jakkojakko
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Posts posted by jakkojakko
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3 hours ago, ontheweb said:
Good to hear that your country is doing well with vaccinations. We have been there twice by land, once in the winter and once in the summer. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves both times. We were once supposed to take a river cruise roundtrip from Amsterdam, but it was chartered out from under us. In fact that was when we ended up going to Amsterdam by land instead.
DW is part Dutch on her mother's side. Her family were very early immigrants to the then colonies.
BTW, the idiom in English is generally "grain" of salt.
😀😀yes I am familiar witn the grain of salt expression. The shovel was on purpose to exaggerate the inaccurate article.😉
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43 minutes ago, TiogaCruiser said:
Interesting article in the NYTimes on the worldwide distribution (and “installation” of vaccinations:
Given I live in a country (Netherlands) that is depicted in this article as being poor and not able to vaccinate all people in 2021, I would take the rest of the info with a shovel of salt.
We are neither poor, nor unable to vaccinate everybody this year.
The only restriction on vaccination is the amount delivered, but we expect to finish vaccinating by summer or early autumn.
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If, if traveling to and from embarkation ports will be without hassles, and countries along the route allow excursions, and the situation is stable enough so that there will be no chance of sudden closure of ports, or god forbid refusal of disembarkation, then yes we will cruise when a vaccination is required.
Given my requisites however, this will not happen anytime soon
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We did couple of norwegian cruises, including this one, in the last decade. There were no guest speakers on board. Commentary in the fjord came from HAL's cruise director or exploration's team.
But who knows what they will do when cruising resumes.
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The cruiselines are getting desperate for cash. This way they get it without any insurance that the booked cruise will eventually be sailed. With this money they probably pay back (some) of the deposites on cancelled cruises.
No matter how I like cruising, I don't see any light in the tunnel for a long time to come and it would be foolish to book anything at all.
It is more and more getting similar to a pyramid scheme.
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Strange. I understand the four ships are sold and future itineries canceled. Nevertheless I just received an email from HAL with promotions and offers for future cruising and curiously at least Veendam and Rotterdam cruises are still listed for 2021!
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Thank you
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Does anyone know where she is. Latest update on vesselfinder is march 24.
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She is going nowhere.
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Video in dutch news site with the evacuation of passengers
And an english one.
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Of course I can be wrong. I read the Zaandam flu posts and there is mention of transfer but no source. If they really do it, I think it is a big mistake. Local authorities will then consider both ships to be contaminated, doubling the problem.
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2 hours ago, Cruzaholic41 said:
This is just a guess on my part, but I think it’s because they plan to transfer some passengers and they want to stay hush about it.No they would'nt transfer passengers to Rotterdam and thus create two ships who can't dock anywhere.
Cpt Albert not blogging is clearly a decision from higher up. It has happened before that he mentioned/explained an incident that occured in his blog. A few day's later that day's blog disappeared from the HAL website never to return.
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2 hours ago, Storylady said:
Well one, Dutch couple we have cruised with several time left Perth on Monday on Qatar for Doha. Not sure what their connection was after that. They were traveling with 8 suitcases which was costing them a fortune. Hope they made it.
Yes, it seems Qatar airways are stil accepting transfer passengers. I found that out yesterday and gave that info to the stranded couple.
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2 hours ago, Floridiana said:
Not a good situation, but I hope they can find a hotel that doesn't t close down. We were on a ship that ended her cruise after 8 days instead of 36 in Rio de Janeiro last week. One couple from Guam decided to return via Germany, Taiwan, Tokyo. I hope they made it back home in time. We were lucky we could fly back to Miami, just one flight. We also had passengers who insisted to remain on the ship, no medical reasons just "convenience". They were not permitted.
If you made it back home, count your blessings.
No hotels closed. They were able to rent an appartment for te time being.
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2 hours ago, boards said:
do you know that for sure or just guessing?
No for sure. They had a SIA flight via Singapore to Amsterdam, but were refused for not being Singaporians.
They are dutch, so there FB post is in dutch, but here you go.
https://www.*****/HappyCruisers/permalink/3047943601929247/
Fot the stars insert *****
Aargh, unable to use that word here . Unabreviate fb
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There are still , non american, passengers of Amsterdam in Freemantle unable to get flights home as they cannot go nonstop and carriers are refusing non native passengers. Ie, only repatriating their own.
They are stuck.
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2 hours ago, PeteKessie said:
........
When we booked almost two years ago on board we were told by the sales staff that we would get off onto the ice weather permitting. 10 months before going we wrote to HAL asking what equipment we would need to get off onto the ice. They replied non they would supply. Based on that we bought a GoPro as only the two men in the party were in our opinion fit enough to get off. This way us girls thought we could see what they saw up close and wonderful.
Once on board we learned NO ONE GOT OFF. Sadly what we should have purchased was a telescopic lense for our camera. We were so disappointed. We learned of one other passenger purchasing his cruise about two years ago had the same information. Is there anyone else who has this information. .........
You have definitively been misled. Ships the size of Zaandam have never been (allowed) to let passengers off the ship in antarctic waters, especially not on the ice. For that you need to take an expedition cruise on much smaller ships equiped for the task.
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51 minutes ago, Roger88 said:
I think if there is someone who profited the most is the air companies. I mean, just imagine, all their planes a flying full and oil prices are low. Double or even triple profit right there. In any case I would like to be among those who missed the cruise. I mean its so sad, you planned it, arrived all prepared and now have to go back. Sad story..
Really? Please tell me you're kidding. Apart from the few cruise ship flights that are left, airplanes are flying half empty and across the world airlines are canceling flights. When this is over a lot of them will be bankrupt.
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Position Westerdam 29th Feb. 13:15 london uk time, 0800 eastern us time.
She is definately going towards a philipine harbour.
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Looking at what her track is since leaving port, it doesn't look like she going anywhere. So what is said already, probably replenishing watersupply and then back to a port for refuelling. Although it beats me why they do not refuel first and then leave.
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The same crew will be still be on board. So if you follow the japanese view of things, nothing will have changed.
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Time to start a new thread about cancellations and insurance . This one is about the Westerdam and its passengers predicament.
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6 hours ago, gilboman said:
except there is no actual way to screen for conavirus at boarding. testing takes days to week.
and fever isn't even a sign if someone is infected.
it's security theatre at best much like TSA screening and emptying water bottles
I know, but that is what is going to happen, like it happens at asian airports. By screening I mean looking for signs of any illness and then let the medical team decide wether to deny boarding or not. Fair, accurate? No.
Flights to Rotterdam from Canada
in Holland America Line
Posted
That will take longer and involves two bordercrossings. UK is no longer in the EU. Flying direct to Amsterdam and then a short , max 1 hr, transfer to Rotterdam.