Troubador222

Thank you, I will look into it. We did not book transportation through HAL. Hopefully that won't make a difference. It's usually a quick trip up I5 to the border from the Seattle area. I've made the drive up to Blaine at the border many times delivering freight in a truck. It's usually smooth sailing unless there is an accident.

We were flying into Seattle the day before our cruise and traveling via one of the bus lines to Vancouver the morning of the cruise. That turned out to be best in our budget and time constraints. We had read that Amtrak was resuming service by the time we take our cruise but as yet, I have not seen a concrete schedule for the trains. Does HAL have a bus service? That might work better than a commercial bus.

I was thinking of ordering some for my wife but I was also concerned about how much of the usable space in the cabin they would take up. We have a verandah cabin and while it will be big enough for our needs, the berths are not huge with limited table/desk/shelf space.

I will try that. Thanks, did not go that far. I still need to double check with my wife to decide what evening we want to do that.

As long as the ship goes to Alaska, up the inside passage, I will be content. I didn't book the cruise for anything other than seeing the sites. I picked HAL because we dont want the floating amusement park atmosphere the other lines seem to have. We want quiet and relaxation. My wife and I have visited a lot of National Parks around the US for our vacations. It always involves renting a car and we end up doing a lot of driving. Well, I drive a truck for a living and I drive 100,000 miles plus a year. Being on that ship, sitting on our verandah watching the scenery go by is going to be heaven for me. Not that they would, but if they asked me to steer the ship, I'd have to jump off it. As long as that doesn't happen, I am great!

Thanks for responding! This forum is great. Most questions I have had have been posted already and I have found those answers from the helpful folks here.

We'll go with the Pinnacle I suppose. I was just confused.

This is from the dining choices on the Zuiderdam profile page.

Yep, that's pretty cut and dry. Frankly I was leaning towards the Pinnacle Grill. When I click the link to book the meal, I get this.

It comes up automatically when I click on the link to book it. Funny about there being no Tamirand.. If you go to the Zuiderdam profile, that's what is listed on the HAL website as one of the dining venues.

We have a credit through the have it all package. When I was looking to book our dining package, it gives me a choice of The Pinnacle Grill, Canaletto, and Rudi"s. But when I look at the specialty dining on the Holland America website, that is available on the Zuiderdam, Rudi's is not mentioned as being one of the venues. It shows the third venue to be Tamarind. Anyone know what's up and which is correct? And if the third choice is Tamarind, can we book that as part of our package? Thanks!

I was planning on bringing a sport coat, tie and nice slacks for dinner on my cruise, just because it’s something I rarely get a chance to do. I’m a truck driver and 90% of the time, I eat dinner in truck stops. I was kind of looking forward to dressing up a bit!

I know. I quit watching TV decades ago. I read and get my news from print sites and when I am home from my trucking job and in my car, NPR. I will probably do some reading when I am in my cruise. In modern times, I have my iPad to download my books. Keeps me from having to haul around a ton of books everywhere I go.

No, I don’t. Their headquarters may be in Miami as well.

My wife and I are first time cruisers in our early 60s and one the reasons we decided on HAL, was the reports of it being a more reserved atmosphere. This cruise is about the destination for us more than anything else. Going to Glacier Bay NP was a big factor. I also considered Princess when we were planning our cruise but after receiving the form email from them with a number for a cruise planner, I left voice mails and emails and never heard back. HAL called me back right away. I guess Princess doesn't need our money. My wife and I were both born and raised in Florida. This morning, if I wanted to go to a nice beach on an island, I could drive to Sanibel and be on the beach in about 45 minutes. So a Caribbean cruise never interested us. Alaska is a place we really want to see. We like to vacation around National Parks and wild areas. Several years ago, we spent a week in Maine, visiting Acadia NP. We got spoiled on eating the lobster at the lobster pounds.

I think it's because their main headquarters is in Miami. Sometimes when coming back, we go to Napa Valley in CA and pick up loads of wine, which we take back to their warehouses. That's distributed to wherever their ships need it, including back to the west coast. So I have probably hauled wine from CA, back to FL, then back to WA.

I can't speak for how HAL supplies their ships but I do know how RCCL does it. I drive a truck and we move freight for their Alaska ships. We haul dry goods and frozen food from warehouses in Miami FL and run them to Seattle. We also take supplies for their ships sailing out of Vancouver but we dont cross the border. We drop those at a warehouse in Blaine WA and a company the specializes in crossing the border runs them on up to Vancouver. So they are shipping most of their supplies 3400 miles. For us, it's a good gig. We get paid by the mile. To my knowledge, we have never missed a sailing.We've had some trucks break down but we've been able to still get those trailers there, because we have drivers moving back and forth all the time, so we've been able to switch out trucks and deliver.

What you will never see on the ship, in either venue, is the real thing. Neither BB or the Stones.

My wife and I are sailing on the Zuiderdam in September. I'm a musician and have worked semi professionally. I did not book the ship for the music. I booked it for Alaska. My plans on the ship were to maybe hit the music venues one night. I'm a huge blues fan but also a huge rock fan and a long time follower of the Stones. I've seen the Stones 3 times. Been center stage row 3 at 2 of those concerts. Any Rolling Stones cover band is not going to impress me that much. I might get with their guitarist if he is actually playing Keith Richards tunings and talk about that with him, because that interests me as I play a lot in those tunings. Never had the opportunity to see BB King. Great blues artist but I prefer Son House myself. If it is the Stones, that's cool. Richards did that evil version of playing in open G and took the low E string off his guitars. That's heady stuff. My favorite is Gimmie Shelter which Richards played in an open E tuning. The legend says he recorded the track on a guitar let by a guy who was crashing at his apartment and had left his guitar there. After he down tuned it to E and recorded the track, the guitar supposedly fell apart. Fun speculation but hey COOL what a performance. Never payed in E myself. Always worked and composed in Standard, Drop D, D modal, Open G and a D based drone tuning of the old e flat based tuning Steven Stills like to use for his work with CSN and CSN&Y.

Yeah, we got one this morning for our cruise on Sept 21, saying the ship was leaving a little bit earlier. At least I think it was earlier as we had not even gotten a boarding time as of yet. We’re flying into Vancouver the day before anyway.