Live from the Nieuw Statendam

[BellKat]

1 hour ago, smlnd said:

Were passengers able to get off the ship in Aruba today?

Yes!

[DrKoob]

Avoiding Aruba and why I still don't like the Caribbean that much

 

See—I love those alliterations. Can't resist them in headlines. Never have been able to 😜.

 

Let's talk Aruba. We have been here before...a very long time ago (2004) on our first Panama Canal cruise. It was the stop the day before we went through the canal. I totally get that things are going to change in 18 years but I guess I wasn't expecting it to go this far south (pun not intended).

 

When we were here in 2004, we had heard it was really easy to get off the ship and immediately rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle and drive all the way around the island so that is what we did. It was (to that point and until this cruise) our favorite Caribbean experience. We had a lot of fun, saw a lot of stuff and generally enjoyed ourselves. The island reminded me of what we found in Curacao on this trip, not overly developed, not overly touristy.

 

Well that changed. If you saw my post two days ago about the commercialism in cruise ports you know what I am talking about. I have friends who follow this blog  and know that I have never been a big fan of the Caribbean in general. Now they are reading the last few posts and I am being asked if I now have either softened my stance on the Caribbean or changed it all together. I think I figured it out last night when I started writing the post. It's not that I have changed my mind about the Caribbean, it's that I have seen a different Caribbean on this cruise than we have seen before.

 

I figured this out when I was explaining to my brother and sister-in-law about the Caribbean islands we had seen as opposed to the ones we had seen before. In our past experiences down here we have stopped in...

1. St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
2. St. Maarten
3. Labadee, Haiti
4. Casa del Campo, Dominican Republic
5. Cozumel, Mexico
6. Costa Maya, Mexico
7. Puerto Rico, USA
8. St. Kitts & Nevis
9. Grand Cayman
10. Nassau, Bahamas

If you know the Caribbean and you see this list you realize that these are all the commercialized ports that ships sail to. These and the cruise line's private islands are about it. On this trip we stopped in one of those places—Puerta Plata in the Dominican Republic. When we were touring there it reminded me of all the things I really don't like about the Caribbean. Tours of rum distilleries, tobacco/cigar factories, chocolate stores...anyplace they could sell us something.

 

In the new Caribbean I found on this trip they took us to Grand Turk, Bonaire and  to some extent Curacao. Places where it is probably much like the Caribbean used to be. No chain stores, beautiful beaches, tours that featured the natural beauty of that island. Sadly, those places are few and far between. But they reminded me of being in Galapagos. The guides in both places were proud of being from those places and they wanted to preserve the things that were important to life on their island.

 

Which brings us back to Aruba. Since we were here in 2004 I have always said that of all the islands in the Caribbean we had visited, I liked Aruba the best. And now I know why. Back when we visited it was like Bonaire. Oranjestad was a sleepy little town. It's not anymore. Check out my photos below to see what I mean. There is a pink building that you can see in the center of my Oranjestad photos. When we were here in 2004, you could walk to that building from the port and not really pass any other buildings. And right outside the ship you could rent that Jeep to drive around the island. There were at least six places at the pier you could rent a car. Not so anymore. When I went walking in town, I asked where you could rent a car and was told that Enterprise was about three blocks away. That's sad.

 

So what did Kathleen and I do in Aruba? Pretty much nothing. Kathleen stayed aboard and I took about a 45 minute walk to shoot some pics, get some postcards (yes, we still send those) and a magnet (yes, we collect those for the door of our garage freezer), ran into our buddy Seth and that was about it. Came back to the ship and had lunch with him. So the pics below are either from that short walk (not much to take pictures of) and stuff I shot from the ship. Please note the ENORMOUS hotel in the distance. Not here when we were here before but we are told it is incredibly expensive and they are building more.

I do want to add that my brother Steve and and his bride Jamie took an overall bus tour of the island and loved it. They saw a lot of the stuff we saw on our Jeep ride in 2004 and told us they had a great guide who truly loved his island. So maybe some of that spirit is still out there. All I know is that it kind of made me sick to walk through what downtown Oranjestad had become because now it looks a lot like the other ten places we had been before. I hope Bonaire and Grand Turk don't succumb to this but I don't have high hopes for Curacao.

 

To see my few Aruba pics, again you will need to Google Jim Bellomo and look for my blog. It should be the first thing that comes up. Cruise Critic will not let me post a link to it from here.

 

That's it for our ports of call. The last two days of the cruise are sea days as we make our way back to Fort Lauderdale. Yesterday was a lot of fun as we spent much of the day doing Sail with Seth stuff including a group photo, a cooking demo and a mixology class. Took up most of the afternoon.

 

My plan is to do three more posts about this cruise. One on the food, one on the ship and finally an overall review. Watch for those in the next couple of days. I will do them today (our last day onboard 😔) and tomorrow on the flight home and then post when we are home.

[BelleEpoque]

Curious if you or your wife have spent anytime in the Greenhouse Spa? I am planning to book it but wondering if I should do it now or wait until I get on board. Sorry if you mentioned this already - didn’t see anything when I searched. 

[BellKat]

19 minutes ago, BelleEpoque said:

Curious if you or your wife have spent anytime in the Greenhouse Spa? I am planning to book it but wondering if I should do it now or wait until I get on board. Sorry if you mentioned this already - didn’t see anything when I searched. 

Nope, neither one of us has spent any time there. Sorry we can’t help you.

[DrKoob]

It's a cruise—it's always about the food

 

One of the biggest questions I get when it comes to cruising is...how was the food? And yes, I will fully admit to having consumed three times the number of calories I should have consumed over the last 10 days and probably gaining a good 10lbs but I promise that within two weeks I will have walked it off...because even though I worked out...the food was off the charts and I just could not resist it.

 

Before I start, just let me state up front that after 30+ cruises, we have had room service a grand total of once (maybe twice 😜). So if you are looking for reviews of room service, this is not the place.

 

Breakfast

On most of our cruises, breakfast would have been in the buffet but because we were in a Neptune Suite we got our own restaurant we could eat in for breakfast and dinner—Club Orange (Holland America's colors are blue and ORANGE). We went there every day for breakfast except one. We went to the buffet to just get some granola and yogurt after having way too much dinner at a specialty restaurant the night before. The experience in the buffet was a good one but more about that later. (I should note that you don't have to be in a Neptune or Pinnacle Suite to be able to eat in Club Orange, you can buy just a membership for—as of this cruise in February 2022—$50 per person, per day.)

 

Club Orange has some of the best breakfast food I have ever eaten. They have a HUGE variety. Three kinds of Eggs Benedict, as many omelets as you can think of, fruit, pastry, donuts, muffins, toast, skillets...you name it...I think they either had it or would make it for you. I fully admit to having any and all of the above mentioned breakfast food during this cruise. The team in Club Orange is the absolute best dining team we have ever been served by. From the second time we came into the restaurant they knew our names, they knew what we wanted to drink (for me it was coffee, a single espresso shot, a mimosa and maybe some extra orange juice to add to it) and how you liked your eggs. My coffee cup was never empty and the food...was spectacular.

 

Lunch

While we ate all but one breakfast in Club Orange, we kind of moved around for lunch. There are so many great places to eat on board that it is hard to choose. Which made it a good thing that Club Orange did not serve lunch. Here's where you can eat lunch on Nieuw Statendam and her sister ships:

• The Lido Market Buffet. Located midships on Deck 9 (the Lido Deck) the Nieuw Statendam is a superb buffet with stations for just about everything. We went to the buffet when we made our one or two attempts to eat healthy. Grabbed a salad and a roll for lunch...and of course a couple of cookies or gelato/gelato pop. All the buffet was NOT self-service. You walked up to a station and either told them what you wanted to eat or just pointed. They did have some standard items (like Caesar or chopped salad, etc.). All the food we had for lunch in the buffet was fresh and excellent. The service was superb as well.
• The Dive-In. A great place for a burger, a hot dog and fries. They have a variety of types. Ate there twice and truly enjoyed it. Have the Cannonball, skip the Gainer. Their fries are the second best on the ship and they have good Dive-In fry sauce. You will find the Dive-In on Deck 9, just forward of the buffet on the starboard side of the ship. Right next to it is the Gelato spot where you can get the best value on the ship. You have to pay for gelato (ice cream from the buffet is free), but it is only $2.50 for a cup that is probably half a pound of gelato. We only had it once but man it was good. I had a biscotti gelato with huge pieces of biscotti in it. Delicious. They also have gelato pops for $2 (although we heard these may be discontinued) which are just like ice cream bars on a stick with a coating and gelato inside. Tried one of those and they were awesome. Seth promised us another but we never got around to it.
• New York Deli and Pizza. Just upstairs from the Dive-In on the port side of the ship is this deli/pizza place. We did not try the pizza but my brother and his bride did and they said it was quite good. We went up and Kathleen had a salad and I had a Rueben. I love Ruebens so this may the only place where the food I got onboard was not as good as a Rueben I could have gotten off the ship. And no fries there. Just chips. But still go try it. Great place to grab a quick bite.
• The Grand Dutch Cafe. Down on deck three (the Promenade Deck) right at midships is an undiscovered gem of a place for lunch. I say undiscovered because we didn't discover it until more than halfway through our cruise. Lots of other people did and now we know why. We had heard about it and wanted to go and since we were late getting back from Grand Turk we headed there as soon as we were on board. They serve lots of Dutch delicacies. For instance, I had a veal croquette sandwich. Kathleen had a wonderful melted ham and cheese sandwich. But the real star of the show were the French fries. They were amazing. How good were they? On subsequent visits, we always had them for dessert too. One other big plus is their selection of European beers. If you are a beer aficionado, this is the place for you.

Dinner...ahhhh dinner

When we bought the cruise we were part of a special HAL deal called Have It All. With that deal we got the cruise and some other perks. Two of those perks were dinners on two nights in two of their four Specialty restaurants. Since they had included two we decided to go ahead and purchase dinner in the other two just so we could tell you about them. See what kind of sacrifices I go through for my readers 😜.

 

I need to let you know that we never had dinner in the buffet nor the MDR (main dining room). If we weren't having dinner in one of the specialty restaurants (five out of ten nights) we had dinner in Club Orange. But, I should also mention that the only difference between the menu in the Main Dining Room and Club Orange are two menu items (one appetizer and one entrée) that are available in Orange that are not in the dining room. And we only ate one of those during the entire cruise (it was Peruvian Chicken—one of my favorite meals of the entire cruise) so we really had much of the same food as the MDR.

 

Trying to figure how to handle telling you about the dinners. I think I will rate the restaurants we ate in from great to "just fine." Also below each restaurant are the photos with captions from that restaurant when I can remember where and what they are. You know how that works—you can either be a photographer or a diner...choose one. I guess I could never be a food critic—too busy eating the food. Don't forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping...and since I took these with my iPhone, feel free to view them on yours.

 

• Rudi's Sel de Mer. This is HAL's seafood restaurant created for them by Master Chef Rudi Sodamin. It is the most expensive extra charge on the ship. The voyage we sailed it was $50 per person. I have to say, it was worth just about every single penny. Photos are below but suffice it to say it was a dining experience I would not want to miss. Be aware that it is only available every night on HAL's three Pinnacle Class ships but is available as a pop-up restaurant for one night on others...sometimes. They also have the coolest plates and you can buy them. WOW! More in the photos (loved them so much we brought one home). Oh and my brother would want me to mention the best side dish on the ship—Rudi's ratatouille. I agree. Loved it so much we begged for the recipe and they printed it up for us. There is a Rudi's cookbook that you can buy (but everyone in Sail with Seth got one as a gift from Seth) but the ratatouille recipe isn't in it. If you want it, you either ask them or e-mail me.
• Tamarind and Nami Sushi. Choosing between this Asian specialty restaurant and Club Orange as the next best option was really tough but this one wins by a lobster roll. We got to eat in Tamarind twice. Once because it was part of our Have It All package and once because my brother Steve won a drawing to have dinner with Seth from our Sail with Seth cruise. We went the first time with Seth himself and since he had eaten in Tamarind many times on previous trips we followed his recommendations. One thing about Tamarind is that it sits in the same room as Nami Sushi and you can order off either menu. The difference is that you pay one price for your entire meal in Tamarind but Nami Sushi charges à la carte. But you can order from both menus. My brother and I love sushi (as does Seth) but our brides not so much so this worked perfect. The sushi was amazing (my brother and I will agree that the lobster roll from Nami was the best bite on the ship), the dinner divine and the service incredible. Cocktails were not too shabby either. Here's a great dessert tip: get the sorbet trio but tell them to skip the lychee and give you two scoops of the lemon-basil sorbet—you won't be sorry. One last thing—this Asian restaurant, sitting above the wake of the ship may be the most visually beautiful restaurants we have seen on the high seas.
  [gallery type="rectangular" ids="9254,9259,9260,9261,9262,9263,9264"]
• Club Orange Dining Room. This one was close. Really close. But Tamarind one by a hair (or a lobster roll). Otherwise the 5 nights we ate in Club Orange were AMAZING! Every night superb food, superb service and a pretty unforgettable dining experience. The team in Club Orange led by the amazing Wayan Suadnyana took care of our every need and made us love being in the restaurant. Imagine going to your favorite place to eat every night and they treated you like a local, like a regular. When this happens, it's one of my favorite parts of cruising.
  [gallery type="rectangular" ids="9266,9267,9268,9269,9270"]
• Pinnacle Grille. This is HAL's signature steakhouse. It is on all their ships. Our dinner there was one of our two included dinners with our Have It All promotion. We (Kathleen and I) have eaten in the Pinnacle Grille on two other HAL cruises but I should state up front that we are not big steak people. We like ethnic food better than steaks but we have always enjoyed the food at Pinnacle. And it is in fourth place not because we didn't love it this time, just that the other options were so much better.
• Pinnacle gives you some great steaks (my ribeye was a little fatty) and lots of super sides (don't forget to order the clothesline of bacon when you first order or you will be adding it as you see others get theirs). One reason this fell to fourth in my rating was the service was really sporadic. We would have five servers all over us for five minutes and then they would disappear and we wouldn't see anyone for another 10 minutes. A couple of times after they brought an entrée, we didn't have something we needed that went with it (like a glass of wine or a steak knife) and there was no one to help. The manager of the restaurant was five feet away from us much of the time but with eyes glued to his phone and NEVER even glanced at anyone in the entire place. Lastly, leave room for the key lime pie. Delicious. Sorry only one photo from Pinnacle. My ribeye with onion rings.
• Canaletto. This Italian restaurant is carved out of the buffet every night. This means they use a part of the buffet table area, put table cloths on those tables and do Italian food that is served to you (not a buffet). Kathleen and I had eaten in Canaletto on another HAL cruise in 2018 and loved it but the food was just not up to par this time. Now, by up to par, I don't mean it was bad...it was just not as good as every place else we had to choose from onboard. Service was fine. The food was fine. Everything was just "fine," if you know what I mean.

If and when we sail a Pinnacle Class ship again, we would go back to Rudi's and Tamarind in a minute, skip Pinnacle and Canaletto and put the cost of those into another night at Rudi's. And we would hope to win another night with Seth Wayne in Tamarind for sushi.

 

And I want to make one final food comment that really set the Nieuw Statendam food apart from 90% of other meals we have had on ships—spice. The cooks on NS were not afraid to use it. Most cruise fare is geared to middle American tastes. Steaks, chops, bland sides, etc. As I mentioned we love different and adventurous food. We do get that sometimes when we sail.

One of our all-time favorite onboard restaurants was the old Qsine on Celebrity ships before they corrupted it with that damn "Le Petite Chef" or whatever they call it. Turned if from a culinary experience to a tiny little piece of tripe (sorry for the rant–I truly loved Qsine).

 

HAL chef's put spice in their food. My eggplant side in Tamarind was ordered "spicy" (could have ordered mild or medium as well) and it was spicy. Not "burn your mouth" spicy but delicious. They tried new things. They gave us incredible meals with incredible service. For years in the cruising world of so-called "big ships" (over 2500 guests) Celebrity has been the standard for food. Not anymore. You want great food—HAL gets the nod, at least on this ship.

 

To see my food pics, again you will need to Google Jim Bellomo and look for my blog. It should be the first thing that comes up. Cruise Critic will not let me post a link to it from here.Don't forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping...and feel free to look at these on your phone. That's what I used to take them.

[canadianbear]

The Rudi’s presentation photos look very interesting.  We’ve never tried it …yet!

 

Thanks for your detailed report.  Yes, it’s all about the food, lol.  

[rkacruiser]

2 hours ago, DrKoob said:

One reason this fell to fourth in my rating was the service was really sporadic.

 

That has been my consistent experience when dining at the Pinnacle Grill.  During some cruises:  excellent cuisine and service.  On others:  disappointing cuisine and service.  Whomever is the Manager of the restaurant and whomever is the PG Chef in the galley makes the difference.  It's disappointing to learn that your experience on the Nieuw Statendam was inferior.  When I sailed on her, it was excellent

 

2 hours ago, DrKoob said:

Rudi's Sel de Mer. This is HAL's seafood restaurant created for them by Master Chef Rudi Sodamin. It is the most expensive extra charge on the ship. The voyage we sailed it was $50 per person. I have to say, it was worth just about every single penny.

 

Totally agree.  I have patronized the Nieuw Statendam's Rudi's as well as a couple of them as pop-ups.  Consistently excellent cuisine, service, and ambiance.  

 

Makes me wonder why such excellent consistency cannot be achieved in the Pinnacle Grill's operation.  

[sofietucker]

Adore Sel de Mer! Twice had to send back overcooked steaks in PG... But that was back in 2019; it will surely be great in Sept.

[DrKoob]

On 2/3/2022 at 3:51 PM, canadianbear said:

The Rudi’s presentation photos look very interesting.  We’ve never tried it …yet!

 

Thanks for your detailed report.  Yes, it’s all about the food, lol.  

You should. If you like seafood it will knock your socks off.

 

[albingirl]

2 hours ago, DrKoob said:

You should. If you like seafood it will knock your socks off.

 

We had the dover sole in December.  Loved it.  And, love your review.  Thank you so much.

[rkacruiser]

3 minutes ago, albingirl said:

We had the dover sole in December.  Loved it.  And, love your review.  Thank you so much.

 

Agree with his review; well done.  I have had Dover Sole each time I have dined at Sel de Mer.  Without exception, on the Nieuw Statendam as well as in the pop-ups, excellent, excellent, excellent!  Enjoyed the Escargots as well; Rudi's preparation is different from the MDR's preparation.  Both are very good.  

[DaveOKC]

Agree with the lack of service in the Pinnacle (we were on the NS in Dec) and the great service and food in CLub Orange.

[rkacruiser]

19 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

Agree with the lack of service in the Pinnacle (we were on the NS in Dec) and the great service and food in CLub Orange.

 

Such a situation, in my opinion, has to do with management.  Who is in charge of the facility?  Citing again from what I read in my Cruise Industry News, "Every restaurant has a dedicated galley with its own team and team leader and there is a leader in the front and they work together."

[wdw1972]

2 hours ago, albingirl said:

We had the dover sole in December.  Loved it.  And, love your review.  Thank you so much.

I generally hate seafood but tried the dover sole on Rotterdam in December and LOVED it!  It was a very pleasant surprise 😉

 

Sue/WDW1972

[Caribbean Chris]

I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and have been interested that your opinions on the NIeuw Statendam vs Celebrity Edge class were identical to mine. we sailed both ships in 2019 and NS was the winner, hands down. So much classier and much more comfortable than the trendy Edge - it projected “style” at the expense of passenger comfort. Infinite verandas, Le Petit Chef? No thanks.

 

Ended up cancelling our booking for another Edge class ship, and will be on NS again this fall in New England for two weeks. Really looking forward to being back in Club Orange. You will enjoy the Rotterdam Club Orange, too, if you sail on her - very nice new decor.

 

I’m now going to book Sel de Mer today for our upcoming cruise - thanks for all the great descriptions.

 

 

[DrKoob]

 

We have just about covered everything I wanted to from our 10 night cruise on Holland America's Nieuw Statendam to the Southern Caribbean, so this will be my last post on this trip. Just want to sum it up and give you some final thoughts on the best and the worst parts of the cruise.

Before I get deeper into the overall review it is VERY important to note that this cruise was deeply affected by COVID. In all I think it came down to two things, one good and one bad, that affected us and everyone else on the ship.

First, COVID gave us the dreaded masks. We had never sailed fully masked before. Even though we took a cruise in July 2021, it was on a very small ship (Celebrity Flora in the Galapagos) where everyone on board was fully vaccinated and we would be getting off on only one inhabited island (where we did wear masks). So for that cruise, no one masked up onboard except the crew. I should also say it was pre-Omicron. Wearing a mask everywhere on the ship meant that we probably spent more time in our stateroom than we have ever done before simply because we could be there without our masks on.

The good part of COVID was that there were less than 925 guest on board a ship that has a full capacity of more than 3,500 passengers. That meant no waiting anywhere, from embarkation to shore excursions. You could find a seat in any show. And with almost 900 crew members on board (a full complement), service was amazing.

The Best

So many things to name. We pretty much loved it all but these are some of the stand outs. I lifted some of these directly from the evaluation I sent to Holland America (HAL).

• Pre-cruise: HAL was VERY specific about exactly what we needed to do to board the ship whether it was about check in times (they mean it), COVID protocols (they mean those too) and COVID testing.
• Embarkation: Being in a Neptune Suite we were given "Priority Check-in" which means that we got to arrive at noon, the earliest check in. In our case I dropped off the rest of our foursome (my bride and my brother and his bride) and I took the car back to the airport rental car center. Then I grabbed a taxi back to the port (total time from drop-off to return was less than 20 minutes) and we walked in the door. From there we saw a very nice lady to show her our vax card, negative COVID test and signed our health questionnaire. We were then given a tiny receipt and had to show that to get on the ship. Start to finish 20 minutes. Our room keys were on our door.
• Stateroom availability: Our suite was available as soon as we were on board. So we dropped and unpacked our carry-ons and headed to lunch at the Dive-In. No lines anyplace and lots of service. I think we were asked by at least four servers what we wanted to drink. While we were at lunch I went down to the stateroom to grab something and found...our luggage, already in our stateroom on the bed. Amazing.
• Stateroom: You can read all about it earlier on this thread. And since I did that page with photos, I processed a video tour you can see by clicking here.
• Muster Drill: YEAH! This is all virtual now. Well almost. As soon as you turn on the TV in your stateroom, the muster talk comes on. You watch it and then sometime after 1:30 you head to your lifeboat station (ours was the Main Dining Room) and check-in and get your key card scanned. That's it! This is another benefit of COVID. Hopefully masks will go away soon and the NEW muster drill will stay. Actually I kind of like being served at the buffet too.
• Food: I did an entire post on food. You can see it by scrolling back up on this thread.. A quick summary is this: It was AWESOME! DELICIOUS! FANTASTIC!
• Ports: We missed one (Half Moon Cay, HAL's private island) due to weather. The sea and wind were too rough to tender in–this turned into a sea day. Then we visited Grand Turk, Puerta Plata in the Dominican Republic, Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba. Loved Grand Turk and Bonaire. Though Peurto Plata and Curacao were "fine" and sad that Aruba has turned into just another commercialized cruise port. You can see it those in depth scrolling back up on this thread.
• Shore excursions: We did Holland America Shore excursions in all ports except Aruba (Kathleen stayed on the ship, I walked around for a short time) where my brother and his bride did one. All the excursions we went on were all "fine." In the case of two of the shore excursions, when they were a late or had to deviate from what we had been told they would be, they refunded our money even though we had still been able to go. Classy.We got two of them for free with the Have It All program.
• Entertainment: In the evenings you could usually find us at BB Kings Blues Club or one of the other venues on the Music Walk. Sometimes we would go for the music and sometime for the comedians. There were three on board whose names I cannot remember but I do know they were HILARIOUS! We did not go to any of the "big shows." One of the reasons was because they were so few people on board there was only one show a night and they alway seem to coincide with dinner (7:30 most nights). Also we aren't much into these shows as we have seen so many of them so many times. We do want to add that the one show that is not to be missed in the big theater is the BBC Planet Earth presentation with live music by the Lincoln Center quartet. The video parts of the presentation are on the big circular screen and just amazing.
• Sail With Seth: As you may remember, we were "Sailing with Seth" who is Holland America's Brand Ambassador and an old friend. Here's what we told HAL on the evaluation we sent:"We were part of the Sail With Seth group. I can't tell you how incredibly awesome your Brand Ambassador Seth Wayne is. He has kept cruising alive for these last two horrible years. We felt like we were taking a virtual cruise each and every time he posted or was live on Facebook or Instagram. What an amazing person to have as the spokesperson for your company. On this cruise he was the epitome of what a host should be taking great care of us and just being Seth. He is the ONLY reason we decided to take this cruise. We are long-time Celebrity cruisers and had planned to restart after the pandemic with another Celebrity cruise, but Seth has kept us going for two years so when we heard he was taking a group on Nieuw Statendam, we jumped on it. When we sail with HAL again, we will always try to be part of a Sail with Seth group. You are so lucky to have him." If you ever get a chance to Sail With Seth, do it!
• Disembarkation: Was about as smooth as it gets. It was a little late while the ship was cleared by the port. But once we were cleared, I was able to walk off with my carry-ons, take a taxi to the airport, pick up a rental car and get back to pick up Kathleen, Steve and Jamie. We always end up having to get a car when returning to Fort Lauderdale because the nonstop Alaska Air flight we take home doesn't leave until 6:05 pm. It works well for us because two of our favorite people live about an hour north of FLL so we drive up and see them, have lunch and head back. Great way to spend the day.

The Worst

This one is easy. Of all the things we had going on during this cruise, just about all of it was perfect. About as good as a cruise in the Caribbean can be. But one part of the trip just sucked—the internet. We got HAL's middle cost Internet/WiFi package as part of the Have It All program. Their basic program is pretty much e-mail and texting. Their middle program is those two things and some additional websites like FaceBook, Instagram and Cruise Critic. I was able to do this blog as well. The speed on this plan was INCREDIBLY SLOW! And of course every time I signed on I would get an advert from HAL to "Move Up" to their top tier of internet. Finally I got totally fed up with the speed so I sucked it up and bought the top plan. Then came the shock.

Nothing got faster. If anything it got slower. And this was with the ship at one third capacity. I can imagine how slow it would have been with a full ship. So after trying for a couple of days and not seeing a single improvement from the $10 per day I had upgraded to, I went to ask the Neptune Suite concierge who I could talk to about it. She said for the suites, she was the person to talk to.

I explained my problem and she said that the top tier internet is NOT faster, it just gives you access to other websites. I am not sure what sites you would get besides what you already had but I know what you can't do with the speed you have. You can't watch any kind of video. I did find that I could download a video to watch later. I like to watch videos on my iPad when I ride a stationary bike in the gym so I wanted to download a couple of more episodes of a show I was rewatching. It took 3.5 hours to download a single 43 minute episode. And that didn't count the number of times it just stopped and I had to start all over again. I finally got the episode to download by doing it overnight when no one else was using the internet. I was also told by the concierge that I could use Skype or FaceTime but with that speed, there is no way. BTW: I wanted to check the speed of my connection with a speed test but she told me that those sites were blocked 🙄.

If you have ever been on a Royal Caribbean ship you know what really fast internet at sea is all about. Their Voom product is as fast as I have here at home if you buy the streaming package. On RCL we were able to watch Netflix, FaceTime with the grandkids and I could upload this blog in seconds instead of the 30 minutes it took to upload my photos.

The bottom line is this: I would NEVER pay for internet on this ship. I don't remember it being this bad when we were on Westerdam a few years ago so maybe this as an aberration. We can hope so. It was the only thing that drove us nuts during the entire 10 days. I know, first world problems 😜.

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by DrKoob

[rkacruiser]

7 hours ago, DrKoob said:

I would NEVER pay for internet on this ship. 

 

I gave up trying to use the internet from a HAL ship several years ago. 

 

Thank you most sincerely for your posts!  

[DrKoob]

15 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

Thank you most sincerely for your posts!  

You (and everyone else who has thanked me) are VERY WELCOME. So glad so many of you liked this thread.

 

[echoshipmate]

On 2/3/2022 at 7:30 PM, sofietucker said:

Adore Sel de Mer! Twice had to send back overcooked steaks in PG... But that was back in 2019; it will surely be great in Sept.

And I had to send my lamp chops back twice(nearly raw, ordered medium rare)at Rudi's a huge disappointment, just goes to show, sometimes inconsistency can be found anywhere. Rudi's is way over rated and way overpriced, imho and why only a 25% discount and all other specialty restaurants 50% for 4*'s.

[westcoastsue]

When on the Konigsdam last November the worst dining experience, both service and food, was in Rudi’s. DH’s Dover sole was over cooked and my lobster was undercooked. We won’t be in a rush too go back.

[quilter49]

Maybe I missed it, but what movies were playing outside?

[DrKoob]

2 hours ago, quilter49 said:

Maybe I missed it, but what movies were playing outside?

The latest James Bond, Bohemian Rhapsody, the NFL playoffs were live and I am not sure what else. None of them were new releases, I do know that. Either we had seen them (like James Bond) or weren't interested. All of them were available free on your stateroom TV and since you had to wear a mask to watch them on the outside screen, most people opted to watch movies in their staterooms.