Live(ish) from Westerdam Xmas/NY cruise from Auckland 20Dec22

[OzKiwiJJ]

We're doing Auckland to Sydney but I understand Westerdam is continuing on to Singapore from Sydney.

 

The Auckland to Sydney itinerary is:

20Dec22 -  Auckland

21Dec22 - Tauranga

22Dec22 - Napier

23Dec22 - Picton

24Dec22 - Lyttelton

25Dec22 - At Sea

26Dec22 - Port Chalmers (Dunedin)

27Dec22 - Fiordland Scenic Cruising

28Dec22 - At Sea

29Dec22 - At Sea

30Dec22 - Hobart

31Dec22 - At Sea

1Jan23 - Melbourne

2Jan23 - At Sea

3Jan23 - Sydney

 

Originally we were supposed to go to Kaikoura but that changed to Picton a couple of weeks ago. I'm not happy! I was hoping to indulge in some of the best crayfish in NZ!

[mr walker]

Hope you and Rolf have a great cruise - enjoy!!

[OzKiwiJJ]

We flew to Auckland last Thursday. The flight itself was lovely especially as we'd got business class seats on Latam at a lower price than Qantas wanted for an economy seat on the same code-shared flight.

 

However both Sydney and Auckland airports were chaotic. A nice reminder of why we prefer to cruise out of and returning to Australia. However we have friends and family in NZ, especially in Auckland where we need more than a one day port stop.

 

Since we'd had a rental car while in Auckland we decided to drop our bags off before returning the car. Queens Wharf didn't seem to have the usual obvious baggage drop so Rolf had to go into the terminal building to drop the bags. He said it was a bit confusing. On previous NZ cruises we'd embarked at Princes Wharf with a very efficient baggage drop area.

 

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Apparently Holland America now has a Navigator app. I have no idea what this is as our 4 year old phones don't have a recent enough version of Android. 🤬

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, mr walker said:

Hope you and Rolf have a great cruise - enjoy!!

Thanks, this will be a new experience for us, our first cruise on Holland America.

[boeckli]

Have a great cruise Julie.  I enjoyed two weeks on Westerdam just recently. 

[arxcards]

16 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Thanks, this will be a new experience for us, our first cruise on Holland America.

Much to love. Good food and comfy cabins. Maybe a bit quiet, but not necessarily a bad thing.

 

I would recommend having a Wang Wang at the Sea View Bar. Not sure if it is still on the menu, but they will know how to make them. If they still have Le Cirque night in Pinnacle Grill, we thought it was pretty special.

 

Enjoy!! It is an awesome time to be at sea.

[MMDown Under]

26 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

We flew to Auckland last Thursday. The flight itself was lovely especially as we'd got business class seats on Latam at a lower price than Qantas wanted for an economy seat on the same code-shared flight.

 

However both Sydney and Auckland airports were chaotic. A nice reminder of why we prefer to cruise out of and returning to Australia. However we have friends and family in NZ, especially in Auckland where we need more than a one day port stop.

 

Since we'd had a rental car while in Auckland we decided to drop our bags off before returning the car. Queens Wharf didn't seem to have the usual obvious baggage drop so Rolf had to go into the terminal building to drop the bags. He said it was a bit confusing. On previous NZ cruises we'd embarked at Princes Wharf with a very efficient baggage drop area.

 

 

What was the airline?  I'm loosing more respect for Qantas every day.  It is certainly not the National Carrier.  How could they charge more for economy than another airline charge for business class on same flight?  I saw current check in was 90 min for Brisbane Airport.  Not a good time to be flying.  Was a luxury to cruise on 4/12 from Brisbane Cruise Port with my daughters dropping me off.  One daughter dropped my luggage off and I had personal service checking in all the way downstairs, with no queues (joy of last check in period), then lift upstairs for final check in.  Impressive start to a cruise.  

Have a wonderful time catching up with your Kiwi family, Julie and a great cruise.  Looking forward to your comments on Westerdam.  

[Cruisers47]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

We flew to Auckland last Thursday. The flight itself was lovely especially as we'd got business class seats on Latam at a lower price than Qantas wanted for an economy seat on the same code-shared flight.

 

However both Sydney and Auckland airports were chaotic. A nice reminder of why we prefer to cruise out of and returning to Australia. However we have friends and family in NZ, especially in Auckland where we need more than a one day port stop.

 

Since we'd had a rental car while in Auckland we decided to drop our bags off before returning the car. Queens Wharf didn't seem to have the usual obvious baggage drop so Rolf had to go into the terminal building to drop the bags. He said it was a bit confusing. On previous NZ cruises we'd embarked at Princes Wharf with a very efficient baggage drop area.

 

 

Have just flown Melbourne to Perth with Qantas.   When we go overseas we fly business, but not on Qantas,  but this was a package as we are on Azamara out of Fremantle.  Food in cardboard boxes, on Qantas, was horrible.   We checked if we could upgrade but it was $350 each just to bid.   Did not bother.  Paid extra to be on Qantas should have tried Virgin.    
 

Eileen

[lyndarra]

Have a great cruise. I'll be boarding in Sydney a few hours after you disembark, that is, if you're not doing a B2B.

[sewgood]

We got off the Westerdam two weeks ago after a wonderful 1st cruise on HAL.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The afternoon tea is really worth going to, better then Princess 😲

If you want a table for two for afternoon tea, just wait 15 minutes after it starts otherwise you might be herded onto a share table.

Have a great cruise, it's a lovely ship.

[SilvertoGold]

OP:  Looking forward to your impressions of HAL!  Hope you will write about the ports on this cruise, especially transfers form the ship to the port towns and.or into the cities.

Have a great time and Merry Christmas!

 

PS: The Navigator APP is quite useful. Can you download it from Google Play Store?  I have a Pixel 3 (!) and it worked.

[cruiser3775]

I'm doing more or less the same cruise in reverse order, in March on HAL, so looking forward to your comments on the ship and the ports.

I've given up on Qantas unless I have no choice.  My flight back to Australia in economy, booked in October with Qantas cost me $A310.  Now they are charging more than $A1000 for the same flight. I also noticed that the hotels I booked in NZ are now more than double the price I got back in October. Not a good time to be booking overseas travel.

[OzKiwiJJ]

5 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

What was the airline?  I'm loosing more respect for Qantas every day.  It is certainly not the National Carrier.  How could they charge more for economy than another airline charge for business class on same flight?  I saw current check in was 90 min for Brisbane Airport.  Not a good time to be flying.  Was a luxury to cruise on 4/12 from Brisbane Cruise Port with my daughters dropping me off.  One daughter dropped my luggage off and I had personal service checking in all the way downstairs, with no queues (joy of last check in period), then lift upstairs for final check in.  Impressive start to a cruise.  

Have a wonderful time catching up with your Kiwi family, Julie and a great cruise.  Looking forward to your comments on Westerdam.  

The airline was LATAM. Qantas code-shares with them. The business class fare might have been  Holland America special but I checked the Qantas price on the HAL website for the exact same flight and it was almost double the LATAM fare.

 

The service was good. No preflight or premeal drrinks but good champagne with the meal. The food was excellent - salmon with a type of large couscous, and a delicious sago, coconut cream and tropical fruit dessert. One of the best desserts I've had on a flight in years.

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, SilvertoGold said:

OP:  Looking forward to your impressions of HAL!  Hope you will write about the ports on this cruise, especially transfers form the ship to the port towns and.or into the cities.

Have a great time and Merry Christmas!

 

PS: The Navigator APP is quite useful. Can you download it from Google Play Store?  I have a Pixel 3 (!) and it worked.

I'll try to note the port transfers for you. We've done a few NZ cruises in the past as we use them as a good way to catch up with friends and family in NZ. 

 

Apparently our four year old Android phones are too old for the app. I'm not impressed.

[NSWP]

Bon Voyage Julie and Rolf, hope you enjoy Westerdam and HAL.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Check-in was very disorganised. We headed up the escalators where we were told to take a seat and we would "be called". After a while we noticed two things: lots of people arriving who were not being told to take a seat, and terminal staff checking people in on tablets in other rows and also those who had just arrived who were queueing. However our row of seats was being ignored. This led to some rather irate passengers who were complaining loudly. It still took another ten minutes for someone to check us in although we did notice that the check-in staff were now being directed to check the boarding times of everyone before starting the check-in process - we were in boarding group A at 12 noon.

 

Finally we got our boarding pass then had to fight our way past the queue. Next they scanned our passports and took photos. Then it was the official passport control. Then security where all phones and cameras had to be taken out of bags (but not Kindles). Of course there is always one guy who tries to go through the arch wearing a coat with the pockets full of keys and coins! 🙄 And the two women who thought it was OK to dump their stuff on top of our bags and try to jump the queue through the arch! 🙄

 

Finally we could head up the gangway but we needed our passports again along with our boarding pass to step onto the ship, then had to have our boarding passes scanned at another checkpoint. It was close to 1pm before we were fully onboard!

 

We found our cabin and two bags had already arrived. Another arrived shortly afterwards so we were able to get most of our unpacking done. Unfortunately one bag is still missing - it has my fan in it so it's probably stuck in security. Normally I put that in my carry-on but we had a fair walk from the rental car drop-off so I wanted less weight in my carry-on.

 

We have a "Signature Suite" which is a mini-suite. Reasonable storage, US and EU power points and USB sockets in several places - at each side of the bed, and a both desk areas. We have two showers - one over the bath and a separate shower cubicle. Unfortunately the dreaded shower curtains for both. Twin hand basins and tons of counter space. One big  drawer and an under vanity shelf. 

 

There are three wardrobes. At first it looked like there was no space for trousers and long dresses but the bottom shelf folded up. Perfect! The wardrobes were too narrow for our hanging shoe holder but there was a perfectly placed hook on the wall in a convenient location.

 

Muster stations are out on deck. We went to check in there but the crew weren't there then so we had to go back after lunch.

 

As far as we could tell there was only the buffet open for lunch. It was a bit meh! I got all excited as it looked like there was real pavlova for dessert - large cakes with fruit and cream on top - but, no, it was dry meringue with weird cream but the fruit was nice.

 

The wine list is reasonable at first glance. It appears the by-the-glass limit of our Have-it-All package is $11 which at least lets me have a Pinot Grigio but my favourite Gruner Veltliner will cost extra. 

 

I'm already missing the Princess medallion. We had to sign for drinks in the Ocean Bar but not in the buffet. Weird.

[boeckli]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

We had to sign for drinks in the Ocean Bar but not in the buffet. Weird.

 

It was the same on my recent cruise. Some bars/restaurants do and some don't - I quickly gave up to figure out why. Definitely more work for the bar tenders and servers.

 

My Android phone also won't accept the Navigator app. I have a tablet though that has a newer version so could use that (not that I found it very necessary, except for shore excursion tickets, which no longer come in paper form).

 

In the buffet at lunchtime, I mainly enjoyed the Asian section (including sushi) and it's nice to be able to take the plate and head outside to the Seaview pool area (weather permitting of course).

Edited December 20, 2022 by boeckli

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, boeckli said:

 

It was the same on my recent cruise. Some bars/restaurants do and some don't - I quickly gave up to figure out why. Definitely more work for the bar tenders and servers.

 

My Android phone also won't accept the Navigator app. I have a tablet though that has a newer version so could use that (not that I found it very necessary, except for shore excursion tickets, which no longer come in paper form).

 

In the buffet at lunchtime, I mainly enjoyed the Asian section (including sushi) and it's nice to be able to take the plate and head outside to the Seaview pool area (weather permitting of course).

The guy at guest services installed the shortcut to the Navigator webpage on our phones. We have to go through that to browse. It certainly makes me realize how good the Princess MedallionNet is. I'm not sure if any of my other apps will work - Speedtest certainly wouldn't. The internet seems quite slow, some photos on another forum took ages to load. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Shower experience #1.

 

It's a bit bigger than the Coral Princess balcony cabin showers but ...

 

Everything is on the back wall, including the shower nozzle which, to me, is a recipe for disaster or at least a very wet bathroom unless you're very careful. Luckily it's one of those detachable, height adjustable shower heads so I was able to shower with the water coming nearly straight down not out towards the shower curtain. I cane close to cracking my elbows a couple of times though. 

 

The shower floor got very slippery once shampoo or soap had been used. I told Rolf to use the anti-slip mat as I nearly slipped over at one point. He said that worked well.

 

I'm going to try the shower over the bath tomorrow.

[Galesa]

FWIW, flew out of Sydney yesterday afternoon on SQ. Arrived at check in 3hrs ahead of departure and there was a 2 and a half row queue in front of us.

 

Timed check in wait at 20 minutes and security,  which was moderately busy, at 15 minutes. 35 minutes to airside. Very happy. Suspect it will be busier Thursday Friday.

 

Oh and many pax weren't "match fit",  to coin a phrase, lol, during security checks (liquids and electronics in particular).

Edited December 20, 2022 by Galesa

[aussielozzie18]

I enjoyed Noordam precovid and there is currently a very cheap deal to NZ but it’s only one way.  Not keen to pay for flight to return to OZ.

will follow along on your TR. thanks.

[SilvertoGold]

11 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I'll try to note the port transfers for you. We've done a few NZ cruises in the past as we use them as a good way to catch up with friends and family in NZ. 

 

Apparently our four year old Android phones are too old for the app. I'm not impressed.

Any info you can give would be welcome, all these ports are on our itinerary.  That is unfortunate about your phone. I was seriously wondering if our Pixel 3 would download it! Remember that the in-cabin TV has a decent amount of the App info!  

[SilvertoGold]

10 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Check-in was very disorganised. We headed up the escalators where we were told to take a seat and we would "be called". After a while we noticed two things: lots of people arriving who were not being told to take a seat, and terminal staff checking people in on tablets in other rows and also those who had just arrived who were queueing. However our row of seats was being ignored. This led to some rather irate passengers who were complaining loudly. It still took another ten minutes for someone to check us in although we did notice that the check-in staff were now being directed to check the boarding times of everyone before starting the check-in process - we were in boarding group A at 12 noon.

 

Finally we got our boarding pass then had to fight our way past the queue. Next they scanned our passports and took photos. Then it was the official passport control. Then security where all phones and cameras had to be taken out of bags (but not Kindles). Of course there is always one guy who tries to go through the arch wearing a coat with the pockets full of keys and coins! 🙄 And the two women who thought it was OK to dump their stuff on top of our bags and try to jump the queue through the arch! 🙄

 

Finally we could head up the gangway but we needed our passports again along with our boarding pass to step onto the ship, then had to have our boarding passes scanned at another checkpoint. It was close to 1pm before we were fully onboard!

 

We found our cabin and two bags had already arrived. Another arrived shortly afterwards so we were able to get most of our unpacking done. Unfortunately one bag is still missing - it has my fan in it so it's probably stuck in security. Normally I put that in my carry-on but we had a fair walk from the rental car drop-off so I wanted less weight in my carry-on.

 

We have a "Signature Suite" which is a mini-suite. Reasonable storage, US and EU power points and USB sockets in several places - at each side of the bed, and a both desk areas. We have two showers - one over the bath and a separate shower cubicle. Unfortunately the dreaded shower curtains for both. Twin hand basins and tons of counter space. One big  drawer and an under vanity shelf. 

 

There are three wardrobes. At first it looked like there was no space for trousers and long dresses but the bottom shelf folded up. Perfect! The wardrobes were too narrow for our hanging shoe holder but there was a perfectly placed hook on the wall in a convenient location.

 

Muster stations are out on deck. We went to check in there but the crew weren't there then so we had to go back after lunch.

 

As far as we could tell there was only the buffet open for lunch. It was a bit meh! I got all excited as it looked like there was real pavlova for dessert - large cakes with fruit and cream on top - but, no, it was dry meringue with weird cream but the fruit was nice.

 

The wine list is reasonable at first glance. It appears the by-the-glass limit of our Have-it-All package is $11 which at least lets me have a Pinot Grigio but my favourite Gruner Veltliner will cost extra. 

 

I'm already missing the Princess medallion. We had to sign for drinks in the Ocean Bar but not in the buffet. Weird.

Wild boarding! This is good for us to know about (in a bad way!). Signature Suite! HIA! Excellent. A word about HAL and desserts: don't get your hopes up. Not generally their forte! Thanks so much for all the info: I am taking notes :)

[OzKiwiJJ]

We booked this cruise relatively late - in June - so we only had the option of Traditional Dining, and chose the late option which is at 7:45pm. Perfect. We'd requested an 8-seater table but have been allocated a very nice 6-seater right by the windows overlooking the stern. We have lovely table companions - a Canadian couple from Victoria, Vancouver Island, and a couple from Auckland. We all talked non-stop all evening and were the last table to leave the dining room. Oops!

 

There was a good choice of appetisers and mains but less choice for dessert. HAL doesn't have the "always available" options like Princess. I had a very nice croquette as an appetiser, then pork fillet which was just on the edge of turning dry but still tasty. I had no clue what the dessert I ordered was going to be but it turned out to be a roulade of soft meringue and thick custard. Light but a bit too sweet.

 

Shock, horror! The Ocean Bar menu only listed Hennessy XO but they actually had enough left of my favourite Remy Martin XO for one glass. The bartender assures me he will have more Remy Martin tonight. 😊 Luckily we have plenty of OBC as it's a lot more expensive on HAL, or rather the gap between the drinks package limit, $11, and the actual price is much bigger than on Princess plus the gratuity is added on top of the difference. Oh well, we've prepaid our gratuities, plus an extra excursion, and speciality dining is included in our package, and we bought an unlimited laundry package as well, so won't have many other onboard expenses so our OBC should cover our excess-cost drinks for the whole cruise.

Edited December 20, 2022 by OzKiwiJJ