'Twas the Cruise During Christmas - Zuiderdam 2018

[POA1]

Drink Menus - Part 14 - Port & Sherry

 

As part of my unswerving commnitment to get this thread as out of order as possible, here is the list of readily available port & sherry. You may find some alternate selections in the specialty restaurants, but this is the standard, core list you can find most anywhere. People with the SBP can choose from all but two ports. Everything is available with the EBP. 

 

PORT & SHERRY
Sandeman		$7.00
Smith Woodhouse Reserve LBV		$7.00
Warre's Otima		$7.00
Dow's LBV		$8.50
Warre's Warrior Tawny		$10.25
Graham's Six Grapes		$10.50
Harvey Bristol Cream Sherry		$6.50
Tio Pepe Sherry		$6.75

[POA1]

Drink Menus - Part 15 - Wine by the Glass - Sparkling

 

This is where it gets weird. The table below shows the standard sparkling wines by the glass list. You'll note that there's nothing for the SBP drinker. Except that there's the HAL house sparkling wine for $7 everywhere and there's also a low priced Prosecco that's not shown here. A couple of wine stewards told me that they're in the process of updating the lists and that everything gets pushed out to the ships from Seattle. In several cases, the prices on the electronic lists like they use in the Pinnacle Grill are different, and lower, than what's in the POS system.... which doesn't always match the printed lists. I'll rant about this later, but here's the list as you'd find it in most bars. The MDR list is more extensive.

 

WINE BY THE GLASS - SPARKLING
Veuve Cliquot. Yellow Label, Epernay, France		$18.00
La Marca Prosecco. Italy		$10.00
Domaine St. Michelle Brut, WA. US		$15.00
Le Grand Courtage Brut Rose, France		$13.00
Domaine Chandon Brut, CA, US		$16.00

[POA1]

We ate lunch in the PG on our first sea day. They've got the electronic, tablet-based wine list. I grabbed one and my camera because I spotted some differences. Here are two. I left the photos a little larger if you want to click on them. Hopefully they'll be readable.

 

First up is the La Marca Prosecco. It's over the SBP limit on the print list, at $10.00.  However, it's $7.50 in the Pinnacle Grill and Pinnacle Bar.  A 33% price increase between two venues a couple hundred feet apart seems like a lot. But, if you know that it's $7.50 in the PG, they'll honor the price elsewhere. Inconvenient? Yes. Stupid? You bet.

 

 

 

 

Our second example is the Ch. Ste. Michelle Brut sparkling wine. $15.00 in the MDR and elsewhere.  $10.50 in the PG. This didn't really impact us, because given the choices on the list, we're going Nicolas Feuillatte Brut (Blue Label) at $12.75 all day long. (It's not on the bar list, but it's on the MDR list and it's widely available most places we looked for it.) Again, you can get them to adjust the price. I simply copied the photos of the eList to my phone so I would have proof. I joked that I could have Photoshopped my way to excellent wine prices.

 

 

 

 

[POA1]

Drink Menus - Part 15 - Wine by the Glass - White

 

If you were to sit down and look at this list, you'd think that your two options as an SBP drinker were one Sauvignon Blanc and one Chardonnay. However, if you asked a few questions, there is also a Pinot Grigio and two other whites from which to choose.  The Chablis, at $17.00 below, was $14.75 in the dining room.  The Simi Sav Blanc is $11.00 on the bar list and $9.75 on the Pinnacle's list.

 

WINE BY THE GLASS - WHITE
Chateau St. Michelle, Chardonnay, WA, US		$10.00
Clos du Bois Chardonnay, CA. US		$14.00
Danzante Pinot Grigio, ltaly		$10.00
Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc, Chile		$9.00
Laurenz V "Singing" Gruner Veltliner. Austria		$12.00
Deakin Estate Chardonnay, Australia		$9.00
Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Chile		$11.00
Laboure-Roi Chablis 1er Cru, Burgundy, France		$17.00
Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, NZ		$12.00
Pian de Remole Bianco, Tuscany. Italy		$11.00
Simi Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma County, CA, US		$11.00
Zonin Moscato, Asti, Italy		$12.00

 

Here's the Simi Sauvignon Blanc in the Pinnacle at $9.75.

 

 

A word on these electronic wine lists:

 

Right now, Holland America has the tablet-based list in the Pinnacle Grill. I think Canaletto still has a paper list, as does the Main Dining Room. There are quite a few restaurants down by us in Fort Lauderdale that have gone to these and I imagine that it's going to be the wave of the future. It's supposed to take the intimidation out of the wine ordering process by providing the customer with a whole lot more information to assist with the selection process. In reality, it adds a whole new level of complexity because people now have to learn how the user interface works.  I can help with that.

 

In the photo above, look in the upper right corner. I've drawn a red rectangle around a thing I call the "presentation toggle." The default view is the carousel, which is what you see in the photo above. You can tell we're in carousel view because the little icon is a lighter color. The middle icon selects the grid view, which is a grid of bottle photos (or label photos, depending on the software.) The last icon, the one that looks like four horizontal lines, is the list view. That one turns the whole thing into a normal-looking wine list. If you click that one, and turn the tablet on its side into portrait mode, you'll be looking at an on-screen version of a normal wine list. (This is the first thing I do, because 9 times out of 10 I know what I'm looking for.)

 

In any of the views, you can click on a bottle or the wine name and you'll drill down to a detailed description page for that particular wine. I've seen people drawn into a black hole of information on these things (like Wikipedia can do) and it takes them forever to order. If you are with someone like this, give them a gentle slap upside the head and take the tablet. Tell them that, "The adults are thirsty. You can have the game back after we order something to drink." Chances are the waiter or wine steward will want the tablet back once you order. This may cause your tablemate to cry, so have some crayons and a wine-lover's coloring book ready.

 

Seriously though, there's a lot of pretty good information on these tablets, but they can really, really slow you down.

 

In addition to the details about each wine, there is a filtering tool that allows you to filter by region, wine type, but the glass, and by price. What is does not allow you to do is filter your selections by beverage package. As a computer guy, I find that inexcusable. Why should you have to keep swiping through a carousel of wine bottles looking for the ones that are in your price range by the glass? It's not just HAL's software that lacks this feature. NCL has similar software in their wine bars and it requires you to scroll through the whole friggin' list to find wines in the beverage package range. It's as if the people who purchased the software and the people who programmed the software don't know how it's actually being used. (They don't. Or if they do, they've missed an obvious filtering application.)

 

There is a Quick Picks feature, which I thought would be where the beverage packages choices would hide. It's not. It's more of a matching tool based on what you already like.  Finally, there's Wine Guru feature. I didn't play with it, so if someone could take up the mantle and check it out, that would be great.  I believe that there's toll for matching wines to menu items, and it's entirely possible that that's what the "Wine Guru" does. It may also tell you how much wine you need to consume, based on your body weight, to enter a state of Wine Nirvana.

[POA1]

Drink Menus - Part 16 - Wine by the Glass - Red

 

This was the list of reds by the glass. SBP drinkers had five choices. EBP drinkers could have the whole list. (Not at once; the glasses aren't big enough.)  As I mentioned, the wine list was in flux when we sailed. I assume that someone is going to get this all fixed up shortly, but for now, just use this as a completely unreliable guide. I expect that we'll hear oinking overhead as the flying pigs deliver the updated wine lists to the ships in Port Everglades.

 

WINE BY THE GLASS - RED
Beaulieu Vineyard Coastal Estate, Pinot Noir		$9.75
Black Opal. Shiraz, Australia		$7.75
Casa Lapostolle, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chile		$9.75
Columbia Crest Grand Estates, Merlot, WA		$12.25
Greystone Cellars, Merlot, California		$9.25
Line 39, Cabernet Sauvignon, California		$9.75
McPherson, Shiraz, Australia		$8.50
Pacific Bay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chile		$7.75
Santa Carolina, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chile		$7.00
Santa Carolina, Merlot, Chile		$7.00

 

I know that the Santa Carolina wines, which are HAL's house wines, don't get a lot of respect here on Cruise Critic. If you are looking for value - particularly if you are paying as you go - I think these are very good picks. They consistently rate in the high 80's in the wine magazines and shouldn't be overlooked. I'd be willing to bet that they'd win out over the higher priced wines, particularly the Cabernet, if you held a blind taste test among your friends. (This is a good idea if you have the EBP. Go to lunch in the Pinnacle Grill and hold a blind taste testing. Just order extra bread as a palate cleanser. Note: You could do this in the MDR or the Lido, but people will stare.)

[POA1]

On our list of "Wines that are gonna surprise the heck out of people who don't know any better" we have the Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Chile ($11 most places, $10 in the Pinnacle Grill.) This is a sweet dessert wine. Yet, it sits smack dab in the middle of the list of whites. Not just in bars, but everywhere I looked.

 

Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely dessert wine. If you have a hankering for a Sauternes but are on the EBP, this is your best pick. However, if you're expecting a bright, acidic, perhaps even grassy Sauvignon Blanc*, this is going to be a lollipop to the face. If I were king of the forest, this would be listed with the port and sherry because HAL doesn't have a dessert wine category on their regular wine lists.

 

 

Apologies again for these blurry photos. I was going to use them for personal reference. If I had only known that they were going to be presented to you, our VIP readers, I would have done a better job.**

 

======

 

* - Going out on a limb here, but if you think of Sauv Blance as acidic and grassy, you'd already know that "late harvest" means sweet.

 

** - Who am I kidding?  I was taking a photo of a wine list on an iPad. It's not like Baby's First Portrait.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2019 by POA1

[fatcat04]

2 hours ago, POA1 said:

On our list of "Wines that are gonna surprise the heck out of people who don't know any better" we have the Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Chile ($11 most places, $10 in the Pinnacle Grill.) This is a sweet dessert wine. Yet, it sits smack dab in the middle of the list of whites. Not just in bars, but everywhere I looked.

 

Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely dessert wine. If you have a hankering for a Sauternes but are on the EBP, this is your best pick. However, if you're expecting a bright, acidic, perhaps even grassy Sauvignon Blanc*, this is going to be a lollipop to the face. If I were king of the forest, this would be listed with the port and sherry because HAL doesn't have a dessert wine category on their regular wine lists.

 

 

Apologies again for these blurry photos. I was going to use them for personal reference. If I had only known that they were going to be presented to you, our VIP readers, I would have done a better job.**

 

======

 

* - Going out on a limb here, but if you think of Sauv Blance as acidic and grassy, you'd already know that "late harvest" means sweet.

 

** - Who am I kidding?  I was taking a photo of a wine list on an iPad. It's not like Baby's First Portrait.

 

 

Agree. It is a delightful dessert wine. We have gotten this as a dessert beverage a few times at the PG. As we have the EBP, dh is also looking forward to trying out some brandies this upcoming cruise. Any thoughts?

[frankc98376]

3 hours ago, POA1 said:

On our list of "Wines that are gonna surprise the heck out of people who don't know any better" we have the Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Chile ($11 most places, $10 in the Pinnacle Grill.) This is a sweet dessert wine. Yet, it sits smack dab in the middle of the list of whites. Not just in bars, but everywhere I looked.

 

Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely dessert wine. If you have a hankering for a Sauternes but are on the EBP, this is your best pick. However, if you're expecting a bright, acidic, perhaps even grassy Sauvignon Blanc*, this is going to be a lollipop to the face. If I were king of the forest, this would be listed with the port and sherry because HAL doesn't have a dessert wine category on their regular wine lists.

 

 

Apologies again for these blurry photos. I was going to use them for personal reference. If I had only known that they were going to be presented to you, our VIP readers, I would have done a better job.**

 

======

 

* - Going out on a limb here, but if you think of Sauv Blance as acidic and grassy, you'd already know that "late harvest" means sweet.

 

** - Who am I kidding?  I was taking a photo of a wine list on an iPad. It's not like Baby's First Portrait.

 

 

We like the Danzante Pimot Grigio.  Wonderful with the Halibut and Scampi

[kazu]

14 hours ago, POA1 said:

WINE BY THE GLASS - WHITE
Chateau St. Michelle, Chardonnay, WA, US		$10.00
Clos du Bois Chardonnay, CA. US		$14.00
Danzante Pinot Grigio, ltaly		$10.00
Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc, Chile		$9.00
Laurenz V "Singing" Gruner Veltliner. Austria		$12.00
Deakin Estate Chardonnay, Australia		$9.00
Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Chile		$11.00
Laboure-Roi Chablis 1er Cru, Burgundy, France		$17.00
Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, NZ		$12.00
Pian de Remole Bianco, Tuscany. Italy		$11.00
Simi Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma County, CA, US		$11.00
Zonin Moscato, Asti, Italy		$12.00

 

 

 

 

Thanks for this list.  Encouraged to see the Gruner Veltliner & Nobilo on it 😄 

[POA1]

A little more on the iPad wine list...

 

...because it turns out that I did take more photos of it. They were taken on a different day and I "organize" my photos by putting them in folders with the date and place name.  The folders have names like "2018-12-21-Bonaire," "2018-12-25-Sea-Day-Christmas," and so on. We're dealing with photos from  a superzoom camera, a compact camera, an iPhone camera and an Android phone's photos. I dump each day's pix into the appropriate folder. The naming convention allows the folders to be in the correct order when sorted alphabetically. (This is something you learn early on if you take a programming class. Month names and day names don't alpha sort in order, but YYYY-MM-DD does.)

 

 

Anyway... Where was I? Ah yes, the tablet-based wine list.  As I was reviewing my photos from my remote office in Cabana #8, I realized that additional photos were needed to illustrate how the iPad wine list functioned. I set out to get them.

 

As a refresher, the wine list is in the carousel view when you receive it. You swipe left and right to scroll through the wine list. HAL's list, and most I've seen start with sparkling wines and work their way to whites, blush, reds, and then dessert wines, port, etc.  When I first picked up the PG wine list, my goal was to come up with candidates for dinner wines that were under our EBP $15 limit.  I wound up with a group of pictures of wines we could order if we wanted something other than what is on the printed MDR list.  I copied them to my phone so I had them in an easy to carry format. The Seven Falls Cabernet is one such example.

 

 

Every time I ordered the Seven Falls Cab, I was told that "It's only in limited quantities." I'd respond with, "As long as there are two glasses, we'll take it." (There were a couple of EBP eligible wines on the PG list that were out of stock. I thought that was ironic, since one of the selling points of the software is that the restaurant doesn't have to worry about being out of wines like they would with a printed list.  Apparently, the software is only updated by Seattle. And who would know better when a ship runs out of something than someone in an office, 3,000 miles away, working Monday through Friday?)

 

If you were looking at a wine and you clicked on the bottle or the description, it brought up the details page for the wine. Shown below is the Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir from the Dundee Hills region of Oregon. It's over the $15 limit, but I think they should give me a pass because I'm out here on the front lines talking about the danged wine app.

 

 

 

If you don't like the carousel/kiosk view, but you still want pictures, there's the grid view. This scrolls vertically. The text is a little hard to read in the photo below, but it's better in person.

 

 

 

The final view, and the one that I go for, its the Wine List View. It works very much like a traditional wine list. There are filters on the left for varietal and format (glass or bottle) and you can scroll through it by swiping up. If you want to know more about a particular wine, you can click it and be taken to the details screen for that wine.

 

 

 

 

There are little stars next to each wine to allow you to "save" them so you can narrow your search. (You should probably make sure your tablemates have cocktails if you are saving, parsing, and narrowing the wine list. They're liable to smack you upside the head and take away your toy otherwise.)

 

Lastly, there are filters in the drop-down menu. You can narrow the list by wine type, format, grape, rating, year, country and price (You'll note that the software has the ability to filter by price, yet there's not SBP/EBP filtering option. C'mon programmers! How hard can that be?)

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by POA1

[POA1]

If you happen to upgrade to the EBP or purchase it initially, you will want to visit the Pinnacle Bar and look at their wine list. There were a number of selections that were preferable to the ones on the MDR list. This might change once they get the wine list updated, but it's still worth checking. I scrolled through the list made note of the wines we could order. I took photos of the ones that interested me and kept them on my phone for reference. That way, we had the full list of choices when pairing. 

 

Also, if you make a stop by the Pinnacle before you dine there, you can play with the tablet wine list 'til your heart's content. (And no one will slap you.) 

[Despegue]

Do you think that this electronic menu will also appear in the MDR?

 

[taxmantoo]

Do they sanitize the tablet between each use?  We have seen a lot of these in airport restaurants lately and avoid them like the plague.

[frankc98376]

3 minutes ago, taxmantoo said:

Do they sanitize the tablet between each use?  We have seen a lot of these in airport restaurants lately and avoid them like the plague.

I thought about that too.  Then thought that I've never seen a restaurant sanitize menus after each use.  I guess motto is keep hands away from face.

[POA1]

53 minutes ago, Despegue said:

Do you think that this electronic menu will also appear in the MDR?

 

 

It may eventually, but there are a lot more tables in the MDR and you'd need a heck of a lot of iPads - especially for the fixed seatings. A table for 6 comprised of 3 different couples could theoretically need 3 devices. 

 

The default view on the menu is the carousel, which while visually attractive, is slow going. I'd bet the 80% of the people who use the electronic list don't even realize that there's presentation view that looks like a regular wine list.  The PG had 81 wines on its list, so it's not too cumbersome. I've been to restaurants where the paper list is like a Gutenberg Bible. The tablet version can be helpful in those cases, but sometime it's too much information.

[POA1]

39 minutes ago, taxmantoo said:

Do they sanitize the tablet between each use?  We have seen a lot of these in airport restaurants lately and avoid them like the plague.

 

33 minutes ago, frankc98376 said:

I thought about that too.  Then thought that I've never seen a restaurant sanitize menus after each use.  I guess motto is keep hands away from face.

 

The wine steward wiped them down between uses. My guess is that it's mostly because of fingerprints and smudges though. I suppose that they could use a UV sanitizing charger rack, but I don't think they do. It would take the iPads out of service for too long between uses. They certainly can't run them through the dishwasher - at least not more than once.

 

Many digital menus use an antibacterial screen protector, but I didn't really pay attention to these.

 

I agree with Frank in that the paper menus don't get sanitized that I've ever seen. I try not to lick either type.

 

[VMax1700]

38 minutes ago, POA1 said:

I try not to lick either type.

 

Is that what is called a 'Taster Menu'? 

[POA1]

20 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

 

Is that what is called a 'Taster Menu'? 

 

Yes, but we refer to it as a Tasting Menu here in the Colonies.

[POA1]

Port of Call - Amber Cove

 

I don't often do write ups on ports. (If you comb through my old posts and find a port write up, ignore this.) Since Amber Cove is new - at least to us - and looks like it's going to be a feature on the Caribbean itineraries for a while, we wanted to share what we learned.

 

To start: Amber Cover is a Carnival Corporation port on the coast of the Dominican Republic. It's got a deep water pier with space for two ships. The Zuiderdam was in with the AIDALuna. AIDA is a German cruise line and is a subsidiary of P&O, which is a subsidiary of Carnival. (I think I got that right. If not, let me know.) The pier is a moderate walk to the port area. There are plenty of rickshaw style transports if you don't feel like walking. I believe that they work for tips, but we didn't investigate - because we walked. I'd estimate the distance as 1/4 mile and it's flat, level concrete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[POA1]

As you walk into the port area, you'll pass a number a map boards and excursion price boards.  (I left these images a little larger. You should be able to click on them and read them. If not, let me know. Because I'm here to help.)

 

 

Amber Cove Map:

 

You know you're committed to a plan when it makes it onto a sign.

 

The map view of the port is presented several times as you traverse the pier. (They seem to flip the orientation of the map at each stop. I'm sure there's a reason. No idea what it is.)

 

 

 

Most of the paid "excursion" options can be booked online if you have a cruise booked.  If you want to book one after arrival, there are handy price boards along the pier. Once you arrive in the port area, there are kiosks where you can book. If you just want to go to the pool, or use a pool chair, it's free. (The waterslides are also free. I know this is a huge draw for my fellow HAL cruisers. There were many younger people who said that the water slides were "unglaublich", "wunderbar" or "super." I'll ventuure out onto a limb and say that these youngsters were from AIDA.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by POA1

[highlandmom]

I just wanted to take a second to say how much I have appreciated this thread.  POA1 (how do you imbed a screen name?), I recognize you have put a lot of time and energy into it and it has been very interesting and informative.  You and your wife seem lovely and I appreciate your attention to detail and planning - especially the wine ordering. Your wife's shoes get a big thumb's up too!  DH, DD & I are sailing HAL for the first time at spring break (Koningsdam March 6th - yippee) and I have been voraciously reading all things HAL.  So thank you for taking all of the time you have to post about your recent holiday!

Shelley

[POA1]

55 minutes ago, highlandmom said:

I just wanted to take a second to say how much I have appreciated this thread.  POA1 (how do you imbed a screen name?), I recognize you have put a lot of time and energy into it and it has been very interesting and informative.  You and your wife seem lovely and I appreciate your attention to detail and planning - especially the wine ordering. Your wife's shoes get a big thumb's up too!  DH, DD & I are sailing HAL for the first time at spring break (Koningsdam March 6th - yippee) and I have been voraciously reading all things HAL.  So thank you for taking all of the time you have to post about your recent holiday!

Shelley

 

My pleasure. To embed a screen name, you type the @ (at sign) and the slowly type the user name. In some cases, the username will populate quickly. In other cases, you may have to type more. In the case of @Copper10-8 I have to type c--o-p-p-e-r-10-dash before it narrows down enough.

[Vict0riann]

@POA1 !!

[POA1]

As you walk down the pier (or ride if you've hired one of thr rickshaws) you'll see the over-water cabanas off to your right.

 

 

 

You can rent these at the booths on land, or from the excursions part of the HAL website. The price is the same either way.  If you look to the left, you'll see what might appear to be an observation tower, lighthouse or other historic site. The civil engineers among you might recognize it as a water tower.

 

 

 

 

[POA1]

 

 

When you enter the actual port area, you'll see a directional sign that points to the various areas. (These things were everywhere when we lived in Maine. I'm sure there's a name for them, so if you know it, please help a brother out.)

 

 

 

There's an ATM that dispenses US$ and a couple of car rental agencies if you want explore on your own. I should have taken photos of the car rental "doorways." You would have been stretching it to call them "counters."   There was a doorway for National and one for Alamo. National and Alamo are owned by the same company. You can make reservations in advance.

 

The area is nicely landscaped and there are little plaques below the various trees, plants, and shrubs to let you know what you are seeing. (I'm a plaque reading man. Left to my own devices, I'd read the historical markers along the side of the highway and it would take me 5 hours to drive 100 miles. I grew up in Pennsylvania. We loves us some historical roadside markers.)