Sea Day Activities

[yvr49]

We will be doing a 39-day collector cruise in March and April 2024 on the Noordam, from Auckland to Vancouver.  Many sea days are in the itinerary!  Being new to HAL I'm curious to know what kinds of onboard activities we can expect to see.  

Edited November 8, 2023 by yvr49

[OlsSalt]

Noordam just put in a new, more extensive library - on our recent cruise. One activity is no activity, great task loungers on the lovely wrap around deck - curl up with some good books to read, people watch or just be lazy. 

 

We did the long 51 day Tales of the South Pacific traversing much of  this same area - yes, lots of sea day but we had good lectures. craft classes, trivia, they are also brining back "game shows often with staff and officers,  coffee chats with key ships personnel,  enrichment activities by the Polynesian support staff, and planning what and were we were going to eat next -that got to be our routine.

 

Crossing the Equator King Neptune Party was a lot of fun. On a long cruise you also get to know your fellow passengers more,  so meet and greet things can just happen when you are out and about.

 

Noordam was in lovely condition on our recent Sept/October cruise. And I think she is due for a dry dock before your cruise starts next year. People do love reading trip reports -day by day- so that is something also to consider doing for all the desk top passengers back home on Cruise Critic

[ski ww]

Be sure to join the Roll Call for your cruise, good way to get to know your fellow cruisers before you get on the ship.

[crystalspin]

17 hours ago, yvr49 said:

We will be doing a 39-day collector cruise in March and April 2024 on the Noordam, from Auckland to Vancouver.  Many sea days are in the itinerary!  Being new to HAL I'm curious to know what kinds of onboard activities we can expect to see.  

We won't have the answer to your question until the day you leave! (That's when we get back from So.Pacific,) I see no Roll Call for either leg of your Collector cruise. If you want to start Roll Calls, be aware that Cruise Critic's rule is that each segment (that can be booked alone) needs to have its own Roll Call, i.e. one for March 23, and one for April 6.

[yvr49]

7 minutes ago, crystalspin said:

We won't have the answer to your question until the day you leave! (That's when we get back from So.Pacific,) I see no Roll Call for either leg of your Collector cruise. If you want to start Roll Calls, be aware that Cruise Critic's rule is that each segment (that can be booked alone) needs to have its own Roll Call, i.e. one for March 23, and one for April 6.

weirdly, there was a Roll Call for our 39-day cruise on March 23 and it had a lot of postings, but it seems to have disappeared.  I have inquired with Cruise Critic but haven't figured it out yet...........

Likewise for April 6th.

[albingirl]

Those long cruises are the best. You can do as much or as little as you wish. I once loved the cooking demos, for instance, and wish they'd bring them back. Lots of reading, movie matinee, and other stuff .  The days fill up pretty quickly, especially if you eat 3 meals a day. Lol.

[yvr49]

28 minutes ago, albingirl said:

Those long cruises are the best. You can do as much or as little as you wish. I once loved the cooking demos, for instance, and wish they'd bring them back. Lots of reading, movie matinee, and other stuff .  The days fill up pretty quickly, especially if you eat 3 meals a day. Lol.

I plan to bring lots of books and try not to eat too much (as if!).  I also enjoy the cooking demos - sorry to hear that HAL doesn't have them!  As a Princess veteran, we also love Afternoon Tea on sea days.  Does HAL offer anything similar, perhaps on a Dutch theme? 

[oakridger]

11 minutes ago, yvr49 said:

I plan to bring lots of books and try not to eat too much (as if!).  I also enjoy the cooking demos - sorry to hear that HAL doesn't have them!  As a Princess veteran, we also love Afternoon Tea on sea days.  Does HAL offer anything similar, perhaps on a Dutch theme? 

 

Yes, HAL does have an afternoon tea served in the MDR.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, it isn't a good atmosphere for tea nor is the food particularly interesting.  There is no clotted cream for the scones!  Horrors!!  😉  I always expect some nice live music during a tea such as classical piano, violins or such but there isn't any. 

 

Anyway, I quit going to the afternoon tea many years ago because the ambiance just seemed like a cattle call to the MDR.  Sad.

 

~Nancy

 

Recent thread on this subject is below:

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by oakridger

[crystalspin]

49 minutes ago, yvr49 said:

weirdly, there was a Roll Call for our 39-day cruise on March 23 and it had a lot of postings, but it seems to have disappeared.  I have inquired with Cruise Critic but haven't figured it out yet...........

Likewise for April 6th.

I wondered about the lack of Roll Call so close to sailing! Our Hawaii/Tahiti has 140 pages!

 

Hopefully the powers that be will just rename for the shorter leg and let you keep your information posts!

[*Miss G*]

24 minutes ago, yvr49 said:

I also enjoy the cooking demos - sorry to hear that HAL doesn't have them!

 

The cooking demos are making a comeback.  We had them on post-covid sailings and others are reporting the same.  Hopefully they have them on yours too!

[albingirl]

46 minutes ago, yvr49 said:

I plan to bring lots of books and try not to eat too much (as if!).  I also enjoy the cooking demos - sorry to hear that HAL doesn't have them!  As a Princess veteran, we also love Afternoon Tea on sea days.  Does HAL offer anything similar, perhaps on a Dutch theme? 

Yes, tea is served. No Dutch theme that I  can remember. I generally avoid it since I  am definitely piling on the calories then. Of course, I  could skip dinner but who does that?

[FlaMariner]

2 hours ago, yvr49 said:

I also enjoy the cooking demos - sorry to hear that HAL doesn't have them! 

 

There was a cooking demo on our March 2023 Oosterdam cruise.

[FlaMariner]

2 hours ago, yvr49 said:

As a Princess veteran, we also love Afternoon Tea on sea days.  Does HAL offer anything similar,

 

3pm on Sea Days.....

[FlaMariner]

2 hours ago, yvr49 said:

I plan to bring lots of books

 

and there is a library onboard w/lots of good books 

[Langoustine]

2 hours ago, oakridger said:

 

Yes, HAL does have an afternoon tea served in the MDR.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, it isn't a good atmosphere for tea nor is the food particularly interesting.  There is no clotted cream for the scones!  Horrors!!  😉  I always expect some nice live music during a tea such as classical piano, violins or such but there isn't any. 

 

Anyway, I quit going to the afternoon tea many years ago because the ambiance just seemed like a cattle call to the MDR.  Sad.

 

~Nancy

 

Recent thread on this subject is below:

 

No one serves High Tea. You are confusing High Tea with Afternoon Tea,

[Don Kehote]

1 hour ago, Langoustine said:

No one serves High Tea. You are confusing High Tea with Afternoon Tea,

High tea, Afternoon tea, I'd rather have a Long Island Iced Tea.

[oakridger]

3 hours ago, Langoustine said:

No one serves High Tea. You are confusing High Tea with Afternoon Tea,

 

You quoted me but just to set the record straight I wasn't the one who called it High Tea, I called it Afternoon Tea.  I included a thread entitled "High Tea" where the whole subject was discussed and clarified. 😉

 

Thanks,

~Nancy

[grannyshell]

We just got back from a TA where we had 9 sea days in a row (missed a port) and you might think it would be boring but in all honesty, we felt like there weren't enough hours in the day. We fell into a routine and there were plenty of times that we had to choose between activities held at the same time. Also, to echo OlsSalt, we did get to know our fellow passengers more so than on a busier cruise. We had a superb roll call which was so informative and fun before we even stepped aboard the ship and there were fun activities arranged by roll call members in addition to all the ship activities. Can you tell I love sea days?

Edited November 9, 2023 by grannyshell

[retird]

For those saying the two roll calls have disappeared, they are still there when I sign in to cruise critic.  I read them yesterday and again this morning.

[Rhuizinga]

19 hours ago, yvr49 said:

weirdly, there was a Roll Call for our 39-day cruise on March 23 and it had a lot of postings, but it seems to have disappeared.  I have inquired with Cruise Critic but haven't figured it out yet...........

Likewise for April 6th.

I have the same problem. We had one...we had learned a lot and now it is gone?

[yvr49]

2 hours ago, retird said:

For those saying the two roll calls have disappeared, they are still there when I sign in to cruise critic.  I read them yesterday and again this morning.

Strange for sure!  Hope someone at Cruise Critic can figure it out.   The CC help person provided a link for me but I'm not sure it's current as it's from several days ago, October 28.  What was the last numbered post you could see?

[Ipeeinthepools]

On 11/8/2023 at 6:54 AM, yvr49 said:

We will be doing a 39-day collector cruise in March and April 2024 on the Noordam, from Auckland to Vancouver.  Many sea days are in the itinerary!  Being new to HAL I'm curious to know what kinds of onboard activities we can expect to see.  

Maybe you should ask what kind of activities  Mrs yvr49 has in mind for you on the sea days. 🤔

[retird]

32 minutes ago, yvr49 said:

Strange for sure!  Hope someone at Cruise Critic can figure it out.   The CC help person provided a link for me but I'm not sure it's current as it's from several days ago, October 28.  What was the last numbered post you could see?

On the march 23 roll call there was a new post 29 minutes ago.    On the April 6 roll call ther3 wa# a post on Nov 3. 

[yvr49]

15 minutes ago, retird said:

On the march 23 roll call there was a new post 29 minutes ago.    On the April 6 roll call ther3 wa# a post on Nov 3. 

Update!  I can see our Roll Call again.

 Thanks to "whoever out there" was able to make it work👍