MS Koningsdam February 19-March 1 AND MS Zaandam March 21 to April 22

I am leaving Thursday on my most complicated trip to date. I start with a 10-day Caribbean voyage on Holland America’s newest ship, the MS Koningsdam. I want to check out their solo cabins, but my primary reason for booking this trip is to get away from the Northeast and possible storms before my other plans. On March 1 I disembark Koningsdam and fly to Buenos Aires where I will board Crystal Serenity for a World Cruise segment ending in Rio March 14. I fly back to BA and have a short trip planned at Iguazu falls before returning to Buenos Aires and boarding the MS Zaandam for 32 days ending in San Diego. After a brief visit I will head to Los Angeles for a quick trip on the Carnival Inspiration. I’m not usually a Carnival cruiser but have never been to either Ensenada or Catalina, and the cruise fit my plans perfectly. The epic concludes April 30 with a 19-day voyage on the Crystal Symphony from LA to NY.

While I have often had trips where I switched from one cruise line to another and switched back this will be the first time I have sailed one line, switched to another, and switched back. This thread will cover both the Koningsdam and the Zaandam with a long period of inactivity in between.

As usual, I will have threads on Cruise Critic with reports (actually 4) and a companion blog with pictures.

My Cruise Critic thread for the entire trip is on the Maryland Cruisers forum:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2457000&page=999

I will establish threads on the Crystal and Carnival forums and publish links later.

I will actually be using 2 companion blogs with pictures for this odyssey. For the time on the Koningsdam I will use this one:

http://solocabinchallenge.wordpress.com

For the rest of the voyages I will blog at:

http://aroundamericabitbybit.wordpress.com

The Serenity segment will actually conclude my circumnavigation of the Americas but I will continue with that blog until the end of the trip.

One part of the trip has already started. On Friday Luggage Forward picked up my big bag.

Roy

YAY! Another rafinmd LIVE thread :)

Always enjoy following along with you and will be intrigued to see what you think of the King, too.

You are worried about storms?? What's that green on the ground I see in your Fed Ex pic? It looks like grass:eek:

Trade you - you can have our blizzard.

Seriously, I hope you avoid all storms and get out of there easily and wish you safe travels and a wonderful cruise and adventure!

Looking forward to your adventure.

When we were younger we used to take planes, buses, trains and cars all over Europe.

I would never attempt anything like you are doing now.

Looking forward to all your reports with all the envy I can muster. :D

Looking forward to all your reports with all the envy I can muster. :D

Just wondering--Did you get an email from me about this trip?

Roy

Your itinerary sounds wonderful, wishing you safe,trouble free journeys.

Just wondering--Did you get an email from me about this trip?

 

Roy

No, and I just checked to see if one came in since the last time I checked my e-mail.

Nothing there.

As always, I am looking forward to hearing about your adventures and especially what you think about the solo cabins. Bon Voyage!

Sounds exhausting to me. Do you find this a vacation or a marathon??😯

Enjoy your cruises - will be following your posts!

Love your posts! Thanks for doing this.

Just following your adventures looks to be a challenge. I can only imagine how complicated it is to actually take the trip. You must be the master of logistics!

Have wonderful trips!

The mind boggles!:D:D

Have a great trip, Roy. I'm looking forward to your reports.

Enjoy the adventure and will be subscribing to your threads!

I'm happy to say I received your email. Looking forward to following your adventures! Thanks.

Just wondering--Did you get an email from me about this trip?

 

Roy

I've missed your blogs since you finished the NW passage. I got a notice from "circling the Americas" a few days ago, but somehow am out of your loop in general. Would the Maryland. Thread be the best to one to hear about future trips?

Thanks all. Just up from my final sleep at home until May 19. kahtrav, since you got an email from the "circling" blog, you must have signed up to follow that blog. I just took a look and see that that blog has an easy panel to sign up to follow it while the other ones do not.

The thread under Maryland cruisers will have no use when this trip is concluded. My suggestion would be to sign up for the http://getawaysfrom21044.wordpress.com. The obvious "follow" panel is not there but there should be a faint white box that says follow at the bottom right corner of the screen. I will usually post there about other trips not covered in that blog (like this one), and right below the header there;s a "next up" entry. If you have trouble signing up to follow leave a comment on one of my blogs and we'll work something out

I anticipate that all future entries for http://solocabinchallenge.wordpress.com will be for HAL so you might want to follow that as well.

Roy

I'm glad to see some of you have found the blogs. I've made the first little step, Downtown Baltimore, Symphony tonight, and my winter ends at 9:20am tomorrow.

Roy

... my winter ends at 9:20am tomorrow.

 

Roy

Go ahead. Rub it in. :eek:

Safe travels and enjoy Roy!:D

Day KDAM-3, Thursday, February 16, 2017 Baltimore

Thanks John and RuthC.

I was up at 5 and spent most of the morning on final preparations. I left home about 10 and walked about 500 feet to my local bus stop, taking the last run of my lines half-hourly rush hour service. We had a few snow flurries as I waited for the first bus. That gave me a bit of time to refresh at the local mall before going on to the day’s longest bus ride, just over an hour to BWI airport.

My travel plan gave me about 25 minutes at BWI to connect to the light rail into Baltimore but I think my bus was early and the light rail may have been a bit late. After buying my day pass I saw a train sitting at the platform, and thought I would get settled in well before the train left. As I approached someone said the train was ready to leave so I hurried to the back of the train and got on. It was about a 2-block walk from the Convention Center stop to the Marriott Inner Harbor but it was a difficult walk with my shifting load and strong winds.

When I arrived at the Marriott there was good news; my room was ready.

I am a Baltimore Symphony subscriber and was scheduled for a concert Saturday. No way I was going to fly to my cruise on Sunday morning, and the BSO has a very generous exchange policy. My Saturday concert was to be part of a unique series, Maestra Marin Alsop combines a single work (Dvorak Cello Concerto) with a talk on the origins and qualities of the work. Tonight’s program featured that work (sans commentary) with a Barber Symphony and 2 most unusual pieces, Dancin Blue Crabs (a premier celebrating the Orchestra’s 100th Anniversary, and Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait, some unexpected Lincoln quotes set to music.

I must leave early Friday and have written most of the post in the afternoon, expecting to make any necessary revisions and post before retiring. I hope to be in Ft. Lauderdale early Friday afternoon.

As a parting shot I changed my BSO ticket out of necessity than out of program considerations, but just happened upon 2 musical gems. Sometimes life is like that.

A major fire in North Baltimore resulted in severe Light Rail delays getting back to the hotel so I’ll post quickly and call it a night.

Roy

Glad the weather co-operated for your travels Roy.

Safe travels to Fort Lauderdale.

Thanks, Jacqui. At the gate; 1:45 till boarding starts.

Roy

Day KDAM-2, Friday, February 17, 2017, Fly to Ft. Lauderdale

The Koningsdam is at sea from St. Thomas to Half Moon Cay. The Zaandam is I Puerto Madryn. The Crystal Serenity is at sea from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia. The Crystal Symphony is at sea from Cairns to Darwin. The Carnival Inspiration is on a fixed weekly schedule and I will only report it the first week on the HAL and Crystal forums of Cruise Critic. On Fridays it is in Los Angeles.

With an airport pickup scheduled for 6:20 I set the alarm for 5 and left my room about 5:55. When I looked out the door the Airport Shuttle had already pulled up. The driver said I was called but one of the flaws in the generally good Airport Shuttle service seems to be that they frequently mix up home and cell phone numbers. I was checked in with Southwest by 6:30 and through security by 6:45 with ample time before boarding started at 8:50.

The flight was pretty uneventful, staying a little bit ahead of schedule. We were actually on the ground a good half hour before our 12:10 arrival, but the plane using our gate didn’t clear out until about 12:05.

Bags started appearing about 12:25 and mine arrived 10 minutes later. A taxi had me at the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale about 1. I was assigned a room on the second floor of the West Villa, with a balcony overlooking the 17th Street Bridge and the harbor from my balcony.

https://solocabinchallenge.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/hilton.jpg

After unpacking and accounting for some things I didn’t find in Baltimore I got lunch and did quite a bit of shipping at Publix. I returned to the hotel just after 4 and watched the Oosterdam (just booked on Tuesday for a 1-night voyage) as it left Tampa.

After dinner and a quiet evening I went to bed about 11:30, this time not setting an alarm.

I’m also including a couple of photos from Baltimore.

https://solocabinchallenge.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/baltimore.jpg

https://solocabinchallenge.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/myerhoff.jpg

As a parting shot sometimes being retired it’s easy to not think too much about holidays. Wishing all US readers a great President’s Day Weekend.

Roy