A Carnival Cruiser tries HAL ... on our Honeymoon to Alaska - Zuiderdam May 21, 2011

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my review on my Honeymoon cruise to Alaska - Zuiderdam May 21, 2011!!

This is long overdue ... I told myself I would write a review after we got back and here it is almost a month later and I still haven't done it. This forum was so helpful for all my pre-cruise questions so I would like to pay it forward.

So, here goes - I will probably break it into sections so it won't be one LONG post! If anyone has any questions as we go along, I will be happy to answer.

ABOUT US:

Me - I'm 34 from Toronto, and have been on 4 previous Carnival cruises - this was my first on HAL!

Jim - My DH, 36, 3 previous Carnival cruises

We were both looking forward to comparing the two cruiselines. We went in very open-minded, and were excited to try something new.

PLANNING:

I'm ALL about planning! I love the beginning stages of a trip when you research all the ports, cabin selection, airfare, trying to find the best deal. I started thinking about this cruise Jan 2010, before it was even open for booking. And before it was a honeymoon! We didn't get engaged until Dec 2010, so at the planning stages it was just going to be a regular vacation.

So, at the beginning we were deciding between a one-way vs roundtrip, and what cruiseline we wanted to go on. I did a LOT of research on the Alaska forum - and eventually decided on a roundtrip due to money/time/weather/vacation time constraints.

Once we made that choice - it wasn't that long before we decided on Holland America for the following reasons:

1. We wanted to sail Glacier Bay

2. We wanted to sail out of Vancouver for the better scenery

3. HAL's great reputation for Alaska

Then our decision was between Zuiderdam & Volendam - but we wanted a balcony and they were too expensive on the other ship, so Zuiderdam it was! Everything I read suggested it was the "bigger" ship, but our last cruise was on Carnival Triumph with 3400 passengers, so we weren't worried about it being too big!

CABIN SELECTION

So, once we knew what ship - the next step was picking a cabin! At the start I knew we wanted a balcony, but other than that weren't sure what to look for. So, I started coming to cc every day reading all the posts about the Zuiderdam and at one point ran across the "secret" VD cabins with the bigger balcony. I was really hoping to get 4164, and we did! I put a $100 deposit before the bookings officially opened last March - and made our official reservation the day they opened with our PCC and snagged our perfect room!

Next up ... EXCURSIONS

Hey Jen, you REALLY are a good planner! Keep the review coming. I am sure you will like the ship and the food, just not so sure you will like the entertainment.

Hey Jen, you REALLY are a good planner! Keep the review coming. I am sure you will like the ship and the food, just not so sure you will like the entertainment.

Thanks - we did love the ship and food! Will talk about that soon! :)

I promised Excusions next - but decided to change up the order of my review. Will go through those day by day on the ship!

I will say though - pretty much everything had been booked and arranged summer of 2010, practically a year ahead of time for the cruise! Which turned out to be a good thing - as in December of 2010 Jim proposed, so I now had a wedding to plan!

We decided to make the wedding a week ahead of the cruise - so we were happily married on May 14th!

So, over a year after booking the cruise - it was finally here!!

VANCOUVER

We flew in Thursday the 19th for 2 nights pre-cruise. Booked the Sheraton on Priceline for $101/night. The hotel was great ... location was good, staff were fantastic (upgraded our room once they heard it was our honeymoon).

The weather was GORGEOUS in Vancouver. We came from a month solid of rain in Ontario (including our wedding day!), so it was wonderful to see the sun again.

We booked the Vancouver Trolley (HOHO) ahead of time - if you booked online you got two days for the price of one. So, after we checked in Thursday afternoon, we hopped on the Trolley (stop right outside the hotel) and did both the Red & Blue loops to get an overview of the city, and what we wanted to do the next day. The drivers were great, very informative and friendly.

Thursday night - ate dinner in a Pub down the street from the hotel - DELISH! Of course I don't remember the name though!

Friday - Walked down to the Waterfront to the main Trolley station. We had decided to upgrade our tickets to include the Capilano suspension bridge (About $30/extra a person). They put you on a different bus to the Bridge - we had a great time there and took tons of pictures. They have a new feature "Cliffwalk" which was pretty cool and we were one of the first ones on it.

Later in the day, we took the Trolley over to Stanley Park and walked around there for a while, before hopping back on the Trolley. Then - we took the Ferry over to Granville Island (VERY small boat, not what we were expecting at all, lol) - and had a refreshing cold beer on a Patio overlooking the water! And eventually took the Trolley back home again on the other line.

Friday night for dinner we went to White Spot - which was delicious!

All in all we loved Vancouver - what a beautiful city and we would love to go back sometime. But - by this point we were really excited about the next part of our honeymoon - the CRUISE!! :)

Can't wait to read the rest. I loved our Alaska cruise and hope to make it back one day.

I started thinking about this cruise Jan 2010, before it was even open for booking. And before it was a honeymoon! We didn't get engaged until Dec 2010, so at the planning stages it was just going to be a regular vacation.

I'm just confused. But I am loving reliving our first cruise through your review.:):)

Hope you'll tell us your first impression of the ship. Was it love at first sight?

Thanks!

Well, you are doing a great job and have my attention for more. Thanks.

Did you mean you started planning in Jan 2009? I would have thought it would have been open to book by Jan 2010??:confused:

 

I'm just confused. But I am loving reliving our first cruise through your review.:):)

 

Hope you'll tell us your first impression of the ship. Was it love at first sight?

 

Thanks!

Nope - surprisingly it wasn't open to book Jan 2010! For some reason it seems the Alaska itineraries (on all the lines) open late - around March for travel the following year.

I double checked and we made our reservation March 24, 2010!

And I'm coming up to the ship next - we did LOVE it!!

So, here we are - Saturday morning and it's the day the cruise starts!! Finally - after all this anticipation we are both so excited to try HAL and see Alaska.

We like to be on board early - so hopped in a taxi at the hotel around 10:30 - a bit rainy, but no worries - we're going on a CRUISE!!

It didn't take long - and as we were going around the corner by Canada Place we had our first view of the ship! Beautiful! HAL ships look very classy/elegant from the outside and we were looking forward to being on board soon.

By about 1045 we had handed over our bags to the porter and made our way to the Security and Check-In. No real lines at this point - we went through pretty quickly. Pre-cruise we had registered for our Mariner #'s (since HAL is part of Carnival), so when we checked in the agent also gave us an invitation to the Mariners lunch in the dining room. Plus she was super sweet when we told her it was our honeymoon!

Then came the waiting - though fortunately not too long before they started boarding people around 11:30 I think. We were sitting beside a lovely retired couple in the waiting area who asked if it were our first cruise (the first of many that week!) - and were very surprised when I said it was my 5th! lol ... we repeated that conversation many, many times - I guess everyone thought we were too young to be experienced cruisers!

And FINALLY - they were calling our row and it was our turn to get on board!

First Impression - beautiful decor throughout the ship, we took lots of pictures throughout the week with all the interesting artwork, benches, etc. And all the staff were just as helpful/friendly/attentive as we expected! Which we found very similar to Carnival, which also has outstanding staff.

Our first stop was over to our cabin to drop off our carry-ons (we brought 4 bottles of wine on board with us) - and we were happy to see the 2 six-packs of beer we ordered online waiting for us in our room. Though, not on ice so we asked our cabin steward for an extra bucket to keep those cold. And we also had all our OBC confirmations, plus our Pinnacle Grill reservation card there - so we were happy all our online purchases went through.

Our cabin was everything we could have hoped for! The room was a good size - similar to what we had experienced on Carnival - and the balcony was OUTSTANDING! Way better than anything we had been on before. We spent many hours out there throughout the week watching the beautiful scenery, so it was well worth the extra money (to us anyway!).

I have to take a bit of a break here ... but will continue later on with our first lunch in the Dining Room!! Thanks to everyone for reading so far - more to come soon! :)

Thanks so much for posting this, jenng! My parents are doing this cruise in a month and DH and I are booked for next summer. There haven't been too many reviews yet so this is a treat. It looks like we are in the same age range and chose this cruise for the same reasons, though DH and I are coming from NCL rather than Carnival. I think your review will be the perfect one for giving us an idea of what to expect! Can't wait to read more!

By the way, you and Jim (congratulations on your marriage!) are just a couple of hours up the 401 from us :)

Two questions - how much was the cab ride to Canada Place from the Sheraton? My parents will be staying there. What about the fare from YVR to the Sheraton? One website I looked at said about $24-$26, is that accurate? Just trying to get an idea of what to expect.

What a delightful post...I can't wait to read more!

Can't wait to read the rest -- thanks for posting!

jenng1976,

Looking forward to reading more about your cruise.

Thank you for your reports.

what a pleasure to read. Looking forward to more of your excellent narrative.

Love getting to relive our own Zuiderdam memories on the same trip about this time last year. Thanks so much for all your enthusiastic detail so far -- it is like getting two vacations for one, enjoying yours and reliving ours. :p

We had breakfast at the Pacific Grill in the Pan Pacific Hotel on departure day and it has double story windows across their upper patio and looked right directly into the upper decks of the elegant Zuiderdam just sitting there a few feet away from the restaurant.

So glad everything worked out for you on this trip and all your research and planning got you what you wanted as well as getting these extra tip surprises too like your cabin choice. We are all learning a lot from your report.

Thanks so much for posting this, jenng! My parents are doing this cruise in a month and DH and I are booked for next summer. There haven't been too many reviews yet so this is a treat. It looks like we are in the same age range and chose this cruise for the same reasons, though DH and I are coming from NCL rather than Carnival. I think your review will be the perfect one for giving us an idea of what to expect! Can't wait to read more!

 

By the way, you and Jim (congratulations on your marriage!) are just a couple of hours up the 401 from us :)

 

Two questions - how much was the cab ride to Canada Place from the Sheraton? My parents will be staying there. What about the fare from YVR to the Sheraton? One website I looked at said about $24-$26, is that accurate? Just trying to get an idea of what to expect.

You're welcome, I am glad you all are enjoying the review!

As for cab fare's - from what I recall:

YVR - Sheraton - around $32ish plus tip I think

Sheraton - Canada Place - around $11 or 12 plus tip

On the way back - we decided to do the train (a couple blocks walk) which was $2.50/person, but you might not want to do that with your parents or if you have a lot of luggage. We managed fine though, and would do it that way again.

I also forgot to mention we picked up our wine in Vancouver - we found a great wine store near the Bay, I think it was called St Regis and had the best selection of familiar, not too expensive wine (like Yellowtail). BC is more expensive than Ontario to buy wine as we discovered!

So, where did I leave off? lol ... I wasn't expecting to take so long of a "break", but sometimes life and work get in the way!

Ah yes, lunch! The start of a never-ending cycle of eating it seemed! I gained about 5 lbs on the cruise and enjoyed every bite of it! I never diet on vacation ;)

We had received our invitation to the Mariners lunch in the dining room - and what a delightful way to start the cruise. No lines, no crowd to fight through to find a table ... instead we had a wonderful table for two by the window (#108) which we dined at many more times throughout the cruise. Our head server was Patham and he was just incredible! I'm kind of a picky eater (my DH will eat anything!) -and Patham always remembered that I liked my meat without sauce, and my salad without the dressing. And - one night when I didn't like what was on the menu for dessert, he managed to find me a chocolate brownie! So anyway, we really did luck out getting this section and table the first meal of the cruise. But, more on food later!

After lunch we headed back to the room to watch the bags being loaded onto the ship and all the activity from our balcony, and then toured around the ship seeing what she had to offer and taking some pictures!! I won't promise anything - but I will try this weekend to upload some photos of the ship/cabin/balcony. Fingers crossed! The ship was beautiful, and we were looking forward to hanging out later in the week in the Crow's Nest, and were hoping to catch a movie in the theatre at some point in the week (though we never did find time). We also checked out the Lido deck - and were glad we had lunch elsewhere since it was so busy! Though of course we couldn't resist getting a couple cookies and a chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone! (Did I mention I don't diet on a cruise? lol). The ice cream was absolutely delicious and I returned there many times during the week! That's one area which HAL is WAY better than Carnival!

Oh - forgot to mention. We had the Open/Anytime dining and after we finished lunch we made a reservation for that night's dinner at the same section and for the next couple of days. We found that a wonderful option to be able to make a reservation and we were pleased how well that worked out. We were also impressed that for breakfast/lunch the wonderful host "I Hunky Dory" (heehee) would remember our preference for a table for 2. We were J&J that week to him, which we thought was quite cute.

It was probably mid-afternoon when our luggage arrived, so we had plenty of time to unpack & get ready for dinner at 5:30. There was LOTS of storage in the cabin - including drawers under the couch which we didn't discover until the last day! Oops! :o

And on to dinner we went ... we had Pat's section and the same table. It was still light so it was neat to see all the scenery as we sailed. We had a table for two, though the other tables for 2 were quite close so we would often chat with the people next to us. On our past cruises, we generally stick to ourselves, but we were much chattier this trip! Maybe because we were on our honeymoon, but also since we met a lot of lovely people. Most were older than us, but we found that nice since people get more interesting as they get older!!

We also met our wine steward Ritchier that night. We had brought our own wine with us, so Ritchie was the one who opened the bottle (& charged the corkage fee). And somehow - I have no idea how he managed this - he was always there to refill our glasses when we needed it. Honestly, we never poured one glass of wine the whole week! He was always just there when we needed him! And of course he would save the unfinished portion of the bottle and bring it to us the next night.

Dinner was great ... one of Jim's favourite things were the different soups on the menu. Every day for lunch/dinner he had a different soup and loved each one! Me, I'm a meat/potatoes/no sauce kind of girl as I mentioned before, so I just stuck to the basics, but Jim tried pretty much everything!

After dinner we had a bit of time before the show started, so we headed over to the casino to try our luck. Didn't win anything, but it was fun so we were there fairly regularly during the week.

After that we caught the Welcome Show which was quite good. It was a nice introduction to the Cruise Director, and the Singers/Dancers did a couple numbers and I think there might have been some passenger interaction or games or something, it's been a while!

I'm not sure if there was Bingo the first night or not - but if there was we played. It was $25/card which gave you 3 shots at each game, and 4 games per card (there was one day it was less I think). We played it throughout the week - and were pretty lucky! I won twice during the week, and Jim won once, so we won a total of $300 during the week! Not too shabby! We've never won before, so that was pretty exciting.

I should also mention - the bar stewards in the lounge were great. They weren't pushy at all, but if you wanted a drink you could get one. After the first night they would look for us before the show started so always had a drink in hand to enjoy without waiting!

After the show, we were pretty tired so went off to bed. The ship was pretty smooth, no rocky waters here - which we kind of missed since I like the rocking of the ship. But, we still slept great.

And I will continue with Day 2 a little later!! Thanks again to everyone for following along. :)

Thanks for the write-up, Jenn and a belated congratulations!

Thoroughly enjoying this review:)

I will be on Zuiderdam in 77 days and am even more avidly looking forward to her thanks to you!!

Joanie

Great review so far, looking forward to the next installment! We have cabin 4166 booked for our Panama cruise, I understand it also is one of the double-wide balcony cabins.

Am enjoying reading your review too. It's like a great novel you don't want to put down but kids keep interrupting so have to put it down and read more later! Keep it up.

Glad you liked our beautiful Vancouver and please, do come back again.

[quote name=canadianbear;29565833...........

Glad you liked our beautiful Vancouver and please' date=' do come back again.[/quote]

We loved going to Boneta in Gastown for dinner the night before we left and we would come back for their special version of poutine any time! Highly recommended for anyone staying close to Canada Place the night before the cruise.

Congratulations on your wedding! I am really enjoying your review, and I look forward to your pictures. We will be on this cruise in September.

I am really enjoying your review, it is making me even more excited for our cruise coming up in august.

We too are in 4164 when we cruise and I am curious to know what furniture you had out on the verandah?

Looking forward to the rest of your review and pictures

You're welcome, I am glad you all are enjoying the review!

 

As for cab fare's - from what I recall:

 

YVR - Sheraton - around $32ish plus tip I think

Sheraton - Canada Place - around $11 or 12 plus tip

 

On the way back - we decided to do the train (a couple blocks walk) which was $2.50/person, but you might not want to do that with your parents or if you have a lot of luggage. We managed fine though, and would do it that way again.

 

I also forgot to mention we picked up our wine in Vancouver - we found a great wine store near the Bay, I think it was called St Regis and had the best selection of familiar, not too expensive wine (like Yellowtail). BC is more expensive than Ontario to buy wine as we discovered!

Thanks very much! DH and I will definitely look into the Sky Train.