Just back from the Rotterdam

[newfarmers]

Ahoy

 

Wide awake and it's 1am here in Oz. My body and head thinks it's just after lunchtime in South America. Damn jetlag. Lucky I have one more day before I head back to work but Al is off in six hours. Finally arrived home after marathon flight combo from Rio that took about 30 hours all up.

 

WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME (and yes I am shouting). What a holiday.

 

We have been making regular posts to our travel log on Travelpod (in the signature below, suppose I'd better remove the contdown clock), it's long but we enjoyed posting it. Just Rio post cruise and journey home to add wordwise and then the photos and video at some stage soonish as well. I'll also put together a review for CC in the next week and a bit more detail on the board tomorrow if anyone wants to know anything in particular.

 

Very briefly though - ship beautiful, cabin perfect, HAL staff gracious, food consistently great, shorex not so wonderful, wang wang disappointing (so not strong enough :D ).

 

Full review soon.

 

Pete and Al

[jhannah]

Welcome back to reality! ;) I'm not surprised one bit that you enjoyed the Rotterdam. She remains my favorite ship overall.

[May4]

I'm glad that you are home safe and sound after a wonderful cruise. Thirty hours flying time! Yikes:eek:

 

So, where to next???

[RuthC]

I'll also put together a review for CC in the next week and a bit more detail on the board tomorrow if anyone wants to know anything in particular.

Yippee!!! :) I'll be sooo looking forward to it. I'm starting to get excited about my own cruise on the Rotterdam---coming not soon enough!

But I understand about all the "stuff" that awaits when the cruise comes to an end, and really feel for you about the jet lag :( (hope you recover quickly), so I know we'll have to wait for your report.

When you do report, would you please, please, pretty please, include info on the lounge music? I especially want to know who's in the Piano Lounge (and how good you thought he is), but I want to know about them all.

Oh, and welcome home. :D

[newfarmers]

Yippee!!! :) I'll be sooo looking forward to it. I'm starting to get excited about my own cruise on the Rotterdam---coming not soon enough!

 

But I understand about all the "stuff" that awaits when the cruise comes to an end, and really feel for you about the jet lag :( (hope you recover quickly), so I know we'll have to wait for your report.

 

When you do report, would you please, please, pretty please, include info on the lounge music? I especially want to know who's in the Piano Lounge (and how good you thought he is), but I want to know about them all.

 

Oh, and welcome home. :D

 

Hi Ruth

 

We sat in most of the lounges so will include that in the report. Have kept all the daily programmes so can go through them to see who was where. Funny thing about the piano lounge guy (who we thought was quite good) was he looked very much like Al, so much so that Al kept getting asked by bar staff for some staff discount card but then apologised when they realised he wasn't who they thought he was.

 

When I woke up this morning thought my head was going to explode. Toddled off to the doctor and I apparently I have an aweful ear infection, hence the pain. Doc asked if I'd been swimming recently and said yep, in the ship's pools at least once a day for the last couple of weeks. The ear had been bugging me for a while but maybe the three long flights pushed my exhausted immune system over the edge.

 

Drops, antibiotics and painkillers. At least I'll sleep:)

 

review just a little further delayed, sorry

 

I need a holiday to get over the holiday:D

 

pete

[mancunian]

You have excited me too. We go on Rotterdam in South America at the beginning of March. Off now to see if I can find your review on Travelblog.

[Gabrielle R.]

A quick question, Could you tell me aobut the meals in the main Dining room? We sailed once on Rotterdam, but found the food to be bland and the chef couldn't broil a steak..... Bread was great, but so much was bland, my husband is a bit gun shy with HAL. Just wondering how the meals were for you? I know tastes are different, but just wondering since I'm playing with the idea of a crusie aborad the Rotterdam next Christmas. Thanks for any input! Gabrielle

[ldog]

Your blog is fantastic. Loved every post. We love the Rotterdam too.

 

I hope you feel better soon. Ear infections are awful.

[cdkempton]

Pete & Al,

Thank you so much for posting so quickly even through your pain. :(

I've read quite a bit of your travelpod entries and am enjoying them so much. Also, thank you for posting on our Apr 4 roll call thread. So far, I've got a lot of info from you for "what to do" "where", etc. (as well as NOT.) ;)

Thanks. Welcome home and get well soon.

Cheers!! Colette :D

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Allow me to echo Colettes thanks.

We are also on the return cruise of Rotterdam in April and have been following the blog with great interest.The news about the Visas was greatly appreciated.Like you, we will also face a long flight home. Which way did you fly back from Rio?

All the best,and trust you do not suffer too much from

Post Cruise Depression.

[WELSH WIZARDS]

A quick question, Could you tell me aobut the meals in the main Dining room? We sailed once on Rotterdam, but found the food to be bland and the chef couldn't broil a steak..... Bread was great, but so much was bland, my husband is a bit gun shy with HAL. Just wondering how the meals were for you? I know tastes are different, but just wondering since I'm playing with the idea of a crusie aborad the Rotterdam next Christmas. Thanks for any input! Gabrielle

We were on the Rotterdam in August, and I have to admit we were not terribly impressed with the food. Vegetables were very sparse on the ground. Don't get me wrong, there were some very nice meals, but also some not very nice ones. The alternative chicken dinner was very sad. A small , dry piece of chicken, two bits of potato, and some scraggy vegetables, with no sauce at all. The other 6 guests on our table were not happy that steak or beef etc. during all 2 weeks came as it was, usually medium, and you could not order rare, and certainly not well done. Overall ... just pleasing...but not delightful, and I am not picky or fussy.

[newfarmers]

thanks for the well wishes everyone:)

 

First day back at work, ugh! head sore, but painkillers are doing the trick.

 

A few quick answers -

 

Our only previous experience is Celebrity Infinity. Celebrity is sold on it's food and we were very unimpressed with the food overall. It varied too much from very good to very ordinary. The exception was the SS United States specialty restaurant and it was exceptional.

 

We actually didn't hold out high hopes for the food but food wasn't the reason we cruised on Rotterdam. BUT.... we thought the food in La Fontaine was very very good. We eat out quite a bit, have travelled widely and know good from bad and the food on Rotterdam was very good. I'd agree there weren't piles of veges, especially compared to what we eat at home, but just like in most restaurants we'd get three sprigs of asparagus

 

Presentation, quality, variety (variety especially) was always good. The only exceptions were the steak that I ordered twice, asked for medium rare and got medium to well on both occasions. And one pretty ordinary chicken meal. Seafood (fish, prawns - I love my prawns and didn't have a bad one), Asian dishes were all very good. Deserts were a bit generic but when you consider they are dishing up meals for hundreds, we were truly impressed with the food in the main dining room. Soups were great. Didn't bother with salads. Maybe we just chose really well? We even were given a jar of Sambal to use when we felt we wanted some extra spice.

 

Only good steak I had was in the Pinnacle. Apart from the steak, the only meal that I thought was less than good was the lobster mornay and it was bad enough I left it. Didn't bother with lobster tails on either night, there were too many things on the menu we'd rather eat (and Sean the Pinnacle chef said at the cooking lesson I went to that he never eats lobster onboard so I thought why should we!).

 

Only thing I'd say would be if you eat big then you might be disappointed, as the servings were sensibly sized, not super-size me. We did overhear complaints about the size of the meals but just can't fathom how anyone could be unhappy with what the kitchen was producing.

 

To be honest I was appalled at how much people were piling on their plates at breakfast and lunch in the Lido. "It's free so I better eat as much as I can before I go home and have to pay for it." Ugh.

 

Kiwi Kruzer, we flew home with LANChile. Rio via Sao Paulo to Santiago. Longgggggg delay in Santiago and then direct to Auckland. The 767 from Rio to Santiago was like brand new with great seats and widescreen headrest LCDs. A340 from Santiago to Auckland was tired with a capital T and was in need of an interior overhaul. LAN crews though were really great and all had no trouble with English even though they apologised for how poor their English was! If only our Portuguese was half as good we'd be happy.

 

And yes, the PCD has well and truly kicked in;) .

 

I'll try and get the review done on the weekend.

[ClevelandOhio]

My wife and I are just back from the Lisbon to Rio leg of the Three Continents Tour on the Rotterdam. It was our first experience on the Rotterdam but we had sailed many times on HAL. As usual the food, service and decor of the ship were excellent. We had a great time and will certainly cruise with HAL again.

 

However, we had a major complaint about the ventilation system. The Rotterdam had been in dry dock immediately prior to this cruise and apparently something was done to mess up the air movement. The public areas on the ship were perfect temperature controlled. For the first four days our cabin was perfect and we could make minor adjustments with the thermostat. After we left Dakar the room got progressively hotter. Finally we complained to the front desk and a front desk person came to the room with a thermometer and determined that the air was 80. By this time there was no air coming out of the vent, and the thermostat was useless. 24 hours later nothing had changed and no repairman had come to the room. Another trip back to the front desk and a minor scene immediately brought the repairman. He instantly allowed air to come out of the vent. However their was no control from the thermostat. The room cooled down and got progresssively colder.

 

Two days later the room was down into the 60's. When we opened the door a blast of cold air came out. Even the cabin attendant asked if the room was too cold. We reported it again and 24 hours later nothing had happened. I again went to the front desk and had a major confrontation with a "manager". She was barely polite and told me that I being unreasonable. But despite the unpleasantness, the repair guy showed up and greatly decreased the amount of air flow to the cabin. Even though the thermostat still did not work, the room was tolerable the last few days of the cruise.

 

The last day of the cruise there was a letter left on the bed apologizing to those guests who had problems with the air conditioning and offering us $140 in future cruise credit or $50 off the current cruise. The letter was not specifically addressed to us and implied that there were others with the same problem.

 

The acknowledgement was nice I suppose. But I am really troubled that I had to cause an unpleasant scene to get the problem resolved. Not once but twice. And I am also troubled that they could fix it when you got angry but did nothing if you were polite. Something was really wrong and I hope HAL figures out what it was. If this had happened in a hotel, we would have checked out. You can't do that on a passage!

 

I also think the problem was exaggerated because we had the first forward stateroom on the lower promenade deck. Maybe thats why air blasts were so strong. But my recommendation to anyone who sails on the Rotterdam to be insistent that they resolve the problem.

[mancunian]

Newfarmers

I am very sad. Despite several attempts I cannot get to your blog on Travelpod. Others are clearly cleverer than me as they have managed it. What oh, what I am doing wrong. I can get onto the travelpod site but then cannot find you. Help, please.

[newfarmers]

Newfarmers

I am very sad. Despite several attempts I cannot get to your blog on Travelpod. Others are clearly cleverer than me as they have managed it. What oh, what I am doing wrong. I can get onto the travelpod site but then cannot find you. Help, please.

 

Hi Mancunian

 

My parents are from Burnley and Colne!!

 

If you click on the travelpod link in our signature Travelpod opens on our page - there is a silly picture of us wearing 3D glasses at the Smithsonian National Air and Space in DC and then our travel blog is below that with a picture of the Rotterdam. Just click on the heading.

 

If you have no luck, email us at al and pete at gmail dot com (no spaces of course) and we'll invite you as a guest and you'll get the link sent to you.

 

good luck

 

al and pete

[mancunian]

Hi Al and Pete

 

We are from Stockport - the other side of Manchester, but we do go shopping in Colne quite often to a well known place called Boundary Mill.

 

I have managed to get on to your travelpod. I am not very bright when it comes to computers!!

 

Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Really looking forward to our trip on Rotterdam early March from Rio to Valparaiso. I was amused about your comment about Al being ready to get off the ship. This mirrors my husband exactly. He loves cruising but prefers only a fortnight but can be talked into three weeks. His worst nightmare would be winning a world cruise!

[hammybee]

Welcome home, New Farmer Guys. Sorry to hear about your ear infection. I too am prone to this sort of thing and know it's painful.

 

I am looking forward to your review.

[wynkys]

I have just finished reading your very entertaining and informative blog and thank you for making the effort to post it.

I haven't yet sailed with HAL, however, I have done several other cruises including a memorable one through the Panama Canal on Infinity. Our first evening in the SS United States restaurant remains as one of the most enjoyable meals I have ever had anywhere.

 

Wayne