Live from the Rotterdam March 29- April 13, 2024 15 days

[MissiCruzs]

1 minute ago, Sam B. said:

It's wonderful!   They started experimenting with facial recognition on our cruise last year, and it was a struggle.  It was great to see it working successfully.

 

Btw, don't miss "City on the Sea" in World Stages toward the end of the cruise.   One of our favorite things attend.  We've never missed it.

 

It was today I think. I did see it in December. And yes it's really good. 

[MissiCruzs]

We're resting up. Tonight is the bar crawl that ends at the Orange party. 

[MissiCruzs]

Waiting for the Bar Hop. Some pics from the Crows Nest.

[MissiCruzs]

First drink in Explorers is a Long Island Iced Tea and a game called Hip Hip Hooray!

[MissiCruzs]

Drinks and fun and games. Bartender competition. Didn't get pics at BB Kings where we ended at the Orange Party. The whole ship was there!

[MissiCruzs]

Slipping into Grand Turk at 6:15.  Jack's Shack all lit up on the right side of the picture. 

[MissiCruzs]

Govenor's Beach down on the left past the pier. 

[MissiCruzs]

Daylight shot. 

[MissiCruzs]

Sunset at sea.   Is there anything better? 

[MissiCruzs]

Perfect day for walking the beach at 72 degrees but not for getting in the water. Decided to stay on the ship. We had a deck 10 lounger for awhile but it got to hot. We went to our cabin to cool off and they're working on the balconies on our side... cleaning and painting... and the fumes knocked us over. So now we're up in the Crows Nest. Nice to have options. 

[ottahand7]

On 4/2/2024 at 11:31 AM, Sam B. said:

Thanks for sharing your journey.   We just finished our Rotterdam cruise on March 17th, and it was our third on the Rotterdam.    I love this ship and HAL, but was disappointed in the service and food, in both Lido and the Dining Room. It was near impossible to get drinks at the Lido.    At the dining room we waited an hour, received entree and never received our appetizer.   It appears they are short staff and/or have purposely cut down on staff to cut costs.   It was definitely not what we were accustomed to, and we began to think maybe it was too familiar, since it was our 3rd time.   Appears that you, and others that I have read, are having the same experience.   I also thought the staff lacked some energy and enthusiasm that we came to love.  We booked a 18 day Hawaiian cruise on HAL for January, and were considering CO, because we have never done it before.  Fortunately it was full, but we were told we could call back for cancellation.   After reading your experience with CO (and others post), I'm going to pass on CO.   I still believe HAL is one of the best, and hopefully this is an unusual set of circumstances that they will rectify. Enjoy the remainder of your cruise, and keep up the posts. 

We are on the Konigsdam for next January to Hawaii and we tried a month ago to get CO and it is sold out.  We book reserved early dining and get to our table at opening.  Not our favorite but it is the only way to get our drink order and food order in to have them at the same time.  Telling the waiters we like hot food we get hot food too.  Hope you have some luck in getting CO.  

[0106]

3 hours ago, ottahand7 said:

We book reserved early dining and get to our table at opening. 

We had early dining (which was at 5:30)  table for 2 in February on the Oosterdam.  We arrived at 5:45 every day.  Our waiter was extremely grateful that we arrived after the initial rush.  Service was great and the meal usually took an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

On 4/4/2024 at 1:20 PM, MissiCruzs said:

We're resting up. Tonight is the bar crawl that ends at the Orange party. 

It's always fun.

[MissiCruzs]

To close out the 3/29 cruise, we were supposed to leave HMC at 3:00 yesterday and the Captain made an announcement that we were having an issue and would be delayed an hour. We went up to the Crows Nest at 4:00 and overheard that they couldn't get the anchor to come up.  We could feel a motor vibration and then it would stop.  We finally left around 4:15 or so.  I don't know if the motor broke and they got it fixed or possibly they might have had to cut the anchor off.  Hopefully it was the former.  Maybe we'll find out on this cruise.

[MissiCruzs]

The alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. this morning and we got up and started throwing things in suitcases.  We stopped at 6:30 and went to breakfast in CO.  We had resumed going to breakfast in CO after missing one day and things were generally fine.  We did not go back for dinner and chose to go to the Lido.  After breakfast we came back to our cabin and our steward had our next cabin ready (which was conveniently next door) and told us we could move in so we moved everything over ourselves and let him get on with his job.  At 9:00 we reported to the theater and checked in.  We were given instructions and then were escorted by rows out of the theater to the baggage claim area where we had to go thru the facial recognition at the customs area and then turned out and qued up in lines and waited to get back on the ship.  The whole process took 1 hr. and 45 min.  The seasoned in transit folks were complaining up a storm because they've never had to get off the ship before.  Everything was always done in the theater.  Things change...  There were 501 in transits this time.

[MissiCruzs]

Slot Pull was 10 a.m. this morning. 38 folks showed up to participate. We used a quick hit machine and it was a lot of fun. Lost a little but had some nice hits and the machine made a lot of noise. Everyone seemed to have fun and that's what it's all about. 

[MissiCruzs]

Waiting in the theater for Vox Fortura.  New group for us.  4 guys from Britain. Not quite sure what to expect but quite happy to see HAL do something new. 

[MissiCruzs]

I actually loved the group last night. My DH... not so much. They presented themselves as classically trained singers and they were indeed. But they also said they considered themselves Classical Soul fusion... none of the soul came thru to either of us. Apparently they made it to the semi finals on Britain's Got Talent. And surprise there was only one Brit and the other 3 were from the southern USA. They sang a lot in Italian. Think Andrea Bocelli or Sarah Brightman.  That kind of sound. They bantered with the crowd in between songs. I was in awe but not everybody's cup of tea. 

[MissiCruzs]

Anchored in Belize this morning. We were scheduled for an excursion to swim with the sharks and rays but it was canceled just as we got up to get our stickers. Winds are gusting at 20mph.  Then there was an announcement that the Barrier reef snorkel was canceled. Then tender operations are suspended for the moment. I don't think the wind is scheduled to die down and all those people waiting in the excursion staging areas are not going to be happy when they cancel everything. 😕 

[MissiCruzs]

Announcement was just made that all Holland America tours are canceled. It's not safe to put the tenders against the ship so we'll see what happens next. 

[canadianbear]

1 hour ago, MissiCruzs said:

Announcement was just made that all Holland America tours are canceled. It's not safe to put the tenders against the ship so we'll see what happens next. 

Sorry to hear this.  I’m sure it’s always a hard decision for the Captain but we all know safety comes first. 

[MissiCruzs]

They restarted tender operations around 11.  Wind is still strong and seas are rough. We're chilling at the Seaview pool. The bartenders cheered when operations resumed. I think guests are running them ragged. They added about 4 activities and opened the dining room for lunch. No rest for the poor crew today. 

[MissiCruzs]

Last night the comedian was very good. He's Italian and also played the guitar and did little parodies of songs. His name is Johnny Cardinale.  Go and see him if you have the opportunity!

[MissiCruzs]

This morning we are a ways from shore just sitting here opposite Costa Maya.  The seas were very rough last night. I thought I would get thrown off the bed at one point. They are still rough so I don't know if we're waiting on a pilot or direction as to whether we can actually dock this morning. We're supposed to meet our ships tour at the end of the dock at 7:15 so I don't think we should be way out here. Stay tuned!

[MissiCruzs]

Cruise mapper shows us pulling away from CM at 9 knots. The Jubilee was supposed to be docked with us and they are pulling into Roatan. Rut roh!  My DH ran up to Shore excursions to change to a ship tour tomorrow in Cozumel. We have shore excursion credit that we had used in Belize and since they canceled all tours we moved it to Costa Maya and now he's moving it to Cozumel. We have a private tour already in Cozumel thru Viator.  I have to cancel by 10:30 so I'm waiting on confirmation from him. 

Edited April 10 by MissiCruzs