Statendam Alaska Review September 2010

[Middle Aged and Happy]

:D Statendam – B2B 14 days in Alaska – September 5 – 19, 2010

We just returned from our wonderful and relaxing 14 days in Alaska sailing on the ms Statendam. As background information, there were four of us traveling together in an inside cabin. Our ages range from 44 to 57. We have cruised before but do not count ourselves as cruise junkies as this was our third cruise. We previously cruised on the ms Amsterdam to Alaska and loved it so much that we decided to do Alaska again via HAL on the ms Statendam. Since we previously visited Alaska and did the real touristy things, we purposefully did a few more independent sight seeings on this trip. We were also on a tighter budget this go around.

In an effort to control costs, we flew into Seattle on Saturday the 4th and rented a car to Vancouver. We drove approximately 80 miles and stayed in Burlington, Washington at the Marriot Fairfield Inn. It was a nice, clean Fairfield Inn with a good breakfast. I had a fantastic experience with this hotel staff that I will share later in the story. We picked up a few bottles of wine, some soda pop and bottled water to carry on board. I really like HAL’s policy regarding wine and soda pop. I drink diet Dr. Pepper and like my own wine so it is a big plus to bring my own on. I drink some of the wine in my room and take some of it to the dining room. The corkage fee is reasonable and I have the added benefit of drinking my favorite wines.

On Sunday the 5th, we got up early and hit the road to Vancouver. Thinking that the border crossing could be backed up, we set out early. The border crossing was a breeze going north. It looked pretty backed up going south though. We got to Vancouver early and spent a couple of hours in Stanley Park which was very nice and very well maintained. There was an hourly rate for parking which was a new experience for me at a municipal park. At about 11:30, not knowing what the traffic would be like around Canada Place, we decided to get moving. When we got there, it too was a breeze. We dropped off our luggage and then circled around the parking deck to the car rental return which was located in the same parking deck. We checked in immediately and were told we could board.

We got on board and decided to attend the Mariners lunch in the Rotterdam Dining Room. We sat down and placed our order and the cell phone rang. It was our daughter who indicated that the hotel manager at the Fairfield Inn in Burlington, WA called our home and indicated that we left all my husband’s medications in our room and because they looked to be important and we were such a long way from home that she was attempting to track us down. Oh no! Those medications were needed and how possibly were we going to get them in time for the sailing? I jumped up and immediately went to the front desk. Between front desk personnel and the Marriott Fairfield Inn, we determined a forwarding address at our first port of call for an overnight delivery. I can’t say enough about Tina at the Fairfield Inn for going out of her way to track us down and arrange for our medications to be overnighted to our next port. She really went out of her way. After doing that arrangement, I was able to return to lunch and then get into our room.

As indicated above, we selected a quad inside cabin. Some people would never do this and I can certainly understand why but we love it and have done it before. We are two couples that have traveled extensively together, get along extremely well and would rather spend our limited funds on other fun stuff like excursions. The cabin was on the main deck port side mid ship. It was clean, had plenty of storage and was exactly what we expected. Our only cabin issue or concern was the temperature. We are pretty hot natured people (going through the change and all) and like to keep our thermostats at home around 68 degrees. We turned it down a far as possible and could not get the temp below 75. Needless to say, with four people showering, things stayed pretty hot. We requested and received a fan, which stayed on throughout the cruise. The front desk was very attentative and tried to decrease the temp. They indicated that when we were in port and out of the room for several hours that they could get the temp to 72, which was within their normal range. All in all we lived with it but would have preferred to be able to lower the temp. When we were all in the room and showering, the temp often got to 78 or 80. It was time to get out on deck and enjoy the nice fresh air.

In looking at all the previous posts about the ms Statendam post dry dock, we were a little concerned but not overly as we are not super picky people. We found the ship to be overall a very nice experience. Sure it is not a 5,000 person glitzy new vessel. It is a 1,300 passenger seventeen year old ship that is well maintained and staffed by some of the most pleasant individuals. We found the public areas to be pleasing and maintained to HAL’s standards. We liked the ms Amsterdam better but found the Statendam to be what we expected of a HAL ship. Our only true complaint was with the laundry rooms. There were three on the ship, floors 5, 6 and 9. Throughout our cruise there were long lines and about half of the units inoperable. With a lot of people getting on the ship following extensive land tours, many people had laundry to do. With only five washers and three dryers operating in total for the three floors, lines were long. To make matters worse, a wash took 28 minutes and a dryer took 45 minutes. Dryers were at a premium and people were even testy about who was getting the dryer next.

We ate most of our meals in the main dining room, the Rotterdam, but did enjoy meals in other locations. We had set dining at 8:00 pm and thoroughly enjoyed our experience with Abu and Heri waiting on us. They were extremely attentative, detail oriented and made our dining experience very special. Overall, I found the food to be very good, especially the fish and appetizers. I thought the desserts were ok but maybe that was because I was not hungry by the time dessert arrived as I filled up on all the good appetizers. We had one lunch and one dinner in the Pinnacle. The steaks were great, if you are into a big angus steak and the service was excellent. We had dinner at the Canaletto once and it was ok. I was not impressed with the Italian menu or the food. It was just ok. It was probably a good meal but compared to the main dining room, I was not as impressed. As for the Lido, we ate most of our breakfasts and some of our lunches there and found it to be good and what we would expect of a buffet.

As for the entertainment, we did not go to too many of the shows. Those that we saw were good and the entertainment throughout the ship (piano bar, guitar and strings) were all good. We meant to go to more of the entertainment but after long active days, late dinners and a couple of glasses of wine, we just could not keep our eyes open too much past 10:30 pm too often.

On sailing days, we did see a movie or two and did go to some of the trivia, name that toon, bingo, culinary arts, mixology and spa classes. These were typical and somewhat entertaining. As for the “health” classes and culinary classes, more and a better variety would have been nice. Every class was focused on selling you something extra rather than teaching you something from kelp wraps for your health to sending fish home to you. That got a little old.

In the room, the TV programming was very limited. The only news you could get was a skinny down version of CNN. I think I saw the same story 19 times in a 48 hour period. I am not a CNN fan and strongly prefer FOX news so I really missed that and did not feel that I was able to keep current on events. While FOX would have been preferred, even if they had some other selection ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, would have been nice. I guess I was on vacation and vacating reality so, no real harm done.

As for our excursions, we did a lot on our own and were happy we took the time to do so.

In Ketchikan we rented two double kayaks at Southeast Sea Kayaks. We had kayaked before so kind of knew what we were doing. The store is located about a half a mile from the port. We put in right at the store and kayaked around Pennock Island right in front of the ship. Paddling out was easy but coming back in was against the current followed by crossing the inlet where all the planes and boats were coming in. Not knowing how much more paddling we had to do and what the level of difficulty would be coming back in made us a little nervous and pushing to get back. Had we known, we would have slowed it down and done the trip more leisurely. Overall it was a nice trip and good for the cost ($59 per kayak for the day). Following that, we did some quick shopping and was back on the ship for a 2:30 pm all aboard.

In Juneau, we scheduled to go whale watching with Harv & Marv. This was fabulous. We went out with Marv (real name Pete) and saw so many whales it was amazing. Three whales breached. In all we probably saw 15 whales blowing, tail flipping and jumping. I particularly liked being on a six person boat. Pete gave us great instruction, answered all of our individual questions and provided a real personal experience. If you do any excursion while in Alaska, I would do this one and I would do it in a smaller boat rather than the 150 person vessels.

Following the whale watching two of us decided to hike the Mount Robert’s Trail. If you hike up, the tram down is only $5 or free if you purchase anything for $5. One of the locals told us it was not a bad trail up and “a five year old could do it in an hour”. Think again! I think those locals were sitting in a bar laughing at us. We huffed and puffed our way up 1,800 feet and it was muddy and not a well maintained trail. There were times we did not know where the trail was and were a little nervous about how far we still had to go. I think it was only about 2.5 miles but it was steep and muddy. When we got to the point where the tram lets people off, we happily purchased a tee shirt to ride down. We were muddy and very sweaty. Clearly we did not look like those who rode the tram up. All in all, we were happy we did the hike just to say we did it but would only recommend it if it were dry, good weather and individuals were in pretty good condition.

In Skagway we rented a car through Avis. While the train is the normal touristy thing people do, we decided to do the trip via car to save some money. We got the road map via the internet written by Murray. The drive was nice and we had beautiful weather. We saw Frazier, Carcross, Emerald Lake, the Gold Rush Cemetery, and Lower Reid Falls. We drove to the parking spot and waked out to Yakutania Point, a nice one mile hike. We saw the dog sled camp in Carcross and wasn’t exactly impressed. It was ok but being someone who owns a hobby farm I thought the location could have been better maintained for the admission price. The $5 Murray guide was well worth it and good to get you around all the interest spots. Downtown Skagway seemed real touristy.

On Friday and Saturday we sailed Glacier Bay and College Fjord. Wow was this amazing. Again, we had beautiful weather. We were able to go back very close to Harvard Glacier. It was fabulous and there must have been a thousand or more seals in the water laying on ice. Simply breath taking.

In Seward we purchased a six hour water tour of Kenai Fjords National Park through Major Marines. This too was a very nice excursion. We saw dall porpoises, sea lions, seals, sea otters, eagles and the glacier up close and personal. This tour gets you so much closer to a glacier than the cruise ships can and helps you really put the size and power in perspective. This was a good trip and I would recommend it.

We got back on the boat for the southbound version of the trip. Upon getting back on board, the fellow passengers seemed younger and more active than the first seven days. I think most of them were getting on following a land tour and later we learned that it was a designated LGBT cruise. Being that it seemed to be a younger crowd (50s rather than 60s perhaps), there seemed to be more activity and energy in the lounges, the gym and casino.

We ran into one little snafu upon reboarding. In our room we noticed that some of our toiletries were missing and we had toiletries that were not ours. It appeared that the cleaning crew started clearing our room before figuring out that we were staying on board and when they tried to “fix” the error, they did not know what was ours. I spoke with our cabin stewards about it and they brought me a large bag of thrown away toiletries thinking I would welcome the opportunity to dig through a bunch of other peoples toiletries to find mine. I took my hairspray and a couple of other capped toiletries but declined to put my hand down in that bag to dig out my toothbrush, razor or dental floss. The stewards apologized every time they saw me in the hallway. I felt so sorry for them as they almost seemed scared. While it was an inconvenience, it was not that big of a deal and certainly not what they made it out to be. I simply picked up a few extra items at the next stop and/or used some of my husband’s stuff. I really hope no one got in any trouble for this. It was a simple mistake and they were more than apologetic. They did a great job cleaning up after us and I can’t say enough great things about them.

In Haines we rented bicycles at the store right at the pier. You could not make reservations but there were more than enough bikes when we went. They were only $20 for four hours. For less than $85, we had the time of our lives. We biked out to Chilkoot Lake, about 10 miles. We saw so many eagles that we compared them to sea gulls at the beach. We saw seven bears, pretty close up. There were two mothers with five cubs. They were busy fishing and really did not seem to care that we stood there watching them and their cubs. Needless to say, we stayed close to each other, did not get too close, certainly did not position ourselves close to the cubs. The mothers were very busy throwing fish up on the bank for the cubs to fight over. The ride was beautiful. The weather was great. The ride was long enough (20 miles round trip) but not too long. We are not regular bike riders but in relatively good health. We felt the 20 miles when we were done particularly on our bottoms. The ride was “relatively” flat. There was one place where one of us had to get off and push the bike up the incline but for the most part it was very doable. Another great day! As for Haines itself, there isn’t a lot downtown so I would definitely plan on doing something other than walk around downtown.

On our next round through Juneau, we rented a car at Rent-a-wreck. It was inexpensive and a good value. We drove to Mendenhall Glacier, the arboretum, St. Teresa Shrine, NOAA, the hatchery, and the brewery. The car rental is about a mile from the ship but very walkable. When we went to the glacier, we walked to Nugget Falls for about an hour hike. We did not go into the visitor’s center as we had previously done that. From there we drove to the arboretum. It was late in the season so not too much was blooming but it was very nice. One mile from there we went to St Teresa Shrine. It was quaint and very nice. What a nice place that would be to get married – a chapel on an island overlooking Auk Bay. From there we stopped by the NOAA facility. Wow, what a nice governmental facility dedicated to oceanic and atmospheric studies. There are not any tours at the facility but you can sign in as a visitor and just look at all the fish aquariums and look out at the bay and watch the whales through their telescopes and binoculars. We stopped by the hatchery but did not go on the tour as we had done this before somewhere else. From there, we went to the Alaska Brewery. This was fun. It was a free information session followed by beer tasting. The six samples were real large sized samples. Unfortunate for one of us, the driver, only three of us got to sample to great beers. Following that, we returned the car, did some shopping (best prices in Juneau for the touristy stuff like tee shirts) and stopped into the Red Dog just to say we were there.

At our next stop in Ketchikan we decided to do the Lumberjack show. We did not previously do this and thought it could be fun on this cruise. This was our most disappointing excursion. The tickets were $35 a person for a one hour show. The show was hokey, highly predictable and just not real entertaining. From there we caught the city bus (the blue line) to Totem Bright State Park. The park was nice and we learned about the poles. We had previously gone on totem tours so we kind of knew what to expect. This was nice and worth the city bus fare to view. If I paid big money for a tour bus version, I don’t know if I would have felt the same.

Back in Vancouver, we rented a car to drive back to Seattle for our flights. It was our first day in 14 for real rain. The border crossing was not real long (about 45 minutes). We spent time at Pikes Place Market which was extremely crowded, too crowded. From there we had a casual dinner and then went to the airport to catch our red eye overnight flight back to reality.

The weather was great. The ship was nice. We viewed much wildlife, beautiful scenery and amazing glaciers. We biked, hiked, kayaked, and went boating. We had great company, great service and many more memories. It was a great trip and highly recommended.

I actually talked with some on the boat who were not as happy. One couple I had tea with told me they disliked the cruise as they did not like the scenery, wanted more night life and more “pool” type activities. I told them they probably should have gone on a Caribbean cruise on Carnival or Royal Caribbean. One other couple I spoke with was complaining that things were not up to their recollection of HAL service levels. They talked about not having free bottled water in the gym, not liking the coffee and thinking things had slipped. I have to agree that I did notice minor changes that HAL seemed to be doing to save money (just like many of us are doing during these economic times). The “Alaskan berry” appetizer had two berries with a bunch of watermelon. They did not seem to clean the outside windows as often. I will have to say the coffee was not good and questioned whether the incentive was to purchase the coffee in the Explorer’s lounge. There seemed to be minor cut backs but nothing that spoiled my trip. For the price, I’d do in again all over the same way minus the Lumberjack show and replaced it with a zip lining (we did this the previous year a loved it).

Thank you HAL and all your great staff.

[portofrome]

Thank you very much for the review.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for taking the time to write your review -- very good.

 

My DH uses the gym on all HAL ships -- and there was never free bottles of water in them.. There is fountain with paper cups. And bottled water that you could buy.

 

Whenever we do back-to-back cruises -- have done quite a few of them -- even a few in Alaska -- at the beginning of the first cruise we always inform our cabin steward(s) that we will be on for the next cruise. Thus -- no problems with anything accidently getting thrown out.

[IRL_Joanie]

What a great very detailed and well written review. Thank you so much for it!!

 

Joanie