sailingdutchy

Excellent review. Thank you for posting all the pics and details. Is this wine package available for purchase in the dining room on embarkation day? Or do they set up tables around the ship on embarkation day for purchasing the package? I can't help but notice these prices are far better (cheaper) than what is offered to me for purchase prior to sailing. Did they recently change the prices onboard? Is this package available to everyone or do you need to have a high Mariner status? Thank you kindly . Sailing Koningsdam in 48 days!!

Hi Jenny , Yes they recently changed the wine package . There are now 3 different packages , Cellar 1 , 2 and 3 and you can buy 4 , 6 or 8 bottles from either package. You can get your package from any wine steward in the diningroom and specialty restaurant or special tables that are set up at embarkation day . Anybody can buy the packages the prices shown are for the 1 and 2 stars , with 3 stars you get a 25 % discount ( service charge is on the regular price ) 4 and 5 stars get a 50 % discount ( but service charge again is on the regular price ) . There is no need at all to pre purchase this before you get on board . Usually on the first sea day there is a wine tasting 4 smaller glasses out of Cellar 1 and 2 $ 15.00 I believe .

Hope this helps you . Enjoy the Koningsdam enjoy the specialty restaurants also ! :D

Thank you Ann for the very extensive review . You and your camera saw more than I did on our two cruises on the Koningsdam . I made it to all the restaurants but not the exorcise room , I know I should have but the Dutch cafe pulled me towards it . I agree very much of what you mentioned . She is not my favorite ship , it is too modern and stark .

No nautical history of the almost 150 year old Holland Amerika Line. We loved all the choices of restaurants specially because we do not like the dining room at all. ( The Ikea room )

My personal believe is HAL should have stuck with the Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam class size ships and should have made improvements on that .

End of the story is we had a great time with you , Patrick and our Dutch friends , we should have joined you earlier ! :D:D:D Until next time !

Martha and Tony

Some more Canadians looking for warmer weather !

Great toots from the Eurodam !

Signing in to see the departure of the Rotterdam especially , first webcam from Tampa experience we will be on her in April Rotterdam to R'dam ! :D

Sorry Tony, but that looks less appetizing than anything we ate on the streets of Lima!

Hi Paul , I know Diane would have tackled them and loved them herring is a very nice fish and yes it is not like the BBQ'd Piranha fish we had in Lima :D

Thank you Ann for this excellent review and great pictures and thank you for your and Pat's wonderful company on this ship , as always we had a great time ! Until next time ! :D:D:D

Tony

Thank you. We are sailing 17 days in Feb. Will be nice to get away from the Ottawa cold. Did I see you waving with Tony F on one of the sailaways- glass of wine in hand?

Wow you have a great memory Sahara1 to recognize us from afar . I believe we have cruised together a couple of times on the Prinsendam and the Volendam , two great cruises !

Greetings and until next time ! :D

Our Dutch friends ate those - a lot! They said the eggs were perfectly cooked, sunny side up. Looked good.

 

And the little pancakey things - don't know their name either.

Poffertjes Ann , delicious had not eaten those for many years . :D

Still prefer the old logo with the "Halve Maen" on the stacks

Agree with you 100% that is the rich history of Holland Amerika you can not throw that away just like that !

Thank you Copper !

Captain told Harbour Master he is ready for departure at 8 PM ! Waiting for pilot to come on board .

To everybody on this wonderful World Cruise Bon Voyage and a shout out to our friends Bernd and Mieke have a great cruise see you guys in May ! :D

Tony:D

Koningsdam tested azipods , everything OK Pilot to come on board between 19.00 and 19.15 ready for departure .

Koningsdam delayed further .

Veendam is moving

We'll be looking for Ann, Pat and Cathy this afternoon , hope the weather will improve fast see you back in port in 11 days for the second part of your cruise. Deck 6 just above second to last life boat ! Looking for the Canadian flag and perhaps the one from NewFoundland ! :D:D:D

Tony

Bon Voyage to all on the 2018 Grand World Voyage ! A special shout out to Bernd and Mieke Sanson from The Netherlands , we hope to see you after the cruise in May and hear all about your adventures !

Don't forget the golfclubs Bernd ! Tony :D:D:D

It would make perfect sense that either one of the two current Koningsdam's captains , Captain Bowland or Captain De Vries ( they both live in Canada !!! :D:D:D ) would be one of the captains on the Nieuw Statendam , same class of ship and they are use to the equipment and layout of the new ship .

I would not be surprised if either one is already in Venice to oversee this new built and they likely will take some of the regular officers they work with over to the Nieuw Statendam .

I'll check on the Koningsdam in January and see what the word is when on board !

I wonder when and where and by whom the ship will be christened . The Koningsdam was christened by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands in Amsterdam. Also find it a strange time for the scheduled Premier Cruise out of Italy in December that is if they are on schedule . The Koningsdam Premier cruise was delayed by a couple of months ! :D

For Tamarind food lovers we were on the Volendam in October and dined many times in the Pinnacle where I believe for the first time they had brought a Tamarind chef on board in Shanghai and one page of the Tamarind menu was added to the regular Pinnacle menu , so we were able to have some of each . I thought it was a great idea specially because we dined there 50 % of the time on this cruise and had more variety ! :D:D:D

Thank you for posting this , I was hoping everything would stay the same .Excellent benefit !:D:D:D

Over the last 5 or 6 years we have been to quite a few Le Cirque evenings in the Pinnacle Grill Restaurant . The evenings were always very nice but the menu it seemed had never been changed . Than about a year and a half ago we heard that the contract with Le Cirque New York had been cancelled .

On the Premier Cruise of the Koningsdam we tried out the Sel de Mer and were sold on it right away so over the three weeks we had four different and all great dinners there . Setting , service and menu choices were great ! :DBecause we found the dining room of the Koningsdam extremely noisy during the one lunch we had there , and it looks like an Ikea Cafeteria we stuck to doing a different specialty restaurant each night , The Pinnacle Grill (not as nice as on other ships ) Canaletto , Cullinary Arts Restaurant and our favourites the Tamarind and for lunch the Dutch Cafe :D:D:D. My friends and I thought the restaurant choices were one of the better things on the Koningsdam . We were no happy campers as far as the none existence of a library and that the rich long history of Holland America was nowhere to be seen and the ship was decked out as a modern arts museum :o

The new set up of the Lido Restaurant was also a big mis on the Koningsdam , to get a normal breakfast you had to go from station to station and you had to wait most of the time to be served , even for little things like some pieces of cheese .:o

Nieuw Statendam mediterranen ports.

 

 

While looking for something else, stumbled upon Nieuw Statendam which is scheduled in Dubrovnik on December 2nd 2018, after visiting Venice and scheduled for

Civitavechia afterwards.

 

 

http://www.portdubrovnik.hr/girica1.php

 

 

Some ports in and around Australia have schedules up and including as far as 2020, but only Noordam and Maasdam are reported in that area in December 2018 through February 2019, so no sign Nieuw Statendam is going there for the moment.

Not a very nice time of the year to start a cruise in Civitavecchia Jeroen for a Premier Cruise after the "shake down cruise from Venice to Civ. Hopefully the delivery date will be delayed like it was the case with the Koningsdam ! :D

I believe the Volendam will be in dry dock in Singapore from Nov 24 2017 until Dec 5 2017 .

Thank you for keeping up this list:)

I was on the Volendam in October 2016 and we docked on the river by the Bund. The captain had said this was their regular berth. The Amsterdam also docks there during the World cruise. It should be noted that we were 14 hours late docking due to bad weather and river conditions so tours were cancelled on the first day. We docked at 9pm.

 

 

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Thank you very much for this hastinc . When you mentioned the Amsterdam where our friends are on this years World Cruise so I looked at Captain Jonathans cruise blog and saw that they docked near the Bund near downtown like you had mentioned ! I did not realize that the tide also had so much to do with docking time slots . Thanks :)

Question for people who have been there . When docking in Shanghai does the Volendam always dock on the River near the downtown area ? There are three Cruise terminals in Shanghai two on the bay and this one on the river Huangpu . For some reason HAL could not tell me where we dock ???:rolleyes: It is rather important to know if you go touring because of distances and traffic . Looking forward to 3 days in Shanghai , Tony :):):)