grannyshell

Safe travels Jacqui! Thanks for taking us along! Looking forward to your wrap up 😉

Those 2 stations are my go-to options...salad and stir fry, which to me is the best food on the ship. Cooked to order, fresh, healthy and hot as hades! Love it.

I got the hard sell at the spa on Nieuw Statendam in the past. Very very pushy. Arguing with your massage therapist isn't a nice way to end a relaxing massage.

So what is one to do with this strange HAL cracker-less situation in every venue on every ship? Should women keep crackers in their purses and discreetly slip them onto their plates? 😜

We booked it for an 11 day cruise to the Canadian maritimes on Nieuw Statendam and also on the Rotterdam for a TA, both with cooler weather. I probably wouldn't do it for a warm weather cruise. It was never crowded. We'd go every day. The showers weren't private and there was no private place to change either. I wouldn't hesitate to book it again and will on our upcoming cruise to Norway.

We took a drive down to Newport to see the ship. What a sight to see the Volendam sitting pretty in the harbor. I agree, weather was miserable...windy and spitting rain but just as we were leaving the sun came out. Newport is such a beautiful place when the weather cooperates.

Jacqui, I seem to recall a similar rocky start to your TA last fall...hope this isn't going to be a tradition 🤣 Hope you have a wonderful time. You mentioned a port change - will the Volendam still be stopping in Newport? I was hoping to drive down to see her. Bon Voyage!

Where is the corrosion in the pic located on the ship please?

Thanks everyone. I've got all the info I need.

Amazing level of detail. Thank you so much for this, for now and future reference. The breadth and depth of knowledge of folks here on this forum is impressive.

If we let HAL think we are arriving that morning, but have arranged airfare with Flight Ease, will that cause a problem...will they be able to see that we in fact arrived days earlier?

Here's the situation: we are flying into Amsterdam 2 days prior to our cruise departing from Rotterdam. If we stay in Amsterdam, could we make our way back to the airport on the morning of the cruise to take advantage of the HAL airport transfer to the cruise terminal in Rotterdam?

We stayed at a very cool place last fall, called Pension Homeland. It was very reasonable. There is a small, but slow, elevator. The restaurant there is amazing, locally sourced food, its own brewery and home baked sourdough to die for. Taxi to cruise ship cost 8 euros. It is small so might be booked up, but it's worth a try.

There is currently a Live review on the Koningsdam cruise to Hawaii and Tahiti that you may find interesting. Many of the daily menus and activities are posted there. I've been following because we'll also be on the cruise to Hawaii next January. I will add that we recently did a trans Atlantic on HAL and were never bored. Look for the roll call for your cruise and since there are so many sea days you may find that it is very active, with someone organizing activities above and beyond what HAL offers (book clubs, knitting groups, games, cabin crawls etc.).

We've been on the Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam, sister ships to Koningsdam. We like a bigger balcony too and chose to stay on deck 4. Like tupper10 said, the balconies are huge. Half is covered, half not. Room for 2 chaises and you could probably fit 4. The obstructed cabins are midship; the extended balconies are located fore and aft. You've got to be careful choosing one at the front of the ship because some of them have steel railings vs. plexiglass, if that's something that's important to you. We've since found out that there are large balconies on the other decks. They're located midship where the ship jogs inward. Part of the balcony is on an angle but it's large.

Wow, that gov't warning is frightening. Why would anyone get off the ship and why would HAL continue to have such a port on the itinerary?

No, did not play bingo or slots, not once.

I don't think that's always the case, it surely wasn't in ours. We've done 2 cruises in the past 2 years and have 2 booked with HAL this year.

We didn't spend a penny in the casino on either of our 2 cruises.

Directly from Holland America and yes, we have sailed with HAL recently.

Still a relative cruising newbie here (all on HAL). Just got an email offering free interior staterooms on select sailings. In order to book, one has to call. Hoping the experts here can enlighten me: what's the catch?

A good place to start: https://www.whatsinport.com

If one is sailing from Rotterdam, in which case any post cruise flights would be from Amsterdam, how do the airport transfers offered on the HAL website work? Will they actually put you on a bus to Schiphol?

We'll be on a Med. cruise on HAL Oosterdam this June and one of the ports is Portofino. I've read that it might be necessary for the ship to divert to Genoa if weather conditions prevent tendering. In that case, would the cruise line normally offer a shuttle to Portofino or would we be on our own to arrange transportation?

I live in southern MA. In general, we don't see much color until well into October. There are "foliage maps" to see where/when peak color is happening if you google it. Of course, every year is different.