Ineke

I’m looking forward to following your ‘Live from…’ adventures while we are floating around the Caribbean.  We have been contemplating a river cruise in conjunction with a family visit in The Netherlands, so this may just clinch this decision. Oh, and by the way, I got my new knee last summer, after a lot of hesitation. So glad I did,  it literally changed my life. Have a wonderful trip, i’ve always followed your posts  when you were still traveling with your children.

1959-HAL De Groote Beer, Rotterdam to Montreal. We immigrated to Canada, 10 day cruising and 4 days by CPRail to Vancouver. Loved it ever since, but had to wait till 1995 for the next one, Rijndam Caribbean cruise. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! I am enjoying it immensely, and taking notes as we will be transiting the canal on the Nieuw Amsterdam next month. And I have the same Canon camera, hoping for pictures as good as yours. 

5 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Thanks for sharing the Legendary tile pics @canadianbear I don't have one and didn't know they're larger. Nice reminder of what sounds like a fabulous cruise.

I wonder when the Legendary Voyage tiles were introduced? We were on the Tales of the South Pacific Legendary Voyage, and did not receive any tile, not even a regular one. But it sounds like there are a number of ways that Legendary Voyages are different now - a work in progress?

We had Platinum insurance on our Tales of the South Pacific cruise this past fall. Never needed it, thank goodness, but imagine our shock when we were told we could not get it for our upcoming cruise in April, because we are from British Columbia. So we settled for the next best thing, and fortunately have very good emergency medical coverage. But as a Canadian, be aware. This is when living on the Wet Coast is not ideal.

39 minutes ago, DesireeC03 said:

was there a special location on the ship that you enjoyed spending the most time? Or any pointers?

If you booked an inside or oceanview cabin, we love to sit on the Promenade deck, love their comfy wooden loungers, and it is not as busy as the pool decks. If we have a verandah cabin we spend much of our time on the verandah. But that’s our thing. 

I’m really enjoying your posts! Love the pictures, makes me a bit ‘homesick’ for a DAM ship. But not for long, boarding Apr. 6 for a Panama Canal cruise to San Diego. Keep up the good work!

The same is true for Educators. Find the link for Educators On-Board Credit on the HAL website. 

2 hours ago, kazu said:

If you go on the HAL site, click the contact, email and the Lost and Found category is there.  Everything found on the ships is sent to the Lost and Found Department.

 

 

Thanks, Kazu, will do. Much appreciated!

1 hour ago, FOPMan said:

Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons are on HAL's list of prohibited items (https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/plan-a-cruise/get-ready-for-your-cruise/faq#prohibited-items).

 

Spots lay be considered EPIRBs and, if so, should not be brought on board.

That’s interesting, we did not realize that. Certainly plenty of staff saw him use it every morning, including the captain, and while someone often asked what it was, no one questioned its use.  Same when we were checking in. In any case, we may no longer have it, although we will certainly need to replace it if it is lost. We won’t go on one of our long road trips without it. 

We’ve just returned from our Tales of the South Pacific cruise, and realized that my husband has left his Spot locator on board the Volendam somewhere.  How do we get in touch with the right department to see if it has been found?

I always enjoy reading your posts, but today I am a liitle sad, because we left the ship later to walk to Iolani Palace, and there were no leis to be seen. But only a little sad, because this is Hawai’i after all. Keep on posting, please, you have a very large following!

Thanks so much for clarifying! 

Hello fellow travellers

Fanning Island will be our next port after Honolulu. Many of us have been purchasing a bunch of school supplies for the children on Fanning Island, and were told to drop them off so they can all go in together. We took them to the front desk, and were told that they no longer do this and we have to take them off the ship and take them through customs, and were given a declaration form. We bought them yesterday in the US, so this seems strange. And if no one is collecting them, what do we do with the things we bought? I have asked this on the Roll Call as well, but hope someone has an answer.

Yes, they did, and served with berry sauce.

23 hours ago, Copper10-8 said:

Day 1 - 08/03/2023; Getting to Alaska (con't)

 

 

Prior to take-off from Sea-Tac enroute Fairbanks, the captain came on the P/A but the only thing we could hear was “Blue Angels” in town and “maneuver”. The lead flight attendant repeated the announcement and stated that since the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s famous aerial flight demonstration team were in town for Seattle’s annual Seafair celebration. They were practicing that show out of the King County International Airport terminal, their temporary base at the north end of Boeing Field, which put them somewhere inside our normal take-off pattern. So, as a result, the captain would have to perform some kind of “odd maneuver” right after take-off in order to avoid them there blue boys in their six F/A-18 Super Hornets flying weally, weally close to each other! That, my friends, is what they call an attention getter or in this case an “odd maneuver”. This turned out to be a banking climb to the left after wheels up which gave us seated on the left side of the aircraft, a nice view of terra firma.

 

Once crossing 10,000 feet, we continued the climb to 34,000 feet and crossed into Canadian airspace, eh. This route would take us northbound over the British Columbia airspace, leaving big Vancouver Island on our port side, before entering back into U.S./Alaskan airspace.

 

This turned out to be a three hour and 15-minute flight, once again in smooth air over some outstanding Alaskan scenery. There was once again a meal service. I had some combo Polenta dish over pasta which was once again quite good. Being the uncouth, bottom-dwelling non-foody individual that I am, I had no clue what “polenta” was/is, but now I do, oh joy!

 

I watched Woody Harelson’s movie “Champions” on my laptop which turned out to be a funny story. Maria watched a British TV show. We went wheels-down at Fairbanks International Airport and taxied past an entire collection of nineteen fifties and sixties propellor birds, some of which are still flying as cargo aircraft.

 

Fairbanks (FAI) is more or less in the center of Alaska, and the airport there serves as a gateway to much of the interior. There are good paved roads running south to Anchorage (360 miles), and southeast to the rest of North America (2,000ish miles to Vancouver or Calgary), but surface transportation throughout the state is limited, with vast expanses accessible only by air. While there’s no shortage of passenger and cargo operators ferrying tourists and freight, there’s a large number of residents whose link between home and the rest of the world is aviation.

 

On the way out today, we saw one of those old cargo boys, a DC-6A, taking off retracting his/her landing gear while still over the runway huffing and puffing away, a cool sight and sound one doesn’t see too often anymore. Brought back memories of my semi-regular trips to Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport by bus with a little Kodak camera in hand as a youth.

 

OK, so once collecting our luggage off the belt, we strolled down to a HAL agent at a suitably marked tour desk, who gave us a welcome envelop that contained, among other stuff, luggage tags for the Westmark Fairmont, our hotel for one night, directed us to affix them tags to our valises, drop those three bags off with the blue shirted guys in the corner and, and take a seat with some other HAL passengers, and wait to be picked up.

 

There were also Princess and Norwegian Cruise Line reps walking around to collect their pax. The wait was less then fifteen minutes when we were directed to board a coach outside, driven by Dolores, hailing from Alabama via Alaska. That drive for 29 of us took all of 12-13 minutes before arriving at the Westmark.

 

There was no checking in at the hotel’s front desk because our, and everyone else’s, room keys were already in that same envelop, which was a good thing, because we were arriving at our temporary abode, with about 100 other HAL and Princess passengers which caused a little bit of a wait for the elevators. Our room was on the fourth floor with a separate kitchen area with small fridge and microwave, a seating area with desk (free internet) and TV and a sleeping area with another TV and, yes, a king-size bed. We’ve done this combo land tour/cruise once before some 15-20 years ago and stayed in the same hotel.

 

At around seven PM, we went down to the hotel’s Northern Latitudes restaurant for dinner. The place was pretty full, but not overcrowded. Maria chose the salmon and moi the fish & chips, both were good while service was prompt. After dinner, we strolled the neighborhood of the hotel to get some light exercise after having been seated for most of the day. The weather was great in Fairbanks, and it stayed light out until 11 PM.

 

Tomorrow (Friday) is our 3-hour trip by bus from Fairbanks to Denali National Park

 

See you then!

 Hi Copper, 

re Polenta. Bring out the Dutch vocab, it’s ‘griesmeel’ but more solid.

9 hours ago, WCB said:

Hi Cruising Grandma,

 

Wish you had said "hi".....we love meeting nice people on the ships.  In fact, some of our best buddies were chance meetings that way many years ago.  

While on last year's Tales of the South Pacific cruise, we did visit Tonga and Samoa and found them up and running as usual.  In fact, while in Nukualofa, locals told us that most of the damage was on the opposite side of the island, and tours avoided that area.  Hope the same applies to the Samoa ports.

Hope to meet you in 2024!

 

Bill & Mary Ann

We’re long-time readers of your blog and CC posts, and have been avidly reading older posts and looking at the pictures you have posted, regarding the Tales of the South Pacific. We are looking forward to Wednesday when we board the Volendam for this year’s version. I really want to thank you for all the information we’ve been able to gather because of you! We may run into you at some point in time. 

4 hours ago, tupper10 said:

We arrived a bit early in anchorage. It was a wonderfully calm sail last night and this morning since we were not in the open sea.  It is raining and cold out though in about an hour the rain is supposed to end. We have no shore excursion planned. When the rain stops we will head into town.   It is an industrial port and the city is providing shuttle buses since you are not allowed to walk in this port.  

Anchorage is great! The shuttle drops you off at the Visitors Centre, from there you can take a trolley tour which is really fun and interesting. Great option.

6 hours ago, kazu said:

Thanks for our Tuesday Daily, Rich.

 

Interesting collection of days.  No one to dance with but I do like butterscotch pudding.  that quote of Robert Frost’s is ever so true.

The meal sounds great to me.  We did enjoy beautiful Hawaii when we visited.  Yay on New Zealand for the great anniversary and what they did for women 👍 

 

 

 

Well, of course it it pouring rain here today.  We needed more rain like a hole in the head 😔. On the bright side, got more yard clean up damage done by Lee, 7 planters are in the shed and 6 more are emptied 👍. Sounds great until you see how many are left 😬 I am definitely cutting back next year.  The humongous ones that I need someone else to help me lift are going.  Whatever I can’t manage is going.

 

 

 

I fly out two weeks from today.  I don’t have clothes laid out or chosen like some of my roll call members, house needs cleaning, planters need to be finished.  Think I am in trouble ? 😱 

 

since it’s raining out, I think you can guess what I will try to get done today once I get a bit of roll call stuff out of the way and my booster appointment made.

Kazu, you live in Canada. Do you have the new booster available already? I’ve been trying to get one for DH and myself before we sail next Wednesday, but am told it’s not our turn. Frustrating. Got a ‘just in case’ Paxlovid prescription instead.

8 hours ago, Hogladyrider said:

@tupper10...Thank You...BEST thing for motion illness is go out on deck fresh air and look at the horizon.....go to Crow's Nest and look at horizon.

 

FYI Jay & Dee from Parodeejay....You Tubers are on this sailing as well.

 

I am most interested in this itinerary....looked at it for 2025 Kodiak and the other ports are of interest. but we probably would opt for May ILO Sept sailing.

 

Looking foward to following along!

It sounds strangely similar to our May 7 Nieuw Amsterdam attempt to reach Homer, when we also experienced wild weather in that area.  The captain kept us well-informed then as well, and everything he said was true. Because of his constant updates the expeeience was interesting rather than frightening.

On 9/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, mckath said:

Hello all -

 

My husband and I will be on the Rotterdam in January.  This is our first cruise. I know that HAL has a phone app that is useful on the cruise but I am wondering if it will be a necessity.  Both our phones are several years old (Samsung Note 9 and Motorola Moto ZPlay) but neither of us wants to upgrade our phones just for the trip.  What are your thoughts?  I'm pretty sure the Note 9 will be fine but I am not too sure about his phone. Will we be OK with just one phone that can access the app?  What do people use the app for once they are on board?

 

Thanks,
Kathy

I have a Smartphone, but don’t use it much. But I did put the Navigator app on my iPad, where it is easier to read, and I do use my iPad a lot. I haven’t tried it out to be scanned, though, so I’m not sure how that would work.

4 hours ago, carolyn22 said:

Thank you for including the updates they are doing on the Volendam.  I’m very excited to hear about the Starlink upgrade as I’ll be on the Volendam for the 94 day Grand Australia and New Zealand voyage. 

Yes, sure made me happy to know this. Leaving soon for 56 days, which will be exciting by itself. But having to keep up with some work emails should be much more reliable, so more good news.

21 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Wow, that can't be a young Captain, if he was a Deck Officer on Prinsendam, which sank in 1980. I am really surprised that any Captain would make that type of public statement.

 

Yes, the ship's whistle is a maritime tradition, but it is also required for a number of functions, in addition to making the prescribed sound signals in restricted visibility. In restricted visibility, when a vessel is underway (not at anchor or secured to a berth), it makes 1 of 2 signals. When making way through the water, it sounds a prolonged blast (4 - 6 secs duration) at intervals not exceeding 2 minutes. A vessel NOT making way through the water sounds 2 prolonged blasts at intervals not exceeding 2 minutes.

 

Ship's on deep sea passage may never sound the 2 blasts, as they are normally underway, unless broken down. However, when docking/undocking and operating in narrow coastal channels, this is something that does happen, when 1 Captain has to stop to permit another vessel to clear a bend, narrow channel, etc. Without a whistle and making the correct sound signals other vessels wouldn't know the vessel is stopped.

 

Radar, accepting the vast improvements in technology, is still only an electronic aid to navigation and all Masters and Deck Officer should operate accordingly. Radar works best on a clear day and flat calm seas. On those types of days, we could pick up floating logs and even stationary birds. We must also be cognisant of the potential limitations of radars, especially with the suppression technology that was being introduced prior to my retirement. To reduce clutter, the suppression technology has to see a consistent return for a number of sweeps, before it actually painted it on the screen. In wet/windy conditions, I have seen many times where we can visually see small craft that are not shown on the radar screen. At times, no amount of fine tuning of the radar would display the target. Although very rare these days, I have also experienced multiple total radar failures on a ship. Having also used and purchased all major commercial radar systems, their ability in inclement weather varies considerably.

 

This brings to me to recall a discussion I had with our son, just prior to joining his first ship. As a Cadet, he had completed his first 6-month college phase and was heading to his first ship. Talking about sextants, etc he was adamant we didn't need them, as every ship has a back up to the back ups.... He couldn't consider it possible to have the entire Bridge go black. Fortunately, he now has that experience and is more considerate of non-electronic means of navigating.

 

Another key factor for using a whistle in restricted visibility, especially in coastal waters, is that most smaller pleasure boats have NO radar. They set to sea, navigating by smart phone GPS. I have experienced numerous near misses with small pleasure craft operating mid channel in a straight line, having them almost run into my vessel. My ship's whistle saved the day on many occasions, preventing small craft from running into us while we stopped dead in the water.

 

The International Collision Regulations also prescribe manoeuvring and warning signals, some of which include:

 - Approaching a bend, the Master SHALL  sound 1 prolonged blast, which shall be responded by a similar signal by any vessel hearing the signal. At a blind corner, radar is useless, as it is line of sight, it doesn't see around bends.

 - If any vessel, in sight of another vessel, is unsure of the intensions of another vessel it SHALL sound the "Danger Signal", which is at least 5 short & rapid blasts on the whistle

 - They have additional signals for altering to port, stbd, going astern and overtaking.

 

In a man-overboard situation, the 3 long rings on the General Alarm are also sounded on the ship's whistle. This is for a number of reasons, the whistle is more audible than the G/A on deck (depending on the conditions) and it also alerts other vessels in the vicinity of the situation and that the vessel could be crash stopping, executing a Williamson Turn, etc.

 

The continuous sounding of the ship's whistle is also a recognised distress signal.

 

Another use that few mariners have utilised and it was not taught during my time as a Cadet, either aboard ship, or at college, is using the whistle during coastal navigation in restricted visibility. With the vessel steaming towards a charted cliff, you sound the whistle and time for the rebound (echo). Using the time, you can calculate the distance off the cliff. On the BC Coast, many ships safely navigated using the whistle and magnetic compass. I have tried this method and can attest that it does work.

 

Therefore, having spent almost 30 years in command of Ro/Pax, I cannot agree with the Master you met on Seabourn Quest. I have personal experiences where the ship's whistle has saved me considerable paperwork and potential lawsuits. I also commanded vessels with the latest integrated technology, using it to the fullest extent, but still was comforted to know, when the you know what hit the fan, we had a magnetic compass, windows and a whistle.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Fascinating!

2 hours ago, valancy1 said:

You should see if you have a personal cruise consultant, or ask for one (you can request one on the website). They book air all the time for people and understand air travel.

Yes, we have one and she looked after it all. Reading this, I’m glad we did.

I’ve found that the two beds made up as one are actually bigger than a queen-sized bed, more like a king-size actually. Don’t know if that helps?