DougK
August 5th, 2007, 08:05 PM
Let me start by saying my recent trip on the Zaandam was absolutely fabulous. If I had the time and the money, I’d be back on board tomorrow. The scenery was fantastic, the food and service were quite good, and even the weather was remarkably good. Now a few more specific comments, some of which are negative, but should be taken in the context of overall extreme satisfaction:
Embarkation was a breeze. Luggage handlers were ready and waiting right where our taxi pulled in, so we didn’t need to do any schlepping of luggage at all. There was a little line going through customs, but not bad at all. When we got to the HAL checkin, we were in a suite, with our paperwork done online, so there was no line at all, but it didn’t look like there was much of a line for anybody. The one slightly confusing thing was we were handed a letter about norovirus and a health form on the walk between customs and checkin; as I was scanning the letter while walking, it seemed to say the ship was under a code red—but when I asked at checkin, I was told the ship was fine and the letter was referring to *other* HAL ships that had recent incidents. Sure enough, a close reading confirmed that, but that wasn’t the first impression received. Debarkation was also easy, without much of a line. The one moment of panic came when one of our bags was missing. Luckily we had attached a distinctive ribbon to the handle, and I noticed it on the cart of another woman, who still had to be convinced it wasn’t her bag! This was a first for me, and I do wonder what she would have done if I had arrived later or not seen her cart. Please check your tags; many bags do look alike...
The suite itself was lovely and spacious. We were traveling with two nieces, and there was plenty of room for everybody and our luggage. Even with the sofa pulled out as a bed, there was room to walk around. One of our nieces thought the pullout bed was too hard, so the steward added a foam layer the following nights. We also had to get a different comforter delivered for the girls, since the one we were originally given was too small to fit the bed. But after that was dealt with, there were no complaints about the pullout. Outlets are scarce in the room; there’s one in the dressing area, and one by the bed, and that’s it; you might want to bring a power strip. The bathroom is nice, but the jetted tub is on the small side (as to be expected on a ship); I’m not a big man, and it was a little tight for me. Unlike reports I’ve read here, the coffee table does not raise up, so room service means eating off a low table—except we got lucky one night and the weather was nice enough to eat on the verandah, with a normal height table.
The ship itself is gorgeous, with comfortable lounges and interesting artwork. My personal favorite is the aft stairwell, with different Escher works on each floor. There is an iPod tour, but it was a little disappointing, as it was pretty limited in its coverage. You really have to explore on your own to see what's there. And I'm sure I missed quite a bit...
The food was considerably better than our trip on the Westerdam last year; I’d place it more or less comparable to recent Celebrity trips, and a step down from Windstar. I’m a vegetarian, and the rest of my family is not. They thought the steak and prime rib were just so-so, and I agree on the so-called mushroom strudel, which was primarily spinach. The spring rolls were good, and the chilled soups were delicious. The pastas, both vegetarian and with chicken, were uniformly excellent; although often offered as a starter, they can also be made as entrees. And surprisingly, one of the best vegetarian items was off the room service menu, a Thai vegetarian wrap. Breakfast was nothing to write home about, either in the Lido or the dining room; it was amazing how varied and poor the execution of a simple omelet could be. But the salad bar was fresh, if limited, as were the made-to-order sandwiches. And I was glad to see that they had different flavor bread puddings each day, rather than the same plain bread pudding they had each day last year on the Westerdam.
The fresh-squeezed OJ continues to be a big plus for me. But I was a little surprised not to see lemonade available at lunch (or anything other than ice tea or water, except by ordering from a bar server)—I could have sworn there was lemonade on the Westerdam last year. I was also surprised to see no snacks available in the evening; ice cream and cookies were available all evening on the Westerdam, but the ice cream closed at 5 this year on the Zaandam. And there’s no teatime snacks the way there are on Celebrity, except in the Neptune lounge.
Incidentally, there is a special vegetarian menu, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s one menu with all the vegetarian dishes available (so it doesn’t change during the week), and you’re supposed to order from it a day in advance. That’s a little difficult when you don’t know what other vegetarian options are going to be on the main menu the next day, and also doesn’t work very well if you decide to use room service or eat in the Lido one night, screwing up both the order from the previous day and losing the opportunity to order for the next day. Plus there’s one night on the cruise that’s open seating anyway (due to the late port stop in Juneau). The upshot was that I quickly gave up and just ordered off the regular menu. There’s usually a couple of starters and one entrée that is vegetarian. If you’re vegan, however, make sure you can plan ahead to use the vegetarian menu. When open seating comes, I suspect they will have to either drop the pre-order requirement or drop the special menu. They continue to do one night of the song-and-dance dinner; I can’t say how it worked, since we opted for room service that night.
There was unfortunately only one nonsmoking day in the casino, and it was at Juneau, when the casino didn’t open until late at night (since we were in port until 10:30). Staff said they are trying to get permission from Seattle to increase nonsmoking opportunities. For traditionalists, the good news is that the machines still use tokens, rather than being all electronic credits; the bad news is that only about half still have arms, and about half of those make it cumbersome to actually use the arms, since you have to press multiple buttons to bet credits prior to pulling. I fear the days of the “one-armed bandit” are coming to a close, and now it’s just hit the “play max credits” button until you run out of money, without even the benefit of a little arm exercise. The final good news is that the slots didn’t seem all that tight; my wife and I had several good payouts, though I regret to say we ended up a little down overall.
The dress code continues to get less formal, which I personally prefer. The description in the daily program for formal is “For ladies, cocktail dresses or suits are appropriate. For gentlemen, jacket and tie are required. Dark suit or tuxedo suggested.” For smart casual, the description is “For ladies, casual dresses, slacks and informal eveningwear are appropriate. For gentlemen, slacks and collared shirts are suggested. No shorts, t-shirts or tank tops please.” Note that suits are no longer required for formal night (though they are suggested), and that jeans are allowed on casual nights. It looks like formal is morphing into what used to be called semi-formal. I don't recall seeing anybody in tuxedos, but I wasn't really looking.
I didn’t go to most of the shows, because the production shows aren’t my thing. I did go to the comedian one night, and he was quite good. I personally prefer small acts like this to the production shows, and am looking forward to a cruise on a smaller Azamara ship where such low-key entertainment is all there is.
As with any Alaska cruise, the scenery is the big draw, and we were quite lucky in this regard. The weather was wonderful, with only one day of early morning showers, and some afternoon drizzle in Ketchikan. I was disappointed that we were only able to go a little way into Tracy Arm, and didn’t get close to the glaciers. But that was certainly made up for in Glacier Bay, where we had an extremely good view of Marjerie glacier and were privileged enough to see quite a bit of calving. This glacier is not nearly as impressive as Hubbard Glacier, but the rest of the day going through Glacier Bay is far more scenic than the approach to Hubbard—on the whole, I’d probably opt for Glacier Bay instead of Hubbard, but go for Hubbard if you want the real jaw-dropping moments. There was a wide variety of marine life viewable from the ship; during the course of the cruise I saw many dolphins, several humpbacks, a few seals or sea lions, many eagles, and even an otter. And this doesn’t count the awesome whale watching tour my wife and nieces went on in Juneau (Orca Enterprises) where they were lucky enough to see over a dozen whales engaged in bubble net feeding. Meanwhile I was hiking on Mt. Roberts, which has its own beauty, but they definitely did better that day. And, of course, one of the special attractions of HAL is the access to the bow, which is a prime place to go to search for wildlife--wide views ahead and to either side, without glass getting in the way, and relatively close to the water so you're not as distant from wildlife once you spot it.
I’ll take a moment now to rant about the idiocy of my fellow passengers in Glacier Bay. Folks, this is a *wilderness* area, not a petting zoo. You don’t do a favor to the wild birds by feeding them your leftovers. Not only does that make them dependent on humans for food (and thus leads to starvation when the ships leave in September) but cruise food isn’t good for their diet anyway. I regret that several passengers on my deck alone were busy attracting birds by offering food—including bacon! One seemed to be doing it to amuse his young child. This despite both common sense and announcements not to feed the wildlife.
I was disappointed that I missed out on some of the naturalist commentary. Although it’s available over one channel of the room speakers, that doesn’t help much when you’re on a verandah, as there are no outside speakers. One alternative is to leave the balcony door open, but I know that is generally a bad idea for the climate control system, so I didn’t want to do that for extended periods of time. I understand not generally wanting outside speakers because there isn’t any sound buffer between adjacent balconies, so I don’t have any solution to offer, but it is one of the drawbacks to watching scenery from your balcony rather than a public deck. I was even more surprised--and disappointed--that the commentary wasn’t played in the Crow’s Nest during one of the prime viewing opportunities, although it was aired on the outside decks.
Finally, since this was my first time in a suite, I should mention my view of the suite amenities. Of course, the room itself is fabulous, and the single biggest attraction of getting a suite. Unlimited laundry is nice (especially when traveling with a family), but the same is available at a modest price from any cabin (I think I saw the price was $45 for the week). Dry cleaning is included in the suite package, but I wouldn’t recommend it—they did a horrible job on my suit. The suite came with a surprisingly good pair of binoculars, which I used all week. And, although not listed as a suite amenity, there was effectively priority in getting off the ship in Juneau; since everybody wants to get off at the same time, they were calling one deck at a time, and naturally started with the suites deck. If you’re not in a rush, that probably doesn’t matter, but it gave me an extra half hour hiking, which matters for me as I’ve slowed with age.
The Neptune lounge is convenient for snacks, but on the whole I think it’s overrated. Going up one deck to get OJ, coffee, and danish in the morning is just as easy. It is nice to have little sandwiches and sweets during teatime (but that's just equivalent to what’s available to all passengers on Celebrity). The pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres didn’t look particularly appetizing, so none of us partook. And the concierge was a big disappointment. Rather than being helpful, she felt like one more obstacle to get through, acting as a middleman. We requested a change in dining time, but only if we could keep a table of 4 (since we only see our nieces once a year). Somehow that condition got dropped, and we were surprised to be re-assigned to a table of 6 at the new time. After a go-round with the maitre’d we were able to get back to a table of 4 at the original time, so it worked out, but I suspect the difficulty wouldn’t have arisen if our request hadn’t been conveyed through the middleman of the concierge. There was also an incident where a hose had been left on (or turned on by a kid?) and was pouring water over the balconies (making the balconies less useful and also wasting tons of water); I told the concierge, and she said she’d deal with it. When nothing had changed in half an hour, I went back and was told she had just sent an email! I suspect faster action would have happened if I hadn’t filtered it through the concierge. So for me, overall, the only attraction of a suite is the increased space, not increased service.
The upshot: I highly recommend the Zaandam Alaska cruise, and wish I were still on board.
Doug
Embarkation was a breeze. Luggage handlers were ready and waiting right where our taxi pulled in, so we didn’t need to do any schlepping of luggage at all. There was a little line going through customs, but not bad at all. When we got to the HAL checkin, we were in a suite, with our paperwork done online, so there was no line at all, but it didn’t look like there was much of a line for anybody. The one slightly confusing thing was we were handed a letter about norovirus and a health form on the walk between customs and checkin; as I was scanning the letter while walking, it seemed to say the ship was under a code red—but when I asked at checkin, I was told the ship was fine and the letter was referring to *other* HAL ships that had recent incidents. Sure enough, a close reading confirmed that, but that wasn’t the first impression received. Debarkation was also easy, without much of a line. The one moment of panic came when one of our bags was missing. Luckily we had attached a distinctive ribbon to the handle, and I noticed it on the cart of another woman, who still had to be convinced it wasn’t her bag! This was a first for me, and I do wonder what she would have done if I had arrived later or not seen her cart. Please check your tags; many bags do look alike...
The suite itself was lovely and spacious. We were traveling with two nieces, and there was plenty of room for everybody and our luggage. Even with the sofa pulled out as a bed, there was room to walk around. One of our nieces thought the pullout bed was too hard, so the steward added a foam layer the following nights. We also had to get a different comforter delivered for the girls, since the one we were originally given was too small to fit the bed. But after that was dealt with, there were no complaints about the pullout. Outlets are scarce in the room; there’s one in the dressing area, and one by the bed, and that’s it; you might want to bring a power strip. The bathroom is nice, but the jetted tub is on the small side (as to be expected on a ship); I’m not a big man, and it was a little tight for me. Unlike reports I’ve read here, the coffee table does not raise up, so room service means eating off a low table—except we got lucky one night and the weather was nice enough to eat on the verandah, with a normal height table.
The ship itself is gorgeous, with comfortable lounges and interesting artwork. My personal favorite is the aft stairwell, with different Escher works on each floor. There is an iPod tour, but it was a little disappointing, as it was pretty limited in its coverage. You really have to explore on your own to see what's there. And I'm sure I missed quite a bit...
The food was considerably better than our trip on the Westerdam last year; I’d place it more or less comparable to recent Celebrity trips, and a step down from Windstar. I’m a vegetarian, and the rest of my family is not. They thought the steak and prime rib were just so-so, and I agree on the so-called mushroom strudel, which was primarily spinach. The spring rolls were good, and the chilled soups were delicious. The pastas, both vegetarian and with chicken, were uniformly excellent; although often offered as a starter, they can also be made as entrees. And surprisingly, one of the best vegetarian items was off the room service menu, a Thai vegetarian wrap. Breakfast was nothing to write home about, either in the Lido or the dining room; it was amazing how varied and poor the execution of a simple omelet could be. But the salad bar was fresh, if limited, as were the made-to-order sandwiches. And I was glad to see that they had different flavor bread puddings each day, rather than the same plain bread pudding they had each day last year on the Westerdam.
The fresh-squeezed OJ continues to be a big plus for me. But I was a little surprised not to see lemonade available at lunch (or anything other than ice tea or water, except by ordering from a bar server)—I could have sworn there was lemonade on the Westerdam last year. I was also surprised to see no snacks available in the evening; ice cream and cookies were available all evening on the Westerdam, but the ice cream closed at 5 this year on the Zaandam. And there’s no teatime snacks the way there are on Celebrity, except in the Neptune lounge.
Incidentally, there is a special vegetarian menu, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s one menu with all the vegetarian dishes available (so it doesn’t change during the week), and you’re supposed to order from it a day in advance. That’s a little difficult when you don’t know what other vegetarian options are going to be on the main menu the next day, and also doesn’t work very well if you decide to use room service or eat in the Lido one night, screwing up both the order from the previous day and losing the opportunity to order for the next day. Plus there’s one night on the cruise that’s open seating anyway (due to the late port stop in Juneau). The upshot was that I quickly gave up and just ordered off the regular menu. There’s usually a couple of starters and one entrée that is vegetarian. If you’re vegan, however, make sure you can plan ahead to use the vegetarian menu. When open seating comes, I suspect they will have to either drop the pre-order requirement or drop the special menu. They continue to do one night of the song-and-dance dinner; I can’t say how it worked, since we opted for room service that night.
There was unfortunately only one nonsmoking day in the casino, and it was at Juneau, when the casino didn’t open until late at night (since we were in port until 10:30). Staff said they are trying to get permission from Seattle to increase nonsmoking opportunities. For traditionalists, the good news is that the machines still use tokens, rather than being all electronic credits; the bad news is that only about half still have arms, and about half of those make it cumbersome to actually use the arms, since you have to press multiple buttons to bet credits prior to pulling. I fear the days of the “one-armed bandit” are coming to a close, and now it’s just hit the “play max credits” button until you run out of money, without even the benefit of a little arm exercise. The final good news is that the slots didn’t seem all that tight; my wife and I had several good payouts, though I regret to say we ended up a little down overall.
The dress code continues to get less formal, which I personally prefer. The description in the daily program for formal is “For ladies, cocktail dresses or suits are appropriate. For gentlemen, jacket and tie are required. Dark suit or tuxedo suggested.” For smart casual, the description is “For ladies, casual dresses, slacks and informal eveningwear are appropriate. For gentlemen, slacks and collared shirts are suggested. No shorts, t-shirts or tank tops please.” Note that suits are no longer required for formal night (though they are suggested), and that jeans are allowed on casual nights. It looks like formal is morphing into what used to be called semi-formal. I don't recall seeing anybody in tuxedos, but I wasn't really looking.
I didn’t go to most of the shows, because the production shows aren’t my thing. I did go to the comedian one night, and he was quite good. I personally prefer small acts like this to the production shows, and am looking forward to a cruise on a smaller Azamara ship where such low-key entertainment is all there is.
As with any Alaska cruise, the scenery is the big draw, and we were quite lucky in this regard. The weather was wonderful, with only one day of early morning showers, and some afternoon drizzle in Ketchikan. I was disappointed that we were only able to go a little way into Tracy Arm, and didn’t get close to the glaciers. But that was certainly made up for in Glacier Bay, where we had an extremely good view of Marjerie glacier and were privileged enough to see quite a bit of calving. This glacier is not nearly as impressive as Hubbard Glacier, but the rest of the day going through Glacier Bay is far more scenic than the approach to Hubbard—on the whole, I’d probably opt for Glacier Bay instead of Hubbard, but go for Hubbard if you want the real jaw-dropping moments. There was a wide variety of marine life viewable from the ship; during the course of the cruise I saw many dolphins, several humpbacks, a few seals or sea lions, many eagles, and even an otter. And this doesn’t count the awesome whale watching tour my wife and nieces went on in Juneau (Orca Enterprises) where they were lucky enough to see over a dozen whales engaged in bubble net feeding. Meanwhile I was hiking on Mt. Roberts, which has its own beauty, but they definitely did better that day. And, of course, one of the special attractions of HAL is the access to the bow, which is a prime place to go to search for wildlife--wide views ahead and to either side, without glass getting in the way, and relatively close to the water so you're not as distant from wildlife once you spot it.
I’ll take a moment now to rant about the idiocy of my fellow passengers in Glacier Bay. Folks, this is a *wilderness* area, not a petting zoo. You don’t do a favor to the wild birds by feeding them your leftovers. Not only does that make them dependent on humans for food (and thus leads to starvation when the ships leave in September) but cruise food isn’t good for their diet anyway. I regret that several passengers on my deck alone were busy attracting birds by offering food—including bacon! One seemed to be doing it to amuse his young child. This despite both common sense and announcements not to feed the wildlife.
I was disappointed that I missed out on some of the naturalist commentary. Although it’s available over one channel of the room speakers, that doesn’t help much when you’re on a verandah, as there are no outside speakers. One alternative is to leave the balcony door open, but I know that is generally a bad idea for the climate control system, so I didn’t want to do that for extended periods of time. I understand not generally wanting outside speakers because there isn’t any sound buffer between adjacent balconies, so I don’t have any solution to offer, but it is one of the drawbacks to watching scenery from your balcony rather than a public deck. I was even more surprised--and disappointed--that the commentary wasn’t played in the Crow’s Nest during one of the prime viewing opportunities, although it was aired on the outside decks.
Finally, since this was my first time in a suite, I should mention my view of the suite amenities. Of course, the room itself is fabulous, and the single biggest attraction of getting a suite. Unlimited laundry is nice (especially when traveling with a family), but the same is available at a modest price from any cabin (I think I saw the price was $45 for the week). Dry cleaning is included in the suite package, but I wouldn’t recommend it—they did a horrible job on my suit. The suite came with a surprisingly good pair of binoculars, which I used all week. And, although not listed as a suite amenity, there was effectively priority in getting off the ship in Juneau; since everybody wants to get off at the same time, they were calling one deck at a time, and naturally started with the suites deck. If you’re not in a rush, that probably doesn’t matter, but it gave me an extra half hour hiking, which matters for me as I’ve slowed with age.
The Neptune lounge is convenient for snacks, but on the whole I think it’s overrated. Going up one deck to get OJ, coffee, and danish in the morning is just as easy. It is nice to have little sandwiches and sweets during teatime (but that's just equivalent to what’s available to all passengers on Celebrity). The pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres didn’t look particularly appetizing, so none of us partook. And the concierge was a big disappointment. Rather than being helpful, she felt like one more obstacle to get through, acting as a middleman. We requested a change in dining time, but only if we could keep a table of 4 (since we only see our nieces once a year). Somehow that condition got dropped, and we were surprised to be re-assigned to a table of 6 at the new time. After a go-round with the maitre’d we were able to get back to a table of 4 at the original time, so it worked out, but I suspect the difficulty wouldn’t have arisen if our request hadn’t been conveyed through the middleman of the concierge. There was also an incident where a hose had been left on (or turned on by a kid?) and was pouring water over the balconies (making the balconies less useful and also wasting tons of water); I told the concierge, and she said she’d deal with it. When nothing had changed in half an hour, I went back and was told she had just sent an email! I suspect faster action would have happened if I hadn’t filtered it through the concierge. So for me, overall, the only attraction of a suite is the increased space, not increased service.
The upshot: I highly recommend the Zaandam Alaska cruise, and wish I were still on board.
Doug