John and Diane's Konigsdam Adventure

Catching up.

Enjoying your reports. We are 5 star Mariners and several times we were not invited to any parties. We have never been able to figure out who they determine to invite to parties.

It's closer to the latter, with an emphasis on the first syllable: MAL uh guh.

Here you go:

 

Thank you; we will be there in a couple of weeks and don't want to offend anyone with the mispronunciation of their city name.

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

Thank you; we will be there in a couple of weeks and don't want to offend anyone with the mispronunciation of their city name.

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

Be sure to check out the automobile museum in Malaga. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

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Be sure to check out the automobile museum in Malaga. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

Thanks for the suggestion - I'm sure DH would love it. I just looked at their website and thought it would be a perfect place for us to visit - until I saw they are closed on Mondays. We will be there on a Monday. Darn.

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

Friday, October 21 - Day 10

Valencia, Spain

Yesterday was Cartagena, and it really is a lovely little town. It reminds us a lot of Santa Barbara, 90 minutes away from our home. We were here a few years ago and liked it just as much this time. Last time we climbed to the top of the Roman amphitheatre (highly recommended) and had tapas for lunch, but this time we just wandered around, stopping for coffee (and free wifi) and poking around the city before returning to the ship for lunch. One of the best things about it was that our dock was almost in the middle of the city, an easy walking distance.

Last evening was a wonderful experience at Tamarind, the ship’s “pan Asian” restaurant. We’ve read nothing but good things about this place, no matter which ship it’s on, and all the reports turned out to be accurate. Upon arrival, we were presented with large, heavy menus which were divided into several sections: soups, appetizers, sushi/sashimi, main courses (divided into water, fire, earth and wood) and dessert. Our lovely server explained that the dinner was to be four courses, two from the soups/appetizers/sushi etc. section, one from the main courses, and then a dessert.

After a long discussion, John chose a soup and Shanghai ribs, followed by red curry coconut chicken (with brown rice on the side), and for dessert a round dark chocolate mold filled with chocolate mousse. He loved all of them, but I think he loved the red curry dish the best. He said that the coconut flavor really came through and he’d order it again in a flash. Of course that chocolate on chocolate dessert didn’t last long either.

I do know my limits, so I limited myself to three courses: a satay sampler, hoisin-lime glazed sea bass and, for dessert, mango mouse served with mango sorbet. I’m a fool for anything fruit-flavored, and this was delicious. The satay was great. It came with five different skewers: beef, shrimp, pork, lamb and chicken and was “decorated” with pickled slivered vegetables. Anything that reminds me of pickles is a personal hit, and I could have used more of those vegetables. My glazed sea bass was delicious and just the right amount and the jasmine rice that accompanied soaked up the hoisin sauce very nicely. The dessert was heaven on a plate. Mangoes are just about my favorite fruit, and they were used generously in this dessert.

Overall it was a wonderful dining experience. If you sail on a ship that has a Tamarind, be sure to take advantage. It’s $25.00 per person - well worth it.

Today was Valencia, a new port for us. There was a shuttle to take passengers to the middle of town - for $12.00 a person. I know this sounds like a spoiled child, but we are really just not used to paying for shuttles. On the grand cruises they are always there with no charge, so the first time we had someone ask for money before we hopped into the bus the other day, we just stood there with our mouths open. I know, I know - first world problem.

We found out that for $17.00 per person we could sign up for the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus and, in addition to taking us into town, we’d have two tours. The blue route was called the maritime Route and the red route was the historical route. We took the blue route into town and then switched to the red. When that 90-minute tour was over, we were back to the blue route to take us back to the ship. Our only regret was that since we started at 11:00 AM, we didn’t have time to explore the downtown on foot, but we did see a great deal of the city. If for no other reason, Valencia is interesting because it is such a combination of modern, Moorish, Roman, medieval and baroque architecture. In some areas a 700-year-old building will be right up against a modern, Stalinist-looking one. This is the result of the massive destruction during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. Some wonderful old buildings were just blasted to kingdom come.

Tomorrow’s Barcelona, with rain forecast, so we don’t know what we’ll be doing. I imagine there will be another paid shuttle, so perhaps I can whine a little more.

Do not take the ship shuttle it is double the price of the port shuttle which is about 20 steps past the ship,shuttle.

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Thanks for a very detailed review. I'm wondering now if our two reservations for next month will be sufficient. :)

Thank you for all of your updates. We will be on the Koningsdam in January 2017 and I am in the process of making speciality dining reservations. Could you please tell me what are the current show times so I can book accordingly. Thank you.

I am really enjoying your notes as always and am interested in your thoughts on the new ship. Glad you had a good birthday. Loved hearing about the licorice gelato. I thought I was the only person in the world who liked licorice!

Nice to hear that you loved Tamarind. We are taking our family on Eurodam for Thanksgiving and plan to try it. The menu looks so interesting.

We'll be on the world this year, so see y'all on Amsterdam in January.

Nancy

Have you tried walking on the Sun deck in place of the promenade? We found it roomy and not very busy. Also it had exercise stations that were fun to do for a break from walking or jogging.

Thank you for all of your updates. We will be on the Koningsdam in January 2017 and I am in the process of making speciality dining reservations. Could you please tell me what are the current show times so I can book accordingly. Thank you.

Hi,

We are just off the Koningsdam, and show times in the World Stage were 7.15pm, 8.30pm and 10pm. Some special events they changed the 7.15pm to 7pm.

Fantastic ship.

Pat.

Hi,

We are just off the Koningsdam, and show times in the World Stage were 7.15pm, 8.30pm and 10pm. Some special events they changed the 7.15pm to 7pm.

Fantastic ship.

Pat.

Thank you very much for the info.

Hi,

We are just off the Koningsdam, and show times in the World Stage were 7.15pm, 8.30pm and 10pm. Some special events they changed the 7.15pm to 7pm.

Fantastic ship.

Pat.

John & Diane,really pleased to have just caught up with your excellent reports ,boarding on Monday for 41 days and the many negative CC reviews have been extremely disappointing

Now in Cittavechia for 2 nights ,coming from Marbella,Malaga had no Sunday flight,so looking forward to a day in Rome tomorrow,a favourite city of mine

I was also on the Amsterdam for the third time last Autumn and really agree with all you say an amazing crew,plus prefer the mid size with fewer pax,,but ready for a new experience !

Looking forward to meeting you both and hearing lots more about all your travels

Hasta la Vista

John

October 23, 2016 - Day 12

At Sea en route to Civitavecchia, Italy (port for Rome)

I do love sea days. There’s nothing to do and all day to do it. The only problem on a ship this size is that there are 2599 other people who are also looking for something to do, and many of them want to do it in whatever part of the ship I find myself. Right now I’m in the Explorations Cafe area, one of my favorites. On the Amsterdam, it’s on Deck 5, but here on the Koningsdam, it’s waaaaay up on Deck 12, so the view is really quite nice. It’s also close to the cappuccinos, so that’s another plus, but this time I’m just having a Diet Coke, having already enjoyed my cappuccino before church this morning.

Speaking of church, it’s run in a different manner than I’ve experienced before. We’re used to having a priest, a rabbi and a minister (sounds like the beginning of a joke here) on board, but on this cruise it’s just a priest, so he runs the Protestant services. The congregation chooses an opening and closing hymn, and Father Edward reads a scripture passage and presents a homily based on that scripture. He’s very personable, and at 85 years old, has taught at Villanova University for more than 30 years, spent three years at the Vatican, and then spent about 25 more years teaching in Florida. We’ve enjoyed the services over which he presides, but tomorrow he disembarks to return to Rome.

Yesterday was Barcelona, one of our favorite cities. The rain in the morning, however, took away a bit of our enjoyment, but the hour and a half spent at Starbucks using their wifi kept us dry. After the rain let up, we headed back up La Rambla, stopping occasionally to browse a shop or look at something interesting. The most interesting shop we entered was one which specialized in hams, an absolute necessity in any Spanish kitchen. They vary in size from medium to huge and, as our walking tour guide in Malaga told us, last about a year before cutting and about four months after beginning to use. The prices are not cheap, however. For a medium-large ham, it would cost in the hundreds of dollars. It’s a good thing they last so long!

We ambled into a square that we knew from previous trips and hunted the menus for a paella that John had decided upon for lunch. We found one in the corner, but as I wasn’t quite that hungry, I just opted for gazpacho. We really enjoyed our lunch but experienced something that really annoyed us - a repeat of an event in Rome. I mentally added up our bill and it came to 30.25 euros, so I took out exact change. Then, when we received the bill, the waiter had added (in his writing) 10% service, or three additional euros. Although it wasn’t a large amount of money, I would bet large amounts of money that this addition was not made to the checks of Spanish visitors. In Rome, we have a favorite small restaurant called Cafe Bernini in the corner of the Piazza Navona. We took our Italian friends there for lunch, and although the bill was a bit high, it was exactly what we ordered. Two days later we went there for dinner without any Italians in tow, and there was that hand-written “10% service” added to the check. We had intended to go there for lunch the next day but decided to go elsewhere.

No matter what Tripadvisor says, our Italian friends assured us that service IS included in the menu prices, so this just annoyed the heck out of us. Another first world problem.

Last evening we had dinner in The Pinnacle with some new friends, Art and Vickie. If you’ve eaten there before, you know it’s HAL’s steakhouse, but none of us even had beef. John and Vickie had halibut, Art had lamb, and I had crab legs (which used to have a surcharge but don’t any more). We’ve always thought that the food at The Pinnacle is excellent and the service even better, and last night just proved us right again. We’re meeting Art and Vickie for lunch today to exchange information, since we live only a few hours away from each other in California and have enjoyed each other’s company.

We’re looking forward to Civitavecchia tomorrow; we’ve spent time there before and found it to be a lovely little town with a great gelateria in the center. When there’s a turnaround day like tomorrow, the ship requires a “zero count,” which means that everyone must be off the ship, whether disembarking or continuing passengers, so we’ll get off, have a few hours in town, and then return to our lovely little “home away from home.” The first 12 days have been great and I imagine that the next 16 will be even better.

Love your blog look forward each day to reading your travels

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Would you mind sharing the name of the restaurant in Barcelona where you had lunch? We will be there in a few days and may want to give it a pass if we're walking by.

Smooth Sailing ! :) :) :)

With the first show, was there time to get to late dining, then, or was late dining expected to see the 10:00 show?

We had the 8.15pm fixed dining time, on a table for 5, and struggled to meet the 10pm show unless we missed dessert! So we tended to go to the 7.15 shows, which finished at 8pm and then went to dinner.

Overall we found the dinner service slow, and the waiters would say that too many tables were allocated at the same time, making their jobs difficult to meet service standards, and you could see that. They don't have one dining room for fixed and one for anytime, it is all mixed, so people were coming and going all the time.

Fantastic food, fantastic staff.

We had the 8.15pm fixed dining time, on a table for 5, and struggled to meet the 10pm show unless we missed dessert! So we tended to go to the 7.15 shows, which finished at 8pm and then went to dinner.

Overall we found the dinner service slow, and the waiters would say that too many tables were allocated at the same time, making their jobs difficult to meet service standards, and you could see that. They don't have one dining room for fixed and one for anytime, it is all mixed, so people were coming and going all the time.

Fantastic food, fantastic staff.

Enjoying your live thread! Thank you for taking us along.

Yes indeed, thanks for taking us along with you!

Monday, October 24 - Day 12

Civitavecchia, Italy (port for Rome)

The end of a cruise is usually quite a sad and serious day. One has been on vacation, away from all responsibilities, seeing new and exciting places, and suddenly the need to return to the day-to-day world intrudes. Although we’re not in that “end of cruise” group, they are all around us and the Lido restaurant seems much quieter than usual.

We have been told that of the 2600 on board, 2200 are disembarking and 400 are continuing on to Ft. Lauderdale. When boarding is complete today we have been told that the total will be 2100 - at least a little less crowded than before. Our category today is “in transit” and, while we found out that they don’t need to have a “zero count” today, we will still be getting off the ship for a few hours to enjoy the delights of Civitavecchia.

There will no doubt be some hot cappuccino and free wifi somewhere, followed by lunch and gelato from a gelateria we’ve visited in the past.

One of the joys of traveling is simply walking around unfamiliar places and learning how people live. Our new friend Vikki says that her favorite part of visiting the ports is to get the “flavor” of life in a different place. We’re like that too. We love wandering through grocery stores and open markets, looking into small shops and watching local people interact. And if we can do it without having to pack, unpack, and repack, all the better.

* * *

We spent a lovely day in Civitavecchia, beginning with cappuccinos (or cappuccini, as our server corrected us, since there were two), a croissant crema (croissant filled with custard) and free wifi. After being so limited in our internet access on the ship, it is wonderful to sit there and look things up just because we can.

Afterwards, we walked into the middle of town to visit my favorite Italian shoe store (no, I didn’t buy anything), stroll through the open market, and then continue down to the rocky beach for a bit of a sit-down watching the choppy waves. We then continued along the stone promenade which sits above the water and the castle, and although it was only 11:50, we decided that this was our last chance for an Italian lunch. In Italy, it seems that lunch is between 1:00 and 2:00, with dinner about 8:00 or so. That seems late to us, but in Spain it’s even more so, with lunch about 2:30 or 3:00 and dinner at 9:30 or 10:00. It makes us feel positively provincial with 6:00 dinner back in San Luis Obispo.

After lunch and a stop at a grocery store for necessities like chips and chocolate, we headed back to the ship, happy to know that “in-transit” guests didn’t have to wait in the long security line for the new passengers and we even had a different gangplank with no line whatsoever.

After a short break, it was time for the passenger emergency drill, one which is very different from what we’ve experienced before. There are three stages of alarm: one says that something is wrong and passengers are to ignore it (oh, sure), two says that crew members should man their emergency stations and passengers should return to their cabins, and the third stage is when all passengers go to - the World Stage show room (or the restaurant, depending on the location of your cabin). In the past, we’ve always mustered on deck next to our lifeboat, but with this new system, we have no idea which lifeboat is even ours. If you’ve taken a cruise lately on another ship, can you report if this is done on all HAL ships or is it just because the Promenade Deck on the Koningsdam is too narrow to muster passengers. Personally, I have a hard time seeing 2600 or 2100 or whatever number of passengers returning to their cabins and sitting calmly waiting to see if they need to abandon ship or not. I can envision mass panic and people heading straight to a lifeboat, any lifeboat. Maybe I’m cynical about this, but that’s what I think could happen.

Lots and lots of new people on board looking just as dazed and confused as we must have looked 12 days ago. We’ve just sailed, the whistle is blowing, and we’re headed for Palma, Mallorca - can’t wait.

What a wonderful day you had . onboard Veendam a few weeks ago outside life boat drill as usual. Sunday board Zuiderdam we will let you no where there lifeboat drill is. Xxxxxx

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Have been enjoying your reports.

Interesting that your favorite Italian shoe store is in Civitavecchia. A couple of years ago we spent half a day in Rome visiting half a dozen shoe stores trying to find a perfect pair for Sara. Came back to Civitavecchia and she found just what she was looking for in a store there before returning to the ship. Hope to meet you on the Amsterdam in January. Are you boarding in Fort Lauderdale or San Diego?

Ray and Sara