Maasdam: Oct 4 and Oct 14 sailings--20 days of bliss!

[Spinner2]

Happiness is waking up in your hotel room and looking out the window to see that indeed, "our ship" has come in!

Sometimes everything DOES go right. We had a flawless trip from Los Angeles to New York, caught the Long Island Railway over to our Amtrak departure from Penn Station (well, where to put the luggage on the LIRR was a bit of a problem but it was a pretty-much empty train so we threw it all on empty seats) and a great Adirondack train trip up through the Hudson River Valley into Montreal late last night. Train was great; I'll be happy to supply details for any who are interested in trying this.

So now we're headed over to the ship; more later! (Free internet at the Marriott wasn't unappreciated either! We usually have to pay at Marriott hotels.)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Bon Voyage!!

Have a great repositioning cruise and a Caribbean cruise!!

[airlink diva]

BON VOYAGE!!!
Have a wonderful time on the Maasdam! Take good care of her because I'm on her in about three weeks!!
If possible, please find out how much are the thermal spa pass for a 14 day cruise. Thanks!
Happy sailing!!

Second time around and my 40th birthday cruise on the Maasdam
10/24/08-11/07/08

[takemewithyou]

Marney, thanks for checking in!
Say hi to everyone on the roll call for me.
We almost made it, but not quite. :o

Hope you have a wonderful trip.
Take lots of pictures of the beautiful Fall colors!
How's the weather in Montreal for sail away?
Crisp beautiful, blue skies, hopefully.

Have a sip of champagne for us!
(waving goodbye!)
Oh, and eat lots of lobster for me! :D :D

[sail7seas]

Lucky, lucky YOU. Have a wonderful time on the very beautiful Maasdam. Of course, you will. How could you not with that amazing crew!!!@?#4!

[Spinner2]

DAY 1
We got to the cruise terminal (via taxi) about 11:15; handed over the luggage to the waiting porters and found HAL shore staff distributing the usual health questionnaires outside and directing everyone inside. Check-in was fast and within minutes we were waiting to board. No numbers were being distributed but we'd hardly sat down before they opened up boarding and we were in the Lido by 11:30.

It's good to be back. We were last on the Maasdam in Oct 07, in the Caribbean and since then the ship has been refurbished a bit. The Crow's Nest is spiffier, for one thing. I'll probably notice other changes eventually.

We got the table for 2 we wanted for late fixed dining; dinner will be earlier than we've known in the past (7:30) but I think it will work out. The show's at 9:30--at least it is tonight--so if we want to go we can and afterwards we should have time to wander on up to the Crow's Nest after the show. It's earlier than we like to eat but we'll see how it goes.

I've been working on learning just a few words in Indonesian so I summoned up my courage and have been trying the proper "hello" for the time of day it was on the Indonesian staff. The crew hasn't snickered at my efforts yet although they probably do later, but they have replied with the words I'd just butchered so I guess they knew what I was trying to say and perhaps my punctuation will improve from listening to them. The phrase I need the most, though, hasn't come up in my lessons. That phrase would be "that's all I can say" although my guess is everyone will figure that out. For today I was prepared to say hello at 4 different times of the day (the phrasing varies a bit), good-bye and thank you. I am working on the polite versions of "I want . . ." and "I need. . ." Lest anyone think this is remarkable progress I hasten to add that I need the cheat sheet in my pocket to start me out for most of this.

An awful lot of people showed up for the boat drill late, carrying/dragging their life jackets in their arms. It's chilly in Montreal, so jackets and sweaters under life jackets were definitely the order of the day.

Speaking of chilly, our stateroom is quite cold; the thermostat seems connected to nothing so we may have to ask them to try and warm it up a bit. I hesitate to say much; in 10 days when we're in the Caribbean we may be grateful for the chill. Today, not so much.

Sail-away was in the Crow's Nest; outside was deemed too cold. We dropped off our life vests at our cabin and headed up there, hoping to snag a couple of the comfy lounge chairs in front of the window and when we got there we found an entire row of those chairs . . . empty! No one else showed up wanting to sit in them for another 15-20 minutes; our experience has been that for sail-away they go very fast but today people seemed slow to arrive. They may have checked out the Lido deck first and just didn't come up as soon. The crowd was decent-sized though, by sail-away, and this Hal-Cats group is quite good. It's going to be a fun week, musically.

Dinner was excellent; I had the crab/avacado appetizer, blueberry soup, lamb shank. The lamb was tender, moist, well-seasoned. My DH had the lamb with barley soup and a fish cake appetizer and he enjoyed those. Our dining steward Holy (Holly) had us finished by 9:05; the wine steward arrived at the table to see what wine out of the package my DH bought within 15 minutes of our sitting down. So, excellent service since we like to eat fairly fast. We're off to a good start there.

Interesting story from our dining steward: As you probably know from the thread "What's the Maasdam Going to Do?" concerning the hurricane of last week. the Maasdam spent 2 nights in Halifax instead of one and skipped Bar Harbor. So we asked Holy how he'd enjoyed the weather last week and the extra night in Halifax. He was very surprised to learn that we knew what the ship had done last week, but he said the crew enjoyed it very much because they got extra time off and in the pouring heavy rain they all went to a local bar in Halifax and had a crew party. So while we were wondering if they were ok, the crew was more than ok with the decisions that were made!

To finish off the day we went to the show; a Canadian comedian who was very funny and a short sampler of what the show cast has planned for this cruise. It's a pleasant, high-energy group; typical cruise-ship entertainment, I'd say. The surprising thing was the size of the crowd; we usually go to the second show and we're used to seeing us and perhaps 3 more (ok, I exaggerate slightly!) but both levels of the lounge were well-populated and as I looked around I didn't see any good seats left. Maybe starting a half-hour earlier really does improve attendance. Michelle Worthy is the CD; we remember her from the Maasdam last year although she left the ship when we did then and worked on the Ryndam for awhile. She seems to have a staff of 3, sort of; Matt is the DJ and there are a couple of staffers who belong to the Club HAL program but with only a few kids this cruise they expect to work as Michelle's staff for a good share of their time.

Tomorrow's an early day in Quebec so I think we'll check out the lounges for just a bit and call it a day.

I'll try to post something every day. Eventually there will be pictures; I can probably use some of our minutes to post a few small ones but at this point they are still in the camera; we haven't gotten around to moving them to the computer yet.

Miles walked today on the Lower Prom track: 2. Pitiful, but we did just get here.

Takemewithyou, we wish you and your DH were here!

marney

[takemewithyou]

Thank you, Spinner, for taking the time to post. We are enjoying - keep it coming!! Have fun in Quebec City! :)

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks spinnner for the excellent reporting of your first day on the ship, have a great cruise, and we'll look forward to any other reports you want to give us.

[Wine Taster]

My sister and I are thinking about taking this cruise next year so I'm looking forward to your report. I didn't notice if you said which cabin you were in. We are trying to decide on a verandah suite. Which location do you think is best?

Dave

[dvdfreakmc]

Happiness is waking up in your hotel room and looking out the window to see that indeed, "our ship" has come in!

Sometimes everything DOES go right. We had a flawless trip from Los Angeles to New York, caught the Long Island Railway over to our Amtrak departure from Penn Station (well, where to put the luggage on the LIRR was a bit of a problem but it was a pretty-much empty train so we threw it all on empty seats) and a great Adirondack train trip up through the Hudson River Valley into Montreal late last night. Train was great; I'll be happy to supply details for any who are interested in trying this.

So now we're headed over to the ship; more later! (Free internet at the Marriott wasn't unappreciated either! We usually have to pay at Marriott hotels.)

Glad you enjoyed the train and that there was enough room on the LIRR for luggage. We had a great time on the Adirondack trip as well.

[Pryzeless]

Thanks for sharing and we will see you soon!

[tropicalsunset]

Marney: do tell us about the music at night in the lounges!!
see you in FL!

[venicecruiser]

Keep the info coming please Marney! Can't wait to join you in Ft. Lauderdale on the 14th!

Claudia

[lazey1]

Thanks Marnie. Can't wait to see your photos. We will be reading your posts everyday as we are doing this sailing next year Jane and Gary:D

[Spinner2]

Day 2

We were in Quebec City today, chilly but sunny. We went walking on our own, rode the funicular up to the upper city and then walked up the 310 steps to the fort. Then we walked back down through the streets where we found a breast cancer awareness walk was taking place. The columns of walkers/marchers went on and on; at every intersection there was another stream of marchers to join in. They seemed to have a huge turnout for this event.

Came back to the room to find the air-conditioning problems had been solved in our absence and two individuals called from the front desk during the afternoon to make sure that we were comfortable. Problem solved, and very quickly.

My DH George took photos around the ship today while I spent the afternoon in the freshwater pool. The pool was very warm and I really enjoyed having it to myself for lap-swimming. Saw no chair-hogs around the pool; no need, there were plenty of vacant chairs. Ping pong for dam dollars had a decent number of participants; it looked like one of the Club HAL staff was in charge.

Cruise Director Michelle was certainly available to the passengers today; I saw her in several places talking to people as was the Hotel Manager Firmin Van Walle. I really believe one of the reasons this ship seems to run so well is that he's always around and highly visible.

Once again our dining steward had us finished with dinner in plenty of time to see the evening's show--the production number "Gold" which we've seen on another HAL ship but with a new cast it was fun to see it again. I forgot to mention last night that the "audience participation" portion of the evening's entertainment (a ventriloquist/comedian) was our own Cruise Critic's vesltraveler who handled the role he was assigned--primarily to be the butt of the ventriloquist's dummy's jokes--with great finesse and patience.

Tomorrow's a day at sea; our Cruise Critic Meet and Greet is in the morning. Our event reservation made it through the HAL communication channels intact and we're all set. Speaking of the communication channels, we paid for one Pinnacle Grill reservation, were given one by our TA and we paid in advance for some shore excursions. All of those were communicated properly and the tickets or reservations were waiting for us. We were a bit concerned when the Pinnacle cards didn't show up at the cabin but there was no problem after all; we were in the computer when we checked with the reservations desk at the Pinnacle. Apparently they don't send out cards any longer but you can check and make sure that everything's in order.

My Indonesian language skills--if you can call them that--are improving; I am doing a lesson a day that I downloaded from the internet but many of the crew seem to want to help--they stop by our table at dinner to teach me a new word or two and my pronunciation errors are most gently corrected. So it's a fun experience and I'd recommend it. I have no ear for languages but I can handle greetings and simple dining room requests.

More photos today; we'll get them posted eventually.

Clocks ahead one hour tonight as we sail eastward!

I'll write something about the music in a couple of days when we've had a chance to check out more of it.

[Spinner2]

Sorry for the delay; internet has been down since Monday afternoon. It's now early Tuesday morning but this was written off and on during Monday Oct 6.


The Cruise Critic Meet and Greet was held this morning (Monday) in the Crows Nest. Attendance was excellent! I think everyone had a good time; I certainly hope so. The Beverage Manager had everything set up when I arrived about 10 minutes early and he checked back twice during the event to make sure everything was ok. The hotel manager (Firme van Walle) and cruise director(Michelle Worthley) came by and stayed for 30 minutes or so. There was a lot of visiting and conversation but eventually we corralled everyone for a group photo. Lots of candid shots were taken too, and as soon as I have a cheap internet connection I'll start posting the photos.

Nice day at sea although as usual there's too much going on to manage to get to everything that looks interesting. I missed the Indonesian cooking lesson because I stayed in the pool too long, for one thing.

Tonight's a formal night and we hope to make the rounds of most of the music that's available on the ship for this cruise. I'll report back.

Someone asked about our cabin; some of you may remember that we accepted an upsell at a good price to a verandah cabin. So we're in a portside verandah which is adequate in size; has the usual lounge chair and a wicker chair, with a small table. We're not making much use of it yet; it's just too cold but we go out and watch the scenery until the cold sends us back inside. In other words, it's too cold to eat out there! When we get to warmer waters I know we'll use it a lot.

An advantage of this location, at least to us, is that the sounds of some of the musical groups playing one deck down drift up and as our cabin is just off the center staircase, we can enjoy the music as we come and go in the evening. It's not audible if we have the cabin door closed but we can hear it if we're in the hall or the door is ajar.

This continues to be a very pleasant cruise, but I have no entertaining, wild stories to tell; you'll have to look elsewhere!

Formal night dress: probably a third in tuxes; rest in business suits; women in dresses mostly. Saw only a few pantsuits this time.

After the show (the John Denver singer who's often here; we've seen him before a couple of times) we went out to check out the music. In the piano bar is someone named Steven and he had a large crowd tonight. As newcomers entered a lot of people clearly knew them so apparently there are people who are regulars at the piano bar already. There's a trio playing 70s-80s music (or at least while we were there that's what was playing) in the Ocean Bar and in the Explorer's Lounge there was a classical music quartet. Tonight in the Crows Nest it was 50s-60s night; specifically Elvis and we'd no more than arrived before Cruise Director Michelle dragged my DH George out to be in the Elvis contest. George wasn't planning on this turn of events AT ALL but he was a good sport and ended up with a luggage tag, a free drink and a hoarse throat (only momentarily!) for his efforts. A good crowd, and everyone was having a good time it seemed to me. All in all, a lively evening. This is not a fuddy-duddy crowd at all!

Tomorrow is Prince Edward Island and an early call for us; we're going out on a fairly lengthy drive around the island so we'll be ordering room service breakfast and planning on a fun-filled day.

[tropicalsunset]

Thanks for the info Marney.... I can't wait to board next Tuesday..... I could use a CRUISE right now!!!! :D :D

[gnswedding]

Oh how exciting...looks like we'll be joining you next tuesday! Hoping for great weather as its our first cruise and it'll also be our honeymoon!!! Can't wait!

[murphysmum]

Hi!

Thanks for the great and informative posts! I'll keep reading. We're booked on the same ship next year, about the same time, cruising Boston to Montreal. It sounds like your itinerary will be longer, but that ours may replicate much of yours.

I've never traveled with HAL and I'm glad to hear that you're having such a lovely experience.

Happy sailing...

murphysmum;)

[Spinner2]

I'm on the free internet in the PEI terminal now. Later, for those planning this cruise later, I'll make a list of where there's free internet, where there are nice lobsters for lunch, etc.

Very rainy, very cold here today!

more soon . . .
marney

[Spinner2]

On the free internet so I'll try. The Cruise Critic connection is so slow I may not be able to try the link before I post it. If you don't see a photo, know that when I can I'll come back and do it again. Then there will 2 Meet and Greet photos if Cruise Critic's connection will work with me!

http://www.wilde.org/cruise/oct4c.jpg

[Spinner2]

If I can possibly get the Cruise Critic link to stay up while I load 3 photos I will. If not, please know that I'll put them up asap.

This one is of the cruise ship from high atop the overlook at Quebec City

http://www.wilde.org/cruise/oct4c.jpg

The next two are of our Meet and Greet:

http://www.wilde.org/cruise/oct4a.jpg

http://www.wilde.org/cruise/oct4b.jpg

[Spinner2]

One's a duplicate; I'd given up on my first effort when it seems that all loaded after all. I hope to tell you that today the CC links have been slower than the HAL connections. :D

[sail7seas]

Great reports, Marney. Thank you. I'm always happy to read everything about Maasdam. :)

Enjoy free Internet in Syndey. Well, it's free for crew but only about $2 for guests. We call that 'free'. :) Especially since it is faster than the ship's. ;)
Happy you had such a good Meet and Greet. Really nice of the Hotel Manager to come. We know they always try but sometimes aren't able to.

Continue to enjoy your time aboard and thanks for your reports.

[takemewithyou]

Thanks for the photos, Marney.
So it's pretty cool? How are the Fall colors?

How's the food?

Say hi to our fellow roll callers for me! :D

[caribbeanqueenie]

Thanks for the nice picture. Please say hello to my good friends Marianne and Ger. I will be following your report.
Stephanie

[Spinner2]

Food is great; saw Marianne and Ger at the show last night; and we're told that Sydney internet is now free but two bucks is fine too.

Check out the new thread I started tonight; HAL is trying to get people already on the ship to stay on for the next cruise. We'll know who those people are who take them up on it (there are 136 already planning to stay onboard) because they will be the ones in warm sweaters and mittens. It seems unlikely that anyone who planned to leave the ship in Ft. Lauderdale has many warm-weather clothes along!

[sail7seas]

I posted on your other thread where you mentioned about staying aboard, that most people surely have a few warm weather clothing items with them. You will be in warm weather at least a few days during your first cruise.

If they want to stay, no big deal to buy a pair of shorts and a few jerseys. Clothes for at night could be used in both temps..... the ship has A/C. :)
Also, Maasdam has self-service lauderettes that would be useful in this situation or surely use ship's laundry/dry cleaning service.

How lucky for those who can take advantage of the offer. We've seen those sort of offers in the past.

[dvdfreakmc]

Thanks for the "newsy" posts. It is great to re-live the week we had in August!

[tropicalsunset]

WE got a call from HAL with an offer to upgrade to a balcony... price wasn't right..

[Spinner2]

Tropical, hang firm. They'll probably come down on the price! The next cruise is not full at all from what we are hearing.

Really good tour today. We took the all day (and a bit expensive at $130 apiece) tour that followed what's called "The Cabot Trail." After a brief drive through Sydney we followed their main cross-island highway to the national park. We circled the main national park road; total mileage for the day was about 250 miles. The guide for this tour was really good; never needed notes and knew just how to time his remarks so he was finishing the explanation just as we got to the featured scene, waterway, or location. I learned a lot of Canadian, American and indigenous peoples history, saw wildlife--bald eagles, a moose just disappearing into the brush; and many, many trees nearing the height of their fall colors. The trip was well-paced with stops nicely spaced, a decent lunch and a reasonably warm place to eat it in; the day was absolutely freezing here, with hail that apparently we just missed. The tour left right when the passengers were allowed to go ashore and returned about 10 minutes before the All Aboard, so this was one we wouldn't have wanted to chance on our own.

We were invited to a Captain's Reception this evening; there seemed to be about 100 people there and I think we were invited because of our Cruise Critic event. I looked around and saw about half of our group; the others could have been invited to another such event or perhaps chose not to attend. While the Cruise Critic friends were chatting with each other we decided to get together again so we'll set something up for one of our sea days later in the week.

In the "attention to detail" department, I put a post-it on our cabin door when we first arrived so if any of the people who planned to attend our Cruise Critic meet and greet had a question they'd know which cabin was ours. I've just left it there, but today when we returned from our day ashore it was gone. The door looked extra-shiny and I figured the polishers had removed it. Tonight when returned from dinner the note was back! Someone saved it and when the door was completely dry, put it back just about exactly where it was found.

Because of early tours the past couple of days we've been ordering breakfast in; it's coming very promptly, is hot, and exactly what we've ordered. No problems at all.

My Indonesian vocabulary now extends to 4 food items that I can ask for in Indonesian, a couple of adjectives and some common phrases. You can get through a meal on this little bit but I'm mindful that I can't really say a whole sentence, let alone hold any sort of conversation. Still, it's a start, it's fun, and the Indonesian staff is very helpful and kind about my efforts.

In the Numbers Department:
Number of small birds that took refuge from the high winds on Lower Prom deck as we arrived in Sydney: 4 that I saw, as I was walking laps. All different sizes.

Number of bald eagles spotted in the sky over the Cabot Trail today: 3

Number of people on tour today in bermuda shorts: 1 very, very blue gentleman. (The rest of us wore every scarf, glove, and hat that we had with us.)

Price of internet in the Sydney Cruise terminal: free, if you have a laptop but the connection speed varies a lot per the users I talked to. I wasn't in the terminal long enough to use the internet connection but I noticed that there are also public computers there that charge $4 per hour to use them.

[sail7seas]

Thanks for another great report, Spinner.

Though it says $4 per hour for the internet use in Sydney (if using their computer which we do), the nice fellow there let's us use their computers as long as we want. We pay one fee (I couldn't remember if it was $2 or $4) each time we are there, the same fellow is 'in charge' and he always tells us to stay as long as we want. :) Maybe he's starting to recognize us as we recognize him. LOL

Continue to enjoy. Today was 68 degrees just north of Boston and bright sun. A goreous day.

[takemewithyou]

Marney, we were booked for the Cabot Trail tour. We were really looking forward to that. At least I got to live through the tour with your report. Thanks. :o Glad to know you enjoyed it. Sounds like you would recommend it to anyone interested, right?

I think we would have been really cold on this cruise, coming from such a very warm climate. I don't know if we would have packed enough warm clothes!

Stay warm - FLL is coming! Say Hi to everyone for me and tell them that I could recognize some of them from the roll call. :D :D

[Spinner2]

Sorry for the delay in posting anything; we've been busy and the internet has been down some.

HALIFAX Oct 9
On a dreary, grey day we went out to Peggy's Cove and oddly enough, the grey skies were the perfect background for those fishing village shots. Cold, windy, but a fun trip. We went with the ship's tour; we wanted to spend the afternoon doing our lobster research (you know, eat a lobster in every port and decide which was best, for science!) and since we planned to walk to that, we didn't want to fool with a car.

We had lobster at the Blue-something; sorry, I forgot to carefully note the name; it's at the corner of Hollis and Duke Streets; an easy walk from the ship. The owner described how he procures all of his fish/shellfish--the sources, etc. Very interesting.

Internet in Halifax's terminal isn't free and reports from those who used it led me to believe that it's slow and expensive. A better deal there is to go across the street to the local coffee house, buy a coffee or a bottle of water and use the free internet for customers there. I didn't do either; just didn't have time. I planned to use the ship's internet for what little I wanted to do, including putting something up on this thread, but alas, the signal was blocked by the time I got around to it and there was no access. And it was unavailable again in the late, late evening as we crossed between Canadian and USA waters.

I think people were worn out from all of the port-stopping; we saw very few people in the musical venues that evening. All in all, a good evening to turn in early.

BAR HARBOR Oct 10
We woke to a bit of sunshine as we sailed into Bar Harbor and the day was gorgeous. Color on the trees here was outstanding and we enjoyed going into Acadia Nat'l Park very much. More lobster experimentation at lunch (we went to the West Side Cafe on the advice of some local citizens and only later realized that this was a "recommended" HAL venue as well. We think that the best lobster we had in all of our Canada/New England experimentation was had here, although there wasn't a poor choice in the bunch. It was hard to decide on a "best" choice.

Comedian Danny Storts was in the Rembrandt Lounge last night. I found his jokes to be pretty lame and I wouldn't go to this particular entertainment again, I don't think.

While I have it here in front of me, here's the lineup of entertainers for this cruise; can't predict who is staying on and who isn;t:

DJ is "Matt"
Alan at the Piano in the Ocean Bar--sometimes in the Crow's Nest
Deep Blue band
Palmira Strings (classical)
Steven in the Piano Bar


AT SEA Oct 11
Woke up to a warm morning; at 10 am didn't need a jacket or wrap of any kind to walk laps out on Lower Prom. This afternoon we sat out on the verandah with drinks and it was very pleasant. What a difference a day makes! We're just off the coast of New York today so we're not that far south yet.

Today was the first of two Mariner lunches. We got our 100-day medals today; tomorrow we understand there are 6 more medals to be presented--today I think there were 8, ranging from one 500-day to several 100-days. The presentations were made at the lunch with all Mariners invited for today present; not a separate medal presentation.

We've learned that the Hotel Manager will go on vacation status at the end of this segment on Oct 14; haven't heard of any other officer personnel changes.

We have lots of photos; we'll put some more up when we have free or cheap internet again.

And we're looking forward to the arrival of the Cruise Critic roll call members who are joining us in Fort Lauderdale on the 14th. On this sailing we're told that over 150 passengers, including at least 8 Cruise Critic members are continuing on the first Caribbean segment; there's a get-together for all of us tomorrow night I'm told.

We are mid-ship, Verandah deck and the internet's wi fi in our cabin has been uniformly excellent.

Thanks for reading!

[BettyPC]

I have enjoyed your trip - I am looking forward to more!

Thanks for taking the time to share:D

[yakky]

You are on a fabulous cruise-the same one i am going on in May/09. It just happens that a wine steward named Michael Macareg is on your ship. He and I have been e-mailing for 3 years. If you get a chance , maybe you could ask at dinner if he can stop by and tell him Sharon and Jerry send hugs. Thanks so much for the postings=they are so interesting.

[Spinner2]

Wonderful sea days! Great weather (we can tell we're off the Florida coast; it's so warm and humid out on deck) and still plenty of activities to keep us busy. Last night was the black and white ball but we couldn't go; more about that in a minute. For this cruise anyway, last night was the "farewell dinner" but there was no Baked Alaska parade; that will be part of tonight's Master Chef's Dinner. We'd made previous arrangements to go to the Pinnacle tonight so we'll miss that feature of this cruise.

My DH and I've had an interesting event happen to us: yesterday at lunch we were invited to dine with the Captain last night! I have no idea how we happened to be chosen; there were 2 other couples, the Captain and the Guest Relations Manager at the table. The Dining Room Manager hunted us up before the appointed hour, escorted us to a private reception and then later the entire group was escorted into the dining room. The food was excellent and the conversation very enjoyable. We felt quite honored to be invited but truly have no idea why it was us.

So, today, most are packing and about 150 of us aren't--that 150 are staying on for the next sailing. We are told that we will have to leave the ship briefly in Fort Lauderdale; that the regulations require that the ship be cleared and the customs folk have all of the forms (or intransit cards for those of us going on) before they will allow anyone to return to the ship. We're told that we should be back on board within an hour if we want to wait it out, or we can, of course, go somewhere. Returning passengers will not have to wait until general boarding; we can come and go as we wish after the ship is cleared. And we're exempt from the boat drill that will happen tomorrow afternoon.

This has been a great cruise and we're delighted that it's not over although shocked that half of it is. It seems as though we only arrived a day or two ago. I don't know anything about internet availability in Fort Lauderdale; I'll ask and if there's a free connection and it's fast I'll try to put up some photos. Otherwise, they'll have to wait.

[Spinner2]

On my iPhone so I will be brief

Immigration and customs for continuing guests was a nuisance but fast we all filed into the terminal with intransit cards and passports in hand. Within ten minutes they led us back onboard and nobody collected or even looked at our paperwork.

Dinner at pinnacle last night not the best--impersonal cold service, lobster tough and I had to pull the greasy tail out of the shell myself using my dinner napkin. DU's steak was good but the sauce was cold and off-tasting. Baked Alaska was very good though-I love all forms of baked Alaska. We plan to cancel our other Pinnacle reservation.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Wonderful sea days! Great weather (we can tell we're off the Florida coast; it's so warm and humid out on deck) and still plenty of activities to keep us busy. Last night was the black and white ball but we couldn't go; more about that in a minute. For this cruise anyway, last night was the "farewell dinner" but there was no Baked Alaska parade; that will be part of tonight's Master Chef's Dinner. We'd made previous arrangements to go to the Pinnacle tonight so we'll miss that feature of this cruise.

My DH and I've had an interesting event happen to us: yesterday at lunch we were invited to dine with the Captain last night! I have no idea how we happened to be chosen; there were 2 other couples, the Captain and the Guest Relations Manager at the table. The Dining Room Manager hunted us up before the appointed hour, escorted us to a private reception and then later the entire group was escorted into the dining room. The food was excellent and the conversation very enjoyable. We felt quite honored to be invited but truly have no idea why it was us.

So, today, most are packing and about 150 of us aren't--that 150 are staying on for the next sailing. We are told that we will have to leave the ship briefly in Fort Lauderdale; that the regulations require that the ship be cleared and the customs folk have all of the forms (or intransit cards for those of us going on) before they will allow anyone to return to the ship. We're told that we should be back on board within an hour if we want to wait it out, or we can, of course, go somewhere. Returning passengers will not have to wait until general boarding; we can come and go as we wish after the ship is cleared. And we're exempt from the boat drill that will happen tomorrow afternoon.

This has been a great cruise and we're delighted that it's not over although shocked that half of it is. It seems as though we only arrived a day or two ago. I don't know anything about internet availability in Fort Lauderdale; I'll ask and if there's a free connection and it's fast I'll try to put up some photos. Otherwise, they'll have to wait.

Congratulations on getting invited to dine with the captain.

[Krazy Kruizers]

On my iPhone so I will be brief

Immigration and customs for continuing guests was a nuisance but fast we all filed into the terminal with intransit cards and passports in hand. Within ten minutes they led us back onboard and nobody collected or even looked at our paperwork.

Dinner at pinnacle last night not the best--impersonal cold service, lobster tough and I had to pull the greasy tail out of the shell myself using my dinner napkin. DU's steak was good but the sauce was cold and off-tasting. Baked Alaska was very good though-I love all forms of baked Alaska. We plan to cancel our other Pinnacle reservation.

Immigration in Ft Lauderdale is quick. Sometimes it is the waiting to get back onto the ship that can be lengthy.

Pinnacle dinner -- sorry about how bad it was -- I would have sent that lobster tail back!! Sounds like after it was cooked, it was placed under one of those silver lids and then it continued to cook making it tough -- same procedure in the dining room.

[Mustangs]

Hello,

Thanks for posting this "live" report.

My mother-in-law and her two sisters are on for the twenty days as well, and since we haven't heard from them, it must mean they are having a good time.

We will be sailing the Maasdam on November 21st.

Alan and Anne

[Spinner2]

Hey Mustang if you provide a cabin number the CCers aboard can supply surveillance services!:)

Thx for lobster sympathies but it wasn't worth the bother to send it back--we are so well fed as it is!

[WeLoveCruising]

Marney,
I'm jealous you're still on board! Sorry we missed you all at the Meet and Greet, but from the picture I know we met at least three couples onboard. I'll have to email you privately and figure out who was who :)

It was a great cruise, and I hope your next ten days are just as wonderful as the first.

Joanne

[sail7seas]

Welcome Back, Joanne. So happy to hear you had such a good time on Maasdam. She never disappoints, does she? :)

Eager to hear all about it.

[Spinner2]

Most of our first set of Cruise Critic friends (8 of us stayed aboard) have departed the ship and the new group is now aboard. Before we left Fort Lauderdale we were informed by the Captain that due to a tropical storm/pending hurricane in the area that the route would be altered somewhat and that in order to work with the longer distance the speed would be considerably more than is usual. In other words, I was thinking, we'd be rockin' and rollin' and perhaps would still not make it to our first port by the expected time.

First difference I've noticed about the new group of passengers: a lot more prefer to eat in the dining room than I've noticed on other cruises. I did hear that the dining room crowd was sparse during the first seating but that didn't seem true at all at the second seating. And this morning at breakfast there were A LOT of people having breakfast in the dining room.

Our CC Meet and Greet for this cruise segment was this morning. The 4 couples from the New England-Canada segment were present and those who boarded yesterday were present as well. So, we had Davensteph, Stephndave, the Dutchies (both of them!), the Silvercruisers, the Pryzeless honeymooners, The Tropical Sunset duo, and Venicecruiser with her friend Penny, Patricia, and me, with my DH George available to take photos. Cruise Director Michelle joined us, as did newly-arrived Hotel Manager Simon de Boer. We had a lovely visit and Simon de Boer had a lot of interesting observations to share.

At lunch today we learned that it will be necessary to skip the St. Maarten port stop tomorrow, due to weather, so I guess the group won't be holding its second meeting over at the nude beach. (Just kidding folks! about the beach; not about the missed stop; that seems to be a definite.)

But the water, while choppy and spraying salt all the way up to at least the Verandah deck because that's where we are and our verandah railing, walls, and window are very salty so clearly the spray line is high-up, is pleasant to look at and I don't think we're rockin' and rollin' any more than is enjoyable.

Side note, back to Bar Harbor which as you probably know, was a missed port for the final September New England cruise--one of the dining room crew members said that the overnight in Halifax where the ship went to wait out the storm was a very worrisome time for the crew at least; the action of the storm on the ship was intense and the level of concern was fairly widespread.

So we'll get the extra sea day tomorrow! Not a problem to us; I love sea days and we were in St. Maarten last year anyway.

A couple of changes:
For the Caribbean run, at least for now, main dinner has been moved to 8 PM (it was 7:30 for the New England/Canada section) and the shows are reversed.

HAL tote bags for the once-expected stop tomorrow at St. Maarten are a dark-blue bag, with a waterproof lining/fabric. Very nice.

WeLoveCruising, I'm sorry we missed you too. I kept hoping we'd run into you someplace!

[Deb C.]

Oh rats!:( I was hoping for the 7:30 dining time and being able to go to the show AFTER that meal.

I am on the Maasdam when you get off next week. Thanks for all the great info! Keep enjoying yourself! Deb C.

[Cruisinetta]

Hey Marney. Sounds like you are having great time as usual. Have they done the shipbuilding contest? If so, any good entries? Why don't you build one? You have permission to use my design. Anyway, just wanted to do a quick shout out. My cruise is 2 1/2 weeks away. Get ready for the Boodam. Its going to be awesome. Have a great cruise.

[Spinner2]

I'm really behind in posting to this thread; the Cruise Critic URL never seems to work quickly when I can post. I'll try to catch up on our upcoming sea day but otherwise, when we get home. We continue to have a very good cruise!

One correction: From looking around in port, I don't think the handing out of the waterproof blue bags (instead of the usual canvas-style ones) was universal. We've seen only a few and don't know why we got one. It's a great bag for taking to the beach though!

[sail7seas]

The last several times we did back-to-backs on Maasdam, we were given the dark blue vinyl totes on our second segment. I agree they are nice bags.

Oh, don't worry about Halifax. :) You were tucked in nice and safe. Happily all went well.

Continue to enjoy, Marney.

[silvercruiser]

Silvercruiser didn't sail with you on the second leg of your cruise. Enjoyed meeting all the CCers on the Montreal to FLL trip, but guess the cold, rainy weather bothered us more than it did you. We're glad to be back home where it's warm, but look forward to next May when we do the reverse trip and can enjoy the stops more in the late spring.

[Spinner2]

A pleasant day at sea today. Flying fish, and the birds snatching them as they were airborne, were interesting to watch this morning.

Plenty to do all day, not enough time to get to everything that looked interesting.

I don't think I've mentioned how pleasant it is to have the onboard string quartet (Palmaro Strings) playing at the start of dinner each night. They leave after about a half hour to take up their evening spot in the Ocean Bar (where they draw a nice crowd) but their dining room playing is a nice dinner start.

Final formal dinner tonight and tomorrow is Half Moon Cay and the Master Chef's dinner in the evening. These 20 days have gone by way too fast!

I've done a lousy job of updates this second half of our 20 days. We've had a client with e-mail issues that we've had to spend way too many of our internet minutes solving the client's problems so I've been online for personal use way less than usual. Mostly though, we've been too busy having fun to spend much time on the computer. I'll try to do a summary when we get home.

I see the other Cruise Critic folks around the ship and all seem to be enjoying themselves as well. For all I know they're posting their experience too, but for me, it's been a "get in to Cruise Critic, paste in what I've had time to write, and get out" sort of time and I haven't tried to see what other threads are available. I'll have a lot of catching up to do when home again.

[airlink diva]

Good evening!!
I know that you are reflecting on your wonderful extended cruise, but on Friday morning, I coming on board!!!!
So glad you kept her in great shape!!
Happy sailing!!!

[Spinner2]

We've been home a week now, and finally I'm caught up enough to mention some final things about this absolutely wonderful cruise.

First, for WeLoveCruising, you should have stayed with us for the next cruise segment! I enjoyed a lovely nassi goreng meal (it was on the printed menu; not something I ordered as a special) although our wonderful steward Holy (pronounced "Holley") thought it would be too spicy for me. Not at all! Really good, especially the meat. Couldn't finish the noodles; there were too many of them. Ah, Holy's sad eyes to see those noodles going uneaten! :)

On the subject of the dining room, Gildus is the best when it comes to dining room management! A real "HAL asset."

An excellent feature of both cruise segments was the set of historical lectures by entertainer Dave Levesque. He's a splendid comedic violinist by night; historical lecturer by day and we enjoyed both aspects of his talent very much. The historical lectures were really an added bonus to this cruise.

My DH and I were also invited to a "focus group" meeting toward the end of the cruise where a few people (although I know more were invited; it wasn't "that" exclusive but there was a lot going on around the ship that day) sat around with Hotel Manager (for the second segment) Simon de Boer to discuss what we like about Holland America, where we'd like to see changes, etc. Very interesting meeting, since attendees represented onboard "groups", mariners, new cruisers, etc. The comments were what you'd expect: several mentioned wanting a better reward program for Mariners, others asked about whether the fuel surcharge would continue (the gist of it was that probably not--it will be dropped at an unspecified time), upgrades to the ships that interested specific people--these were not universally wanted, judging from the reaction. One woman said she'd hoped for more "elegant" food; she mentioned only seeing escargot on the menu once but no one else commented on this. There wasn't much mentioning of individual problems with the cruise--it was mostly comments about the overall direction that people hoped HAL was moving in. I appreciated the opportunity to participate and I thought it was a nice thing to offer. Other than the mention of the probable dropping of the fuel surcharge nothing was promised or hinted at and it wasn't expected; this was "listening session."

Hotel Manager de Boer, in response I think to the Cruise Critic meet and greet participants' many questions about changes planned for the HAL ships when they next go to dry dock, (they asked for it and he did it!) set up an hour-long meeting for the entire ship on that topic. He brought many slides and talked for more than two hours to a very good-sized crowd for a daytime event; people were really enjoying the conversation. He has a lot of experience in this area and it was a most enjoyable talk.

This was, for us, the best cruise of all thus far, and we've never had a cruise that we didn't just love. The warmth of the ship's personnel, the many friends that we made (passengers and crew), the fun we had with the other CC'ers, so many things combined to make this a "best cruise ever" experience. Weather did cause us to miss a port and HMC but two extra days at sea are never a bad thing in my book.

We can't wait to go again and more than ever, we're committed, I think, to this size ship. It just suits us. Eventually I will share pictures but they're still on the auxilliary drive--all 3 gigabytes of them.