Zaandam to Hawaii Nov 17, 2012 Review

My DH and I will be on this cruise on SATURDAY! YAY! It's been a long time in coming and we are thrilled that it's actually here! I will be doing a review, although don't expect too much! If you remember our review of our Baltic cruise last year (see link below if you really want to be bored) we don't "do" much on board. We don't do the spa things, so I can't comment on the temp of the hydrotherapy pools, because I've seen that the trivia doesn't concentrate on history (DH's specialty) or 80's movie quotes (my specialty) I'm not sure we will participate in those either.

I probably won't notice worn carpets and rust, as I can't seem to see those things in my OWN house, why would I see them when on vacation?!? lol

I will try to refrain from talking too much about our hobby of geocaching, although that will be tough as on all 4 islands we will be "geocaching". Here is our excursion itinerary for those of you who care about those things:

1. Hilo- Renting a car- driving to the "Green Sand Beach", then to Volcano Park,then back to the ship (12-8pm)

2. Honolulu- We have a geocaching friend picking us up, driving us around all day, taking us on a circle tour of the island, taking us to dinner to meet other geocaching people, then back to the ship. That is truly a win-win for us. We don't have to spend money, we don't have to drive, and we have our own tour guide! :) (10am-11pm)

3. Nawilili, Kauai- Plane ride in AM over the Nepali coast, then a photo tour right afterwards (and hopefully there will be geocaches at the pretty places the tour takes us to). (8am-5pm)

4. Maui- meeting another geocaching friend for lunch in Lahaina. We spent a week on Maui 2 years ago, so we have "done" Maui top, bottom, and side to side. (7am-3pm)

One thing that will be different for us is we splurged and took the upsell to a suite. Crazy. In 2002 we did this cruise and had the LAST Numbered cabin on the ship. Literally. We were at the back of the ship right next to an area that had a godawful noise everytime we came into port (thrusters, anchors?) So it's crazy that now we will be as far from steerage as we can get. We have never been in the fancy smanchy world of the suites before, I'm sure that we will scar the poor workers in the Neptune Lounge for life. ("What do you mean there are no Cheetos for a snack in here?!?") Not quite as bad as Honey Boo Boo, but maybe close! lol

I keep asking myself if the price paid will be "worth it". I know that people who have been in the suites say that it's great and they will never go back...but is that REALLY true? Help me out, what are the "suite perks" things that we can't miss?

This is what I know:

1. If having all the food we want on board isn't enough we can go and snack in the Neptune Lounge with the snacks in the circular plastic "Space ship" food delivery thingy.

2. We can eat breakfast in the Pinnacle (which we could get the same things in the Lido...but no lines? Is that the perk?)

3. We get invited to a captains reception? Does the captain really like these things?!? If we don't go will the other "suite" guests want us to go back to Steerage where we belong? lol

4. free laundry! Of COURSE we will do this, although it only costs $99 on it's own...not sure the upsell was worth just doing it for this! ha!

Anyway, we leave on Friday to fly to San Diego. We land at 10:30 and I have a phone interview at 1:30! Yikes! Since we were going to be in the middle of the ocean with no phone service I had to set it up for Friday after we landed. We should be all settled in the hotel room by then, but if not I suppose I can talk all about myself sitting on a bench next to the ocean as easily as I can anywhere else. Hopefully the birds will be quiet!

OK, so all you well-traveled suite people. What are things that we must know about staying in a suite?

Please be sure and bring your passports or government issued duplicate Birth Certificates. Enjoy your cruise!

David

Your tours of the ports sound great.

Question -- there are a couple of types of "suites" -- are you in "S" Deluxe Suite Verandah? If you have answered yes - breakfast on the Zaandam is not in the Pinnacle Grill. On the class of ship it will either be in the King's Room or the Upper Level of the dining room.

There will be a Suite Cocktail party the evening of embarkation. Sometimes held in the Neptune Lounge or in another lounge. It is usually from 7:15 (or 7:30) - 8 PM. This is where you meet the captain and other officers. If you don't get go -- the other suite passengers won't even know.

Your tours of the ports sound great.

 

Question -- there are a couple of types of "suites" -- are you in "S" Deluxe Suite Verandah? If you have answered yes - breakfast on the Zaandam is not in the Pinnacle Grill. On the class of ship it will either be in the King's Room or the Upper Level of the dining room.

 

There will be a Suite Cocktail party the evening of embarkation. Sometimes held in the Neptune Lounge or in another lounge. It is usually from 7:15 (or 7:30) - 8 PM. This is where you meet the captain and other officers. If you don't get go -- the other suite passengers won't even know.

Yes, we are in the S Suite. We MIGHT still be in dinner at 7:15...as we have the early dining, depends on how fast/slow the service is. We won't sweat it as we aren't really "hobnobbers". But if we are wandering around I might drag DH in. Thanks for the head's up on the breakfast thing too!

Why isn't it in the Pinnacle on the Zaandam? Smaller ship and less people so they don't want to open the entire restaurant?

Thanks for the head's up on the breakfast thing too!

Why isn't it in the Pinnacle on the Zaandam? Smaller ship and less people so they don't want to open the entire restaurant?

The Pinnacle is located along an inside passageway, with no outside views, on this ship. So, breakfast is held in a private area with a view to the sea.

Enjoy your foray to the nose-bleed deck. ;)

It's not true that once you have one of these cabins you can't go back. You remember what you're missing, but you certainly can go back. I was once happily upgraded to a balcony cabin, and now am back inside where I am used to.

Bon Voyage, hope you have a great cruise.

Looking forward to your review. Have a great cruise.

Enjoy the suite experience, have a great cruise.

The breakfast in the PG or special room is very relaxing IMO. Attentive service and no hustle or bustle:) It's nice to have the same waiters every day who know you.

The space in the S suite is really nice as are the verandas. You may be surprised at how much time you spend on your veranda with your own little private space.

Room service is much easier in the larger cabin as well.

The Neptune Lounge has not just the nice munchies but that wonderful coffee machine (plus teas, etc.). The concierge there will take care of your needs - no need to go to the front desk.

You can certainly 'go back' after staying here if you so choose. However the suite life does make cruising very enjoyable (especially on longer cruises):D

oh - and just in case - don't forget you can order hors' d'hoeuvre if you so choose for the late afternoon - just ask your concierge:D

Wifi reception in the Neptune Lounge is good

Thanks for all the great advice!

DH will definitely use the NL for the coffee. He's a straight black drinker...no frou-frou coffee for him! lol

We will probably do some breakfasts in the special room. We like the omelets, and since they serve them there it might be nice not to have to worry about the Lido lines and such.

We had already planned on spending lots of time on the verandah (at least I had)...which is why we decided to splurge on the upgrade. Might as well use the space and hang out there and watch the ocean go by in my sweats! (as opposed to being on the "public" decks in my sweats and being accused of being a "Person of Walmart" (have you SEEN that website?!? Scary!)).

Snacks in our room? I'll have to look into that. Can we get free chocolate covered strawberries?!? :)

And as sad as I am to admit it, I DO have to do work while I'm on the cruise. I teach classes online and have to log in and grade papers. (Gotta pay for the cruise and upsell somehow! lol). So the Wifi in the NL will be nice.

Today is our last day at work before we leave (we have to leave the house at 3:30am to catch the flight. Ouch!). Why is the day before you leave the longest day on earth?!? One hour seems like four!

Hopefully it will be an easy day at work and there won't be any big time issues.

We picked up "Grand-dog-ma" from the airport last night. My mom is nice enough to come all the way to Indiana from Albuquerque to dog-sit for us while we are gone. The Granddogs love having someone with them all day, they totally get spoiled when we come home and go back to work! lol (See picture below for a pic of the four houndies- Rosie, Ozzie, Annie and Henry)

Packing. Yeah. I'm not the best packer. I haven't even started. Sad I know. But the dogs get stressed when we start packing things away, (yeah, that's my excuse). What I DO do is I open the suitcase and throw things in there that I don't want to forget to bring. So when I'm wandering around the house and I think "OH, we should bring a water bottle" I go and get it and throw it in the suitcase (literally throw lol). When I see my raincoat hanging on the hook, I grab that and throw it in. So it's all in a jumble right now, for me to deal with tonight when I'm packing clothes. Let's see...what's in there....medicines, passports, raincoat, waterbottles, bottles of Mio (the liquid drink flavor thingies), shampoo and conditioner, new toothbrush, paperwork on excursions, hotels, rental cars, etc, candy (I can't live without my candy!) and I"m sure a ton of other "Important" stuff. lol.

So tonight is the big packing night. Since my mom is here she can entertain the dogs while I lock myself in the bedroom to pack. I'll have DH put out everything he wants to bring on the bed, and I'll split his stuff and my stuff between our 2 suitcases so if one is lost we both have some clothes to wear. (DH is not a good packer, he thinks he is, but he's not! lol). I think his tux will take up most of the room!

Are we there yet?!?

I will try to refrain from talking too much about our hobby of geocaching, although that will be tough as on all 4 islands we will be "geocaching".

Please don't refrain too much! DS made geocaching part of our Panama Canal cruise in March, finding caches in Fort Lauderdale, Aruba, San Diego and during the PC transit (he looked in Cartegana and Huatulco but couldn't find them, in part due to time constraints). We've been to Hawaii on the Zaandam and so will know a bit about where you're looking. So please do toss in a comment or 2 about your seeks!

So today was a long day, but also a "lazy" day. We left the house at 3:30am. Had no problems with the flights (except for the whole no leg room thing. Ugh!). We were on the plane from Houston to SD with a couple that are going to be on this cruise too. AND we sat next to the man on the plane (in row 22 if you are reading this! :))

We got to the airport, got our bags with no issues. Went out to the shuttle area and the Holiday Inn on the Bay shuttle came within 5 minutes of us waiting. We raced to the hotel and got here by 11am. We also lucked out and got our room early too. We were afraid that we wouldn't be able to check in. We got one of the rooms with a bay view. Not really worth the price (as there is nothing special about the room), but the view IS nice. (note the empty cruise ship dock on the left. In the morning the Zaandam will be there!) You can see how close it is to the hotel. It's literally right across the street and down a bit from the Holiday Inn.

We had all day to walk around. The day was BEAUTIFUL! The sun was out and it was much nicer than the 40 degrees that we left back home. We walked around and found 7 geocaches. We had a nice lunch at a little bistro thing right by the Holiday Inn. This is a picture of one of the geocaches that we found today. TRICKY huh? A fake river rock hidden amongst all the other river rocks!

The other thing I wanted to be sure that I did for all of you is take pictures of the road crossings. I know there have been some questions on that, so here you go. This first crossing is to the right of the hotel when you exit. You can see the crossing and the Holiday Inn in the background. The cruise ship terminal would be about 500-600 feet to the right of the picture where I'm standing.

The second picture is the other crossing which is about 100 feet from the cruise ship terminal. You can see the tall building with the balconys on the left side of the pic, that is the Holiday Inn. This is the one that we will use in the morning. The actual "street" that you cross here is narrower than the other crossing. It's really all the same distance walking though. (of course one wheel broke off my suitcase here in the hotel room, so I will make DH carry that one tomorrow morning. hee hee).

This last pic is one more from the balcony of our room at the Holiday Inn. We had the door open to the balcony since it was so nice out and this little vermin...er....seagull thought he would beg for food. Made for a nice pic but I'm not too keen on those scavengers! lol (again, note the empty ship dock in the background)

So for the rest of the night we are going to relax, go down and eat a light dinner and get ready for tomorrow. Check out here isn't until 2, and DH suggested we eat lunch before we boarded the ship, but I said "but the food on the ship is free...why would we waste the money eating before we got on?" lol. Glad that he can see it MY way! Maybe that's why we get along so well.

Argh!

Sue, I'm jealous you guys are already in San Diego and we haven't even left yet!

The only time we've been in a suite, I tried to order the hot hors' d'hoeuvres the first day. The concierge said 'we don't do those on embarkation day, sorry'. Then I forgot to order them the rest of the cruise, boo hoo! So I don't know what I've missed. LOL. I do know that the strawberries aren't available without charge though... sorry.

You'll be amazed though, at the size of your balcony. It seems almost like the size of your entire 'steerage' stateroom.

At any rate, see you on the Zaandam in about 17 hours. :D

The Pinnacle is located along an inside passageway, with no outside views, on this ship. So, breakfast is held in a private area with a view to the sea.

Enjoy your foray to the nose-bleed deck. ;)

It's not true that once you have one of these cabins you can't go back. You remember what you're missing, but you certainly can go back. I was once happily upgraded to a balcony cabin, and now am back inside where I am used to.

Years ago we were offered a balcony cabin at a steal of a price. Too low to not take it. It was a week on the then new Zuiderdam. When we got to the port in Ft. Lauderdale, we were told we were upgraded to a full suite on deck 4. The cabin we were originally were assigned was right near the elevator and it was given to a couple where the husband was handicapped so that made sense. We went to the Nepture lounge every day, took full advantage of the laundry and dry cleaning and had a fantastic time.

Then it started. They wanted us to book a full suite each time but no way. We have been in many inside cabins since, also outside when upgraded or when you got an outside for the price of an inside or when, in a hot climate, the balcony cabins were a fantastic deal. Usually, not always, the suites are 3 times as much as the insides.

We are fine in our insides. Sure, we may be in their face more often in the public places unless we have a balcony but we enjoy it just as much. Now that we have just become 4 star Mariners, we get the free laundry anyway.

I awoke at 4am this morning (which is really 7am Indiana time) and just surfed the web until DH woke up. I kept checking to see if the Zaandam had made it in yet...we finally saw it pulling into port around 630am...right on time!

We decided to eat breakfast at the little deli next to the hotel- Hazelwood Deli and Cafe. Reasonable prices and good food. They checked my picture ID with my credit card and I thanked them. Not many places to that any more. The lady said that 70% of people complain when they ask for an ID with their credit card. Sad. I'm always glad to show it and thankful that they have asked.

We are now hanging out in the room waiting for our time to board. I guess it's a sign of things to come for the next 2 weeks...hanging out on the balcony reading and hanging out! :)

Below is a pic of the Zaandam waiting for her new passengers from early this morning.

Have a wonderful time on your cruise. Our last cruise to Hawaii was on the Zaandam, and we loved every minute of that cruise. Enjoy the suite life as well.

Here is a pic of our room. Not sure what to do with all this room! Lol

Also got a panoramic pic of the large balcony. This is my favorite part of the room I think!

I always am amazed at how grumpy people can be onboard. I don't know why it surprises me though. We try to smile at people and they just push right past us. I do feel sorry for the staff. People can just be so rude.

I will post more later on embarkation and tonight's dinner.

Wow, great pictures and love your posts. What a wonderful cabin. And we have found no trouble "going back" after a great upgrade.

Can't wait to read more. :)

Enjoy that suite life and have a wonderful time. Thanks for sharing all the photos with us. Is that a Hawaiian shirt I see on the balcony?

Can I just say I LOVE the photo of your dogs:) I was wondering how in the world could you leave those cute little faces at home but then I saw the photos of your SUITE! Wow.....that looks fabulous.....you will have such a wonderful time you won't want to come back to reality! Enjoy and can hardly wait for more of your report.

Thanks for sharing, love your suite.

Sat Nov 17

We didn’t set the alarm

to wake us up this morning because there was no need. We were supposed to sleep in, but because of the 3 hour time change from Indiana I woke up at 4am. I just surfed the web until DH got up. We watched the Zaandam come into the dock from their 7 day cruise to Mexico. We went to eat breakfast at the Hazelwood’s Deli and Café next to the Holiday Inn. It was good food at a reasonable price. (Below is DH waiting in our hotel to board the ship)

Around noon we headed out of the hotel and towards the dock. It seemed that every couple that was in the lobby of the hotel was heading to the ship as well! Some were getting into the shuttle, but it literally is a 600 foot walk right across the street. A wheel had broken off one of our suitcases, but we were able to drag the stupid thing to the cruise ship terminal anyway with no issues.

I forgot to say yesterday that we made a trip to RiteAid…which was only about 3 blocks from the Hotel. We got two 12 packs of Diet Coke along with other little stuff that we needed (Shaving cream, etc).

So we went to the cruise ship terminal and dropped off our luggage. Then we went inside, we each had a backpack on our backs (mine had a huge bag of Kettlekorn popcorn sticking out the top) and we each were carrying a 12 pack of Diet Coke. Went through the xray with no issues. We filled out our health questionnaire and got into the “suite” line. A woman came roaring at us saying very loudly “excuse me, that is not the right line for you”….I kind of stammered that we were staying in a suite and this was the suite line….she just mumbled something and turned around and went back the way she came. I can only conclude that we didn’t look like the “typical” suite customers…lol. Honey Boo Boo maybe! With our drinks and popcorn I can only imagine what she was thinking. We were about the 5th people in line and were checked in within about 6 minutes. Very smooth. We were then able to go right onto the ship with no waiting and our room was already open for us. Nice.

We got on board and dropped off our stuff in our room (HUGE room). We had a free bottle of champagne from our PCC at HAL as well as one from the captain and hotel manager. Since neither of us drink that much we asked if we could switch one of them out for a bottle of non alcoholic, and were told yes. This arrived last night. One thing that I tried with the champagne (since I’m not a huge fan of the flavor of it) is to put in some black cherry flavor (into my glass of champagne). You know, the squirt liquid that you can get to flavor your water? I guess I really am white trash because that helped the flavor immensely! It looked like I was drinking red wine out of the champagne glass! Lol

We also received a plate of chocolate covered strawberries from our PCC at HAL too. It was a nice gesture. We then walked around the ship to acclimate ourselves. I am liking those little decks on the back of the ship.

Before the life boat drill we had our Meet and Greet at the bow of the ship. It was fun to meet some of the people we have seen posting on the Roll Call thread. We had our picture taken squinting into the sun and we headed off to the liftboat drill. Of course there were 3 rooms that had to be called over the loudspeaker..and we stood out there forever, but it’s all worth it I suppose. It IS for our safety after all! (Below is the bell from the bow of the ship--thanks to Alan in our roll call for arranging the photo op. Also a pic of the life boat drill...seemed a lot less crowded than we have done it in the past, but then again, there are less people on this ship)

We were late leaving SD because we had to wait for something to be delivered to the ship. We didn’t know what it was, but the captain assured us it was something that was very necessary that we couldn’t get in the middle of the ocean…we found out later it was….toilet paper!!! Ha! The captain was sooo right on that score. Don’t want to run out of that in the middle of nowhere! So we left around 5:50.

Below is from the webcam in San Diego..see us standing on the top deck of the ship?

We are eating in the first seating at a table for 6. We are sitting with a brother/sister (and her husband)/mom combo. They all seem very nice. Hopefully they don’t mind us “crashing” their family table! We have figured out that all tables for 6 are on the “outside” of the dining room. We always request to be seated at a table this size 1) because DH is a bit hard of hearing and a table any bigger would cause him to miss much of the conversations and 2) because we have always been seated at the back of the dining room against the windows. We have always had this nice view on all of our cruises. We DID get offered the carafe of filtered water, although I did not hear him say that it cost money. But we quickly denied that and asked for “tap water” and it was delivered quickly. Dinner tonight was served quickly! I’m not sure why, but it seemed that we waited less time for this meal than any of our meals on the Eurodam last summer when we did the Baltic Cruise. We will see if that continues. Below is a pic of me and DH waiting for dinner on deck.

We didn’t really want to go to the show tonight. There is only one and it’s at 10pm, too late for us (sad but true, no wonder we like sailing Holland America! Lol). So we are relaxing in our HUGE room. Oh one of the guys sitting at our table tonight said that when the luggage was delivered that his suitcase wasn’t there, it was in security. So he went there and was told that the extra surge protector that he brought wasn’t allowed and they confiscated it! Weird as we had one in our suitcase and we got it just fine. I thought those were ok to bring, but maybe not? Either way, we have ours set up in the room and our iphones, computers and kindles charging.

We are actually going to try to get out tomorrow and DO some stuff so we have stuff to report to you all. I’m sure you don’t want to read 2 weeks of “we got up, we ate, we read books, we ate, we read, we ate, we slept”. Lol.

Sunday's report up tomorrow.

I want your room.. Look forward to reading more as we will be on your ship for Christmas.