LAFFNVEGAS Live From the 7 Day Viking Sagas On Board the MS Rotterdam 7/10/22

[LAFFNVEGAS]

On board air tags say they are on plane and we about ready to take off to Amsterdam from Houston.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Good Morning from Amsterdam. We landed at about 9:30 which was 90 minutes ago. It took about 45 minutes to get through customs. Now still waiting for luggage. Even on a Thursday morning this airport is packed. Unsure how long till we see luggage.

[oakridger]

Have a wonderful time!  I sure enjoy reading your reviews and will be watching for your tips about the Rotterdam.  Love the pictures on board in Houston of everyone's happy faces!!

 

~Nancy

[jimbri]

Looking forward to your report.  Enjoy!

[tonamie]

Thank you for keeping us posted on your trip. We are taking this exact same HA cruise in late August of this year. Anxious to read about your travels. We are leaving a day early so we can enjoy some time in Amsterdam too. We already bought tickets online for Anne Frank house visit, and we purchased our shore excursions too. It has been fun planning and anticipating our cruise. Enjoy your cruise! 

[RoonlouX2]

We board this ship the same day as you for the 14 night itinerary. Look forward to reading about your experiences 👍🏼

[albingirl]

Hurray, another adventure for you!  Love your reviews.  Bon voyage!

[Overtime4me2]

Have a wonderful trip. I'll enjoy following along as this is a cruise I would love to go on one day.

 

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Goedeavond from the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam. 
It has truly been one very long day with very little sleep since very early Wednesday morning. But it all goes and is to be expected with over seas travel. 
For a Thursday Morning Schiphol Airport was crazy busy. It took till close to Noon before we got our luggage. 
Movenpick is a nice Eu style hotel. Location to the cruise port is great but not super close to a lot of things like restaurants. There was a Costa ship in port today we could see from our room. After getting checked in we were all hungry but didn’t want to go far do just Ste downstairs in a very small bar restaurant. The food was good and not overly expensive for a hotel restaurant.

We all decided we needed to try to get a couple hours of sleep so got in a two hour nap. We met in the Lobby with Marcia and Colleen at 6 and took a Taxi to the area right in the center of tourist area where all the canal boats are. We bought in advance a tour through Viator called Amsterdam Evening Canal Tour with pizza and Drinks. It was actually a nice tour that lasted two hours that had a large personal size pizza per person and two drinks. It was actually a lot of fun. 
 

I will finish up tonight’s report with some pictures of our hotel and canal cruise before I fall asleep.

 

 

[kazu]

enjoying your posts Lisa and hope you all have a fantastic cruise.

We loved Amsterdam when we were there and it looks like you are already off to a good start.

 

Hope your pre-cruise stay is a great one and wishing you and Bon Voyage 🛳 🚢 🥂 

[Himself]

51 minutes ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

Goedeavond from the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam. 
It has truly been one very long day with very little sleep since very early Wednesday morning. But it all goes and is to be expected with over seas travel. 
For a Thursday Morning Schiphol Airport was crazy busy. It took till close to Noon before we got our luggage. 
Movenpick is a nice Eu style hotel. Location to the cruise port is great but not super close to a lot of things like restaurants. There was a Costa ship in port today we could see from our room. After getting checked in we were all hungry but didn’t want to go far do just Ste downstairs in a very small bar restaurant. The food was good and not overly expensive for a hotel restaurant.

We all decided we needed to try to get a couple hours of sleep so got in a two hour nap. We met in the Lobby with Marcia and Colleen at 6 and took a Taxi to the area right in the center of tourist area where all the canal boats are. We bought in advance a tour through Viator called Amsterdam Evening Canal Tour with pizza and Drinks. It was actually a nice tour that lasted two hours that had a large personal size pizza per person and two drinks. It was actually a lot of fun. 
 

I will finish up tonight’s report with some pictures of our hotel and canal cruise before I fall asleep.

 

 

 

Nice pictures

[oaktreerb]

22 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

On board air tags say they are on plane and we about ready to take off to Amsterdam from Houston.

What class of seating is this?  Do these seats convert to beds?  

[julia]

Hi Lisa & Tom:

We last crossed paths at LAS while flying to SD to board the Eurodam in Nov '19 (you had a lovely sailaway from your aft wrap).  Little did we know that was to be our last "normal" cruise! 

Wishing your group a smooth sailing and an enjoyable time on the Rotterdam!

[occruiselady]

We are taking this cruise in late August and I am really looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Did you have to stay in the baggage area the whole time you were waiting for your luggage? Did you take a taxi to your hotel? We are staying at the Doubletree, which is near the train station. Enjoy Amsterdam!

[2inSETexas]

11 minutes ago, oaktreerb said:

What class of seating is this?  Do these seats convert to beds?  

This looks like United Polaris Business class seats. They do convert to lay-flat beds. 

[oaktreerb]

11 minutes ago, 2inSETexas said:

This looks like United Polaris Business class seats. They do convert to lay-flat beds. 

Nice!

[rkacruiser]

3 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

Movenpick is a nice Eu style hotel. Location to the cruise port is great but not super close to a lot of things like restaurants. There was a Costa ship in port today we could see from our room. After getting checked in we were all hungry but didn’t want to go far do just Ste downstairs in a very small bar restaurant. The food was good and not overly expensive for a hotel restaurant.

 

My traveling companion and I stayed at the Movenpick and were pleased with our choice.  There was supposed to be a restaurant whose reviews that I had read that sounded excellent that was in within walking distance.  We were unable to find it; returned to the hotel enjoyed a nice dinner in their restaurant.  I remember a separate bar on the ground floor of the hotel that was a pleasant place to be.

 

3 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

We bought in advance a tour through Viator called Amsterdam Evening Canal Tour with pizza and Drinks. It was actually a nice tour that lasted two hours that had a large personal size pizza per person and two drinks. It was actually a lot of fun. 

 

We also purchased a Viator Evening Dinner Cruise that lasted two hours on our first in Amsterdam.  Scenic, enjoyable, good dinner, but, after such a long day, towards the end of the cruise, my friend leaned her head against the bulkhead of the boat along our window and went sound to sleep.  Both of us slept well that night when we got to the hotel.  

 

Looking forward to your reading your adventures!  Thanks for posting!  

[LAFFNVEGAS]

7 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

What class of seating is this?  Do these seats convert to beds?  

This is Business Class, although we were not very impressed. The tightest quarters we have flown in for Business Class, it’s what United brags about called Polaris. American and Air Canada are much nicer.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

7 hours ago, occruiselady said:

We are taking this cruise in late August and I am really looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Did you have to stay in the baggage area the whole time you were waiting for your luggage? Did you take a taxi to your hotel? We are staying at the Doubletree, which is near the train station. Enjoy Amsterdam!

We did stay in the baggage area the whole time because frankly we had no idea when our luggage would start coming out. Everyone from our flight was waiting.

we had purchased our hotel through Holland America and it included transfers to the hotel. Since we were the only ones coming at this time they had a Rep there and a Private Car driver with a very nice brand new Tesla S, so nice way to arrive at the hotel.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Good morning from Amsterdam. Today looks to be a beautiful day. 
I decided to call it a day at about 10:30 last night and slept sound till about 2:15. Then like an internal body alarm clock I was wide awake. Could not get back to sleep so grabbed my phone and started checking emails and doing some work by answering emails. 
Then about 4 attempted to sleep but not much. About 5:50 Tom appeared awake but said he could not sleep much either. We had this same problem in 2016 when we came to Italy for the Koningsdam we have a terrible time adjusting to the time. Although our two trips to Japan in 2017 and 2019 we had no problems at all.

this morning we watched Celebrity Apex come in. She is definitely a big ship.

Well guess I will start getting ready for the day. I room includes breakfast at the hotel, so we are meeting Marcia and Colleen at 8:30 then heading to the train station to meet up with @Ine

 

[julia]

Oh thank you for the pics of the Celebrity Apex....  will be sailing the Beyond in November!

[Cruzin Terri]

Thanks for taking us along.  

Hope you all have a wonderful time.

Bon Voyage!

Terri

[Vict0riann]

Coming from the west coast, it is difficult to fly to Europe and takes much longer to recover than flying west, I have found.  Fortunately for us, this time we broke our journey in Newfoundland, slept a lot, and I plan to do a lot of napping during our week in England before we join the Nieuw Statendam in Copenhagen.  We have booked a cruise on Rotterdam in April next year, so I want to hear all about her!  Thanks for your Live From. 

[puppycanducruise]

Thanks for taking us along, looking forward to reading all about the cruise.

Bon Voyage!

[2inSETexas]

9 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

This is Business Class, although we were not very impressed. The tightest quarters we have flown in for Business Class, it’s what United brags about called Polaris. American and Air Canada are much nicer.

Interesting. Most reviews of the Polaris seating have been very positive. I guess it depends on preference. I’ve flown BC on many different airlines. Favorite was Singapore Air and least favorite was British Air and Air Afrique (don’t ask). Air Canada is also comfortable and a good reason for connections through Toronto. My biggest disappointment was BC on Lufthansa’s A380 - high expectations but not all that comfortable. The current United BC seating far exceeds any other US airline BC seating in my experience. My most comfortable of all experiences was First on United and First on Air China. Slept like a baby on both.