nanlaur

We were on an Western/Eastern Caribbean B2B in 2017 on the Nieuw Amsterdam. We did anytime dining and usually showed up at the MDR around 8:00. The first week was great. The first evening of the second week, we showed up at our accustomed time and saw a long line on the "reservations" side of things. We were informed that a big group had the dining room and anytime dining was unavailable. The staff seemed to be uninformed that there would be a group monopolizing the dining room. Had to feel sorry for them. Felt sorry for us, too. At that time of night the Lido was closing down and our only choice would have been pizza. Eventually they found a table for the six of us who were waiting to be seated, and they got us a two-top in fixed dining for the week. As I recall, the group had a mass gathering earlier in the evening and were all dismissed at the same time for dinner. I believe the evening show was offered only once at around 8:00. We definitely check the Charter/Group Information thread when booking now, and usually book cruises longer than 7 days.

That's usually our philosophy, too, and we usually book way forward. We got the aft as a Club Orange upgrade so we often took the scenic route to dining venues 😄

We were on the Nieuw Statendam in February in an aft balcony on the port side, deck 6. We could smell smoke sometimes when in port, but I don't recall smelling it while underway.

We just got off the Nieuw Statendam last week and received a note that, because of supply issues, they are temporarily suspending the distribution of the tiles. We have the option of saving that note and getting a tile on a future cruise.

We used them last year. No need to call for a pick-up, the vans were parked and loading when we got off the ship. The vans aren't huge and fill up fast, we had a short wait to get into one with available room. I suppose the wait time might depend on how many ships are in port and how many vans are assigned to each ship. We were pleased with the service and are using them again next month.

Nope, no noise. We actually liked the location so much that we booked a similar location for our cruise next month. It's far enough away from the food that we tell ourselves that we can walk off some of those calories 😆

We were way forward on deck 8 for our last cruise and didn't find the bridge being much of an obstruction.

The far-forward VF balconies have solid steel veranda railings instead of the plexiglass. Some people don't mind, but we spend a lot of time on our veranda watching the sea go by and prefer the unobstructed view.