Rotterdam April 2023 TA

[sailingdutchy]

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

I am very confused by this because I am booked on the 150th anniversary cruise leaving from Rotterdam on Oct 15th.  I tried to find the itinerary you are speaking of but it is not showing up on the HAL or online cruise site I searched on.

 

@*Miss G*The cruise you are doing in October is celebrating the 150th anniversary of a ship from a still to be formed company made the original  TransAtlantic voyage from Rotterdam to New York . Maiden voyage of Rotterdam.

 

What this new changed itinerary is all about is the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the date this company was established  on April 18 , 1873 as Nederlandsche - Amerikaansche  Stoomvaart Maatschappij ( Netherlands-American Steamship Company ) In Rotterdam

The companies first ship was called  Rotterdam (1872 ) and the ship we will be going on is Rotterdam VII.

Myself I had been wondering why this big milestone was not being celebrated until this announcement today and I look forward to and hope it will be a very special cruise and I also hope that the wonderful historian of Holland America Captain Albert will be on board and will make his amazing presentations !

 

Tony 😁

[waiting2retire]

Not happy about this at all. We had originally booked the 14 day TA and the following 7 day Norwegian fjords cruise separately as it was much more cost effective to do so. 
 

@Overhead Fred, where does your new itinerary go after the TA portion ends in Rotterdam on April 19?  The second leg of our b2b is booked from Amsterdam on April 29.  That’s 10 days between the cruises now and we didn’t budget time or $$ for that. 

 

This change messes everything up and I’m not at all sure I want to travel that far north for the majority of the TA portion. At least leaving from Ft Lauderdale going to the Azores, in mid-April, the weather was likely to be much warmer. 
 

And if we decide we don’t like the new 16 day itinerary and want to cancel, will HAL refund the 50% non-refundable portion of my deposit?  
 

It’s really not nice of them to mess with booked itineraries like this 😡

[Tennessee Titan]

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

 

Oh my gosh, we originally had a Spring TA with 7 days at sea, but couldn’t make it to one of the ports (weather in the Azores) and ended up with 8 straight days at sea.  That was definitely one day too much.  😳

We take these cruises mainly for the sea days, so the more the merrier....

[Bigdadofthesea]

We’re not happy. Other than being a TA, it’s not the same cruise… None of the same ports, going across on more northern route, different dates-wouldn’t be home for Easter/Passover. A real black eye for HAL from my perspective. We’re most likely going to cancel.

 

[Overhead Fred]

2 hours ago, waiting2retire said:

Not happy about this at all. We had originally booked the 14 day TA and the following 7 day Norwegian fjords cruise separately as it was much more cost effective to do so. 
 

@Overhead Fred, where does your new itinerary go after the TA portion ends in Rotterdam on April 19?  The second leg of our b2b is booked from Amsterdam on April 29.  That’s 10 days between the cruises now and we didn’t budget time or $$ for that. 

 

This change messes everything up and I’m not at all sure I want to travel that far north for the majority of the TA portion. At least leaving from Ft Lauderdale going to the Azores, in mid-April, the weather was likely to be much warmer. 
 

And if we decide we don’t like the new 16 day itinerary and want to cancel, will HAL refund the 50% non-refundable portion of my deposit?  
 

It’s really not nice of them to mess with booked itineraries like this 😡

Here is our itinerary after Rotterdam -

April 20 sea day

April 21 Oslo

April 22 Copenhagen

April23 sea day

April 24 Amsterdam

[Oceanwench]

The more I think about it, I'm thinking we are lucky to be aboard this ship for this celebration.

But we're retired, so we are flexible.

We haven't booked flights yet, mainly because we haven't decided where we want to go after disembarking!

 

[Oceanwench]

Our TA was not notified of this change, so she called HAL.

They told her they will be issuing new reservation numbers, etc. to those of us booked on the original 14-day cruise.

Also, some people may have different cabin assignments, they told her.
I'm not sure what that is about.

[westerdam]

I was booked on the original sailing and am a little disappointed but at the same time excited to be on the Rotterdam in Rotterdam for the official 150th Anniversary.  It is what it is and hey 2 more days for the same price! 

[NCTribeFan]

I'm not that excited about all those sea days in the North Atlantic at that time of year.  Hoping for smooth seas. 

 

Also not thrilled about the date change.  I'm a CPA, semi-retired as of this year, and missed the 4/15 deadline because of a date change for a Celebrity cruise, and will miss the 10/15 deadline because of the twice-rescheduled Carnival Med/TA B2B2B.  I was glad that I'd "only" miss a couple of days when sailing 4/15.  The partners won't be happy that I'll now miss the last 2 weeks of crunch time.  Guess I'll just have to start earlier (if I can convince the clients to cooperate!).

 

Of course people are upset about cancellations and itinerary changes.  I'm just happy we're cruising again.  I've sailed six times since November (on 4 different lines).  I'm not going to postpone anything.  Life's too short.

 

A couldn't care less about an overnight in NYC, and would prefer a southern crossing.  Aren't there other spring TAs people could book that take that more southerly route?

[NeilBBB]

We too booked the April 15, 2023, TA Rotterdam cruise. And were notified on June 28th that the cruise is now 16 nights with a complete itinerary change.  That we will receive the extra 2 nights at no cost and our HA Flight Ease flights will also be changed at no additional costs to us.  Several days after our original Rotterdam April 15 booking we received an email offer from HAL to upgrade our cruise to "Have it All" package for $50. per person, per night. We took advantage of the upgrade and upgraded to the "Have it All" package for the $50 p.p. per Nt.  And now are hoping HAL includes the other 2 nights and does not downgrade our "Have it All" package.  We looked at the Highspeed trains and can visit Amsterdam in 30 minutes for next to nothing. Plus, using the highspeed trains, we can visit Paris and other places we want to see.  So, we are extremely grateful HAL did not cancel us but simply changed us to their 150th Anniversary Cruise.  It will be a GREAT TIME with lots of extra festivities no doubt! 

[quickrate]

On 6/28/2022 at 6:42 PM, *Miss G* said:

 

Oh my gosh, we originally had a Spring TA with 7 days at sea, but couldn’t make it to one of the ports (weather in the Azores) and ended up with 8 straight days at sea.  That was definitely one day too much.  😳

We love days at sea which is one the reasons we book Trans-Atlantic cruises so 8 days won't bother us. My casino bill might be another story!

[quickrate]

20 hours ago, NeilBBB said:

We too booked the April 15, 2023, TA Rotterdam cruise. And were notified on June 28th that the cruise is now 16 nights with a complete itinerary change.  That we will receive the extra 2 nights at no cost and our HA Flight Ease flights will also be changed at no additional costs to us.  Several days after our original Rotterdam April 15 booking we received an email offer from HAL to upgrade our cruise to "Have it All" package for $50. per person, per night. We took advantage of the upgrade and upgraded to the "Have it All" package for the $50 p.p. per Nt.  And now are hoping HAL includes the other 2 nights and does not downgrade our "Have it All" package.  We looked at the Highspeed trains and can visit Amsterdam in 30 minutes for next to nothing. Plus, using the highspeed trains, we can visit Paris and other places we want to see.  So, we are extremely grateful HAL did not cancel us but simply changed us to their 150th Anniversary Cruise.  It will be a GREAT TIME with lots of extra festivities no doubt! 

Thank you for the tip on the high speed train! We will for sure be taking advantage of this!

[quickrate]

On 6/28/2022 at 7:50 PM, Tennessee Titan said:

We take these cruises mainly for the sea days, so the more the merrier....

Same here! Love sea days.

[Mosaic]

Keep in mind, it is 10 sea days out of 16....

[MISTER 67]

On 6/28/2022 at 6:00 PM, VMax1700 said:

That looks like a dire itinerary.  8 days at sea is a day or two too much 😭

It's a 16 day cruise with only 4 ports of call.

I'm curious, why so many days to cross the Atlantic? 

[Tennessee Titan]

TThere are 2 Roll Calls on this cruise...

[VMax1700]

1 hour ago, MISTER 67 said:

I'm curious, why so many days to cross the Atlantic? 

It is taking the uphill route 😁

[crx]

Eight days to cross to Rotterdam. Probably at the same speed as 150 years ago.

[Heartgrove]

1 hour ago, MISTER 67 said:

I'm curious, why so many days to cross the Atlantic? 

 

It is 3,918 nm from Port of New York to the Port of Rotterdam. That distance calculated traveling at a constant 20 knots is 8.2 days. 

[MISTER 67]

2 hours ago, Heartgrove said:

 

It is 3,918 nm from Port of New York to the Port of Rotterdam. That distance calculated traveling at a constant 20 knots is 8.2 days. 

I believe the 8 days was to Portsmouth UK.

It's amazing that the great ocean liners back in the day would make the crossing in 4 or 5 days, the original Queen Mary held the record for years at 4 days which was broken by the United States which made the crossing in 3 days and 10 hours but it was from the Ambrose lightship to Cornwell in the UK, she averaged over 35 knots per hour.

[Heartgrove]

21 hours ago, MISTER 67 said:

I believe the 8 days was to Portsmouth UK.

It's amazing that the great ocean liners back in the day would make the crossing in 4 or 5 days, the original Queen Mary held the record for years at 4 days which was broken by the United States which made the crossing in 3 days and 10 hours but it was from the Ambrose lightship to Cornwell in the UK, she averaged over 35 knots per hour.

 

Thanks for the correction. I didn't know the actual itinerary so guessed at Rotterdam because of the conversation. In that case, the distance to Portsmouth UK is 3,633 nm and will take 7.6 days at 20 knots.

 

I agree that the Transatlantic Greyhounds-of-the-Sea were quite a bit quicker than a cruise ship built to sail at a more leisurely pace. The cruise ship hull profile and propulsion design are more adept for 18-20 knot cruising. For comparison, my CG cutter allegedly could make 18 knots when built in 1944 but was lucky to make 12 knots when I was aboard 25 years later. Classified as a "High Endurance Cutter," it could carry enough fuel to for sailing 14,000 nm at cruising speed.

 

- Jack

[Oceanwench]

On 7/2/2022 at 12:36 PM, MISTER 67 said:

I'm curious, why so many days to cross the Atlantic? 

The PR released by HAL says "eight leisurely days" to cross.
I imagine it's because they want to be in Rotterdam for the anniversary day.

 

[NavArch64]

The QM2 sails at about 28 knots on her crossings but the Rotterdam will probably sail at 20 knots on hers. The QM2 can sail through many of the moderate lows but the Rotterdam will have to try and avoid them. Both of course must avoid the intense lows. The Rotterdam crossing in April could be risky in this regard. I hope to be aboard ... should be fun. Jan and Gus might need their sea legs.

[Crusin-Suzan]

On 7/2/2022 at 8:54 AM, quickrate said:

We love days at sea which is one the reasons we book Trans-Atlantic cruises so 8 days won't bother us. My casino bill might be another story!

We live in Estero so very close to you!  Yes I agree about the casino bill!   Was on Rotterdam before and the casino is very nice!

[quickrate]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:07 PM, Crusin-Suzan said:

We live in Estero so very close to you!  Yes I agree about the casino bill!   Was on Rotterdam before and the casino is very nice!

We now live in Myrtle Beach. guess I need to change my profile!