nyold

Thank you! About Montreal, I think another commenter showed a picture of 2 bridges that the ship must pass under in order to go to Quebec, so that limits the size of the ship that can go to Montreal. I don't think Zaandam is the "maximum size," maybe you can go a class higher or two, but probably not Pinnacle. That being said, there is also another discussion on a different thread about Zaandam's lack of food options between lunch and dinner. There is Dive In bar and that's it, and sometimes when excursions are delayed for whatever reasons, people come back hungry well after lido is closed, and Dive In is slammed. On a pinnacle class, this would not have been a problem as there are other options. I would like to try that class next time (for whichever destination / season that makes sense, and if there's a fare deal all the better 😁)

Thank you for your kind words! My parents were asking about this river cruising experience too. I think the bottom line is that "to each their own." * My in laws felt that seeing land constantly doesn't feel like you're on the open sea (because you're not 😆) so they felt better once we're actually in the ocean. * I initially romanticized the idea of river cruising, comparing it to the river cruises in Europe. However, soon after we left the city limits, it stopped being houses and started being forests with factory chimneys seen here and there. I see some huge industrial complexes at night too. * The rocking is much less on the river. It was very gentle and comfortable. * There were insects outside the window in the evening. Even when we were in the MDR (deck 5), we could see large mosquitoes right outside the window. I mean from their point of view, this ship is probably the only source of light for miles around, right? All in all, I don't think I'd want to do the river for more than 2 days, but for 2 days it was absolutely fine and provided a "taste" of river cruising. Hope you get to go and enjoy the cruise as well!

Just got back from a Zaandam 7 day. Deck 4 is for my time dining, and deck 5 is for fixed time seating, and it is 5:30 and 8 pm. The 5:30 was very crowded, but 8 pm seating is only about 40% occupancy (eyeballing). The waiters said that the vast majority are opting for my time dining, which makes sense. The show times are always 7:30 and 9:30, so if you're doing early seating you're ok, but if you're doing late seating it's a bit rushed. Keep this in mind when booking specialty dining. I botched my PG reservation that way so it was too rushed.

Oh right lol yeah that would be a good reason to refuse.

I also never tried on disembarkation, but my reasoning would be, the package is usually counted by days ($10 per day or what not), and the embarkation day counts as day 1, so disembarkation day would NOT count as a day otherwise your day count will be over by 1. That's how I reason myself to thinking that it would not work. For embarkation day, for SURE it can because one of my mantras is: it's not a cruise until you have a drink in hand. And I measure ease of embarkation by: from taxi dropping you off until drink in hand. Current record: 20 mins 😁

I was wondering about these too. We rarely need food outside of the popular hours, because we'd be stuffed most of the time. When we do, it would be because of a special circumstance like a messed up timing (sometimes HAL's fault, sometimes not their fault). In this case, there's almost no dignified option available to us. I was thinking if they keep open a small section of the lido, even if it's like sandwich or pizza station, that requires minimal supervision, that would have been highly appreciated.

To be fair, yes room service was available, but no we didn't try it because we weren't sure how fast it would have been, plus we were already on the lido deck. I mean sure we could order on the app, or go down to our room and make the call, and wait there, and then bring the food back up, but it's just.... unpleasant, right? Echoing what the other commenter said, there is this sense that everything is timed and scheduled and there's no "deviation" allowed. It is efficient, sure, but ship schedules are far from guaranteed. So in trying to achieve efficiency, they're sacrificing flexibility to "go above and beyond" in situations like these.

I just got back from a totally different sailing (Montreal - Boston) but something similar happened here. There was a massive delay in docking at Bar Harbor, Maine, and as a result many people got back on board around 3 pm, and a lot of these were HAL's own excursions. These excursions started late because the docking was late, otherwise they would have been back around 1 pm. When we got back, lido was closed, dive in was open and was absolutely slammed with volumes of request and we had to wait 10 minutes to even be seen. All bars were closed except lido bar, so same thing with getting drinks. My point is, HAL knew about this time of people getting back, and it was their own "fault" that things were so late, not because passengers were spending extra time in town or what not. So the least they could do is to keep a section of lido buffet open even if it's a smaller offering, or things like cold cuts which are less perishable. It would have been highly appreciated. I think it's a case of them not thinking things through.

I just finished a cruise. How do I submit feedback to the corporate? There were several individuals who stood out and went out of their way to help us, and we wanted to make sure their efforts are recognized. I think I heard someone mentioned that you can do it via the Navigator app, but I couldn't find where to submit it.

I can attest to this. We used a testing site in Montreal (Go Test Rapide) and the timeline is roughly as follows: 1. Actual SWIPE up the nose: around 5 pm 2. 5:20 pm: we got a text saying the result was negative 3. around 7 pm we got an email with the link to a pdf certifying your name, date of birth etc saying that the result was negative. We uploaded this to verifly, but beware there are a lot of questions you have to answer on verifly ("is your name correct? is your date of birth correct? bla bla"). All routine questions but annoying especially if you have to do it on a phone. 4. around 10 pm I got a notification from the verifly app that the upload was accepted, so verifly shows green. We did 2 bookings (2 rooms) with 2 people each, and I put all 4 passengers under the same verifly. The pro is that only one person has to show it, and reduces "fumbling to unlock the phone and the app" in the line. The con is that, that one person had better be ready. And of course there is a possiblity of a system glitch like mixed up photos like what the other report was saying. We didn't experience it but I guess it's possible. Having the app makes all the difference. We were on the line for about 10 minutes. The non-verifly line was moving a lot slower, I don't know how long it would take, but the agent had to examine your covid vaccination proof, test results, passports / visas etc.

My general impression: this is our first cruise with HAL. The food is of course delicious, and the service also very good. When they get to serve you, they will try anything to please you and for that I commend them. However, I notice that there are some areas where it felt like they were understaffed. In particular, MDR breakfast, Dive In, and the Lido Bar. It's almost always a long wait before your orders are even taken. Maybe it is covid related? Or just getting the "jitters" out as they're resuming sailing? Not sure. I do think that their IT department needs some serious upgrade. The wifi worked fine, but the app is just so confusing to use. There are also so many different "passes" to use: arriveCan, veriFly, Navigator app, etc. I understood them because I happen to be tech savvy, and even then, this forum was really helpful. I cannot imagine that for your average HAL cruiser that they would be able to navigate this complexity. I understand that some things are outside of HAL's control (like arriveCan and verifly), but the emails that they sent out were barely helpful. It just said something like "make sure you check our website" and the website was a total maze. For example: when boarding, they kept saying "prepare your boarding pass" and for the whole time, verifly was enough. But on the actual gangway, they needed to scan our barcode, which can be found in the boarding pass document (that we should have printed but I didn't think we needed to because we had verifly) OR navigator app (which couldn't load). Luckily they were able to pull our info using passport, but even then there was another group of passengers with the same last name so that got messy. It was not a big deal, it's just.... this was our first impression literally on the ship. In the future I would probably want to try a bigger ship from HAL and compare. I have no complain about our current ship size, it's quiet and elegant and we had a wonderful time, that's all that matters.

Last picture from me. Used the gym in the morning before disembarking. Oh well so long and thank you for all the delicious fishes, see you again hopefully soon, Holland America!

Dinner. California roll (one roll was good, the rest OK). Coconut crusted shrimp was good. Halibut was great, prime rib was too slathered with cream and wasnt rare enough. Tasted like buffet prime rib, but the fatty part was good. Strudel was great, light and not too sweet. Puff pastry a tad dry but the mousse inside was nice, smooth and dark. Towel elephant, and then saying goodbyes to the servers that made an impression, and then packing. I am sad now.

Dive in and early dinner buffet. Dance show In Tandem was pretty good, mostly ballroom dancing style with heavy Latin influence, plus a solo vocal. My favorite is still Musicology. Oh please please release the DVD (or on youtube or something)

I had the 10 am tour booked, but at 9:30 the tender just started to board, so I called them. They moved me to the 1 pm tour. Turns out nobody from Zaandam made it to the 10 am tour and everyone got moved to the 1 pm, and roughly half of our bus was from Zaandam 😆 I'm not sure that immigration was the reason it was late, because even as immigration process was done, the tender still didnt start. My guess would be that the tender boat company wasnt ready. I would try to move it to a later time if I were you. For our case, we were planning to do the tour first thing and then shop leisurely for the rest of the time. Because of the lateness we had to flip it, which made the shopping experience a bit hurried.

Despite the rough start, Bar Harbor and Acadia were amazing. So much to do, so little time. We did the Olie's trolley tour and they were very accomodating when I called them abt our tender situation. The tour took 2.5 hrs and stopped at Thunder Hole, Jordan Pond, and Cadillac Summit

Off the charts would have been good except the 9:30 was canceled 😪. I caught the beginning of the 7:30 show and it was pretty good, not amazing. Humanity was weird for me, couldnt get what they're trying to say, so it ends up being a disconnected array of dance numbers

Oh that sounds horrible. For this sailing, the dancers are step one which has 6 dancers but I think some numbers feature this younger guy who has a solo. So maybe that would make it 7. The BBC show was performed with live violin, piano, bass, and electric from the classical duo and the ocean bar. I agree that the entertainment here was lacking. Even with 6 dancers, it still lags behind the other cruises that we're used to.

Once you are done with passport control, they punch a hole in your key card to signify that you did the passport control. Then you are allowed to get tender tickets. This was 9:45 and they havent started any tender. We were supposed to dock at 8. I guess everything ran late. The tender boat itself is a triple decker and allegedly can fit 300-400 people but of course it takes a while to load them and to herd that many people around. The first tender boat leaves around 10:20 I think. Factor this in your planning if you are booking tour tickets etc in Bar Harbor. The tender ticket is more like a group number that you are assigned to. Then you can wait anywhere on the ship, and they will announce group 1 to 15, etc. We were just waiting by the lido deck, but the buffet closed at 10. I think this is a poor form as there will be many people who are waiting for the tender around this hour. If the entire docking and tender process is delayed they should extend the lido hours, even if only for a limited selection.

Since this is the first US port after being overseas, they have USCBP passport control set up on deck 5 (occupying the casino, library, exploration cafe, etc) and everyone (whether you go to the port or not) must complete it. For most people it takes a couple seconds but I see some people getting asked more questions or fumbling for the right visa page etc. To compound the issue, the clock moved backward the night before (you gain 1 hr) and I bet most people didnt adjust their clocks properly (if your phone is in airplane mode it wont do it automatically). So even though HAL tried their best to crowd control by assigning each deck a timeslot, it wasnt observed (or ppl didnt care nor didnt read carefully) and what felt like half the ship was there 1 hr early. It was an absolute zoo. To be fair, once the line moved, it moved fast.

First issue this morning, we ordered room service for breakfast to be delivered at 8. It didnt arrive by 8:15 so I called. They said it is not in the system but he took my order and prioritized. It arrived around 8:40, I guess that's pretty fast but still annoying. Later I heard some rooms in our hall had the same issue, and the theory was that one malicious kid or teen might have taken away all the doorknob orders at some point. It's plausible I guess. All american and passion fruit yogurt, delicious as always. Also towel elephant

After dinner, since the show was canceled, the lounges were all full with well-dressed people. But since the performers were *supposed* to be in the show, there was nothing scheduled in the bars, so people were just sitting and chatting. I realized I like this vibe as well... it's reminiscent of a hotel lobby atmosphere with just a piano player or something. The perfume store had a sale, which brings down the prices from overpriced to normal. They had people distribute chocolates in front of the store. Was it because of the canceled show? Or for the sale? Or for gala night? All of the above?

Dinner tonight, gala night. Seafood brioche (okay) and shrimp cocktail (always good). Rock fish (I like it) and duck (good but only 4 small slices 😆). Tiramisu, super smooth and not overly sweet, I think this is what a tiramisu should be!

The boat was extremely rocky today. I tried the pool for a bit and it felt like I'm on the beach... interesting sensation but cant do it for too long. But that means the 9:30 show was canceled 😔 people were walking tipsily in the halls, not sure from alcohol or from the rocking. I did catch the first 30 mins of the show (7:30-8) before our dinner, and I think it was great! The two pianists (Clara and the other guy from Ocean Bar) went thru the hits from different eras and the dancers show up whenever appropriate. Towel penguin and where and when for tomorrow