Statendam 8/18-8/25/06 ; Seward to Vancouver

[BobMartha]

Checking in between loads of laundry and will post a full review in a few days when we have some time to catch up. Overall - another wonderful HAL cruise for the four of us (Dad/Mom and two DD's ages 11 and 9).

As always the staff and service were amazing but we must say that we encountered THE MOST friendliest cruise staff of our 4 HAL cruises to date. From the cruise director Mike and his staff who would always stop to chat with us, Club HAL staff for our two daughters (8-12 age group) who for the most part had one on one time with the counselers, our amazing Concierge at the neptune Mel, Nino at the Ocean Bar, Yogi our room steward, Made and Bayu our dining room waiter and assistant and Allen the ever present wine steward who always knew when I took my last sip of wine and of course Captain Pieter Bos who truly seemed to enjoy talking about our voyage and taking the time to announce passing wildlife and points of interest. Our course having beautiful weather after day 1 (sorry to all the folks on the 7 previous sailings who we were told had rain, rain and more rain) was a big plus. Loved Skagway and Icy Straight and Vancouver is definately on our list of cities to return to (maybe a future RT????):D

 

Please feel free to ask questions - esp those of you with kids who are planning an alaska adventure for 07 - will share our experiences.

 

And of course thank you to all on the boards from who we picked up some great advise and pointers before our sailing.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Isn't Mel great (concierge)? - this is the first time that HAL was experimenting keeping the same person as concierge for 3 months - we had her in June.

 

Sounds as though you had another CD - we had Doug Dunnel the first week and Billy Rogers the 2nd week.

 

Can't wait to read more.

[SanDiego Single]

I agree about Mel. She was on the Zaandam during a May cruise I took. She is great helped when we were almost 8 hours into port made lots of phone calls for folks that were displaced. I hope I get someone as good as her when I sail on the Zuiderdam in a month.

[BobMartha]

KK-

 

Yes Mel the concierge was terrific - always a welcoming smile and hello - and she kept track of me checking my work emails each day :mad: reminding me I told her I would only log on for 10 minutes each day! The one problem we encountered the first night while sleeping (the firebox that is located above our stateroom?) leaked and we woke up to a soaking wet carpet from our balcony doors to the tile at the doorway (so about half our stateroom). Yogi our room steward went right to work after we left the cabin for breakfast (blower ran for the better part of the day) - two days later Yogi said the cabin was somewhat musty so he pulled the couch away from the wall and put the blower on again. Since we were out and about or on excursions it really was not much of a problem and Mel kept us informed of what was going on the entire time. The next thing we know we receive what we thought was a very generous shipboard credit to our account for the "situation" as they referred to it.