Live from Volendam! May 9-16 Alaska Inside Passage from Vancouver

Hello everyone! I'm sitting here sipping my coffee after a hot shower and a restless sleep, just waiting for the rest of the household (which means just my husband) to roll out of bed so we can start getting ready to go.

 

I thought I'd share our progress over the next week since it's the start of the Alaska cruise season and the first round trip out of Vancouver for Volendam this year.

 

A little background on us. My husband and I both work in an on office all day, he's a support manager for a trucking software company and I have been working as an application administrator for a trucking company using that software (I used to work at the same company as hubby). We're in our late 30's/early 40's with a beautiful "threenager" daughter. This will be our 5th cruise and 4th time to Alaska. I'm not big on flying or hot weather so the round trips out of Vancouver/Seattle work well for us. This will be our first cruise since having our daughter and I'm excited that we can try out the kids club since she's potty trained!

 

About our booking: This was a fairly last minute booking for us, we booked after final payment in early April. It's my mother's 60th birthday later this month and I realized much too late as the eldest, I probably should do something special for her. Being from Canada the fares have not been as palatable as they were when we last cruised 4+ years ago (stupid Canadian dollar not being at par anymore :( ).

 

Some friends of ours decided to book a cruise in Sept to celebrate her 40th birthday so I was looking up fares and really couldn't shake the itch that I needed another cruise.

 

I started my new job a year ago March and have only taken 6 days off. Unfortunately due to the nature of my position I ended up working on all of those 6 days. I also just finished a 3 class semester in April (online classes at BCIT working towards my degree) so I've been feeling really burnt out lately.

 

I finally managed to get a consensus on dates and "permission" to book!

 

And I just realized what time it is! Need to finished packing, drop the doggy off at the sitter and pick up my mom!

 

I'll post more about our booking in a bit. :)

Looking forward to your Live reports.

Looking forward to reading your reports.

Hope you have a wonderful cruise.

By the way, love that term "threenager" LOL

Just a quick note from Canada Place. It's a 3 ship day today: Coral Princess, Island Princess and Volendam.

Everything has gone very smoothly, except for finding the bag drop. Make sure you go to P2 not P1!

 

We left home about 845 am (about 15 min later than planned) but still within our window. We arrived at Canada Place right at 10:30. 10am would have been fine.

There was no line for check in (maybe a couple people waiting at most). We were in blue group 5 to wait for security and customs and only had enough time to find a seat and use the washroom before our group was called. Made it down to the customs line at 1130am. Line is moving fast as I type!

 

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Interested in your experiences; we leave on Volendam in 8 weeks and our excitement is building for a return to a smaller HAL ship after a couple trips on much larger ships

Security took 16 minutes. Line for customs was long ish for non US and Canadians. Moved pretty fast for us and we were done and on the ship in our room by 12:09pm! Did not get to use the express customs terminals (the officer was surprised we didnt).

 

Just down in the main dining room for lunch (12:30). Wanted to have a nice sit down lunch after moving non stop for the last 1.5 hours. The dining room is super quiet right now but a few people are coming in now.

 

After lunch we will check out Club HAL.

 

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Thanks - please keep on posting - we are taking same cruise on May 16

Thanks for sharing. Same cruise Aug 15. Looking forward to more.

Finally found some time to sit and relax (and catch up on some work emails before my local cell signal drops). Finished muster drill about 4p (3:45 drill time) and just waiting for sail away shortly. First time on an Alaskan cruise with a balcony!

 

So back to our booking story. I had been trying to price out some cruises using an online warehouse site and noticed that similar connected rooms to ones we had back in 2013 on Zandaam were available (HH/H at the front of the ship). The price was reasonable so I got the go ahead to book. I ended up doing a chat session directly with Holland America as I had some questions and was informed one of the rooms I wanted weren't available but did have a couple HH aft. I went for the rooms through the cruise line as the other site wanted more money for the same rooms (even after the included OBC).

Jump to Monday and I get a panicked message from my husband that the cruise line called him, something about overselling the ship and a downgrade (his words). He told them to call me and sure enough I had 2 missed calls on my phone. I called the cruise line back and was informed that they did oversell the ship and really needed an extra cabin. As we had booked 2 rooms (my husband and I in one and my mom and daughter in the other) they were hoping we would share a room... but were offering us a Neptune suite.

I frantically tried to message my mom and husband to get their opinion and got an ok from my mom but my husband wasn't available. I agreed to the room change with the hope that the balcony and suite perks might make up for the loss of bathroom and "separate space". We'll see how the next 7 days ago.

 

Then yesterday I received an email offering a 50% refund if we opted to take a later sailing due to the ship being overbooked. I couldn't take that offer since this week was the only time that worked for all of us, but it is interesting what the cruise line will offer. I know there is a group booked on this sailing but not sure if that has caused the booking issues.

 

A little about the ship. The common areas appear to be in great shape, you can tell there had been dry dock work recently (the lower promenade is all fresh white paint). My husband even commented how much nicer this ship looks then when we sailed on Zandaam a few year ago. The elevators are all nicely redone with grey and blue interiors. The bathroom in our suite is updated (no orange tiles) but unfortunately I won't be able to comment on the HH room we were going to have about the tub removal there.

 

There are apparently a handful of children on the ship (under 10 I was told) with a couple 3 and 4 year olds. Hopefully my daughter will have fun in the kids club.

My mother purchased one of the week long spa passes for $99 (only 20 available). My husband took a tour of the fitness centre and he's pretty happy with the selection of weight machines.

The internet is the daily social/surf/premium plan offerings at $14.99/$24.99/$29.99 for 200MB/300MB/500MB per day. The 7 day rate is $69.99/$99.99/$139.99. I'll be getting the $139 package thanks to work agreeing to cover part of the cost.

 

I'm going to sign off for a bit as we set sail. I'll try to get some pictures posted later.

Bon voyage Kesstral! Can't wait for your commentary on the inside passage. We leave in less than three weeks for our first cruise to Alaska and we'll be following you closely.

 

 

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Have an awesome time! Your ship earlier this morning :

 

 

Thank you for checking in.

Will be following your Live reports.

Thank you for taking time to write a "live" review from the Volendam

She was our first cruise ship, and have sailed on her several times since.

 

Hope you all have a wonderful cruise.

So happy you are documenting your trip, Kesstral! Enjoy every minute! We will be on the same cruise two weeks from now, May 23. Can’t wait! DH and are are celebrating our 45th anniversary onboard.

 

Two years ago a friend and I were upgraded to a Neptune Suite on the Nieuw Amsterdam, doing the same route. We certainly loved the space and all the Neptune perks. Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Have an awesome time! Your ship earlier this morning :

 

 

 

Omg that is an awesome photo! Thanks!!

So after muster drill we hung out in our cabin for a bit until dinner at 545. We had one incident with the balcony door when my daughter tried to close it right on her thumb. There were many tears (from my daughter, myself and grandma) but she's ok! (Pinched her finger in her stroller this morning at the terminal so just not her day).

 

I took advantage of the concierge service to book the main dining room for the week and my husband's and my dinner in the Pinnacle Grill one night. We're in 7035 which is the a few doors aft of the middle elevator banks. It was fairly quick to pop down to the running room which was nice since we left the cabin 5 min before our reservation time.

My daughter claimed to not be hungry but she easily devoured half a bun some of a cheese pizza and french fries.

 

She skipped nap this afternoon so before dessert was served she had crawled into my arms at the table and fell asleep.

Our room wasnt ready when we got back so headed to the Neptune lounge to wait (and stumbled into complementary glass of wine) still holding my sleeping child.

Finally back in our room she woke up and cried for a bit, wanting to go home. Managed to get her pajamas on and back to sleep. In fact its not even 9 pm and everyone is asleep but me!

Think I'm going to enjoy some quiet time and wander the ship!

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Omg that is an awesome photo! Thanks!!

 

 

 

I love living in Vancouver close to the cruise port! You are most welcome. I love cruising to Alaska but hubby is tired of it so we've branched out. So I'm coming with you on this trip in spirit!

Beautiful angel asleep in your arms.

Hope she enjoys her cruise.

Have a wonderful cruise on the Volendam, one of my two fave HAL ships. We went from Vancouver to Hong Kong on a repositioning cruise 18 months ago and had a fabulous cruise.

Good morning from somewhere off the north end of Vancouver island!

 

Everyone had an early night last night. My daughter thankfully stayed down (she did need to be settled back to sleep a few times but overall way better than our nights at home have been). My mom is a bit sore from the sofa bed so I'm going to see if they have any foam or add some blankets for her. I did remind her to take advantage of the spa pass she bought. ;)

 

The schedule in our household usually revolves around early rising (530am on weekdays) so I anticipated my daughter being awake before we really wanted her to be. I put out the hang tag last night to order some coffee, milk, bacon and some items my daughter might enjoy for the 6am to 630am delivery window. Room service showed up at 6:01 and everyone (but me) was still asleep! Sigh, well she's awake now.

 

A little side note. Since we lost some privacy by combining into one room I decided to try putting up our own divider. I had hoped that reports of metal walls and ceiling would be accurate so picked up a small pack of command hooks, magnets and a fabric shower curtain. Sure enough the magnets stuck great (I wanted to avoid sticking the hooks directly to the ceiling) and was able to string up the curtain between the two beds. It only stretches across half the room but it really helps delineate the space.

 

I have only been through Seymour Narrows once during daylight so I had been looking at the tide charts to figure out when slack tide through would be. The first one was around 8pm and I knew we wouldn't make it in time so would be transiting at the next one, 2am. We'll of course 2am comes along and my daughter needed to be settled back to sleep. I checked our position to find we were well past the narrows and had probably passed through around midnight. Both Island and Coral Princess were right at the narrows thought. I saw that the max tide prior to the slack tide was something like only 7 knots so guessing we didn't wait for 0 but the larger Princess ships did. Right night we're leading the pack!

 

Today is a sea day and the first gala night. I realized last night that I forgot my daughter's dress. So that sucks. I will have to pick her up something nice in one of the ports as I had hoped to get a nice family photo done.

 

Off to enjoy some coffee. My daughter is getting a little impatient waiting for club HAL to open.

 

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How are you finding that Volendam coffee? I thought it was just awful, and even worse when it was only semi-warm.

How are you finding that Volendam coffee? I thought it was just awful, and even worse when it was only semi-warm.

You know I really didn't pay attention to the coffee this morning (at 6am). I usually take my coffee with cream and sugar or sweetener so sub par coffee gets masked. I will check what my husband thought and let you know! We did get a carafe full for room service so it was hot.

 

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Thank you for posting about your cruise. I will be on the Volendam cruise July 25 with my daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren (ages 14, 13, 10, 7). I've cruised the Inside Passage four times and loved it more each time. I hope the family will enjoy this next cruise as much--a new experience for them. I am eager to hear how the Club HAL was for your daughter. Enjoy each day. Happy cruising.

Loving your live review! My 11 year old son and I are headed off on a mother son cruise this Saturday to Alaska on Nieuw Amsterdam. We were told in an email to arrive at 1pm but I am planning to be at Canada Place at 10am as our flight arrives in Vancouver at 7:30am! Were you told a specific arrival time as well?

I hope you enjoy the Neptune suite and lounge for snacks etc. Free laundry too!

 

I agree (well my son told me) the pull out beds are not very comfy. Hope the topper helps.