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Navigate the World with Bill & Mary Ann on the Zuiderdam's 128 Day 2023 Grand World Voyage

WCB

By WCB,
in Holland America Line

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Ready2go11 Great Review Rare

Ready2go11

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Thank you so much for documenting your journey!  I know it is time consuming and feels like a chore at times, especially over 182 days!

 

i cant wait to retire and take a longer cruise although I plan on starting with a 30 day to start and work my way up to the WGC. Someday….

 

Until then, i know where to find good pizza in most ports around the world thanks to you. And everyone in my family wonders where on earth is Bill and Mary Ann today as we have followed your various journeys.  We were on the last leg of your repeat Alaska journey last September and appreciated the tips you shared in your blog the first weeks you were on. Helped us know what to look forward to. 
 

many thanks!

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bluebeachbum

bluebeachbum

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I will miss reading your daily reports & look forward to the next one.  I especially like your accounts of your walks.  Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WCB "Live from...." Rare

WCB

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Report #134    Saturday  May 13, 2023     Fort Lauderdale, Florida  Homeward Bound   And Final Thoughts  Sunny And Warm  Part #1 Of 1.........0 Pictures

 

The day of flying home started for us at 3am when the alarm went off.  We were picked up in a nice limo at the hotel at 4:15am with one other guest who was flying on the same flight we were.  The good thing was that today was Saturday and there was virtually no traffic on the freeways.  The weather was going to be good with no rain and clear skies, as least on the Florida end. 

 

Even at this time of day, there were more people at the check-in area of United than we expected.  Of course, it is the weekend of Mother’s Day, and more activity was to be expected.  The nice aspect of not having to lug bags to the counter, was the ease of checking in at the kiosk and getting our boarding passes.  No credit card to register because we had no luggage – only our hand carrys. 

 

The TSA Free does not seem to be given at random anymore since it is something that can be bought we understand.  However, at 75 years old, you are not asked to remove your shoes.  Only one of us is over that age, but the other is close to it.  One of the security guards asked if I was 75, and I said no, but close.  He laughed and said for today, you are 75.  OK, I did not have to remove my shoes, which is difficult wearing a back brace anyway.

 

I did set off the xray with the new knee, got patted down, wand once over, then set free.  That job done, we had 2 ½ hours left before our flight at 8am.  It appeared it was on time, which is always a good thing to see.

 

Not much in the way of restaurants are opened before 6am, with the exception of Burger King, McDonalds, and Starbucks.  The lines of people waiting at these popular fast food cafes were long.  We can say the coffee sure smelled good.  We sat across from one restaurant/bar that looked like it might open, but it never did.  It was most amusing watching several couples sneak into the restaurant booths to enjoy their fast food.  Within minutes, the employees of that restaurant came and asked them to leave.  Maybe they know sometimes they can get away with it and not have to use their laps in the regular airport waiting sections.

 

By 6:30am, we noticed a little corner café was opened, and we enjoyed a light breakfast with lots of very hot coffee. We ordered one scrambled egg sandwich and bacon and eggs, both of which came with cubed deep-fried potatoes on the side.  Wow, they were crispy and hot as could be.  Reminded us of the almost warm food we had been getting on the ship.  You don’t realize it until you get a piping hot meal. 

 

We lingered for as long as we could, then asked for the bill.  The waitress said to scan the QR code on the table and pay that way.  You should have seen her face when we told her we did not own a cell phone.  No, really?  That was her first reply.  Honestly, no, we do not have one.  Then she said you’re too lazy to do it, or we came from another planet.  Nope, not lazy, but we may have come from Mars.  Laughing at that, she gladly ran the credit card, and we were on our merry way.  She congratulated us for holding out for so long in getting a cell phone.

 

We boarded the plane by 7:20am, which happened to be full.  The flight was uneventful, and we were served a choice of a cookie or a bag of pretzels (maybe 10 of the tiniest ones ever) with a beverage.    The offer of another drink came mid flight we think.  There were no screens in the seats in front of us, but we did have a way of hooking up to their free wifi to use on our devices.  Supposedly TV series and movies were available for free.  We didn’t bother, and neither did the folks around us. 

 

The only bumpy parts of the flight were while going over Texas where they had been having some severe weather and storms recently.  We must have had some tail winds, because we landed almost an hour ahead of time at 10:30am Pacific time.  We figured our driver in San Francisco would keep up with the changes if possible.  And of not, we would be waiting for a bit.

 

We waited outside door 8 near Starbucks at the baggage carousel for the driver.  He did arrive about one hour later, but on time for the original landing.  We all walked to the parking garage and were on the freeway heading for home by noontime.

 

Getting out of the downtown area in San Francisco is always a challenge.  And today was no exception.  There did not appear to be any games happening at the ball park, but traffic backed up anyway.  Once we made that final approach to the Bay Bridge, we were back to normal conditions.  We watched as the car’s thermometer went up to 92 degrees outside, which we had heard from everyone that the weather had taken a turn to a nice warm spring day and week ahead.  That suited us just fine.

 

We were home by 1:30pm, and so happy to have completed this journey safe and sound.  We have our work cut out for us with fallen trees and weeds well over six feet tall in the back.  But the exercise will do us good.

 

Our final thoughts about this cruise was that it was not a stellar or grand one.  Way too many cutbacks had been implemented without prior notice to the guests, especially at the time the final payment was due.  Will we book more cruises in the future?  Yes, of course, we will, in hopes that the President of HAL will take into consideration all of the comments he heard while on the ship in Zuiderdam.  As members approaching the 3000 days at sea mark, we feel that our input and experience counts for something.  We sent a list to the President of HAL of 49 cutbacks that we had compiled over the 128 days of this voyage.  If we get a response other than a typical form letter, we shall let you all know. 

 

Until next time, thanks for following the blog and for your constructive comments along the way.

 

Bill & Mary Ann

 

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Fred321

Fred321

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Was great to see you again. Glad to hear you made it home safely. It will be interesting to see how the company evolves. Think that we may be done with world cruises at least in the near future. Itineraries aren't that interesting to us and not really a "Grand" cruise any longer. Think our initial Grand World's spoiled us for what they have become.

We did put a deposit down on the 94 day Volendam trip to Australia and New Zealand leaving from San Diego in January. Wanted to sail on the remaining R class ships before they disappear and had no interest in the Pole to Pole. If you guys decide to do something different next January maybe we will see you.

Stay well.

 

Rich and Peg

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LouChamp

LouChamp

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On 5/19/2023 at 5:16 PM, WCB said:

Report #134    Saturday  May 13, 2023     Fort Lauderdale, Florida  Homeward Bound   And Final Thoughts  Sunny And Warm  Part #1 Of 1.........0 Pictures

 

The day of flying home started for us at 3am when the alarm went off.  We were picked up in a nice limo at the hotel at 4:15am with one other guest who was flying on the same flight we were.  The good thing was that today was Saturday and there was virtually no traffic on the freeways.  The weather was going to be good with no rain and clear skies, as least on the Florida end. 

 

Even at this time of day, there were more people at the check-in area of United than we expected.  Of course, it is the weekend of Mother’s Day, and more activity was to be expected.  The nice aspect of not having to lug bags to the counter, was the ease of checking in at the kiosk and getting our boarding passes.  No credit card to register because we had no luggage – only our hand carrys. 

 

The TSA Free does not seem to be given at random anymore since it is something that can be bought we understand.  However, at 75 years old, you are not asked to remove your shoes.  Only one of us is over that age, but the other is close to it.  One of the security guards asked if I was 75, and I said no, but close.  He laughed and said for today, you are 75.  OK, I did not have to remove my shoes, which is difficult wearing a back brace anyway.

 

I did set off the xray with the new knee, got patted down, wand once over, then set free.  That job done, we had 2 ½ hours left before our flight at 8am.  It appeared it was on time, which is always a good thing to see.

 

Not much in the way of restaurants are opened before 6am, with the exception of Burger King, McDonalds, and Starbucks.  The lines of people waiting at these popular fast food cafes were long.  We can say the coffee sure smelled good.  We sat across from one restaurant/bar that looked like it might open, but it never did.  It was most amusing watching several couples sneak into the restaurant booths to enjoy their fast food.  Within minutes, the employees of that restaurant came and asked them to leave.  Maybe they know sometimes they can get away with it and not have to use their laps in the regular airport waiting sections.

 

By 6:30am, we noticed a little corner café was opened, and we enjoyed a light breakfast with lots of very hot coffee. We ordered one scrambled egg sandwich and bacon and eggs, both of which came with cubed deep-fried potatoes on the side.  Wow, they were crispy and hot as could be.  Reminded us of the almost warm food we had been getting on the ship.  You don’t realize it until you get a piping hot meal. 

 

We lingered for as long as we could, then asked for the bill.  The waitress said to scan the QR code on the table and pay that way.  You should have seen her face when we told her we did not own a cell phone.  No, really?  That was her first reply.  Honestly, no, we do not have one.  Then she said you’re too lazy to do it, or we came from another planet.  Nope, not lazy, but we may have come from Mars.  Laughing at that, she gladly ran the credit card, and we were on our merry way.  She congratulated us for holding out for so long in getting a cell phone.

 

We boarded the plane by 7:20am, which happened to be full.  The flight was uneventful, and we were served a choice of a cookie or a bag of pretzels (maybe 10 of the tiniest ones ever) with a beverage.    The offer of another drink came mid flight we think.  There were no screens in the seats in front of us, but we did have a way of hooking up to their free wifi to use on our devices.  Supposedly TV series and movies were available for free.  We didn’t bother, and neither did the folks around us. 

 

The only bumpy parts of the flight were while going over Texas where they had been having some severe weather and storms recently.  We must have had some tail winds, because we landed almost an hour ahead of time at 10:30am Pacific time.  We figured our driver in San Francisco would keep up with the changes if possible.  And of not, we would be waiting for a bit.

 

We waited outside door 8 near Starbucks at the baggage carousel for the driver.  He did arrive about one hour later, but on time for the original landing.  We all walked to the parking garage and were on the freeway heading for home by noontime.

 

Getting out of the downtown area in San Francisco is always a challenge.  And today was no exception.  There did not appear to be any games happening at the ball park, but traffic backed up anyway.  Once we made that final approach to the Bay Bridge, we were back to normal conditions.  We watched as the car’s thermometer went up to 92 degrees outside, which we had heard from everyone that the weather had taken a turn to a nice warm spring day and week ahead.  That suited us just fine.

 

We were home by 1:30pm, and so happy to have completed this journey safe and sound.  We have our work cut out for us with fallen trees and weeds well over six feet tall in the back.  But the exercise will do us good.

 

Our final thoughts about this cruise was that it was not a stellar or grand one.  Way too many cutbacks had been implemented without prior notice to the guests, especially at the time the final payment was due.  Will we book more cruises in the future?  Yes, of course, we will, in hopes that the President of HAL will take into consideration all of the comments he heard while on the ship in Zuiderdam.  As members approaching the 3000 days at sea mark, we feel that our input and experience counts for something.  We sent a list to the President of HAL of 49 cutbacks that we had compiled over the 128 days of this voyage.  If we get a response other than a typical form letter, we shall let you all know. 

 

Until next time, thanks for following the blog and for your constructive comments along the way.

 

Bill & Mary Ann

 

Aloha. Glad you are safely home and I echo the posts of that the four hours you spend on reports are well appreciated.  As I previously stated we have been blessed to have visited most of the places you have sailed and on countless ships and almost as many days at sea as you over the years. Just wondering for your very long voyages if you miss the kids and who watches the house.  Not trying to be intrusive but just wondering how you handle the logistics and the time away from family. Mahalo!

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Hogladyrider

Hogladyrider

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4 hours ago, LouChamp said:

Aloha. Glad you are safely home and I echo the posts of that the four hours you spend on reports are well appreciated.  As I previously stated we have been blessed to have visited most of the places you have sailed and on countless ships and almost as many days at sea as you over the years. Just wondering for your very long voyages if you miss the kids and who watches the house.  Not trying to be intrusive but just wondering how you handle the logistics and the time away from family. Mahalo!

Inquiring minds are also interested in this.

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  • 1 month later...
RICHARD@SEA

RICHARD@SEA

Posted
Posted

Hi  

 

Will you be posting a review & final thoughts on this World Cruise??

 

I would find your thoughts on the differences from prior world cruises you have been on & your future plans on WC HAL 2024 / 2025 & other Grand Cruise plans....

 

Thanks - I hope all was well once you arrived home!!

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WCB "Live from...." Rare

WCB

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Greetings to all!

 

Yes, we have been quite busy getting our place back to normal, so we do apologize for the delay.

 

We did send the long list to the President of Holland America, and we received a personal letter promising that they are going to address the issues and hope to do better next year.  It did surprise us that their response was not a typical form letter.  

 

We are booked for the 2024 GWV as well.  

 

Bill & Mary Ann

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seagarsmoker

seagarsmoker

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1 hour ago, WCB said:

Greetings to all!

 

Yes, we have been quite busy getting our place back to normal, so we do apologize for the delay.

 

We did send the long list to the President of Holland America, and we received a personal letter promising that they are going to address the issues and hope to do better next year.  It did surprise us that their response was not a typical form letter.  

 

We are booked for the 2024 GWV as well.  

 

Bill & Mary Ann

Glad you received a personal letter response from HAL. 

Also glad you are going on the world cruise again. I always look forward to reading your daily journal.  😀 

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WCB "Live from...." Rare

WCB

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Much of our letter to the President  of HAL was of a personal nature, and referred to numerous President's Club particulars.  So we do not feel comfortable sharing all of the letter.  Just about every issue, however, had been mentioned during the trip in the blog as we sailed the 128 days. 

 

We will be sailing on the Volendam in September,  and will hope some of these promised changes will take place then.  As

 

Bill & Mary Ann  

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