Lots of HAL ?????'s

[mattR]

Just booked HAL Zuiderdam for Dec 11/04 :p I booked a Inside Cat I cabin. I have lots of questions now:)
1. What is the earliest you can embarke in Ft Lauderdale?
2. Do they have first-run in room movies?
3. Is romm service open 24hrs? How is the menu?
4. How large are the Zuiderdam's large tables on the second lvl?
5. Is it easy to get 2 main dishes at dinner?
6. I booked an actual cabin any chance of a upgrade?
7. I'm from Canada how many times do I have to go through customs? and when?
8. Do you get to sleep in the morning of disembarkation?
9. How late are the hottubs and pools open?
10.Can you get juice in the bars/shows and how much $ dose it cost?
11.Can you get playing cards from the pursers desk?
12.Do you get robes in your cabin?
13.do you get flowers or fruit bowel in cabin?
14.What do you have to pay extra for other then drinks/spa/specilty resturaunt/casino?
15.Do they offer galley or bridge tours?

Thanks for any answers you can provide:D

[tomc]

6. Only God and the Upgrade Fairy know the answer to that one. And I'm not so sure that even God does.

8. The morning of disembarkation, you can sleep in as late as you like, as long as it's not any later than, say, 7:00am. Sorry; it's a lousy day and it starts lousy early.

11. I think you have to get them in the shop now.

13. In-cabin fruit used to be automatic (and, I think, largely unused). Now, if you ask for it, you will get what you want and it will be filled when used. No problem.

15. Galley tours, yes; bridge tours, no longer.

[kryos]

15. Galley tours, yes; bridge tours, no longer.
Wonder why you couldn't get a tour of the bridge on request ... especially if it was on a day when the ship was at sea? You've run your bags through the metal detectors ... so they know you don't have any dangerous weapons ... it would seem there really shouldn't be any reason from a security standpoint that an orderly group tour of the bridge couldn't be offered to those that requested it.

Thoughts?

Blue skies ...

--rita

[Orcrone]

Rita,

Just extra security. Not knowing the regulations, on my last cruise I managed to get on board with a scuba diving knife. It was in my checked bag along with the rest of my scuba equipment. I don't think they'd want to assume that no one snuck anything onto the ship.

Marc

[jhannah]

Seems like I remember reading where suite guests got to tour the bridge ... even after tighter security measures were implemented and such tours were off limits to the general passenger population. Does anyone know if this is still the case?

[Krazy Kruizers]

Suite guests

We were able to visit the bridge on the Ryndam in October 2001 and on the Zaandam in December 2001. But security wasn't really in place yet.

Since then we suite passengers haven't been invited to the bridge.

However we do know of some people who have had private tours of the bridge and engine room.

Guess it depends on who you know.

[Debi_D]

We were on the Amsterdam 2 years ago and had dinner with the Chief Engineer and he allowed all of us at the table to go down below. He did state that they were not doing the tours as much and only by invite. It was only the 8 of us plus the Engineer's wife, it was really awesome to see how everything worked. I had a hard time getting hubby to leave:D

Debi

[halpinsg]

Hi,

Just finished a 7 day on Zuiderdan on June 19th

1. What is the earliest you can embarke in Ft Lauderdale?
I believe it is 11AM

2. Do they have first-run in room movies?
I’m not sure what constitutes a first run, they were the movies that are at our local “cheepie” theater

3. Is room service open 24hrs? How is the menu?
Yes, you can get room service 24 hours Didn’t use it with the exception of breakfast which had a good selection. (if you like to drink more than one cup, order more than one serving!)

4. How large are the Zuiderdam's large tables on the second lvl?
I’m assuming you are talking about the dining room. I didn’t see any large round ones, but I did see some long rectangles that could fit 8. I was on the first floor with a party of 16 split between two tables.

5. Is it easy to get 2 main dishes at dinner?
YES! Just ask (my daughter and her cousin regularly split three deserts)

6. I booked an actual cabin any chance of a upgrade?
It depends on how booked they are. You need to call Holland America a couple of weeks before hand. They don’t do upgrades before hand

7. I'm from Canada how many times do I have to go through customs? and when?
You will have to go through US Customes when you come into the US at the airport and when get off the ship.
8. Do you get to sleep in the morning of disembarkation?
Not really
9. How late are the hottubs and pools open?
About 10 or 11 (having kids in my room, I wasn’t out that late most of the time)

10.Can you get juice in the bars/shows and how much $ dose it cost?
You can, don’t know the price.

11.Can you get playing cards from the pursers desk?
Do not know

12.Do you get robes in your cabin?
Yes
13.do you get flowers or fruit bowel in cabin?
We got a fruit bowl. Great oranges and pears.

14.What do you have to pay extra for other then drinks/spa/specilty resturaunt/casino?
Laundry, Bingo but that’s about it.

15.Do they offer galley or bridge tours?
They did have one galley tour on the first day at sea

I’ll post a review soon

[Tatka]

Were you in inside or outside cabin?

Are robes and fruit bowl for all cabin categories or just outside/suites?

Thank you! :)

[halpinsg]

We were in an outside ocean view room. It was pretty much the standard room with a window, no special upgrandes or anything. So I would suspect that they all would have them.

[mattR]

Thanks for the answers

[doone]

Last March I had an inside cabin on the Rotterdam, had fresh fruit bowl and bathrobes in the room.