*LIVE* from Aboard the Zuiderdam! 4/22-5/19

[ironin]

Happy to see the Zuiderdam arriving in Vancouver. Sailing on her on the 11th June inside passage cruise, so looking forward to it. Have really enjoyed your blog thank you for all the time you must have spent on this.:)

 

Gasmeter:

 

You might want to practice saying "G'day mate!" :D Forgot to mention that the 900 Canadians departing after our voyage were replaced by more than 800 Australians bound for Alaska. We're told that the Zuiderdam Alaska runs are extremely popular with Aussies and Kiwis.

[ironin]

Randy -- Was good to have met you. Have a good time in Vancouver (great city). For Ingrid and I its time to get back to normality and Neptune Lounge withdrawal.

 

Ron

 

We enjoyed meeting you and Ingrid, too, Ron! Would be happy to share a cabin with you again any time (provided, of course, it's only on the roll call :cool:). Must admit to a slight disappointment at hearing no reports of televisions going overboard. Thought it might be fun to visit someone in the ship's brig while on that behind-the-scenes tour :D

[searaider]

Let me just say that I'm sorry for your problem with the toilet. But the blame rests on those guests who occupied that room before you.

I understand that many of the Zuiderdam shore tours were cancelled as a result of US Customs decision to fingerprint all non-US citizens. I haven't heard of that policy before, especially for Canadians.

David

 

As one of the many Canadians in line in LA, I can say that not all of us were fingerprinted, but it seemed that some were as we watched in line. We just had the regular questions, and moved on. Our tour was not cancelled but was rushed, and we were lucky that traffic allowed the bus to be only a few minutes late back at the pier (along with a number of other tour buses). Hopefully, the Homeland Security staff report back that more agents are needed at this location next time a ship docks. One of the positives that happened is that the quick Customs time at Vancouver was much more appreciated by all nations, in spite of the fact there were 3 ships (2 Princess and 1 HAL).

[ladykiller]

hallo this is andrea and felix from austria

we are two of this, who standing in the endless line for disembarkation. our flight to las vegas was on 13.15 pm and we were waiting till 11.00 am to go through the control. many thanks to nice "linestanders" who let us go through, because without these helpful people, we would not be able to get the flight in right time. greetings from austria

[jtoddjr]

ironin, Veracruz is still an undiscovered port, and the people here are still talking about the arrival of the "big ship" back on April 25.

 

Since then I've been following your travels and it's been great following you through Cartagena and the Panama Canal!

 

Hope you all will come back to Veracruz soon!

 

John

[RedmondCruiser]

ironin, Veracruz is still an undiscovered port, and the people here are still talking about the arrival of the "big ship" back on April 25.

 

Since then I've been following your travels and it's been great following you through Cartagena and the Panama Canal!

 

Hope you all will come back to Veracruz soon!

 

John

 

John, We enjoyed the port of Veracruz and want to spend more time there, in the future. It was amazing to see 2000 people waving goodby as we departed. Hope to post a picture of the crowd. We have never seen that large a crowd wishing us Bon Voyage.

[RedmondCruiser]

[double post

[pstata]

Ironin! Thank you again for the live thread. We've really enjoyed reading your regular updates. This has reall heightened our anticipation for our upcoming repositioning cruise in late September on the Zuiderdam.. We appreciate your time and efforts putting the blog together. Thanks again.

 

Greg

 

Greg, go to this roll call: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=27841159&posted=1#post27841159

 

sandy

[ironin]

ironin, Veracruz is still an undiscovered port, and the people here are still talking about the arrival of the "big ship" back on April 25.

 

Since then I've been following your travels and it's been great following you through Cartagena and the Panama Canal!

 

Hope you all will come back to Veracruz soon!

 

John

 

John: Thanks so much for commenting here earlier! I'm sorry I overlooked it when posting stuff to this thread. We will have more to say about Veracruz once we get back home.

 

FYI: One of the survey questions at the end of our cruise asked what we thought of Veracruz. The only other port specifically asked about was Progreso. Here's hoping that it is an indication that Holland America is seriously interested in adding Veracruz again in the future. Judging by the feedback we heard while aboard ship, it should be. Naturally, it would help a lot if they visited port some time between October and March, when it is a tad cooler ;-)

 

At the end of the cruise, almost 3 weeks after departing Veracruz, passengers and crew were still talking about that warm send-off.

 

We definitely plan to return on our own - so much to see and do in the area, not to mention wonderful people and great food (and coffee, of course!)

[ironin]

hallo this is andrea and felix from austria

we are two of this, who standing in the endless line for disembarkation. our flight to las vegas was on 13.15 pm and we were waiting till 11.00 am to go through the control. many thanks to nice "linestanders" who let us go through, because without these helpful people, we would not be able to get the flight in right time. greetings from austria

 

Andrea & Felix: Thanks again for the delicious Mozartkugeln! At this point, I'm not sure what we may have said about that on our weblog, but I ran across a photo of the last 3 and smiled. (They went fast :D). Hope you enjoyed the cruise every bit as much as we did.

 

Glad to hear others let you go ahead so you could catch your flight at the end.

[jtoddjr]

ironin, I've been enjoying everybody's comments during the cruise. Yes, you are right because of the heat, April is not a good month to visit Veracruz. Things cool off after the rainy season begins in late June with cooling rain showers each morning between 4 and 6AM that leave the streets clean and cool. I hope Holland America will consider more cruises here but during October to December when the weather is a lot better.

 

Saludos and Bon Voyage to All!

 

John Todd, Jr.

www.johntoddjr.com

[kazu]

ironin, I've been enjoying everybody's comments during the cruise. Yes, you are right because of the heat, April is not a good month to visit Veracruz. Things cool off after the rainy season begins in late June with cooling rain showers each morning between 4 and 6AM that leave the streets clean and cool. I hope Holland America will consider more cruises here but during October to December when the weather is a lot better.

 

Saludos and Bon Voyage to All!

 

John Todd, Jr.

www.johntoddjr.com

 

And we hope that they do too. It would be wonderful to have more visits to your beautiful, welcoming Veracruz.

 

Saludos John

[Krazy Kruizers]

Loved your "Live" review

 

thank you so mauch for taking us along on your cruise

[jtoddjr]

Yesterday, I was at the City Museum in Veracruz, and was given the latest issue of a tourist magazine published by the State of Veracruz. What attracted my attention were the photos of the arrival and farewell of the Zuiderdam in Veracruz.

 

They were so good that I scanned them and included some of them in my web site story about cruise ship preparations before you come to Veracruz.

 

You can see them here: http://www.johntoddjr.com/138%20Wilma/wilma.htm

 

People here in Veracruz are still talking about your visit!

 

Saludos,

 

John Todd, Jr.

[ironin]

Thanks so much, KK (and Kazu!) for your consistent encouragement! While in Seattle, we're doing a couple of things that are essentially the same as tours offered those sailing through Seattle. Once we get home, and have more time for the computer, we'll be adding more to the website.

 

BTW, someone told us we were lucky to arrive here when we did: yesterday was only the fourth day of sunshine in Seattle since January 1!

[rafinmd]

I hope you don't mind my asking, but I've been trying to figure out how you set up your blog. I've been playing with wordpress in anticipation of my R'dam.P'dam,QM2 combo and trying to get the menus to work, but haven't been able to get past 1 menu. Did you purchase one of more of their premium services. You can answer here or email me at royaferguson at operamail dot com.

 

Thanks,

 

Roy

[ironin]

I hope you don't mind my asking, but I've been trying to figure out how you set up your blog. I've been playing with wordpress in anticipation of my R'dam.P'dam,QM2 combo and trying to get the menus to work, but haven't been able to get past 1 menu. Did you purchase one of more of their premium services....

 

Roy,

 

I don't mind at all! I'm more than happy to help as I'm really looking forward to hearing about your upcoming trio of cruises. (In fact, meant to say something to that effect when I ran across one of your posts yesterday, but I got distracted tilting at windmills elsewhere ;-)

 

Anyway, yes the theme I used was purchased directly from The Theme Foundry, but it is now available for free from wordpress.com and the hosting is free there, too. In case you haven't found it on wordpress, it is called Paperpunch.

 

My blog only uses one menu. (That's all the theme supports in either version.) If you think you are seeing two menus, tell me what you are trying to do and maybe I can help.

 

FWIW, the drop-down menus are not independent menus, but sub-menus.

Each one is an independent page. Then the page was added to the menu list in the usual fashion. Once in the menu list, I dragged it under the heading (like "Ports of Call") and then once it was safely there, moved it to the right until it clicked into an indented space about equal to the average tab-right.

 

The sidebar items are all standard widgets.

 

I used an independent post-by-email provider but the one built into wordpress.com works just about the same. I found post-by-email far faster at processing pix than uploading direct from the computer to the blog. Also, virtually every email program will ask if you want to reduce the size of your photos. Say yes. If using a mac, pick medium. That's the size you see on my blog.

 

Whatever you do, don't send more than one post-by-email containing pix at the same time. I learned the hard way that the connection chokes. If I sent one post w/18 pix or one post w/5 pix, the difference in time required was negligible. I also found no great difference in sending medium vs. the IT guy's recommended "small" provided I only sent one post containing pictures at a time.

 

Sending so many PDF files was probably a bad idea. If I do it again, I'll save the files and upload them post-cruise.

 

Anyway, perhaps TMI. :D Feel free to ask here or email me at sepeuro(at)gmail(dot)com. If you want to, send me the address for your work-in-progress at the same time and I'll give it a look-see. I'm far from being an expert, though ;)

[rafinmd]

Thanks. I'll work with my template some more and then possibly email you when I get stuck. I may also do this one in blogger which I think I can get to pretty much do what I want but the wordpress format was a lot nicer. One way or the other I'll try to be ready for July 12.

 

Roy

[Cruisin_Greg]

Ironin - Could you please provide a brief/(easy) description of how you got to the restaurant (Gordo Lele's) in Cabo. The description, and pictures you have in your Blog piqued our interest. Since we're planning on just meandering around the port area that day during our cruise, we thought we'd try and take a look for it. Thank you so much.

[ironin]

Ironin - Could you please provide a brief/(easy) description of how you got to the restaurant (Gordo Lele's) in Cabo. The description, and pictures you have in your Blog piqued our interest. Since we're planning on just meandering around the port area that day during our cruise, we thought we'd try and take a look for it. Thank you so much.

 

Cruisin_Greg: I think this description from Trip Advisor should work:

 

It is on Vicente Guerreros around the corner from Siesta Suites and up from the Shrimp Factory. Down the street from the main entrance of Cabo Wabo. Gordo LeLe Literally a "hole in the wall" taco and torta stand owned and operated by Javier. Located 2 blocks down from the Cabo Wabo gift shop." It's on Guerrero between Zapata & Madero. If you look at the location of Siesta Suites on their website map http://www.cabosiestasuites.com/map.htm, Gordo Lele's is above the second "a" in "Zapata", just around the corner from the Siesta Suites. It's well worth the hunt to find it!

 

 

FWIW, we just asked people - it seems everyone knows who he is ;-) We thought the carne asada tacos were the best.

 

 

 

Enjoy!