Nieuw Amsterdam B2B West/East Caribbean November 2014

I had some holiday days from work that needed to be used up by the end of the year so we booked this cruise pretty last minute. We had been on the NA in July in the Med and loved it so it was an easy decision to choose to get back onboard for our first trip to the Caribbean. I booked directly through HAL about 5 weeks prior to sailing and we booked a VD veranda stateroom under a special offer.

My Mum and I flew from the UK to Miami on November 15th on American Airlines. The flight was as ok as a 10hr flight ever is, but then we had a delay on the tarmac as we needed to be towed into the gate for some reason and they had trouble locating a towbar. Once off the plane we headed for immigration - it took over 2 hours for us to reach the front of the line. Our luggage was waiting for us to the side of the carousels when we finally got through so we grabbed that and were met at arrivals by a friendly HAL rep who looked very pleased to see us. The bus was waiting just outside and there were only 6 of us that made the journey to the Westin Fort Lauderdale Hotel – IIRC I think it took around 35 minutes to get there.

On arrival at the hotel there was a HAL desk and the gentleman there told us that luggage needed to be ready inside the room and would be picked up from 9am and that we should be in the lobby and ready to go just before 11am. We checked into the hotel and crashed out for the night.

Both the NA and the Eurodam were leaving from Port Everglades that day and there were a bus full of passengers leaving the hotel for each ship. The transfer was quick and easy. Once we got to the port, we identified our luggage and then the porters took it from there. There wasn’t much of a queue to check in, we didn’t wait more than 5 minutes and then we were all sea-passed up and ready to go. We went upstairs to the boarding area. They were taking embarkation photos just prior to boarding which slowed the line a little but within 10mins we were excitedly climbing the gangway to get back onto the beautiful Nieuw Amsterdam.

We went straight to our stateroom (deck 6, the same as last time but the opposite side of the ship) and dumped our carry ons and then headed to the lido for lunch. I’d expected this to be crazy busy but it was nice and civilised and we were easily able to get a table. After lunch we went back to our room and were pleased to see our luggage had arrived. As we started to unpack we met our cabin steward Wayan and his assistant Adi. They both did a great job of looking after us throughout the trip. After finding a place for everything we headed to the Sea View Pool to enjoy the sunshine and wait for Sail Away. We were scheduled to leave at 4pm but had to wait for Celebrity Silhouette to go first and they had some kind of emergency so it was nearer to 5 by the time we left. It gave us chance to watch Eurodam go first, followed by one of the mahoosive RCL ships (possibly Allure?). There was a great atmosphere on deck and we enjoyed waving to the people in the flats nearby. We were excited to see that the Cruise Director for this sailing was Mario Vines – the same as on our Med cruise. He is a really great guy and we knew that we were in safe hands. We were still jet-laggy that night so had a quick dinner in the lido and then were in bed early (couldn’t stay up late enough for the 9.30pm show)

The next morning we arrived in Half Moon Cay – gorgeous! The ship stopped and then turned around 180 degrees and then the local tender boats approached. We had no queue to get onto a tender and within 10mins were on the island. It was a beautiful beach and we spent the morning relaxing in our clam shell, ambling down the beach and people watching. I didn’t think a great deal of the buffet lunch. At around 1pm we decided to head back to the ship and boarded a tender. We sat on the top deck and expected to leave pretty quickly but we waited…. and waited. Apparently the sea conditions had changed and it was no longer safe for us to tender back to the ship. As we waited on the tender, we were told that the Captain was re-positioning the ship to a safer location. It was strange to see the NA sail away from us and reassuring when she came back 10mins later. Mario came round giving people some water and telling people to make sure they had lots of sunscreen on. All in all we were on the tender for about 90 mins.. it wasn’t ideal but safety comes first and we made lots of friends while we waited. The tender ride was pretty hair raising but the crew ensured that we all got off safely – they did a great job. Once back on the ship we grabbed some pizza and relaxed on the balcony until it was time for dinner. We were on open seating in the MDR and easily got a table for 2 at 6.30pm. Our waiter was Chandra and he was exceptional

Really enjoying your review - hope there is more to come :D

Thanks for taking the time to write this review. Always nice to read about other cruisers adventures. We had the ship leave once in the Caribbean. It had to go further out to sea but came back later on when the tide turned. It is a funny feeling to realize it is going away from you. We probably watched you leave Ft Lauderdale on the webcam at the port. Sorry you had to wait so long at customs.

Good start to your review.

Looking forward to your review and your thoughts as a first time Carribean cruiser.

I'm enjoying your review, and I look forward to reading more.

Interesting to read your review so far. I was on the same cruise as you for 2 weeks. We even had the same waiter. After the first night in open dining I knew I wanted to sit in his section whenever I went to the MDR. We must have been close to each other. Small world.

Interesting to read your review so far. I was on the same cruise as you for 2 weeks. We even had the same waiter. After the first night in open dining I knew I wanted to sit in his section whenever I went to the MDR. We must have been close to each other. Small world.

Cruz Chic - I think we may have shared a table one night... along with a farmer from Alberta?! I only realised afterwards when I read POA's review and he described you.

Cruz Chic - I think we may have shared a table one night... along with a farmer from Alberta?! I only realised afterwards when I read POA's review and he described you.

Oh yes, the farmer. He was an interesting fellow:D. That was me. I had forgotten about him.

Enjoying your review, looking forward to more of it, thanks for posting.

Enjoying your review especially as we will be sailing on the NA in March for the Caribbean.

Very interested in your review as we will be doing this cruise in February. Thanks for you taking time to share.

Enjoying your review, Thank you.

The next day was a sea day and was spent relaxing by the SeaView Pool, people watching, reading and planning what we were going to eat next! We loved that the carpets in the lifts had the days of the week on them so that we always knew which day it was – you do tend to lose track of this on holiday! Dinner that night was Formal and we enjoyed getting dressed up and seeing (almost) everyone in their finery. Gents were ok in a shirt & tie or a shirt & jacket but those without a tie or a jacket were politely loaned a jacket before being allowed in to the MDR. We shared a table in the MDR with 2 lovely couples and really enjoyed their company. I had the BEST pudding that night, can’t remember the name but I think it was a flourless chocolate cake… a bit like a fondant. Yum! Not sure if I have my dates right here but I think the show on this day was ‘Island Magic’. This is a steel band quartet from Trinidad. I was a bit reluctant to listen to yet another steel band but this was brilliant. They didn’t play the usual kind of steel pan music – they concentrated on classical pieces and songs from musicals. Ave Maria brought the house down and they got a long standing ovation. I can’t recommend these guys highly enough.

Grand Cayman was the next stop and we tendered from the ship (using the lifeboats) quickly as we had booked an excursion through HAL. We had a great time at Stingray City Sandbar. It was amazing to be in the middle of the ocean but still be able to stand up as the water was only 2-4 feet deep. We enjoyed interacting with the Stingrays for an hour and then the boat took us back to the island. Our all aboard time had changed from 3.30pm to 1.30pm because of anticipated swells. We arrived back at the tender port at 12noon and there was a huge queue snaking back as everyone obviously decided to go back at the same time. We waited a long time and no tenders seemed to be moving. This was because the sea was too rough for the lifeboats to dock with the ship. Carnival also had a long tender queue but theirs moved fairly quickly as they were using local boats instead of lifeboats and could carry more people. Once the Carnival guests were all onboard, HAL started to use these larger boats too. After more than 2 hours in line we got onto a boat and set off towards the ship but the sea was too rough for us to dock. We circled the ship twice (getting some great photos!) but then had to go back to the shore. A larger double decker boat was waiting for us (the final tender of the day) and we transferred to that. We made it back to the ship this time but there were swells of 6-8 feet so exiting the boat had to be controlled and well timed to ensure the gangway was crossable. Once again, HAL staff (& the boat crew) did an outstanding job. It took nearly an hour to get all passengers back onto the boat. This was thankfully the final tender that we had on this trip!

Cozumel in Mexico was our next stop and we docked next to an MSC ship which I think was the Divina. The dockside was very busy and lots of people got straight onto boats that would take them to the mainland. We elected to have a quiet day so got off a bit later, did some shopping, used free wifi and then came back to the ship to enjoy some time by the pool. We found that the souvenirs here were among the cheapest of the whole trip. It did rain a little that day but not for long. We were in port until 11pm, so a lot of people were still off the ship at dinner time. They closed the fixed seating on level 3 so everyone could dine whenever it suited them. Dress code in the MDR that night was ‘Tropical Casual’ - I’m still not sure exactly what this means!

We had another relaxing sea day the next day before arriving at Key West, which was the last port of call on the first segment of the trip. We were invited to attend the Mariners lunch on this day which was nice. We also had a meeting in the showroom for all passengers staying on the ship for the next cruise. CD Mario explained to us exactly what would happen on changeover day, and also told us that he would be leaving the ship in FL for a well-deserved holiday. We were very sorry to hear this! I think it was this day (I might be a day out) that ‘The Marriage Game’ was put on in the Queen’s Lounge. This is what we know as ‘Mr & Mrs’ in the UK. They get the couple married the longest, the shortest and a couple inbetween to play. Mario and Show Host Arias did a great job presenting this and several answers brought the house down.

Great review, thanks. Sorry to hear about the tendering situation at Grand Cayman. Sounds like you kept a positive attitude and rolled with the punches.

We, too, saw Island Magic on Eurodam this month. They are definitely skilled and enthusiastic. Definitely something you don't see every day.

Grand Cayman is often a nightmare trying to tender. Last time we were in GC there were 8 ships. My DH decided to go into port for just a short time and he ended up waiting for a tender back for hours like you did.

I've pretty much quit going into tender ports because of rough waters coming up suddenly and difficulties especially embarking and disembarking the tender. The crew does a good job helping, but we have seen people fall and be hurt. I also have vertigo and bouncing around on a tender can be a real problem with dizziness for me.

Grand Cayman is often a nightmare trying to tender. Last time we were in GC there were 8 ships. My DH decided to go into port for just a short time and he ended up waiting for a tender back for hours like you did.

 

I've pretty much quit going into tender ports because of rough waters coming up suddenly and difficulties especially embarking and disembarking the tender. The crew does a good job helping, but we have seen people fall and be hurt. I also have vertigo and bouncing around on a tender can be a real problem with dizziness for me.

I've never seen anything as bad as it was in Cayman that day. I had decided not to go in because I had a bad experience in Cabo a few months before. I have no idea how those people made it back onto the ship. I watched from my balcony for a while but it was really upsetting so I had to leave. My heart went out to anyone that had to get back on the ship that day. To say it was frightening is putting it way to mildly.

We docked at the old naval pier in Key West. One of the Disney ships was due in at the other port but for some reason they did not make the stop. Everyone had to get their passport checked by US Immigration before they could get off the ship. This was done by calling people by deck number, starting from the top. US (& Canadian??) citizens went to the showroom I think, and we, along with all other passport holders went to the Half Moon meeting room just past the shops on deck 3. It didn’t take long and we were soon off the ship. There were complimentary trollies and little trains that would take you from the ship to downtown Key West. What a great place – we loved it! I had pre-purchased tickets for the City View Trolley and stop #1 was just across the street from where we were dropped off. The tour takes approx.. an hour to do a full loop but you are allowed to hop on and off as much as you wish all day (I think there were 8 stops along the way). We decided to do the complete loop and really enjoyed it. The driver was really funny and informative and it was a great way to see the island. At the end of the tour we walked back a little as I wanted to try and find Kermit’s – it would be rude to be in Key West and not try Key Lime Pie! It was easy to find and sold everything that you could possibly think of in Key Lime flavour – pie, sweets, jam…even wine! I quickly nommed my way through my slice and thoroughly enjoyed it. We walked back to Duval Street to engage in a little retail therapy. There were lots of souvenir shops selling t shirts and the like. We also found outlet shops for Crocs, Coach and Banana Republic. I got slightly excited in the Coach store as this brand is expensive in the UK. Prices seemed pretty good and then I was given a flyer to say everything had a further 50% off the lowest ticked price – result! Did quite a bit of Christmas shopping there. When we were all shopped out we got the trolley back to the ship and had a late lunch there. Dinner that night was the International Menu and we are not fans of that so we enjoyed a casual meal in the lido instead. It was fairly quiet, probably because a lot of people were disembarking in Fort Lauderdale the next day and had to pack. The show that night was ‘Dancing With The Stars At Sea’ It was great to see passengers paired up with the ships dancers and they put on a great show. We also got to meet Jeremy, the new CD, who had a couple of days handover with Mario. This was his first assignment as a CD after recently being promoted. I believe he used to be a Show Host on the Noordam.

Hi jellifer, the cdns went thru the half moon room too. The U.S. citizens are on their own. We stopped at kermits too. The pie was yummy.

The next morning we docked back at Fort Lauderdale at around 7am. Our balcony overlooked the dock and we enjoyed watching all of the luggage coming off the ship, and the vast quantities of supplies going on board. It’s a really well organised operation. We opted to stay on the ship and have a nice relaxing day. After breakfast we found a spot by the Sea View pool and enjoyed the sunshine. At around 9.45am all b2b passengers were instructed to go to the showroom on level 2. There were drinks and snacks there for us and it took around 40mins to get everyone to the showroom so that the ship could be zeroed out. We exited the showroom, had our cards zapped to show we were ‘back’ on the ship and then had the pleasure of there only being a couple of hundred of us onboard until the newbies arrived, It was a gorgeous sunny day with a light breeze… heaven. By lunchtime it was getting a bit more crowded but we went early to grab a burger at the Dive In. This is well organised in that you order and they give you a beeper to tell you when your food is ready. The burgers were really yum - I had the cannonball which has bacon, cheese & caramelised onions. Chips are great too and the secret Dive In sauce was perfect for dunking chips into. (I still haven’t started the post-cruise diet…ooops!) We spent the rest of the afternoon in a slight carb coma sunbathing in our favourite spot by the Sea View Pool. They put on a pizza party for sail away and I felt obliged to try it as they had gone to so much trouble. We went down to dinner (I know – more food!) at around 7pm and it was manic. The queue was really long and we were shocked as we hadn’t had to wait at all the previous week. There were obviously a lot more people on board this week as it was a Thanksgiving holiday cruise. There were a lot of large family groups, which was lovely to see. We shared a table with a nice couple from Canada and they gave us some good tips about the upcoming ports. The menu format seemed to change this night – out went the old leatherette menu covers and in came a one page menu card. They still had the everyday selections but they were located within each course rather than being separated out on the left hand page.

Another beautiful sea day came next and this was spent in the gym and at the salad bar. Oh no it wasn’t! I went to a presentation given by the Shopping Ambassador team which was a girl called Summer and her Transylvanian Fiancé Vlad. It mostly focussed on jewellery but gave some interesting information about the ports that we would be visiting. She gave out some spot prizes and there was also a raffle. Summer & Vlad were available in port in case anyone needed any advice or help with getting the best deal and they also had discount vouchers for certain shops. Again I may have got my days mixed up but I think that night the show was ‘Recycled Percussion’ On our way into the theatre, everyone was given a drumstick, earplugs and some kind of battered old saucepan/baking tray/metal thingy. We all bashed the heck out of these as a practice and then when the show started we were encouraged to make as much noise as possible as the main performers did their thing. We really enjoyed this show!

Thanks for your great reviews. The tendering in Grand Cayman sounds frightening. I hate tender ports anyway, and I do get nervous when we are bouncing around trying to line up with the ship. I was also interested in how you didn't have to actually leave the ship to zero down before the second segment. I thought everyone had to go ashore in order to do this. Thanks for sharing that info.

Will be sailing NA Feb. 8-22 and can someone tell me which pier# she sails from and also the nearest parking garage at the pier. TIA Really enjoying the reports from Jellifer.

Mary Ann

Thanks for your great reviews. The tendering in Grand Cayman sounds frightening. I hate tender ports anyway, and I do get nervous when we are bouncing around trying to line up with the ship. I was also interested in how you didn't have to actually leave the ship to zero down before the second segment. I thought everyone had to go ashore in order to do this. Thanks for sharing that info.

No they round you up in the theater. You have to scan in and out so it's like being off the ship in a way.

Grand Turk was the first port of call on this leg of the trip. We docked right next to the beautiful beach and it was a short walk down the pier to the little resort. Some people went on tours but we just wandered around the shops. On exiting the pier you end up in a duty free shop. As you leave the shop we were very amused to see 2 inflatable santas dressed in Caribbean shirts & grass skirts dancing by the door. Shop wise there were the usual jewellery suspects along with some nice smaller jewellery and gift shops. We spent a couple of hours browsing and people watching and then re-boarded just in time for lunch.

We had a morning at sea before arriving at San Juan at around 12:30pm. We were docked in between a Disney ship and an older looking Carnival ship. We had fun watching people zoom by on the water slides on the Disney ship as we docked. The first thing we noticed about San Juan was the heat and humidity – wowzers it was so different to the other places we had been to on the trip. We walked the short distance to the main shopping area and on towards the fort that we had passed as we sailed in. We enjoyed seeing how different the architecture was, and it was nice to see the buildings decorated for the holidays. We made a few purchases, including a crazy cheap pair of jeans at the Ralph Lauren outlet shop which we stumbled upon on the way back to the ship. We weren’t due to leave San Juan until 11pm so once again the dress code in the MDR was ‘Tropical Casual’.

The next day was Thanksgiving Day and we were in St Thomas. Being from the UK, Thanksgiving is not something we had ever experienced before. A lot of people that we met wished us a ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ or even ‘Happy Turkey Day’which made me smile. We docked at Crown Bay pier which is a couple of miles from Charlotte Amalie, the capital. There were minibuses put on that charged a flat rate of $4pp each way to get to/from the ship. Our driver was very friendly and happy to share his knowledge of the island. He dropped us off at the end of the main shopping street. We enjoyed looking around the town and the shops but as the morning went on it got a lot busier & there were lots of people talking to us on the street, trying to get us to visit their shops, who wouldn’t take no for an answer. We got another minibus back to the ship. There are some shops at Crown Bay but we were all shopped out so we got straight back on board. Dinner that night was Thanksgiving themed…. We enjoyed a full turkey dinner with all of the trimmings and then there were lots of pies to choose from for pudding. That night there was another game in the Queen’s lounge. I can’t recall what it was called but it was a bit like a scavenger hunt. The room was split into 4 teams and each team had to find whatever item was called and get it to the front before the other teams. Items called for ranged from a pack of cards, a dollar bill and a Rolex watch along with a whole host of random things. Some people had come prepared and had bags of stuff. It was a good atmosphere and things got competitive… in a friendly way! Show Host Arias seemed to come out of his shell in the second week of the trip and that was nice to see.

We had a final sea day on ‘Black Friday’. Weather was gorgeous so spent it lazing in the sun. We only moved from our loungers briefly to snag ourselves some lunch at the Dive In.

Our final day was back to beautiful Half Moon Cay. We arrived on time to see that the Zuiderdam was already there. We had decided to stay on the ship this time and treat it as a bonus sea day. There was an announcement that the tendering process had started but after a short while we started to hear people complain that there were very long queues to get onto a tender. The CD made an announcement to say that the weather conditions were making it difficult to tender but that they would reposition the ship and try again. At the start we had Zuiderdam on our right but by the time a safer spot had been found, it was waaaay to our left. Am guessing that this meant a much longer tender ride Quite a few people ended up staying on the ship but the ones that went to HMC reported that they’d had a good stop there. That night was the International Dinner so we went to the lido instead for dinner. I liked how the Lido served some of the same dishes as the MDR , and that you could pick whatever side dishes you wanted to go with it. The show was once again ‘Dancing With The Stars At Sea’. When that was over we made our way back to our room to finish our packing. It’s always a sad sight to see the lonely looking cases outside peoples staterooms on the last night of a cruise. When we got back to the room we were pleased to have been given our 2 star Mariner Society pins – we hadn’t been expecting to qualify for these yet so that was a nice surprise. We finished packing our cases and left them by the door as instructed.

We docked back at Fort Lauderdale again but unfortunately we were not dock side this time so couldn’t watch all of the goings on. We had a last breakfast in the lido and then went back to our room. We turned on the tv and had it on the channel where they give info about disembarkation. We had been given tags ‘red 2’ and were called to leave about 20 mins ahead of our scheduled time. We grabbed our hand luggage and made our way off the ship for the final time. As we entered the terminal there was a line of HAL employees waiting to say goodbye to everyone, which was a nice touch. We were directed to the huge baggage hall and it was very well organised, we quickly located our bags and got into the queue for Immigration. There were only a couple of people ahead of us so we were through in no time. We had booked a HAL excursion as we had a late flight back to the UK and we were directed to where we needed to be. Our luggage was put on the bus but it was quite a while ahead of the scheduled departure time so we had about an hour to wait. We’d booked ‘Fort Lauderdale by Land & Sea’. Our guide was a pleasant welsh lady and she took us on a brief bus tour of the city and then there were some stops where we walked around. She was very informative and we enjoyed seeing Fort Lauderdale, as it wasn’t somewhere we had ever considered visiting before. She then took us to a dock area where we boarded a boat for the water part of the tour. As we boarded she told us that there were complimentary drinks and snacks included in the tour but the staff on board contradicted this. We did eventually get some free drinks but I’m not sure what caused the mix up – we hadn’t been expecting anything for free until the guide mentioned it. The boat trip was enjoyable and the commentary was good. After seeing some of the lovely properties on the waterside we went back to the cruise ship pier area. It was great to see the ships so close up, and from such a small boat it really makes you appreciate how gigantic they are. The water was a lot more choppy out here but it wasn’t too bad. It was lovely to see ‘our’ Nieuw Amsterdam so soon again after we’d said goodbye to her, we just wished we had been able to sneak back on somehow! After the boat trip we met up with the bus again and it was time for drop offs. First we went to FLL airport to drop off everyone who was flying from there. People staying on in FL also got dropped here and were directed to shuttle buses to get back into town. Then we dropped the lucky people back at the ship that were staying on for another week of loveliness. Our guide left us at this point and there were just 4 of us (and the driver!) who made the trip to Miami airport, which took around 40mins.