Maasdam - Rio, Carnaval, the Amazon and more

Rio, Carnaval and the Amazon - or if the natives don't kill me my wife probably will.......

Well here we are. Getting here was relatively painless though our flight out of DFW was two hours late in leaving. We actually had two separate "maintenance issues" and had to return to the gate once. The flight itself was fine, for some reason I slept quite well. I guess the Ambien did not hurt.

We were quite lucky on arrival as we were at the front of a customs line of five planes worth of people. We met another couple from the ship (Tracey and Sharon ) and shared a wild taxi ride. The first thing to greet us was the heat, it's HOT here! The terminal is a string of warehouse shops, quite chaotic. We were able to locate the Booker International rep and get our Carnaval tickets thanks to the help from a Amsterdam Sauer rep. It was a little surreal as it was a young guy hanging out at the entrance. We showed our ID and were handed our tickets.

Check in was unusual as we actually checked in on the ship in the showroom, never done that before. Than it was off to the room, a modified handicap room we were in. Our booking was a guarantee so that's what HAL assigned us. I must say it is the largest inside cabin I have ever seen. It is located all the way forward, not sure about how it will be in rough seas. Also wonder about noise at docking but will have to wait on those two. Only two negatives so far is no refrigerator and there is only one plug in the whole room. Luckily as VT's (veteran travelers) we have a power strip.

After checking out the room we grabbed a light bite from Lido (did I mention that they barely feed us on the plane?), and went off to the spa. I wanted to sign us up for the Greenhouse Retreat deal which we did. More on that to come. Than it was checking out the ship, typical HAL, traditional and majestic, first impressions were very good. Yes we could find a few things such as loose handles in the elevator but overall she appears to be in good shape..

On our wanderings we saw the dinner menu as well as the offerings from the Pinnacle Grill. It has been over a year since we have sailed HAL and the PG menu was different (in a good way). Despite having reservation in PG later in the cruise the menu looked much more tempting than the main dining room so we opted to eat there our first night. I must say it was probably our best PG meal ever. Despite suspect service, the service was quick but the waiter that took our order did not seem familiar with the menu. One example was I asked him how were the side dish of carrots prepared and his response was "boiled" , yum. The meal itself was fantastic starting off with a single braised scallop in pumpkin purée. We than had carb cakes and mongo shrimp cocktail. For the main course we had Halibut ( the serving was huge and delicious) along with King Crab (maybe my favorite dish on the planet). We did get the carrots (in spite of the waiter description) as well as a side order of mushrooms. In one of those unexplainable things that sometimes happen on cruises, they brought us two servings of mushrooms. The first one was with the meal and the second was about half way through, to make it more strange they were prepared completely differently. Both versions were tasty however.. No dessert other than two plates of sweets (like the mushrooms, one was brought, devoured and removed and another came shortly later).

After that good food (and the drinks I forgot to mention from Happy Hour), the jet lag caught up with us so we were off to bed. Tomorrow will be busy with a tour and after dinner Carnaval!

Thank you for the post. It's wonderful to read more about the Maasdam as we board May 1st.

Thank you for checking.

Glad you have made it safely to Rio.

We did this cruise 2 years ago, it was amazing and I am so envious! Have the best time ever!

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Thanks for your report. Looking forward to hearing more!

how nice that you are doing a live thread.

Looking forward to hearing more. Thanks so much for checking in and posting:D

Thanks for posting.

Sounds like you're off to a good start.

Looking forward to reading more.

IIRC, you don't sail until tomorrow, so it isn;t too late for a Bon Voyage. I found the terminal quite stressful too.

Roy

Today was somewhat cloudy but cool, at least for Rio. Our CC group met in the Ocean Bar at 6:45 and we were hooked up with the guide by a little after 7:00. We had to wait for our bus but we finally got underway. One of the problems we had was many places the guide would normally take us inside (Cathedral, Theater, parts of old Rio) were closed due to Carnaval. In addition, many areas were sealed off with fencing or wooden barricades to keep the rowdies from damaging anything. The net impact of this was our tour went quicker as we could not enter these places. We saw floats from last nights show everywhere. We did make it to Christ the Redeemer and the crowd was not too bad. Quite an impressive site. First you have to ride a small tram up and than walk a short distance. All in all a good day.

We are off to Carnaval in a few hours. Hopefully it will go better than it did for folks last night as they had a a huge downpour during the show.

The ship is only about 2/3 full we are told with about 600 doing the full 49 days and 350 like us who just got on.

Thanks for taking us along. Good reporting.

Will be looking forward to your reports as we are doing this next year. Looking forward to carnival & our trip down the Amazon. Bon Voyage

Allan & Marlane

Looking forward to hearing all about it! Thanks.:)

Thanks for the report. I've got you bookmarked!

Thanks for taking us along on your cruise. Looking forward to your reports.

Thanks for your "live" reports.

Have a fabulous cruise.

Thanks for your live reports.. :)

We've done the Amazon twice & also been in Rio several times but never for Carnival.. That must really be exciting..:D

Looking forward to reliving our trips through your posts..

Bon Voyage!

Looking forwrad to more of your Live updates. Thanks

I am enjoying your reports thus far.

Carnaval, something everyone has heard of with wild anticipation of costumes, dancing, music and partying. After last night we can say it is that and more. What a show! Our tickets and transfer to the famous Sambradome had been made via Booker International. They had been incredibly responsive for the pre-trip communication. We had decided to pony up some more serious coin to get some of the best seats in the house in section 7. We're weren't front row but we were second row to what has to be one of the greatest spectaculars on the planet. We actually did have front row for the first school as the box in front of us was empty. We could not make it to the end but enjoyed what we did see. The return from the Sambradome was chaotic to say the least. Confusion reigned among the transfer company but we did make it eventually. I can't wait to spend time going through pictures. We actually took so many my camera battery died as the constant zooming in and out was more than it could stand. Luckily it was after we had taken over 300 pictures some of which are amazing.

We returned to the ship, fell asleep only to be awakened by a screeching sound of smoothing forward of our cabin. I am talking very loud here. Apparently the ship was relocating in the harbor and we were enjoying the sound of the thrusters. As of this writing we are still in negotiations with Guest Relations on whether our room should be changed as we really prefer to sleep past 5:00 am.

Thanks for a fun read. We'll be in the Ryndam bow for Iceland in August. Can't wait to catalog the noises LOL

I look forward to reading more about your trip. We spent two weeks in Brazil last March, it is spectacular. Rio is imbedded in my memory bank forever and the Amazon ports are so unique. We missed Carnival so we must return to Rio.

Hope you post some pictures of the Carnaval.

Allan & Marlane

Can you tell me which level is used for the As You Wish dining?

Thanks!

Hope you post some pictures of the Carnaval.

Allan & Marlane

The Internet is soooooooo slow we will have to wait until,we get back for pictures.

Can you tell me which level is used for the As You Wish dining?

 

Thanks!

It is deck 7 which is the lower level.