Back From The Hula/Hola Tour!!

[kakalina]

Hello everyone and a special Hi to my friends from the Zaandam cruises!

 

We had such a wonderful time during our 25 days on-board the elegant and beautiful Zaandam.

 

I will do a full report later after I get unpacked. Our most special news was that on the Mexico part of the cruise we were upgraded from a guarantee inside cabin to a mini-suite on the Navigation deck. :D It was so great! So much larger than a regular verandah cabin. DH kept walking around muttering something about " Do NOT get used to this!!"

 

I am wandering around my kitchen with a cup of tea in hand trying desperatly to find the continental breakfast. I can't find it :confused: I need to write a bad comment card for the management of this place :eek: .

 

Kryos: Really missed you! Thought about our time together in Hawaii, especially when I had the big Mac attack!

 

Rllrcstr: I really, really missed you on the second leg of the cruise at trivia!! They finally did come up with the promised prized they ran out of in Hawaii. We did win alot and it was such fun.

 

Lisa and Tom: You are such gracious people, it was a real pleasure to meet you and spend some time together.

 

RuthC: Saved some pillow chocolate for you!

 

It is good to be home. We did book three more cruises on board and will be off again in March. So we won't have to wait too long to cruise again.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Hi, Trisha, :)

I sure know the feeling about that management at this new place too:D And to think no Room Service this morning instead I had to feed dogs:eek:

It was also so great meeting you and Virgil, It certainly was a great cruise at least I can attest to your second half. We could not have asked for better weather.

Glad you go home safely, but I sure wish we could have stayed on for Hawaii.

[CoconutFish]

Congratulations on that phenomenal upgrade. This gives the rest of us hope!;)

Would appreciate knowing what level guarenteed inside you booked and what you were assigned on the Hawaii portion.

 

Will look forward to your review.

[kakalina]

Coconutfish: We booked the lowest inside guarantee and were upgraded to a handicapped cabin with portholes, cabin 1805. Because it is an HC cabin it is larger with a big bathroom. There is no tub but the shower is huge. It is as far forward as you can get on the starboard side on Dolphin Deck. We liked it well enough.

[kakalina]

OK. Got the unpacking done and some of the house cleaning. So I'll take a little break.

 

Coconutfish: I was so tired when I typed earlier I forgot to put in that we were moved from the porthole cabin to the suite due to the room flooding out. Someone, somewhere plugged up the shower drains and because it was a HC cabin there was no doorsill or lip to the shower and when it backed up it flooded the cabin. By chance someone in the suite had to leave the ship due to illness and we were put into their cabin. Sorry I didn't make that clear this morning.

 

Embarkation was really nice and easy. The " holding pen " they opened up so we didn't have to line up in the sun was really appreciated. They directed us to a room inside the baggage area to wait. There were benches and bathrooms which really was nice. Once they let us into the actual terminal we were passed through quickly and were on the ship in virtually minutes. We herded up to the Lido with everyone else and had a nice lunch.

 

It was pleasant to notice that unlike many comments here earlier we did not find loud music piped all over the ship. The Lido pool and restaurant area did have piped music, but it was low and mostly pleasant to listen to.

 

Our cabin was ready by 1pm and our luggage arrived shortly thereafter. We unpacked quickly and went exploring as this was our first time on the Zaandam. She is a pretty ship and we checked out all the obvious places. I really liked the musical theme of the ship. The clock in the Atrium is a wonder to behold and when they play it several times a day it is marvelous.

 

We were pleased with our upgrade to an outside cabin from an inside and liked the larger cabin that apparently is what all handicapped cabins are like.

 

Next installment the night from hell!

[RuthC]

Welcome home, and thanks for the honorable mention. I'll be checking the mail for the chocolates. ;)

I agree the Zaandam is a very pretty ship. I love the panels of staffs and notes in some of the cabin areas. The glass doorways with frosted notes are also particularly attractive.

And to go from a lowly inside to a suite! :eek: So sorry for those who had to abandon ship, but if anyone had to get their cabin might as well be you, huh? Way to go!

Looking forward to your next report. :)

[kryos]

Kryos: Really missed you! Thought about our time together in Hawaii, especially when I had the big Mac attack!

Not nearly as much as I missed you.

 

Blue skies and welcome home!

 

--rita

[kakalina]

The usual muster drill was done quickly and fairly efficiently. Afterwards we went to the CC meet and greet and got acquinted with some of our fellow CCers.

 

The first night; a night to remember! As mentioned before we were on the Dolphin deck all the way forward in a handicapped cabin. After a lovely but tiring first day we sort of fell into the marvelous bed and were out like a light. Brrrring, brrrring. The phone rings, a sleepy voice says something like "Glug, gurgle". A reply, " What is your 911 emergency?" A well thought out response, "Huh??" "Wha..." We hang up.

 

About 30 minutes later: Brrring, brrrring. A more serious response, " What do you want, do you know what time it is?" "Sir, what is your 911 emergency??" DH's response " Grrrrrrrrr, we didn't call you!"

 

This continues to happen all night long. OK when they upgraded the beds to the larger mattresses this brought the level up on the headboard so that every time one of us turned over in the night the pillows hit the emergency alarm button and set of bells and whistles in the front office.

 

By the sixth or seventh time the front desk called DH was NOT in a pleasant mood. The following morning about 5am we were at the front desk in person.

 

The GRM Femka Van Kemper was absolutly wonderful. She sent to Seattle and the lawyers faxed a letter for us to sign stating that we would not sue them if we pushed the alarm button and were really hurt and they did not answer it. We happily signed at weren't bothered again.

 

It was a bit disconcerting to know that the front office was aware exactly when we got in our bed and how much we may or may not have moved around in it :o .

 

I must say that the HotMan Ceese Tesselar and the aforementioned GRM were absolutely great about everything and gave a lot of personal attention to their guests.

 

So ends the saga of the "night from hell". Didn't affect our good time one little bit.

[RuthC]

And another good use for the ever-popular duct tape! :D Tape down all those pesky alarms.

[kakalina]

RuthC: When you tape down the buttons they won't stop making noise in the front office and then they will send maintainence down to "fix" it :eek:

 

Trust me, I know.

 

Entertainment on the Hawai'i cruise was so-so. The cast however were fantastic. One of the best casts I've seen. Too bad they go their seperate ways after the current cruise.

 

They did have a guest lecturer Lisa Didier. She gave the most interesting talks on famous Madams of old. She also did Pirate lectures. Fascinating stuff. I think I enjoyed her talks most of all. They also had a lecturer who spoke about the crisis in the Mid-East. I don't know about you but that is about the last thing I want to hear about on a cruise! Those were not well attended.

 

The CD Eric Holland is most definitly NOT a people person. The only time he was seen on the ship was to introduce the shows. Period. He did not mingle with the guest, do any of the games or even MC the passenger shows ie Great Pretenders, Superstar, etc.

 

Outside of trivia, of which I am an avid player, they did not have as many activities as we are used to. I understand they were one person short but it was more like two with a non participating CD.

 

I didn't try the spa this time as I decided I would rather put those dollars where they do the most good, the casino! :rolleyes:

 

Will add some more later.

[waiting2retire]

Hello kakalina,

 

I am a new CC member, and already booked to do the Hawaii Circle cruise on the Zaandam on January 5, so I am hanging onto every word you are writing about your cruise!

 

This will be only my second cruise, and my first HAL cruise. Any comments or recommendations regarding this cruise are very much appreciated.

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Kakalina, welcome home! I love the title to your thread:) Looking forward to your further installments. Thanks for keeping us informed about your cruise in the middle of your unpacking, laundry, and acclimation to life on land.

 

Karin

[kakalina]

Thanks folks, it is good to be home. Sort of.

 

The black and white ball on the last formal night was marvelous. Everyone looked so nice and the officers so spiffy in their dress whites. It seems I must have danced with almost everyone there, including the Captain, the HotMan, and lots of others. The head engineer whispered that he couldn't dance and offered to buy me a drink instead. Gentle person that I am I forced myself to agree :rolleyes: . They didn't do any of the "ticket" dances where if you are dancing with an officer who has the envelope at the end of the dance you win a prize. And collect tickets from each one for a drawing at the end of the night. I missed that part I don't know why they didn't do that.

 

Didn't manage to get to any of the teas, which I love. I had early upper seating which is at 5:30. Since the teas don't start until 3:30 it was just too close to dinner to indulge. Once could wish they would hold them a bit earlier in the day.

 

The service in the dining room was excellent. I had gracious dinner companions who understood that every other night I so I ate dinner with DH in the Lido. He doesn't go to the dining room for dinner. Ever. But I enjoy it and had a great time. We had an officer at my table one night and a guest lecturer on another who provided a lovely wine for the table and amiable conversation.

 

The selection of food was more than adequate and the presentation and taste were almost always perfection. The exception for me was the Osso Bucco which was dry and fatty. I highly recommend the duck dishes and most of the fish was very good.

The Master Chefs dinner was entertaining but lacking in choices for entrees and non exsistent for appetizers and dessert. This is true for both cruises obviously. Except for the desserts. The first cruise they were lacking in appeal and taste, however they changes pastry chefs for the next cruise and the improvement was noticeable immediately.

 

Tomorrow I will try to cover the Hawai'ian ports of call. Hope everyone has a good night.

[kakalina]

Hilo was our first port. We love Hilo it is such a lovely quiet town. Our first stop was Lie's Leis where our friend Leona always has the freshest and best leis. We got our favorite leis there and took those back to the cabin. Having done most of the shore excursions on previous visits we took the bus to Hilo Hatties. In the shopping center where they have their store is a little cafe. This cafe serves up the best local plate lunch ever. Food for two will serve four. If you can still move after eating a plate lunch you didn't finish your food.

After lunch we strolled around and picked up some soda at the Walmart to bring back to the cabin.

Of course, we went into Hilo Hatties and picked up some of their wonderful sweet beef jerky. It's a real treat. And a few Christmas presents. And, well you get the idea.

We did see a whale and some dolphin on this trip.

 

ps If you just want to walk around and go through the terminal and take a left and then a left you can walk down to a lovely, rocky park area. There is no beach but it sure is pretty. There is a little sign on a dirt road that says beach access. We met some nice locals there and had a great day.