signature ship which is similar, albeit larger, to the Zuiderdam. Have you expressed your concerns about using the Zuiderdam for World Cruising to management? I would think they would listen to you. They might do something about the storage. The Pinnacle Class is just as bad for hanging space, but their storage is great. If they could add that kind of storage to the Zuiderdam during dry dock before the 2023 WC that would be a vast improvement.

[WCB]

Julia, you are so right about the darkness of the closets.  Hard to even open the safe without light.  Guess a small flashlight would be useful.

 

As for the Mariner award ceremony, the audience consisted of Mariners with highest numbers of sea days.  

 

Storylady -   Yes, we made our comments known to anyone that cared to listen.  The captain agreed that this size of ship was not made for longer grand voyages.  Captain Mercer admitted to us that he would not care to take this class of ship on open seas.  One of the concerns was the inability to get into the smaller ports too.

 

Bill & Mary Ann

[ozcruizer]

I agree about smaller ships being used for smaller ports.  We did an Asian cruise in 2016 and because we were on the Volendam we were able to sail right up the river to Shanghai and its beautiful night lights and berth across from the city lights.  Larger ships were not able to do this, I heard.

[bluesplayer]

Thank you for taking the the time to share your cruising experience.  I enjoy reading your posts and have learned more aboutt cruising.  Hope you continue to share your travels with us here.  We met on the Eurodam to Hawaii, you had just done the Alaska cruise prior.    Congratulations on the new knee..  Glad that went well!!    Laura & Mark from Seattle.  

[idiebabe]

Thank you for taking us along on your Cruise!  😀 Very much enjoyed following along!  We were on the July Cruise and also had a wonderful experience!