Live from the Oosterdam

Greetings to all from the Oosterdam..

We are at sea heading for Half Moon Cay tomorrow.

It ha been a good cruise so far but the weather has been iffy..

We've had a mixture of sun and showers at all three ports so far and the seas have been a little choppy because of the winds.

Today however, is a scorcher and everyone is making up for lost sun time

We have made great use of our big balconies in 5187 and 5186.. One or the other has always had wind protection and we have spent a great deal of time on them.

We met MrBucky and his wife and they are joining us on the balcony for drinks before dinner.

Food has been decent to good except for the Pinnacle Grill which was outstanding.. We are going back there tomorrow night.

Service has been wonderfull all over the ship and with our trip on Explorer of the Seas in October, it's easy to make a comparison...There is none. Holland America is superb in everyway.

Will compile a full review when we get back..

Scott

Thanks for thinking of us, Scott. I think. As I sit here watching unending rain fall outside my window. With no one to serve me drinks. Or make the bed. Or bring me lunch, for that matter. Ah well, only 2 more weeks to go!

:rolleyes:

Glad to hear you are having a wonderful cruise. I have that exact same two rooms booked for the Zuiderdam in March. Can't wait!!!!!!

Scott, so glad to hear it is going great. We were on the Oosterdam in May for Alaska and loved her. We will be in cabin 5187 this coming October on the Oosterdam when she is doing the Mexican Rivieria. Hope you can take lots of pictures of that cabin:p

Is Capt. Mercer still the Capt.? He was great.

Thanks for reporting in.

We made it back home last night but it wasn't easy..

Delta made us run through Cinci to make the connection.. We did, the bags didn't

Got them late last night..

Don't have time to post this morning, our legislature convenes this morning and I need to make sure my Lobbying hat still fits.

Will start the review tonight but a couple of key points.

Horse back riding at HMC was great, highly recommended but not for first time riders

Pinnacle Grill was great food but takes 2 1/2 hours start to finish.

If you can book a corner aft S suite on the Vista class suites DO IT!!!

More later.

I am glad you had a blast... we did too.. i am sorry i did not meet any CCer's but i have a full review of the O coming up!

Scott and his group are wonderful hosts. We had a great time with them during our week. My wife and I had our arms twisted (we volunteered to be bumped) at FLL and stayed another evening at the marina. Got to watch the Viking-Packer game. And NWA gave us vouchers for another trip. We enjoyed every aspect of the trip. I might write more later as it is noon and I should go to work sometime today, since I missed yesterday too. Can't get out of the cruise mode.

Now............where to go with those free air vouchers???!!!!

Laffnvegas.........Yes, Capt. Mercer

We have 4185, a corner aft on Oosterdam for Pacific Coastal B2B. I was wondering what this would be like. Thanks, want more info!

I have pictures of the cocktail party on our balcony.. If i can figure out how to post it i will.

The aft suites are great..So much room it's hard to decribe..At the cocktail party we had 4 couples and there was more then enough room outside..

I ordered hot and cold appetizers fr 8 and there was no charge..

Our cabin steward kept the ice machine room unlocked and it was just down the hall so if we needed more ice,glassware or ice buckets I just went and got them..

Inside, storage is more them ample, in fact we used one closet to store suitecases instead of putting them under the bed.

Speaking of bed.. The new pillow top mattresses are to die for.. I slept like a deadman everynight.

The cabin steward- Tafuk was great.. Every morning I would go up to lido for coffee and he always seemed to be waiting for me to open the cabin door..I tipped him an extra $20 at the end of the week and he seemed most appreciative. Although our friends in 5186 had a different steward and didn't think he was that great.

We used the concierge a couple of times (Stephanie ) and she was very accomodating and friendly.

I mentioned earlier that food the dining room was decent.. It is very difficult to cook for 1800 and have everything perfect but it was much better then the Explorer of the Seas we sailed in October.

The Pinnacle food was awesome but again, be prepared to spend 2 1/2 hours there. I think they want dinner there to be a long drawn out experience.. If your up for that ..great.. If not you'll be a little frustrated.

The Lido buffet was actually very good with good selection and quality.. It can get a little crowded if you go at peak times..Breakfast the morning we arived back in FLL was a madhouse.. I think i could have auctioned off our table when we got done eating.

Those of you interested in sports (like the Superbowl) They show it in the Casino lounge.. I was disappointed that they didn't carry the Orange bowl but did have the Sugar and Fiesta Bowls..

Interestingly enough, they had a paragraph in the daily newsletter about not having Fox News available on board.. Something to do with contracts..All we got was the American hating CNN International and the daily New York Times.

Needless to stay a weeks worth of liberal bias was about all I could handle.

The improvements to Half Moon Cay are good ones.. The waterpark for kids keeps most of them occupied makes the beach farther down less crowded. We were there with Maasdam and despite two ships it didn't seem crowded at all.

The girls went horseback riding and it took most of the morning but they loved it and said it was the best excursion they had been on.

We had a great time with MrBucky (Mark and Deb) We ran into them on the pool deck the day we pulled out and saw them alot throughout the week.

In fact, Mark give me a call sometime when you guys are down in the big city and we;ll go grab some dinner..

All and all a great cruise despite iffy weather..

Scott

Scott,

Can you do me a huge favor and pass along my greetings to Hotel Manager, Mr. James Deering?

Thanks so much and enjoy your cruise!

Steve

To Scott and Mark and Deb, sounds like you both had a great time on the Oosterdam. Of course it is always good to get away from Iowa in the winter. I was born and raised in Cedar Rapids and DH is from Alta near Storm Lake and we met up at UNI in Cedar Falls. I am sure the worse part was to come home to the cold and Unfortuately I hear it has been really cold.

Scott did you by chance get any pictures of cabin 5187? That will be our Home Sweet Home October 8th of this year for a week:D

Stay warm,

Laffnvegas.......my daughter is home for long weekend from UNI. She has been trying to attach picture of Scott's deck. Attemps have failed due to being too large. She cropped it, but I told her that it loses the effect of the size of that thing when showing only a tiny portion. Hopefully Scott or Allison are more saavy with computers.

We also had a great cabin steward. As Scott said, open the door and they seem to be waiting in the hall for any requests. I tipped $5 when we met him the first time as soon as we boarded and the ice bucket was full. That ice bucket was always full!

We had cooler weather on the cruise. Don't remember working up a sweat at any time.

Scott.......... if you have the urge to tromp around in the snow with your dog, you are welcome to come up here and chase some birds. Thanks for the invite for dinner. We've found out that we now need to eat every hour or so!

Laffnvegas.......my daughter is home for long weekend from UNI. She has been trying to attach picture of Scott's deck. Attemps have failed due to being too large. She cropped it, but I told her that it loses the effect of the size of that thing when showing only a tiny portion. Hopefully Scott or Allison are more saavy with computers.

 

We also had a great cabin steward. As Scott said, open the door and they seem to be waiting in the hall for any requests. I tipped $5 when we met him the first time as soon as we boarded and the ice bucket was full. That ice bucket was always full!

If you would like you could just email me the pics at laffnvegas@aol.com

I Know I have problems posting pictures and cropping them also. I think my problem is my pics and camera has too many pixels and I am not that computer saavy:o

Thanks though:D

Laffnvegas......sent a few of the ship. The rest have a bunch of drunks from Iowa and New Mexico in them. Not much interest for you.

Laffnvegas,

I'll try and get my DW to send you a few.. I am more dangerous on a computer than effective.

Mark, too damn cold to do anything outside.. It's all I can do to get the horses fed and stalls cleaned in the morning..

They're saying 33 for Tuesday.. Might have to get the shorts back out!!

Scott...........on the way to work this morning DW hit the outdoor temp button in her car. -18 F. She said that can't be right. This thing is broke. I laughed and said welcome home.

Just a thought re: your pics. I use PhotoSuite to crop, then use the Olympus Camedia program that came with the camera to resize to about 600 x 400. They then seem to work out fine when I try to e-mail pics. Of course I am a total amateur at this and some real talented people will probably cringe, but it works for me!

Not to turn this into a "Photo Session"... I shoot a LOT of digital pics, both personal & in the real estate biz. Try downloading Irfanview, located at http://www.irfanview.com FREE & the program I've used for many years to re-size, view, do easy slide shows, etc... NO add-on ads or anything asking you to buy something! Just a GREAT photo program... Download is also quick & small...

Give it a try... Hope you use it as much as I do & enjoy it as much!