Cruising-along

Thank you so much Vanessa. We're doing our best to stay healthy, we want to see our Grandsons later this week! I feel terrible for our neighbor, she has always told me about her fear of windstorms, and now to have this happen. She said it will take several weeks to repair the damage. Thankfully she wasn't in bed when it happened, as it came through right above her bedroom. Thank you Sandi. The luggage is now due to arrive this afternoon, hopefully it does come today. Thank you for the prayers -- we're definitely loading up on vitamin C and Zinc! Thank you Lenda!

Good morning all! We got home late last night after a wonderful 28 days on the Nieuw Statendam. It's good to be home though, now to adjust to the time zone change and time change all in the same day. 😉 Our luggage didn't all come home with us, only one smaller bag. The other two larger bags got onto a later flight (so much for priority tags). They will deliver them to us some time this morning. We were exhausted last night and weren't about to wait another 3 hours for that flight and then the hour-long drive home. Praying we don't get sick because for 8+ hours on two different flights we sat behind or in front of a couple who coughed all through the flights (no masks of course). The strangest thing was they had masks hanging from their wrists and never used them. Between that and the taxi driver in Fort Lauderdale who sneezed all through the ride (no mask) it will be a miracle if we stay healthy. I had a shock this morning once it got light out and looked out the window to see a large tree had fallen on our next-door neighbor's house!! I knew there had been a bad wind storm and power outages all through the area, but had no idea about this. She's a widow and has always had a fear of wind storms, and now this. I've been texting with her this morning -- she's physically ok, but of course very shaken up. Lots and lots of damage to her house. She and I are both furious because just a few months ago the HOA had the tree service out, they took down a few trees and assured us the rest were all OK. Not! They need to take them all down before someone is badly hurt.

I agree! Our flight wasn't until 2pm. We took a taxi to Las Olas Blvd., got breakfast, and window shopped (nothing was open yet). Then got a taxi to the airport at noon.

It could depend....yesterday we thought we had at least until 8:00, because that was the time they started calling Luggage Direct the week before. So when they started calling our group at 7:15 we were disappointed to say the least! We weren't ready. Backing up a bit, when DH asked at the front desk if it was mandatory to get off when called, they said yes. But in actuality they did start calling those with luggage tags before we could get ourselves down there to disembark. We still were off before 8, but could have probably stayed longer (waiting in a lounge, we don't like to hold up the work of our cabin stewards on turn-around day).

Very few flavors. I always chose Vanilla, I think they had one or two other flavors. This is as of yesterday. Edited to add the only other flavor was Irish Cream during our 28 days onboard.

We disembarked the NS yesterday after spending 28 days onboard. We had the Wifi package and used it a lot, all for emails, texts w/photos and social media. There were very few times I had any problems using it. When doing Facetime with the grandkids, we did that in port and used our T-mobile coverage.

Yes, they call for all Luggage Direct passengers right after the self-disembark passengers. This morning on the NS it was 7:15 am. Last week it was 8:00. I agree with you, hate having to be ready that early. On the other hand, it’s been very nice not having all that luggage with us this morning in Fort Lauderdale. Our flight isn’t until 2pm.

Oh no. 😞

Onboard the NS for the last month and our stewards have left chocolates every day. Granted we requested nothing else and only once/day service. Question about the coffeemaker pods. I know you and we had problems on the Eurodam last year with only espresso pods but do you have more recent info on that? We’ll have a Neptune in May on the Koningsdam, I’ll bring my own pods if they still supply only espresso.

Good morning from the lovely Nieuw Statendam! We are at sea between the Dominican Republic and Key West. Only 2 days left in our cruise, sad to see it come to an end, it has been wonderful! I’ve been so remiss in keeping up here and know I’ve missed too much. I promise to do better once we get home. Cheers to all who have been celebrating and prayers for all in need.

DH has always watched our statement closely. We’ve caught mistakes for years. Onboard the NS now for a month and between the HIA and free 5-Star dinners we have 6 free dinners. So far hasn’t been too bad, one Pinnacle dinner charged at 50% off and one drink charge in the Tamarind. One more Pinnacle free dinner coming up.

And we’re off!

Captain O’Driscoll just announced he expects to depart by 3:30.

Slight correction, our Nieuw Statendam When and Where etc. say we have a 3:00 sail away.

Both of our banking institutions do the same. We always make sure to do this before any trip, it covers all Credit card and ATM transactions. Peace of mind!

I’m presently in a verandah cabin on the NS. Here is a photo of the opened cabinets above the loveseat. On the left are life jackets, on the right blankets.

That was one of my complaints (we were on the NS October 8-22 also and continue on until November 5). Lo and behold, now we’re getting movies much more often (!). I don’t know why they’re able to have movies more often now but not before. In the 5 days since you disembarked we’ve probably had 3-4 movies already.

Hi! “25% off 2nd drink of select cocktails, wine by glass, beers and entry level spirits”.

I’m onboard the Nieuw Statendam now. Yesterday we were in Grand Turk and are scheduled to be there again on November 1, Amber Cove on the 2nd. We’ve had no notice of any changes.

We did get coupons for “Mariner Cocktails” today but they said they’re for doing a back to back. I didn’t even know about the other drink coupons lol. Did get more tiles too.

Greetings from the lovely Nieuw Statendam! We continue to love this cruise although we really miss all the wonderful Dailyites who departed a couple days ago. We also miss the neighbors we had for the first 2 weeks because now we have door slammers, bad language and heavy drinkers. 🙄 Sadly we had another medical emergency today, but it was just before all aboard instead of after we left as happened in Ft. Lauderdale. Today we met Captain O’Driscoll’s wife and 3-year-old little boy who joined him this week from Ireland. Such a lovely lady and adorable little boy.

Debbie we got our invitation about 5 hours after the fact (on both the 8th and again on the 22nd).

Medical emergency

And we are back in Fort Lauderdale because of a medical emergency. 😞

As Captain O’Driscoll promised today. 😁😁