sailingdutchy

From our cruise on the Volendam Kushiro is the city on the northern Japanese Island of Hokkaido and was the first Japanese Port we visited on our Trans Pacific cruise in 2017. The Island is specially famous for the beautiful cranes which are near the Western side of the Island We just went into town for a walk to stretch our sea legs ( after 8 Sea Days ) and to see the famous fish market there where we had a few nibbles and a delicious bowl of Japanese soup . We could use a very nice warm bowl of soup here tonight " baby its cold outside “ and snowy ! Without too much commentary today , you’ll forget names etc anyways by tomorrow , just a few nice pictures Loved this little car check the wheels and the paw prints on the hood Utility box cover Near the Port Entrance , some photo opportunities for us cruisers ........wonderful to be a geisha for a day for the ladies ! Or to get some special Japanese treats Have a great day everybody , working on a couple of cruises , got to get away for a few weeks this winter ! Tony

This is what we woke up to , from my bedroom , better get back under my blankets ……….

We heard about the problems Princess is having in Sydney Australia with hundreds of Covid positives on board ship .........wonder if they caught it in Australia or it was already on board . Please take care and enjoy your cruise @cunnorl

Computer beat me up again , sorry for duplications , I tried to clean it up Computer 2 - Tony 0 ...........have to go back to school !

We were in Fukuoka with the Volendam in 2017 but because we were shanghaied in Shanghai ( The authorities kept the Volendam completely locked up in port for an extra fourth day which is a long story for another day , we could not get off the ship that day ) On Nov 1st I had set up a small group walking tour and later went exploring on our own for the afternoon . We started the walking tour from the Nakasu subway station and visited the Jotenji Temple , the Tochoji Temple , the Hakata Folk Museum and the Kushida Shrine . Mom who are those strangers ……….. the little girl actually started to cry ...... After a nice Japanese lunch we went exploring on our own by subway to the beautiful Ohori Park and the Japanese Gardens …….. had to ask for instructions to get on the subway in sign language ………it was surprising to me how few Japanese people speak any English . We did it …. Young lady celebrating a very special occasion in the Japanese Garden it was a special birthday or graduation . …..and a very nice day was had by all , despite this major change in our schedule . Their husbands were also on my tour , but I thought this was a nice picture ! Tony 😃

@kazu Thanks for showing some of your favorite crew members . Have you been a couple of times to the Pinnacle and are Rudy , Erwin , Agung and Nino still there ? If they are please say hello from Tony and Martha . We met Rudy for the first time on the Prinsendam , wonderful person and love to have him looking after us , he is a lot of fun ! BTW you missed out on seeing Rifki on your cruise (Prinsendam's Canaletto manager who now is a Dining room Manager on the Oosterdam ) he just went home last month for his break. Have a great crossing ! Best Wishes ! Tony

Sorry for the mess I made downloading , tried to correct it a couple of times ............ Computer 1 - Tony 0

When on the Zuiderdam Panama Canal cruise in 2017 we also visited Cartagena and made a similar tour as @StLouisCruisers and others to the monastery , the same shops and walked possibly a few more different neighbourhoods so I will add some more pictures . Will try not to duplicate ………. Suburbs of Cartagena seen from the Mount I did NOT touch , promise ……….but you can see where people did …….! Had to get some Columbian coffee of coarse Tony 😄

@CHIEFWINEMAKER Hopefully I can shine a light on what is available at this moment on the Nieuw Amsterdam for your cruise in the Caribbean. I had a look at the total number of VH cabins on the NA there are only 4 of those and none of those seem to be open for booking at this time . As far as Verandah cabins that are open for booking there are quite a number of them 49 on Deck 5 , 19 on Deck 6 and 20 on Deck 8 , for a total of 88 cabins .( none on deck 4 ) This does not mean that there are additional cabins still open which are not shown and that they are holding behind. There are NO aft cabins available in the Verandah Class for this cruise. The suggestion made here to look into Club Orange is a very good one ( Tel no : 1 888 628 8107 ) I do not know the cost of it but we pay on longer cruises $15 pp per day . If you like to investigate that make sure you have a Deck plan handy when you call them and ask for the best possible cabin in the same Category which is a V or a VA . Hope this helps your decision making . Wishing you a great cruise and hope that you get hooked on cruising with Holland America just as much as we are ! Tony

Lately there have been more and more posts from cruisers with Holland America that when they tried to bring fresh flowers on board ship they were disallowed to bring them on board . I have read that quite a few times now over the last few months that it is a new directive from head office fleet wide that bringing any plant matter is no longer allowed and people had to leave their purchases on shore . This is not our own experience but would like to hear again from people to whom this happened

Sounds like you are planning a Hawaii &Tahiti cruise @schildiamswhich would be wonderful .There are a couple of very important points to consider . The Captain will never take chances by taking risks and dropping the tender boats in bad weather he might sometimes test the waters first if it looks too rough or change at the last minute coarse to go to a different port and change itinerary which can happen in any tender port . They also look of coarse if there is a chance that the weather will change in the coarse of the day . Than the normal order of tendering is that there are two groups that are allowed to get in the tenders first , those on Holland America tours , also 4 and 5 star Mariners and people that have purchased Club Orange for this particular cruise that you are on . For the rest of the guests you will have to pick up tender tickets at a particular location on board which will be announced so you might have to wait your turn and stand in line in for instance the World Stage location or the Queens Lounge. It usually is very well organized and after about an hour from starting the tendering operations than anybody can get on or off whenever . Sometimes it gets messy specially if people feel they have the right to break rank and start pushing or abusing crew that are in charge . We have been on the Koningsdam quite a few times and most of the time things have gone smoothly , but also have had disappointments when we came to a particular location and the Captain had to change coarse because it was unsafe to get either into the Port or Bay or to get on the tender boats . Enjoy your cruise Tony

.................and he's backkkkkkk finally ............ with a new face anddddd his love ! Tony 😍

Cruise Critic is having some problems today , which causes me problems , have to sign in every time even with the pages i have bookmarked and also my picture is gone ????? Now have to try to find my Roll Calls of future cruises ......... Tony 😥

@summer slopeI would think that if it is a family emergency it might be better for family to call Holland America head office they would get in touch with the ship and that way leave a message on your phone in the cabin. Than you can go to Guest services where they might be able to help you to call home. We did not have a cellphone at the time . It happened to us a few years ago that our very best family friend had passed away unexpected and after I received the message in our cabin Guest services allowed me to call home on a special line with help from the operator on board and I was not charged at all for calling home . Our call was at least 15 minutes long . They were wonderful and very supportive !

Have we found out yet what exactly the problem was ? So we can learn from what happened ............

Thanks very much for that I was hoping you would do that in Malaga and Madeira , those are our favourite people we love to spend our day with , Laura and Daniel please give both of them a big , big hug from Tony and Martha , we miss them . If you have not yet ask Daniel to take you to Henriques & Henriques at the end of the tour for some Madeira wine tasting , he always takes us there before we go back to the ship and in Malaga have some delicious tapas and wine or is it Wine and Tapas !?

Bon Voyage Jacqui @kazu I will be watching especially what you will be doing in Malaga and Lisbon where we had the pleasure to be with you and Jose on tours while on the Prinsendam . Also curious who you will be touring with on Madeira .......... Have a wonderful time safe travels and say hello to some of our friends when on the Oosterdam . A hug to your Teddy Bear ! Tony 😍

Thank you very much for filling in for Jacqui , Elizabeth @crystalspin, very much appreciated ! Bon Voyage to @kazu , @HELENPSL, @ger_77, @0106, @jimgev Have a great cruise with the wonderful crew on the Oosterdam , who we have just left a couple of weeks ago . If you visit the Pinnacle Grill please say hello to Nino , Rudy and Erwin from Martha and Tony ! 😁😁

Hello Jacqui @kazu , Martha and I have just booked the B2B Koningsdam leaving San Diego Jan 7th to Mexico followed by the Jan 14th circling Hawaii so we hopefully shorten our winter a bit . Also wishing you a great TransAtlantic on the Oosterdam which has a wonderful crew on board and I noticed you will also be with some other great Cruise critic friends like Helen and Angelo , Gery and others. Bon Voyage !

I agree with you 100 % @marshhawk, I also love this picture . This is a very nice and special small temple where our guide told us some stories about the ceremonies , customs and traditions . On this very busy street once you get further inside there is that very special feeling and like you said serenity..........

@1ANGELCAT You are correct about that medal presentation to "Joska " when the ceremony started she was the first one to get called on stage to get her bronze medallion and to large applaus and some tears she accepted it gracefully I remember it well from the Premier cruise on the Koningsdam . We had the pleasure to be with "Joska " and her parents from the Netherland on at least 4 cruises and hopefully on our next cruise we will also get that " Valuable " Platinum medal ............ Tony 😍

Phu My part 2 , Jan 2020 On our way through busy traffic going for lunch…….in Ho Chi Minh City on eleven Tri-shaws ….. Wrong turn off …... turn around guys otherwise we will never have lunch ..... We made it to Pho 2000 the place that American Presidents ( Clinton and Obama ) have made famous ! My inside pictures came out all upside down , blame it on iPad , we had a nice simple lunch ......sorry After lunch to the market ........ lets try this on …..what….. $ 15.00 ….DW bought the nice red one ... wonder how often she will wear it ....looking good dear ! For New Year everybody was buying large flowering branches or trees . To the lacquer place .... standard tour stop . The former Palace now the Independence Palace , we chose not to go to the war museum . Than to the Post office and to see the exterior of The Notre Dame of Saigon both from the old French Indochina days . A great day was had by all . Hey those guys look familiar from this morning . Farewell Phu My Tony 😄

Lots and lots of pictures of Phu My , the Port to Saigon today hope I am not boring you with all of mine that I posted a year ago . They are different from what I have seen so far ……... We have had the pleasure to get to Phu My a couple of times and the last time was on Jan 23, 2020 , ……...on the legendary Westerdam , the ship that the BBC on the news called the “Phantom “ ship because we were roaming the sea's for so long trying to find a port that would except us to get back on land ......... This was just a couple of days before Chinese New Year so I might need a couple of posts to show my pictures going on a small group tour with Nguyen Tri Dung . From the port we went directly to Ho Chi Minh City ( the former Saigon ) On the Rooftop garden of the REX Hotel with our group of cruise friends....... @bobpatj Ho Chi Minh Dressed for the New Year In the background from the French Colonial time the railway station Thousands and thousands of bikes weaving between the traffic On my special request Dung took us to the " Heavenly Lady Temple “ which happened to be in a very festive state ! All this excitement before lunch time , lets get on board our tri-shaw To be continued ………….. Tony 😃

Ashdad tour Part 2 . It was quite a warm day and we had already done a lot of walking so after a drive towards the Dead Sea we stopped for a snack and drink before we took a “ dive “ into the sea . Here you can see the sea in the distance The date palm farms It is not easy walking into the sea because of all the very uneven seafloor you can't see under the water but once in it was wonderful what an experience .! I have to admit , I am not a swimmer , but I was so happy to float on my back for minutes without doing anything . DW got some very , very salty water in her eyes ( yes she was warned …....) so she went quick to the showers . XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I am sorry to do this to you but the speedo and bikini pictures I have on file did not make it through the Censor ! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Our Israeli guide , Ital , who had done an awesome job all day did not talk about the settlements we saw in Palestinian territory ...... Tony 😄 OK Ann @VictOriann you can look now you are safe !

Thank you very much @StLouisCruisers For making it very easy to get back to the fotos I had posted last year , they are a little different from yours and Lenda We had a fantastic cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean , Greece , Albania , Italy , Cyprus , Israel , Malta , Spain, Portugal and after that all the way back to Ft Lauderdale on the beautiful Prinsendam in Oct / Nov 2016 . Our good friends Ann @VictOriann , with DH Pat and their DD had organized a wonderful tour to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea from Ashdad. It was a very long but amazing day one we will always remember , towards the end of the day floating in the Dead Sea healed us all . Thank you very much for your beautiful pictures and the descriptions @StLouisCruisers and @Quartzsite Cruiser of coarse we went to a lot of the same places I will try not to duplicate too many pictures . An amazing day and wonderful tour we saw so much history and religion in just a few hours after that we went to the Dead Sea but I will show some pictures in a separate post . ( they will have to go through the censor board first ! 😄😄 ) Tony