ksmaxey

Sorry to hear this!  May the symptoms be mild, the accommodations be comfortable and your travel home safe.

1 minute ago, Btimmer said:

Plus today around noon we're expected to have gale force winds and rain while in port.

We will be arriving to board the Eurodam just as the storm is to hit!

Has your itinerary for the return trip been altered?

Great sight to see!  We'll be on the Eurodam in 4 hours!

13 hours ago, Btimmer said:

Whether the Canal asks or not or what threshold wasn't disclosed to us.  They may not request it for the return voyage.  We'll see.

 

Re: snorkeling, we've been there three times in the last few months and have found an undocumented snorkeling spot that's pretty good.  The HAL trip should expose us to a new area.  Here's hoping.

We will be at HMC Monday - where do you suggest snorkeling?

We just both tested this AM and were negative.  We fly to FLL in the morning

It is private - After the tours on Embarkation, no one can see in.  

For bubbles, one has to press the button every so often.

Roger,

Do you have the full 10/11 day Caribbean menus?

Thanks for all of your work!

Kevin

1 hour ago, NMCruiser123 said:

And so it came to pass that on day 7 of NMCruiser123’s isolation, dining services tired of filling 5 separate glasses of wine and bequeathed him a bottle!

Are you getting your meals with dishes or in disposable containers?  I see a real wine glass

We are cruising Sunday and I after all the HAL ships we have been on I can't remember.  Does the Eurodam have the LED "nightlights" in the ceiling in the balcony cabins?   Thanks-  Want to take a nightlight if not, but hate to take one if we don't need it.

Kevin

Half Moon cay was a adjusted longer and we have another sea day

I called inventory control for our cruise on Sunday 1/16 which appear to be about 1/3-1/2 sold and was told that there were no paid upgrades being offered on our sailing.  I thought a little strange given how empty the ship is.

We leave Sunday (1/16) on the Eurodam and received notification overnight that Aruba has been dropped from our cruise

1 hour ago, fkfad said:

@matcha, yes, we are on the 1/16 Eurodam...  Technically, we are celebrating our 41st anniversary (technically because our actual anniversary is in February lol)...  It would be fun to meet!  We're on deck 8...  Are you active on the role call?  If yes, we can connect over there....

My wife and I and another couple are to be on this sailing.  We are getting quite excited and being very careful with masking with kn95 leading up!

14 hours ago, zelker said:

Do you want the name of our wonderful tour guide in Puerto Limon?  Or are you restricted to only HAL tours?

 

I will be there on the 23rd.  Please share the guide and tour you recomend!

Kevin & Janice
January 16, 2022  Eurodam 10-Day Panama Canal Sunfarer

12 hours ago, Cruizer Diana said:

 

 

Two questions about the "drop off" at the port:

 

I just asked Boytjie this question because he is arriving by Lyft. But, since you are local, can you answer the question from your observation?

 

If you used Uber or Lyft, were you dropped off at the baggage drop or a bit of a walk away? 

If you were dropped off by a private car, how far were you dropped off from the baggage drop-off?

 

The reason I ask is that the last time we sailed from this dock (Aug 2919), the Lyft ride dropped us a bit of a walk to the luggage drop area. The driver was not allowed to take the taxi lane.

 

Thank you!

Diana

We were on the first cruise on July 23rd and had an Uber.  We were directed to the Taxi line and were as close as anything else and a porter was there immediately.

4 hours ago, mckgreg said:

Just have to clarify…I am a Seattlite and I love Seattle. It is perfectly safe to take a cab or go to the cruise port. But when you are downtown you need to be situationally aware. We have some problems in our city that will take time to solve. I have no doubt that our beautiful city will find solutions. In the mean time, just be careful downtown.

Thanks for all the comments and concerns.

The incident happened on a traffic island under the monorail as it turned toward the space needle around Denny and 5th ave.  I consider myself pretty situationally aware.  I was a sworn LEO years ago and am a chaplain for a PD now.  My wife is NP with experience with psych issues.

The person presented as just having psych issues.  No question and the PD confirmed this.  Unfortunately he took advantage of our being sensitive to the psych stuff to steal.  

He was clearly homeless.  He also was clearly used to being arrested as he kept getting into position to have cuffs placed on him.  

We have lived in many places around the midwest.  I have yet to live anywhere that has a great system for handling the chronically mentally ill.  I am a full time pastor and less than a month ago a son of a member who has been in and out of the state hospital was in crisis.  After a recent hospitalization they couldn't find a proper psych bed.  He was sent to a nursing home an hour away with no psych skills.  They needed a bed filled and the hospital needed to get him out.  He got into an altercation with another resident. He was arrested and put into the regional jail for 50 days without psych care or any of his meds.   His family finally got him into a psych unit in the city but after getting him stabilized they couldn't find him a place to live and so discharged him to the street with no meds or plan.

Suffice it to say I know every city has issues with those like we encountered.  I am thankful we got my phone back.  I am sad there was nothing the PD could do but let him go.  (jail would not have helped) 

I am up at 2 AM icing my knee and thankful that this is the extent of my injuries.  (I also think now is bad time to complete the HAL survey!)

5 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

 

You ask an interesting question.  The answer is......?  

 

Or, I wonder, has the nationality of the MDR Stewards changed?  

Not any we talked to.  There were trying but they are already overloaded.

We disembarked and checked into the Crown Plaza.  They let us check in early.  On the way to the space needle we were accosted by a mentally ill homeless person who reached in my pocket and stole my iphone.  I fell in the process.  Thankfully sore and bruised but nothing broken.  Called Seattle PD and we got in the back of a cruiser and directed them to the location of my phone using find my phone.  They caught him.  We got my phone back.  They seemed surprised that we could accurately describe him and as they walked up we made the phone make a noise.

We still did the Chihuly and the space needle but I am in the hotel at 3:30 icing my knee and done for this trip.  Thankful nothing worse happened.

4 hours ago, zelker said:

ATK was discontinued about 2 years ago.  I miss it.

We do too.  Especially the on demand of ATK and cooks country.  I will say the two shows with the Pinnacle chef were good - but there were only 2

3 hours ago, PSR said:

So, there is no longer a bar of soap at the bathroom sink, only liquid?

No bar - just liquid.  It is so much cleaner and nicer.  This is our first with dispenser at the sink

21 minutes ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

Good Evening from our last night on board the Beautiful MS Nieuw Amsterdam. 
First off WOW and WOW again. We just finished the BEST meal in at least 8 years in the Pinnacle. It was truly amazing. While the menu is the same the quality was way above what it had been in the past. Starting with a true Cesar Salad with egg yolk, actually barely poached egg on top and of course anchovies. It was delicious. Next was main entree, the steak was so tasty and tender I knew immediately they were not serving that grass fed beef from the Double RR Ranch. That was the start of the downfall in my opinion of the Pinnacle Grill. Even the baked potato was delicious, perfectly baked and just a good taste. When the Manager stopped by I mentioned that the steak was excellent, he said they ended the contract with Double RR and he too was very please when he tasted this new steak last week. 
I grew up Iowa where cows were corn fed not this grass fed stuff lol.

I did also ask if the Scallops were the Jumbo Scallops they state on the menu. What is funny they are stating the same thing they stated when this menu first came out and would state the scallops are not that big. They are the same scallops I had last night for Gala Night for Club  Orange. While I love Scallops I also love a good steak if it is tasty and tender and the new steaks in Pinnacle Grill are just that.

Then for dessert I had the Key Lime Pie which was good but I don’t think it sells well . The crust was soggy but over all it was still good. Tom had the Creme Brûlée, I tasted it. It was ok but not nearly as good as the Creme Brûlée we had at the Capital Grille in Seattle last Friday.

Overall the meal was an amazingly excellent way to end our cruise on a high note.

You know this whole cruise was shockingly normal. We forgot what that the world has gone through since March 2020. Granted crew were wearing masks but otherwise life on board the ship is really as we all remember it. 
Yes Hal has done cutbacks but they were doing this before the pause. Hopefully they will come to their senses about needing Wine Stewards. They pulled this stunt several years ago and decided to go back to having them. I also think they will get several complaints about the menus so that too will improve. 
Other than that it felt fantastic to be back on board and feeling normal again.

 

Unfortunately things have not gotten better while we were cruising so reality will hit us tomorrow. I pray that the ships can keep covid away or at the worse just a few cases because in reality they are expecting a few cases and have a plan. 
 

Tom is packed, I am about half way there. Wish we could just say to Hal,  wash all our clothes and store away our luggage for 5 weeks. 😃

 

Right now I am sure Captain Baijens is busy at the bridge because we our sailing through pea soup fog. We can barely see the water below us  , let alone 5 feet out from our balcony.

 

After returning from dinner on our bed was our pillow chocolates and two things I have not seen previously. One is a little booklet with blank pages called Holland America Line Journeys. Something like this would be nice at the beginning of the cruise to write down notes. But also good to take home to use as a small note pad. The other item is different. It has ship information on it with our itinerary and signed by Captain Jeroen Baijens but is a sticker. It is perforated to peel away. Not sure what one would stick it on. Not exactly a bumper sticker item. 
The one thing I really was hoping they would do was give us a certificate like, RCI, Celebrity even Carnival did stating we sailed on the first Hal Voyage after the pause. It had been hinted there would be some surprises for those of us on the first return to cruise sailing but that did not seem to occur. Unless it was that DAM Drink Card I never redeemed 😂

 

I want to Thank Each and Everyone of you for following along and contributing. As you know I do try to tell it like it is. I was expecting hiccups but they need to be commented on along with the good things. 
It was so wonderful to be back on board and amazing to sleep to the movement of the ship.

 

Now with any luck I will try to upload the photos.

The sticker needs to be trimmed but is to be placed in the journey's journal they gave us!

The crew seems to be trying very hard and are very gracious.

The elimination of the wine stewards is a dismal failure.  Tonight it took 35 minutes from when I finished my wine before more was delivered.  It took 20 minutes for our waiter to realize and another 15 for it to be served and delivered.  As my wife said, that isn't fine dining.

My wife observed that she thought the wine stewards could be obnoxious but she really misses that they watched and attended to empty glasses.  The waiters are just tasked with too much now.  It isn't that they aren't trying, it just isn't on their radar after 10+ contracts with that being handled by someone else.

We found the menu tonight to lack depth and choice.  She ordered tortellini on a night she always looked forward to lobster.  I ordered duck because the beef option was not optimal.  The three dessert options didn't interest us and we saw lots of ice cream which wasn't on the menu being served. (waiters have caught on!)

Our cabin steward has been amazing and really taken care of o us.  

19 minutes ago, Mrsfrz said:

Speaking of dining, have you met anyone who has done Rudi's Sel de Mer? We are thinking about it for our August 21 sailing. I'm not a big seafood person, but everyone else is in our group. Again, thank you for all your help. 

We do it every cruise that we can.  they have amazing Lamb chops that are better than any other night on the ship.

For seafood we find the fruits de mer is absolutely worth the supplement.

We were so full I couldn't do dessert so they had the international cheese plate delivered to our cabin later in the evening!