Alphen

Found an updated Sommelier Suite listing of the wine packages. Do not know if wines have been changed, but prices have changed in some cases, not all. sommsuite_flyer.pdf

Nothing official, but judging the itinerary listing of Zaandam and the fact that its last dry dock was in 2020, Zaandam has no sailings between January 18th 2025 and February 8th 2025 and is believed to have a dry-dock in that period, as mentioned by a FCC on board.

First, all the best for 2024 for both of you, sad to hear of the OP and also you had some ports cancelled, hoping that since we have not heard anything and we are cruising before you, that we do not face the same fate.

Thanks for completing this, best wishes for you and Maria, bit of a first for years not having a live report over NYE on board one of the DAM ships!

Tagging along, bon voyage! You are a great source of information for cruising in general and at this moment, also for those that have to struggle through Brasil visa on the 2024 and 2025 Amazon cruises.

We have had mixed success with claiming the Best Price Guarantee, sometimes it works, sometimes not. I think we have had a 70% success rate over the years, just this week claiming two excursions, of which one was granted, the other not, because not being exactly the same, the other was the same operator HAL uses, so they could not deny. We always put in a claim if we think we have located the original partner that HAL uses for the exact excursion and as said, reasonable success over the years and always a response within two business days, sometimes even shorter. Good Luck!

For tax purposes, several HAL ships have been registered to Willemstad/Curacao and St. Maarten for a short period, I think it was the seventies. If you are interested, there are some older discussions about the alternative flagging of Dam ships somewhere on the HAL board.

It has been done recently with a former HAL ship, the Statendam is now sailing as Vasco da Gama. Next to obvious interior refits there have been extensive technical refits, including engines general overhaul. Vasco Ga Gama now burns low-sulphur MGO (marine gas oil) and all five engines are now fitted with SCR catalysers, which reduce nitrogen oxides by up to 80 percent. Apparently they are now within new regulations that also cover the strict environmental rules for Norway, to sail there after new rules are implemented in 2025.They have also updated wastewater systems. Source for this is the current owners website; Nicko Cruises and there should be an extensive article about the refit, which I cannot find anymore.

Bummer indeed, so sad, having had the same experience in 2015, also on Zaandam. Gotten all the way with Port Stanley in sight and also cancelled due to high winds, so still remaining on our bucket list too.

Thanks for the review and no, we do not want to bike just to get the miles, it has to be a combo of sightseeing and biking, so thanks for the input, we will now reconsider our options there.

We did a tour/trasnfer with a private company that included touring Valparaiso and visiting a vineyard along the way. Just google for "southexcursions".

Thanks for all the contributions, we already have 5 bike tours identified in several of the ports that we will be booking for our cruise.

Greatly appreciate your insight on the appeal of the confederation trail, we have tried to look into this closely by means of Google earth and this experience helps us in deciding if we proceed to go for a bike ride there or not. We have planned on several biking excursions during our Canada and New England cruise, so if one falls through, we are not that disappointed. Many thanks for your contribution.

After a thorough search through the Canada/New England section of the forum, I have not found any info on biking tours here. I have researched google and found a very well-reviewed bike shop in town that mostly specializes in multi day tours. Just hoping that there has been anyone that has done a bike tour while visiting Charlottetown, Prince Edward Isl during a cruise visit and if doing a part of the Confederation trail is a nice option?

We did it post-cruise in 2017 in 4 days, 3 nights. Not ideal, but it worked out for us. We flew to Cusco on the first day and indeed, altitude difference hits you hard, but this is personal, no way of predicting how one will react, old, young, trained, not trained.... We took a hand of coco leaves at the airport, which you can chew on or make tea of, to relieve altitude difficulties, but had some trouble in the high part of our arrival tour, which took as even higher, above Cusco! Second, full day, we did the Sacred Valley, Pisac, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and train to Aguas Calientes. Third day we did Machu Picchu and train back to Poroy and tranfer back to hotel in Cusco Fourth day return flight to Lima. All doable, but no way of telling upfront how one will cope with the altitude. Only trouble we experienced was that there was no one to clear us for immigration when disembarking our cruise ship in Lima. Our passports were not stamped so no proof of entry in Peru. We were obviously not aware of this, until checking in our first hotel in Cusco, where they need proof of entry to take advantage of special tax advantages to pay for everything. Luckily, we had a guide that took care of that, but it was on omission on the part of our cruise company and we were not the only ones that had problems because of that. The problem later on got a bit more serious when leaving Lima airport to fly back home, where again no proof of entry was in our passport and it took quite some time to get cleared by immigration to be allowed to leave Peru! After long and thorough research, we chose a tour operator that did an excellent job and is still in business today.

We are on the same cruise and interested as well, however our booking confirmation lists Macapa as a "Clearance Call" with port times 08:00 - 17:00. The current ongoing Grand South America Voyage on Zaandam also has added Macapa as a service call (from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM) to complete clearance formalities. It is stated for their voyage and visit that: "No guests or crew will be permitted to go ashore during this brief time in Macapa." Together with the port description on the HAL website: While Macapá is Brazil's fifth-wealthiest city, at the same time it has the dubious distinction of making some lists of the world's most dangerous cities. Street crime is an issue, and even if you are used to heading out fearlessly in foreign cities, this is a destination where the company of a group or a knowledgeable and trusted guide is highly recommended. With all of this information, the chances of being allowed to go ashore (on our own) are probably pretty slim. Since this is also a port on the 2024 version of this cruise, with the same description listed as a service call, with the same port times, we will probably learn in February 2024 how the Macapa port visit will go........

Enjoying your travel reports as always, both here and on your blog, just worried about the 5 penguins when the pools are drained; someone taking care of them in their own bath?

We had the same operator.

Don't know the current situation, we visited Samana with HAL in 2014 and since we always go ashore in every port (unless HAL advises against it), we enjoyed this port and booked a private tour with "Terry". Apparently he is still in business, just google Tour Samana With Terry, an american who is highly recommended with his tours.

Bon Voyage cate54, Annie & Kevin @Taters and to Tony & Martha @sailingdutchy

Not on board, but on a different thread, they are described as the thruster covers, that are normally in place to guard the bow and or stern thrusters, maybe still to be installed after the recent thruster change, or maybe spare?

Not wanting to get a discussion about green, greener, greenest, but I think it is more about not having the local exhaust fumes in port where the ship is docked, sometimes in populated areas, if shore side power is used.

With Volendam as las ship to be finished, the whole fleet of DAM ships are now capable to receive shore side delivered electricity, if available.

Thanks a lot Jo, odd that these do not appear on the version of the HAL website here!

We did the Y1L Land first, Cruise Second Triple Denali last year and can highly recommend it. You can read our extensive report here;