Zaandam to Alaska?

[ltprn]

I have found a good price for a BB suite on the Zaandam to Alaska in May of 2006. I have never sailed HAL before. I have sailed with Carnival and will be sailing with Princess in 3 weeks. This cruise departs from Seattle, WA. Can anyone give me some advice? I am 43 and DH is 57. We love to cruise and I think HAL may just be what we are looking for. We are mostly into relaxing and sight-seeing. Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

[KalenaD]

I can answer a few of your questions. First of all I'm 43 and my husband is 60 so we're right in your age category. We have traveled on the Zaandam, although it was a caribbean trip, AND we live in Seattle.

 

The Zaandam was a WONDERFUL ship, very classic, clean, and fun. The service was wonderful in our opinion.

We both work in retail, so we are not real demanding, as we know how it is, but everyone greeted us with a "good morning" anytime we encountered a crewmember, whether it was the maintinence crew, or the officers. Any request we did make was, at the least, attempted, with an apology if it wasn't possible, or done with a smile. We had an outside room on the lower promanade, the room itself was nice and having the promanade right outside was nice to go outside, but our only complaint with the cruise was from the crew cleaning the windows at 6:00 in the morning, and putting out the deck chairs for the day at the same time,( a bit noisy). The atmosphere on the ship is VERY laid back and relaxing, but if you want to party a bit there is always the crows nest at night. Most of the public areas are comfortable and quiet ( except for the casino) during the day. The entertainment on the ship varied, the music in the lounges was very good, the main show were very well done, but even my husband got a bit tired of 90 min of 50's music one night. The comedians were good but most were impressionists and we just don't care for that. We spent our evenings in the casino, or in the ocean (?) bar and had a great time. We loved HAL so much we are going on the Westerdam in dec. We have been on 5 cruises before and this is the first time we have repeated with any cruise line.

As for Seattle, May can be a mismash of all types of weather, it may be 80 one day and 60 and raining the next, we are taught from birth here to layer, layer, layer. You can always take something off. If you can, try to extend your vacation a couple of days and do some sightseeing, there are SO many different things in and within a couple of hours drive to do and see here I couldn't begin to describe them all. Everything from volcanos to mountains to deserts to the ocean, all within 100 miles of downtown Seattle. Contrary to what everyone is always told (and you did NOT hear this from me) our weather is very mild and in the summer it's usually sunny.

I will subscribe to this thread, so if you have anymore questions about the Zaandam or Seattle I will try and answer. Hope this helps you.

[luv2cruise450]

We've sailed with several cruiselines and HAL is our very favorite line. Every HAL ship that we set foot on...we feel so welcome and also feel like we've 'come home' (albeit for a short while)! Her ships are just so elegant and a really nice size...even her Vista class ships ('mega' for HAL) are not so super huge so that you can't find your way around pretty easily (and without having to feel that you've walked for 'miles and miles')! The Zaandam is a lovely ship which we had the honor of sailing with on our first trip to Alaska. We sailed with her as part of a land and sea package. HAL does a really terrific job with all their itineraries and expecially in Alaska! I'm sure that you are getting lots of information about Alaska and her ports...but if you can...spend a few days in Seattle too. It's a great city to explore a bit! And May for us was a wonderful time to go to Alaska...the weather was sometimes cool...but very comfortable and we lucked out that in our 16 days there...we only had some rain on the morning that we arrived in Ketchikan and that was for less than an hour! Alaska is a fantastic place to travel to and if there is any way that you can include a land package there...DO so! As wondrous as Alaska is by ship...her interior is absolutely awesome! And highest on my list of 'must do' port excursions is a helicopter flightseeing tour with a landing on a glacier!! What a thrilling experience...tho I know that it is probably one of the most expensive excursions...it was absolutely worth every dollar!

If you have specific questions...please post and your fellow CCer's will try their best to answer your queries!

Happy sailing!

[ltprn]

Thanks guys! I am already getting excited about a trip to Alaska! Can you tell me a good hotel to stay at in Seattle that is close to the pier? Also, any Seattle siteseeing "musts" would be appreciated. We will plan on arriving a few days early!

[KalenaD]

Check out for hotel threads to find out about hotels, since I live here I haven't stayed at any to judge. Keep in mind the airport is about 12 miles from downtown and traffic here is TERRIBLE. It's not bad driving just slow.

 

There is so much to do downtown alone, of course there is the space needle and seattle center, the pike place market is another must. The ferry terminal is on the waterfront, take a ferry across the sound. Argosy cruises offers some really neat day tours of the sound and area.http://www.argosycruises.com/flash.cfm Another suggestion might be the spirit of wahington dinner train

http://www.spiritofwashingtondinnertrain.com/. It goes outside town to the st. michele winery (which is a block from where I work) in Woodinville and back.

If you are going to rent a car and be here for a few days, take a day or two to go to the town of Leavenworth, a bavarian village in the mountains that even the German's say looks authentic, it's a scenic drive over the pass and in May is Sunny and warm as it's on the east side of Washington.http://www.leavenworth.org/

 

Just a few suggestions

[GottoCruise]

We are booked on the Zaadam Alaska Seattle rt. for June 30, 2006 - Cat. C Large Outside - Lower Promenade, Mid-ships, we are confirmed for 7:45 Dining.

 

We have booked the Marriott Waterfront for 1 night Pre-cruise

 

This will be our first cruise on HAL (We are Elite Princess cruisers)

 

I am hoping we can use the Promenade Deck as our "veranda"..... Is there any problem with deck lougers availability??

 

(I'm a bit worried about the reported 6AM "window washing" and deck chair "setting up" on the Promenade Deck just outside our cabin.....if we are bothered by noise from this - do you think a report to the Purser's Desk will help???)

 

Thanks. :)

[KalenaD]

There are lots of chairs on the deck, no problem. It's well protected from the weather, and an AWESOME place to relax and read a book. The window washing wasn't really a big deal, I only noticed it a couple of mornings, we mostly laughed about how that was our ONLY complaint, and how it really wasn't much of a complaint to begin with. My husband noticed it more than I did, he just took a nap in one of the deck chairs in the afternoon to make up for being woken up (at least that's what he told me) so we never officially asked about it.