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Veendam Dry Dock - Has the ship left yet?


siebelqueen

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I understand that they departure has been delayed by one day and they are returning one day early as well.

 

Have you been offered any compensation for the loss of 2 days of your cruise? I'm curious because my mother in law and her seniors club are booked on this cruise.

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I'm sorry to hear about the delay. We were afraid of that happening, which is why we booked the May 8th sailing instead. I did call HAL this morning, and they confirmed that the ship is leaving dry dock today. Hope everything is "ship shape", so to speak.

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All of the position tracking sites I have found show the current location of the ship as unknown. It should have left for New York by now. Any updates? Getting nervous....:cool:

 

The May 1 sailing will be delayed by one day. Now sailing on Monday, May 2. Got an email from HAL this morning.

 

 

Probably still working on resolving all the issues related to a/c & plumbing! :rolleyes:

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Look at these CRAZY photos!!!!

 

I'm really curious what's going on with the Bow!!!

 

And the "Retreat" that many called a "swamp"...looks like that idea's getting reworked??

 

Anybody have any info?

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We had originally booked the May 1 sailing. Glad we switched to May 8.

 

One appealing thing about Bermuda is we are kind of close to NYC - 4-5 hours drive. And driving to NYC on a Sunday should be a nice easy ride. I feel so bad for the May 1 sailing people as they will now have to drive to NYC on a Monday or spend the night.

 

Does anyone know how often a dry dock takes longer than expected? Also are they sailing the Veendam empty to NYC?

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I just had a bad feeling about this one. HAL has been really open about the Maasdam dry dock, posting details, pictures and updates throughout, but no mention whatsoever of the Veendam dry dock. It almost makes you wonder what they're really working on and why all the secrecy.

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They are probably working on that new sonar tracking system that allows them to search out cruise ships from other cruise lines so they can scan their on board computers to see how much they are making on onboaard revenue.

 

Quite simply they are working on repairing storm damage that the ship sustained down in the South Atlantic some months ago. Some passengers would panic if they thought that a wave (s) did this. Most of the damage would have been largely cosmetic. Would you book a limo that had a crumpled front fender? No secrecy at all.

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Any word on if the Retreat is still there or not? I am thinking of booking another cruise to Bermuda on the Vendaam but I did not like having to share only 1 pool with all the passengers. It is not enough for a whole ship, even if it is a small one. I wanted to know that information before booking.

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According to the image I just received from marinetraffic.com, Veendam, as of 9:50 (EDT) this morning (Saturday), was still in the Freeport drydock facility, next to Grand Princess.

 

If that image is accurate, and I have no reason to believe it isn't, then if the Veendam's crew is going to have their ship in New York for a Monday morning arrival (best case scenario), they best be leaving rather soon.

 

By my calculations, it is 1,021 straightline miles (887 nautical miles) to New York from Freeport. Traveling at an average speed of 20 knots per hour, it would take her a little over 44 hours to get there if she left this second.

 

It is doable but it sounds as if the line did not allow enough time for such a major undertaking as the bow re-do and whatever they plan on doing with the infamous Retreat and other updates to the ship.

 

If they are delayed further, my best bet is that HAL will simply scratch the first cruise and try to appease the displaced passengers the best they can, either with accommodations on a future Bermuda sailing, and/or substantial on board credits or a percentage off towards another cruise.

 

Either way, it is not a good situation to be in, and even casts more suspicion on what's been transpiring during this previously so-called secretive drydock, which in fact as one poster pointed out is not so secret at all.

 

But, the fact remains, it is interesting to note how much effort the line went to in publicizing Maasdam's recent drydock via the HAL Blog and kept extremely hush hush on what they were doing to her younger sibling, Veendam.

 

The truth is, we shall all know soon enough, but, evidently, not as soon as some of us (especially those on this weekend's sailing!) would have liked.

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This just in. The Veendam, according to marinetraffic.com, is now under way and heading to New York. She was seen leaving the Freeport drydock just before noon local time, which means she should be in New York as scheduled (a day late) on Monday morning, if all goes well in transit. This should be good news for those souls sailing on her first Bermuda cruise.

 

To anyone out there who boards her on Monday, please post a brief report on any noticeable changes that are visible to the naked eye. Photos would be great as well, but at least a graf or two would be great.

 

Thanks and Bon Voyage!

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I think one reason that Maasdam's drydock changes were publicized more is that they're part of the "signature of excellence" upgrades--Mix, lanai cabins, etc. Veendam's are not part of the upgrade program.

 

Veendam's changes are not entirely good publicity. One is fixing storm damage (as someone said, scary!) and another is the removal of a not-so-excellent "signature" change, the poolette (nobody wants to publicize a mistake).

 

As for running late, this happens a lot. Taking a ship off line takes away a couple of week's worth of revenue, so they schedule work as tightly as possible. There could well be workers finishing up cosmetic changes during the trip to NY.

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Once ship yard photos were posted of Veendam minus a bow, I am surprised that there was no comment from Holland America.

Replacing the bow is a huge project that is rare to see on the level of Veendam's situation. PARTS of the bow...yes. The ENTIRE bow...no.

I am disappointed that HAL chose to remain quiet about Veendam's yard.

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SO just fyi yesterday I went to the holland america blog and the moment I logged on there were photos of the ship...one I posted earlier. The aft poolette was gone. And it looked like they were installing HUGE hot tubs. But then seconds later when my page refreshed...they were no wear to be found!

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Seems like ships are late out of dry dock more than we'd like. We had this problem on RCCL ship in 10 also late out of Freeport delayed our boarding till about 6pm of our scheduled departure day. Throughout our cruise there was work still going on. We never knew when we'd try to step out of an elevator and find they were replacing carpet in front of us. I had wanted to sail the 5/1 cruise but it didn't work out, and now I'm very glad it didn't.

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