Hello from the Zaandam

[Robin7]

Hi, all! We're just underway on the Zaandam. We got a surprise when we boarded--the Zaandam is in Red Alert! Darn it. They had a 'Welcome Aboard' lunch in the Rotterdam Dining Room. We've never had the dining room be open for lunch during embarkation. We enjoyed it, and the steward said it was "special for today". I'm wondering if that was due to the red alert status?

 

Then we were greeted when we had just entered our stateroom by a maintenance man who had come to unplug the toilet!:eek: So glad he fixed it BEFORE we tried to use it!:D

 

Departure was delayed by a medical emergency but we are finally underway. I'll try to update you all again when we reach Juneau on Sunday. Hopefully we'll be out of the red alert by then. I was just amazed because I'd heard of no Norovirus on the Zaandam this season.

 

Using my Purell and wipes A LOT,

 

Robin

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Hi Robyn:

 

Bless you and thank you for posting your thread! Our family will be boarding Zaandam in exactly three weeks to do the very same itinerary. I'm very sorry to hear about the red alert status. Haven't heard anything about norovirus onboard, and there's nothing (yet) over at the CDC website. Please do keep us posted!

[Tinknock50]

Hi Robin,

Stay well!

 

Enjoy your cruise and don't get sick!

[Ziggy7]

Hi Robin,

Stay well!

 

Enjoy your cruise and don't get sick!

Ditto from us too Robin!!! Be well and Enjoy!

[raadsel]

Glad to hear you are safely on board and headed to Alaska! Hope it's a great trip. I just got my docs (I'm dancing) for the Aug. 25 sailing.

[Himself]

Robin, sorry to hear of the red alert and the medical emergency. Hope you have a great cruise and I hope you enjoy that wonderful ship. Have a great cruise. I hope your weather is as good as mine was at the beginning of the month. I was on this ship from June 30-July7. I really like the Zaandam.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Robin, thanks for posting:) Stay Well!!! Hopefully the Zaandam will get off the RED quickly. Interesting that they did Dining Room lunch. So the Lido was not open at all. Depsite the bit rocky/different start I am sure you will have a great time.

[Tinknock50]

Welcome to Juneau!:)

 

Hey where's my pictures!!! LOL

[reinbough]

WOW! So cool to see people posting that have been on the ship/cruise we will be on in just a few weeks. My husband and I are set to cruise to Alaska, sailing 25 August 2006. We have never been on a cruise before and are really looking forward to this. My parents will be travelling with us. They have cruised on HAL before and enjoyed it.

 

I am struggling with the clothing part... We will be coming from Belgium to Seattle. I know that Seattles weather is similar to what we have experienced here, however, I am not sure about the cruise part of our trip. Can anyone help me with that? I am just concerned about not having packed weather appropriate clothing I guess. I am assuming that it is comfortable inside the ship, but going to Alaska and being outdoors, I am imagining will be pretty chilly? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Time is creeping up on me...haha

 

Also, any other words of wisdom are appreciated. My parents received the tickets last week I think it was. There are no room numbers listed though -is that normal?

 

Have a great day everyone!

[grannynurse]

Welcome Lisa,

Have you been to Norway? The climate is similar to Stavanger or Bergen.

Plan to dress in layers. I wore a turtleneck and jeans through Iceland, Greenland, and Norway, took a sweatshirt and a heavy jacket when we went ashore. Carried an earband and gloves with me, and used them frequently. It's been warm in Seattle lately, check the weather online before you leavehome. Bring a wrap, if your dress is sleeveless, for evenings on board or for strolling on deck at night.

Have a great cruise... we love the Zaandam, she's a beautiful ship with a music theme. Great crew and great service.

GN

[CaSaGrayson]

Greetings, all!

 

I just returned from the same cruise that Robin was on - although I didn't get to meet her! I did ask one lady if her name was Robin, but she looked at me as if I were crazy!

 

Yep - Red Alert status. But no worries. As far as I know, no one got sick on our cruise. You couldn't go near the food in the Lido the first few days -- they served *everything*. When we went to get our picture made with the Captain I held out my hand and he refused to shake it, reminding me that we were all keeping our germs to ourselves. :)

 

It was a fabulous time. Let's talk about weather. I took a couple of light sweaters and wore them around the ship. I also took a raincoat with a hood which I carried around with me in Juneau, but it was really too heavy for me. (I am very warm-blooded, so if you are cold-natured, you might have needed a heavy sweatshirt for the shopping trips.) My husband did the glacier trip, and he packed a medium-weight rain jacket with a hood which he said wasn't enough for the glacier ;) but he never wore the jacket the rest of the trip. It was in the 60s and low 70s everywhere during the day, and 50s at night. It rained pretty hard when we were in Sitka, but no rain in Juneua or Kitchikan. We didn't go into Sitka as there was not much we wanted to see, and we weren't interested in taking the tenders to the dock.

 

Everyone was very casual on the trip. I wore jeans or capris most of the time; peasant skirt others. I even ate in the Rotterdam in white jeans and felt perfectly at ease. We went to one formal dinner. I wore a long black velvet dress and didn't feel out of place, but many of the women had short dresses on. Very few of the men wore tuxes.

 

The food -- ah, where to begin. Very little disappointing food. Some much better than others. My very favorite meal was the lingcod in the Rotterdam. If you are a really picky eater, you might be happier most of the time in the Lido (which is a casual buffet for every meal) because the R is big on sauces/spices/presentation. On the other hand, if you are a duck, lamb, veal, and pheasant lover you will be very happy. You must go to the R at least once if only to have the Baked Alaska! Yummy! Also, in both the Lido and the Rotterdam a vegetarian selection and a pasta dish are available at every meal. Surprisingly enough, the desserts were my least favorite thing on board. The cakes were terribly dry, and the cookies were ... strange. Can't beat the ice cream bar, though, and the bread pudding was quite good. You MUST go to the dessert extravaganza (sixth night for us) if for no other reason than to see the presentation. Yes, it starts late (10:30), but it's worth it. Get there at 10:15 if you want to take pictures. We had the late seating, which I didn't particularly like because then you have to attend the 10:15 show. I liked it better when we ate earlier in the Lido and saw the early show.

 

Entertainment -- not bad. The "Broadway" and "Vegas" style shows were pretty good. The Beatles night was lots of fun, and the magician was hysterical. A good time was had by all. The movies were a mixed bag, but the popcorn was a nice touch! Be sure to visit Romeo in the Piano Bar; he plays a good mix of songs and is always up for requests and singers. Karaoke night in the Crow's Nest was great fun, and we had a spectacular view of the glaciers from the Nest, too. Split pea soup was complimentary that day, and you could get hot chocolate all day if you bought a souvenir cup for $6 - $9 (which we did). The cups came in handy for getting coffee and hot tea and taking it back to the cabins on the other days, too. Definitely get a Coke card if you like sodas - I believe it was $18 for 20 soft drinks, which you can get in any bar. The drinks of the day are a little pricey, and so is the mulled wine that they offer during the Glacier Bay tour. We enjoyed having room service for breakfast - it always came right on time and was great. We also used room service for afternoon snacks like cheese and crackers.

 

There were several laundry options available. You could pay as you go (bad plan), all-you-can-squeeze-into-the-bag service for $12 (no dry cleaning), unlimited laundry for roughly $40 (no dry cleaning), and unlimited pressing service for $24. We just put in one bag of laundry and it was back within 24 hours.

 

The shops were nice, but limited. I bought a sweater, top, and sweat outfit for very reasonable prices ($15 for sweat jacket, $10 for top, etc.). We also bought nice photo albums for $14. The other shop was mostly jewelry and figurines -- I would buy these things in port. You can spend up to $800 per family in the gift shops and not worry about customs. Anything you buy in port is not subject to duty. The Port Shopping Ambassador gives talks about what to see in each port, but she mainly focuses on jewelry stores. If you aren't looking to spend $$$ it might not interest you.

 

The Zaandam has received the highest ratings for friendliness of crew for the last 11 surveys. They were hoping to make it 12 with our cruise, and I'm sure they will. Unfortunately, the cruise director Jill was going on a six-week leave and then will be moving to the Amsterdam. However, I doubt that will change the way the rest of the staff operates. They were outstanding.

 

What would I do differently? Probably go for the bigger stateroom. We had a veranda suite, but it was the small one. For my husband and myself, a little more room would have been worth the additional price. Since we had 3 staterooms this time (for our parents) the cost was prohibitive, but next time we will definitely go up. I would have brought more comfortable shoes! I wouldn't have carted my hair dryer. I would have made earlier flight arrangements and taken the express disembarkation at 7:30a (you must be able to remove all your luggage from the ship yourself) so the travel day home would not have been so long. I would have taken more seasickness wrist bands (the six of us kept passing them around).

 

I know this is long, but thought the info might be of help to someone. If you have a specific question, I'll be happy to answer it!

[Tinknock50]

Thanks for the great report! We are sailing on this ship September 8th.

 

Happy to hear the entertainment was good.

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Thanks, CaSaGrayson, for a terrific synopsis of your Zaandam cruise! Thanks especially for the weather and fashion info. We leave on the same itinerary the Friday after next. Seems like they have the norovirus situation under control for now; glad to hear that. Were the spa and thermal suite closed due to the "red alert" status?

[CaSaGrayson]

The only closures I noticed were the hot tubs and the Lido pool. They were reopened by the third day, I believe. Most of the changes seemed to be in the way food was served. No help-yourself salads! It wasn't a problem, but it did seem to make the food service a little slow.

[Robin7]

I just returned from the same cruise that Robin was on - although I didn't get to meet her! I did ask one lady if her name was Robin, but she looked at me as if I were crazy!

 

That makes me laugh! We had a great time, and the Zaandam is our new favorite ship. I'm working on a review. It's getting pretty long. :eek: I'll post it as soon as I can.

 

Robin

[Tinknock50]

Robin is my hero....she sent me pics of the promenade that I have been bugging everyone about.:)

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Robin is my hero....she sent me pics of the promenade that I have been bugging everyone about.:)

 

Hi Tinknock:

 

I also promised to send you pics. Does this get me off the hook?:)

[Tinknock50]

Hi Tinknock:

 

I also promised to send you pics. Does this get me off the hook?:)

 

Yes ma'am it does. But thanks for remembering.:)

 

Well maybe, you could sneak into 3431 and take some out the window. Hard to do when someone is settled in there. LOL

[reinbough]

To those of you that have recently returned from Alaska on the Zaandam...is it possible to see some pics? I mean, I know it is just a few weeks until we sail, but I am beyond excited. My husband for some reason keeps asking me what the decks look like, and I am like...gee, honey - the last time I went.. sheesh

 

I appreciate all of the information that has been shared thus far!

 

Have a great weekend!

[CaSaGrayson]

Here's a few of the our pictures. Not too many of the ship itself, though.

 

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9BZtW7ZuzYt8

[lardan]

To those of you that have recently returned from Alaska on the Zaandam...is it possible to see some pics? I mean, I know it is just a few weeks until we sail, but I am beyond excited. My husband for some reason keeps asking me what the decks look like, and I am like...gee, honey - the last time I went.. sheesh

 

I appreciate all of the information that has been shared thus far!

 

Have a great weekend!

 

I am working on getting my other days posted, but here's a start.

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/lardan23

[reinbough]

THANK YOU BOTH for posting your photos, and being able to post them so quickly too. :) You have really made my day (and now it is time to call it a night, it is 0100 already). I thought I was anxious for 25 August to get here already - but now even more so! Just a few weeks though, and we will be able to fully understand the whole cruising experience.

 

I have a couple of questions... My husband is a diet coke fanatic and he is the same way with espresso/cappuccinos. I have read conflicting information about sodas on board (can you take them on yourself? are there actual soda cards that you can purchase - if so, do you purchase them before actually leaving on the cruise?). I had also read about a java cafe that offered complimentary cappuccinos - is that available on the Zaandam?

 

Thank you in advance for your help. And, thanks again for all the pics you have shared.

[Tinknock50]

Cool pics! Thanks!

[raadsel]

Reinbough,

 

You can bring sodas on board with you and, as some one posted in their review, you can buy the soda cards ($18 for 20 drinks) on board at the bars, they serve Coke products.

[CaSaGrayson]

I was told that you should wait to buy the soda cards until after the ship has sailed -- that way you won't pay any tax. I suppose you could take them on board, but that seems like an awful lot of trouble. At less than $1 per drink with the card, it's not a bad deal. (The iced tea started out almost undrinkable -- too strong -- but by day two or three it was very good.) All types of juice are available at breakfast, and you could probably ask for it at the other meals.

 

The Explorations Cafe (internet/library) has a coffee bar. The drinks are not free, but very nominally priced. I think I paid a little over $2 for a large cafe mocha. Much cheaper than Starbucks prices. Hot tea and cocoa (instant) is always available free in the Lido. Look behind the tea boxes for the cocoa pkgs.