whogo
January 6th, 2009, 12:49 PM
This cruise report is way too long. Written for my travel journal, I have edited it slightly. Better report on the same cruise by ekerr19 is here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=900034&highlight=
Executive summary: Excellent cruise, rated 8 out of 10, typical of Holland America. Cruise director and his staff, food, and itinerary were top notch. Anytime dining and service were a minor let down. I was less bothered by cigarette smoke on this cruise. I do not set foot in the casino, but appreciated that there was no smoke haze drifting out before 10:30 PM. The Ocean Bar area was nasty with smoke, drifting all the way into the Queen’s Lounge. Was annoyed once by just one smoker upwind on the promenade. I prefer the way that Royal Caribbean banned smoking on one side of the ship. Still, I never found my clothes reeking. If you are looking for information on shopping or spas you are reading the wrong post.
Planned itinerary:
12/23/08 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida --- 5:00 p.m.
12/24/08 Half Moon Cay, Bahamas 8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m.
12/25/08 At Sea --- ---
12/26/08 Oranjestad, Aruba 1:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m.
12/28/08 Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
12/28/08 Willemstad, Curacao 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
12/29/08 At Sea --- ---
12/30/08 Panama Canal --- ---
12/30/08 Cruise Gatun Lake 9:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.
12/30/08 Panama Canal --- ---
12/30/08 Colon, Panama 3:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m.
12/31/08 Puerto Limon, Costa Rica 6:30 a.m. 7:00 p.m.
1/1/09 At Sea --- ---
1/2/09 George Town, Grand Cayman 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
1/3/09 At Sea --- ---
1/4/09 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 7:00 a.m. ---
Details:
We just returned from our fabulous voyage on the Rotterdam. We have always cruised four to a cabin, usually inside. Split up this time, my son and I in one and wife and 17 year old daughter in the other, outside on deck 1. I can not understand why DD does not want to share a room with her father or 20 year old brother.
We were anxious to leave icy roads and below zero temperatures for warmer climes. We spent one trouble free night pre-cruise at the pleasant Comfort Inn Airport/Cruise Port South. Took a cab at eleven rather than wait for the free 12:30 shuttle and were on-board at 11:30, breezing through check in! Very nicely handled, online check in helped, the cruise document booklet was not required. HAL should quit saying that it is needed.
The ship is beautiful. My memory is not up to the task of identifying changes since our 1999 sailing. Perhaps the Pinnacle Grill is new? Certainly the ship has been well maintained. I just looked through the Berlitz 2009 cruise book and saw that they think the Rotterdam has a Java Cafe and an Odyssey Restaurant. How out of date is that?
Taking just a few toll-free phone calls to arrange, HAL handled our 5:00 Meet and Mingle well, providing the promised coffee, tea, water and cookies. Good group of about 30, with the hotel manager, cruise director, beverage manager, and Teresa whose title I have forgotten (events manager?) all putting in appearances. Regularly chatted with a few forum members throughout the cruise.
As you wish dining’s flexible schedule did not work well for us. (It was only “as you wish” if we did not want traditional dining.) Our two experiences without reservations led to dinner lasting an hour and forty-five minutes. That is too leisurely for me and interfered with show times and other evening plans. Reserving a table worked better, practically like fixed seating with the same wait staff. We were regularly seated at table 110 or 106 next to the port window.
Our vegetarian daughter faced some challenges. The vegetarian menu does not change for the duration and one of the entrees was unavailable. Items from this menu were not presented at the same time as ours was from the regular menu. She is not an adventurous eater. Not a big eater, she managed to pick and choose between the vegetarian menu and the vegetarian offerings on the regular menu. However, the cheese pizza from the child's menu was pepperoni. The replacement cheese pizza was also pepperoni! Oops. She was very upset to discover the pepperonis part way through. Talked to the food manager the next day, who promised to send one of the white uniformed managers to see that she was fed properly. Empty promise, we never saw a dining room manager at our table. I took off $6 per person per day off the hotel service charge. (Just kidding.)
With no vegetarian offerings at lunch in the dining room a few days later, she ordered a chef salad. "I am a vegetarian, I eat no meat, no fish. Cheese is OK." The instructions were too imprecise, the salad arrived with strips of chicken breast. The waiter took it to his work station to remove the chicken. Seemed surprised that this was not good enough for my daughter. Offered to get another, but we could imagine him carrying the salad back to the kitchen and bringing it right back out. I thought that HAL should have mastered vegetarian food well before 2009.
We ate all dinners in the dining room, most other meals in the Lido and were pleased with the presentation, selection and taste. The cruise must have been filled nearly to capacity, yet we always found seats in the Lido and Queen’s Lounge and other venues. I never had a long wait in the Lido or for elevators.
I did not bond with our cabin stewards. They never introduced themselves and I never learned their names. Occasionally the cabin was not straightened up until after lunch. I knew my son was showering daily, was not using my bath towel, but not using his. Turned out he was drying off with the hand towel. I switched to the hand towel too and found it adequate. This is the first cruise where the stewards followed the environmental notice and did not replace towels that we had hung back up. I did not get much out of the outside cabin. It was nice to see what the weather was like and natural light is great, but you can not sit and watch the ocean go by.
The stewards did not fill our fruit basket until day 10 and never cleaned the outside of our window. I took $3 per person per day off our hotel charge. (Just kidding.)
The cabin seemed huge with only two in it. Much easier to store stuff away. Was surprised that the settee and under bed drawers were full of linens. Were our stewards pack rats or what? The ship rolled enough to let us know we were at see, but little motion was felt on deck 1 and my wife had no trouble with sea sickness or mal de debarquement. Air conditioning worked great, we were able to bring the temperature down to 66 degrees. The thermostat looked like it could go lower.
Ports:
We enjoyed our day in the rain at Half Moon Cay. It was apparent that the Bahamian staff did not, they were cold and unhappy and reluctant to set up our clam shells. The beach was delightfully deserted and a light rain was a big improvement over the weather back home. The clamshells kept the rain off. All cabanas had been booked, but some remained empty throughout the day. There were no crowds at the buffet, a big improvement over our other visit with two ships at HMC. My son had a ball on the deep sea fishing excursion, catching two mahi-mahi.
Aruba:
The kids toured the island. I just walked the town and stumbled onto the Atlantis submarine. Departing in a few minutes, I saved $15 off the $114 shipboard price. The family of five ahead of me was pleased to save $75. Pretty cool excursion, lots of fish, a couple of sunken ships, and a dive to 130 feet.
Bonaire:
Our only new port this was the best snorkeling for fish watching I have ever had. The two site advanced snorkel excursion took us to Klein Bonaire and another site. The coral had taken a beating in the last hurricane, still looked nice. Great excursion. We want to go back to Bonaire.
Curacao:
The four of us took the Curacao Beach Express excursion to Cas Abao beach. Not really express, it was a 45 minute bus ride. The water was beautiful, fish scarce, and big chunks of broken coral made walking through the sand to the water difficult. Our guide was educated and dull, the driver a character. I could do the math that leaving the beach at 3:30 would not get us back to the ship for our 4:00 departure. The guide spent some extra time looking for the 24th member of our group. Or were there only 23 of us? They assumed the original count was wrong, stopped to view flamingos on the return trip, and faced some angry port officials for their tardiness. Arrived at the ship at 4:20, were unmoored at 4:22.
Panama Canal:
My wife took the Chagas River Adventure and Nature Walk, adding a few species to her birding life list. Excursion departures were an hour late. The rest of us stayed aboard to admire and photograph the engineering at Gatun Locks.
Cristobal, Panama:
I did not leave the cruise terminal, looked at the tourist tat and found the internet was not working at the business center. Enjoyed a Panama Beer and a Balboa Beer while chatting with entertainer Yacov Noy.
Puerto Limon, Costa Rica:
I explored the city on foot. Internet was $2 per hour vs. up to $42 per hour on board, faster too. Enjoyed a Pilsen and Imperial Beer at an outside table and watched the locals queue 35 deep for a couple of ATMs. Found the thriving downtown area fascinating.
Grand Cayman:
$16 to get to beach, we were dropped at a place that charged $35 for an umbrella and a set of snorkeling equipment. Seven Mile Beach was pleasant, water nice and the walk back to the ship was invigorating.
Entertainment was what you would expect. Uncharacteristically, I sat through a whole show by the Rotterdam cast, singing 50s and 60s songs. Only lasted a couple of numbers in their other shows. Juggler David Deeble was more comedian than juggler and good fun. Yacov Noy is a talented mime, but how much appeal is there in that art form? His second appearance, at the farewell show, was not appreciated by the audience. Judy Kolba’s three appearances were well received. Her brashness and thick accent reminded many of Charo, but Judy is funny and can sing. Doug Mattox pleased many with his banjo playing.
Exploration speaker Michael Millwood was the best ever cruise ship lecturer on the Panama Canal and on Columbus’s first voyage, knowledgeable and amusing. He also showed a striking resemblance to Santa Claus, who passed out gifts to kids in the Queen’s Lounge. Some of the kids were awful cute. It looked like the little kids received backpacks.
My son overheard the port shopping ambassador tell someone, "Missing this shop in Grand Cayman is like going to Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower." Ha! We are not shoppers. The idea that someone would listen to a paid shill for stores cracks me up.
This is the first cruise that I liked a cruise director, Jesse Highley, whom I saw “out and about.” He kept announcements to a minimum and was not too aloof to run a few excellent trivia contests. Amber on his staff was also excellent. We came away with a bunch of key chains, luggage tags and dam dollars (thanks to fellow CCer Dushi and others. Dushi actually studied for the Panama Canal trivia contest! Thanks again.) Piano man Jeff Warren’s Name that Tune contests were also well run. Thanks for the dam mug.
Silent disembarkation worked like a dream for us, walked off at 9:10, found our luggage quickly, and were in a cab to the airport in no time at all. Does everyone else know that the ship’s transfers to the airport are slower and more expensive? I would take a cab even if I had purchased transportation through HAL.
Again, excellent cruise, rated 8 out of 10, great time had by my whole dam family.
Executive summary: Excellent cruise, rated 8 out of 10, typical of Holland America. Cruise director and his staff, food, and itinerary were top notch. Anytime dining and service were a minor let down. I was less bothered by cigarette smoke on this cruise. I do not set foot in the casino, but appreciated that there was no smoke haze drifting out before 10:30 PM. The Ocean Bar area was nasty with smoke, drifting all the way into the Queen’s Lounge. Was annoyed once by just one smoker upwind on the promenade. I prefer the way that Royal Caribbean banned smoking on one side of the ship. Still, I never found my clothes reeking. If you are looking for information on shopping or spas you are reading the wrong post.
Planned itinerary:
12/23/08 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida --- 5:00 p.m.
12/24/08 Half Moon Cay, Bahamas 8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m.
12/25/08 At Sea --- ---
12/26/08 Oranjestad, Aruba 1:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m.
12/28/08 Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
12/28/08 Willemstad, Curacao 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
12/29/08 At Sea --- ---
12/30/08 Panama Canal --- ---
12/30/08 Cruise Gatun Lake 9:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.
12/30/08 Panama Canal --- ---
12/30/08 Colon, Panama 3:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m.
12/31/08 Puerto Limon, Costa Rica 6:30 a.m. 7:00 p.m.
1/1/09 At Sea --- ---
1/2/09 George Town, Grand Cayman 8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.
1/3/09 At Sea --- ---
1/4/09 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 7:00 a.m. ---
Details:
We just returned from our fabulous voyage on the Rotterdam. We have always cruised four to a cabin, usually inside. Split up this time, my son and I in one and wife and 17 year old daughter in the other, outside on deck 1. I can not understand why DD does not want to share a room with her father or 20 year old brother.
We were anxious to leave icy roads and below zero temperatures for warmer climes. We spent one trouble free night pre-cruise at the pleasant Comfort Inn Airport/Cruise Port South. Took a cab at eleven rather than wait for the free 12:30 shuttle and were on-board at 11:30, breezing through check in! Very nicely handled, online check in helped, the cruise document booklet was not required. HAL should quit saying that it is needed.
The ship is beautiful. My memory is not up to the task of identifying changes since our 1999 sailing. Perhaps the Pinnacle Grill is new? Certainly the ship has been well maintained. I just looked through the Berlitz 2009 cruise book and saw that they think the Rotterdam has a Java Cafe and an Odyssey Restaurant. How out of date is that?
Taking just a few toll-free phone calls to arrange, HAL handled our 5:00 Meet and Mingle well, providing the promised coffee, tea, water and cookies. Good group of about 30, with the hotel manager, cruise director, beverage manager, and Teresa whose title I have forgotten (events manager?) all putting in appearances. Regularly chatted with a few forum members throughout the cruise.
As you wish dining’s flexible schedule did not work well for us. (It was only “as you wish” if we did not want traditional dining.) Our two experiences without reservations led to dinner lasting an hour and forty-five minutes. That is too leisurely for me and interfered with show times and other evening plans. Reserving a table worked better, practically like fixed seating with the same wait staff. We were regularly seated at table 110 or 106 next to the port window.
Our vegetarian daughter faced some challenges. The vegetarian menu does not change for the duration and one of the entrees was unavailable. Items from this menu were not presented at the same time as ours was from the regular menu. She is not an adventurous eater. Not a big eater, she managed to pick and choose between the vegetarian menu and the vegetarian offerings on the regular menu. However, the cheese pizza from the child's menu was pepperoni. The replacement cheese pizza was also pepperoni! Oops. She was very upset to discover the pepperonis part way through. Talked to the food manager the next day, who promised to send one of the white uniformed managers to see that she was fed properly. Empty promise, we never saw a dining room manager at our table. I took off $6 per person per day off the hotel service charge. (Just kidding.)
With no vegetarian offerings at lunch in the dining room a few days later, she ordered a chef salad. "I am a vegetarian, I eat no meat, no fish. Cheese is OK." The instructions were too imprecise, the salad arrived with strips of chicken breast. The waiter took it to his work station to remove the chicken. Seemed surprised that this was not good enough for my daughter. Offered to get another, but we could imagine him carrying the salad back to the kitchen and bringing it right back out. I thought that HAL should have mastered vegetarian food well before 2009.
We ate all dinners in the dining room, most other meals in the Lido and were pleased with the presentation, selection and taste. The cruise must have been filled nearly to capacity, yet we always found seats in the Lido and Queen’s Lounge and other venues. I never had a long wait in the Lido or for elevators.
I did not bond with our cabin stewards. They never introduced themselves and I never learned their names. Occasionally the cabin was not straightened up until after lunch. I knew my son was showering daily, was not using my bath towel, but not using his. Turned out he was drying off with the hand towel. I switched to the hand towel too and found it adequate. This is the first cruise where the stewards followed the environmental notice and did not replace towels that we had hung back up. I did not get much out of the outside cabin. It was nice to see what the weather was like and natural light is great, but you can not sit and watch the ocean go by.
The stewards did not fill our fruit basket until day 10 and never cleaned the outside of our window. I took $3 per person per day off our hotel charge. (Just kidding.)
The cabin seemed huge with only two in it. Much easier to store stuff away. Was surprised that the settee and under bed drawers were full of linens. Were our stewards pack rats or what? The ship rolled enough to let us know we were at see, but little motion was felt on deck 1 and my wife had no trouble with sea sickness or mal de debarquement. Air conditioning worked great, we were able to bring the temperature down to 66 degrees. The thermostat looked like it could go lower.
Ports:
We enjoyed our day in the rain at Half Moon Cay. It was apparent that the Bahamian staff did not, they were cold and unhappy and reluctant to set up our clam shells. The beach was delightfully deserted and a light rain was a big improvement over the weather back home. The clamshells kept the rain off. All cabanas had been booked, but some remained empty throughout the day. There were no crowds at the buffet, a big improvement over our other visit with two ships at HMC. My son had a ball on the deep sea fishing excursion, catching two mahi-mahi.
Aruba:
The kids toured the island. I just walked the town and stumbled onto the Atlantis submarine. Departing in a few minutes, I saved $15 off the $114 shipboard price. The family of five ahead of me was pleased to save $75. Pretty cool excursion, lots of fish, a couple of sunken ships, and a dive to 130 feet.
Bonaire:
Our only new port this was the best snorkeling for fish watching I have ever had. The two site advanced snorkel excursion took us to Klein Bonaire and another site. The coral had taken a beating in the last hurricane, still looked nice. Great excursion. We want to go back to Bonaire.
Curacao:
The four of us took the Curacao Beach Express excursion to Cas Abao beach. Not really express, it was a 45 minute bus ride. The water was beautiful, fish scarce, and big chunks of broken coral made walking through the sand to the water difficult. Our guide was educated and dull, the driver a character. I could do the math that leaving the beach at 3:30 would not get us back to the ship for our 4:00 departure. The guide spent some extra time looking for the 24th member of our group. Or were there only 23 of us? They assumed the original count was wrong, stopped to view flamingos on the return trip, and faced some angry port officials for their tardiness. Arrived at the ship at 4:20, were unmoored at 4:22.
Panama Canal:
My wife took the Chagas River Adventure and Nature Walk, adding a few species to her birding life list. Excursion departures were an hour late. The rest of us stayed aboard to admire and photograph the engineering at Gatun Locks.
Cristobal, Panama:
I did not leave the cruise terminal, looked at the tourist tat and found the internet was not working at the business center. Enjoyed a Panama Beer and a Balboa Beer while chatting with entertainer Yacov Noy.
Puerto Limon, Costa Rica:
I explored the city on foot. Internet was $2 per hour vs. up to $42 per hour on board, faster too. Enjoyed a Pilsen and Imperial Beer at an outside table and watched the locals queue 35 deep for a couple of ATMs. Found the thriving downtown area fascinating.
Grand Cayman:
$16 to get to beach, we were dropped at a place that charged $35 for an umbrella and a set of snorkeling equipment. Seven Mile Beach was pleasant, water nice and the walk back to the ship was invigorating.
Entertainment was what you would expect. Uncharacteristically, I sat through a whole show by the Rotterdam cast, singing 50s and 60s songs. Only lasted a couple of numbers in their other shows. Juggler David Deeble was more comedian than juggler and good fun. Yacov Noy is a talented mime, but how much appeal is there in that art form? His second appearance, at the farewell show, was not appreciated by the audience. Judy Kolba’s three appearances were well received. Her brashness and thick accent reminded many of Charo, but Judy is funny and can sing. Doug Mattox pleased many with his banjo playing.
Exploration speaker Michael Millwood was the best ever cruise ship lecturer on the Panama Canal and on Columbus’s first voyage, knowledgeable and amusing. He also showed a striking resemblance to Santa Claus, who passed out gifts to kids in the Queen’s Lounge. Some of the kids were awful cute. It looked like the little kids received backpacks.
My son overheard the port shopping ambassador tell someone, "Missing this shop in Grand Cayman is like going to Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower." Ha! We are not shoppers. The idea that someone would listen to a paid shill for stores cracks me up.
This is the first cruise that I liked a cruise director, Jesse Highley, whom I saw “out and about.” He kept announcements to a minimum and was not too aloof to run a few excellent trivia contests. Amber on his staff was also excellent. We came away with a bunch of key chains, luggage tags and dam dollars (thanks to fellow CCer Dushi and others. Dushi actually studied for the Panama Canal trivia contest! Thanks again.) Piano man Jeff Warren’s Name that Tune contests were also well run. Thanks for the dam mug.
Silent disembarkation worked like a dream for us, walked off at 9:10, found our luggage quickly, and were in a cab to the airport in no time at all. Does everyone else know that the ship’s transfers to the airport are slower and more expensive? I would take a cab even if I had purchased transportation through HAL.
Again, excellent cruise, rated 8 out of 10, great time had by my whole dam family.