HAL won us back with the Koningsdam + happy to answer any questions

I did have a great cruise and I'm glad you did as well. We were practically neighbors as I was in 6193, a cozy inside cabin. If I had known about your ankle injury, I would have lent you one of my canes!

What a co-incidence that our cabins were so close! Luckily mum had an ankle support bandage with her, which I used all the time, and with taking pain killers I was just about able to do everything we had planned. Embarkation day was tough, but I rested with it up on the first sea day, mostly in the spa.

Thank you so much for this wonderful review. I was having concerns about booking my family and friends on the Koningsdam after reading some negative reviews. After reading this review and some other reviews within the last few months, I am sure we will enjoy the ship.

 

Also thank you for the info on the adjourning cabin issue that others have had problems with. I was concerned as we most likely will have to have adjoining cabins.

 

We are looking at the exact area of the ship you stayed in, deck 6 aft, port side, any down side to staying in this area?

I'm sure you will have a wonderful trip. The wasn't really any major downside to that area, it's quick to get to the MDR and the Lido, it is a trek to the Crows Nest and the spa which are forward. Most of the gangways were mid-ship and forward.

Thanks for the review. You had much the same experience as I did last summer on the Koningsdam.

 

If I had a big breakfast on sea days I discovered the Explorations Cafe had delicious little egg salad sandwiches (they are so little two were required to equal one regular) and desserts. It was never crowded and was nice to be able to sit and read during lunch.

I didn't know that about the Explorations cafe, handy to know for next time, thank you

Thanks so much for your review! We board her in Amsterdam next Sunday and can't wait!

Hope you have a wonderful cruise

I'm sure you will have a wonderful trip. The wasn't really any major downside to that area, it's quick to get to the MDR and the Lido, it is a trek to the Crows Nest and the spa which are forward. Most of the gangways were mid-ship and forward.

Perfect, sounds exactly what we are looking for, thank you so much.

Have read that on other HAL ships you lose some closet space with adjoining rooms. On the "K" is this true?

Read complaints about the Lido being overcrowded, how was it?

Glad to hear you enjoyed the "K".

Thank you for your interesting review.

Have read that on other HAL ships you lose some closet space with adjoining rooms. On the "K" is this true?

Read complaints about the Lido being overcrowded, how was it?

Glad to hear you enjoyed the "K".

I don't think we lost any closet space, we certainly had plenty, even with being 2 ladies having a lot of clothes!

The door is right by the desk, so not in the same area as the closet.

The Lido varied a lot, lunch on sea days was the worst. We found by having lunch about 1.15pm the initial rush had gone, and it was easier to get a table. The first few days The Dutch Cafe was quiet before everyone discovered it, and a nice alternative. You also have the tables outside by the Lido pool, by Dive in. If you are flexible with the time you eat, you can make it work OK.

Have read that on other HAL ships you lose some closet space with adjoining rooms. On the "K" is this true?

Read complaints about the Lido being overcrowded, how was it?

Glad to hear you enjoyed the "K".

We were in an adjoining NS room on the Oosterdam last November. There was no loss of closet space. I think that a table might have been sacrificed, however.

OP: You said that your VD balcony room was too cramped to enjoy a room service meal. Are these balcony cabins smaller than on the Vista and Signature class ships?

We were in an adjoining NS room on the Oosterdam last November. There was no loss of closet space. I think that a table might have been sacrificed, however.

 

OP: You said that your VD balcony room was too cramped to enjoy a room service meal. Are these balcony cabins smaller than on the Vista and Signature class ships?

It's 2-3 years since I was on the Noordam and Eurodam, but I think then there was a larger table suitable for the room service tray. The table on the K is small, so you have to put the tray on the desk. There is room to sit on the sofa, but no real suitable table.

We did several room service breakfasts and ended up having the tray on the end of one of the beds with one of us sitting at the desk and the other (me) sitting on the sofa. I'd bring in the balcony table to use. A larger sofa table would be nice as the one they have is only about 12by12 inches.

Agree about closet. Plenty of space. My friend took the tall closet and drawers. I took the center section that had a short hanging rail upper section and several shelves below. Since neither of us had dresses this worked out perfectly.

We just got a HAL brochure in today's mail and there's an itinerary on the Konigsdam that interests us, so I have a question about the entertainment.

We love BBKings, but we also love piano bars. (Our cruise this summer on the Noordam had the most amazing performer in the Piano Bar.( Does the Konigsdam have a Piano Bar or are they doing the Dueling Pianos thing? Also, did you have Adagio? America's Test Kitchen? Guest expert lecturers?

Thanks!

Thanks for the review. That's one area of the world we have not cruised yet, adding it to the bucket list.

Allan

I really do feel for people with walkers in there, it is so crowded. a couple of times I went for pizza, or a burger just to avoid the Lido (although they were really tasty too!)

You probably saw, but dfish just mentioned the dining room was open on embarkation day.

Yes, I did see that. But with staggered times, many people would not get to eat in the dining room. i.e., dining room usually closes at 1:30 and people getting on after 1 wouldn't get a chance to eat there.

We are not hamburger or pizza eaters.

We just got a HAL brochure in today's mail and there's an itinerary on the Konigsdam that interests us, so I have a question about the entertainment.

 

We love BBKings, but we also love piano bars. (Our cruise this summer on the Noordam had the most amazing performer in the Piano Bar.( Does the Konigsdam have a Piano Bar or are they doing the Dueling Pianos thing? Also, did you have Adagio? America's Test Kitchen? Guest expert lecturers?

 

Thanks!

I've just checked the couple of dailys I brought home to look that up, i'll also try and post photos later.

They had 'Pianist Joe' in the Ocean bar from 5.15pm to 7.15pm, and classical music on the Lincoln Centre Stage (but not actually Adagio) I can't see any guest expert lectures mentioned, but maybe the were on sea days which I don't have the dailys for.

Some snaps of the ship in our ports

Alesund

Gerienger

Eidfjord

Honningsvag

Flam

Thank you for posting those "When and Where"s. It answered a lot of my questions about the entertainment in the Konigsdam.

Debsjc - THANK YOU for your postings about the Koningdam!!! I am super excited to see her in person next month. You take great ship photos too.

Thanks for all the info. We are on the 7/9 cruise. I just have one question about Flam. We are taking the 8:35 train so we will be getting off very early. The picture looks like the ship was docked. Is that right? I thought I read that it was a tender port but would be very happy if it isn't.

Pam

Thanks for all the info. We are on the 7/9 cruise. I just have one question about Flam. We are taking the 8:35 train so we will be getting off very early. The picture looks like the ship was docked. Is that right? I thought I read that it was a tender port but would be very happy if it isn't.

Pam

Another Deb here. We were docked in Flam. Our only two tender ports were Geiranger and Honningsvag. Although, the itinerary on the HAL website shows that you do tender in Flam. It could be due to the number of ships in port.

Just back from the Voyage to the Midnight Sun on the Koningsdam. We only docked this morning, and I haven't even unpacked yet, but I am happy to try and help with any questions. :cool:

 

I'll try and give a brief run-down of how we found the trip, but overall we had a great vacation and loved the Koningsdam. We are 3 star mariners, but after our last cruise on HAL 2 years ago we weren't sure we would sail with them again, but are so glad we did. :D

 

Pre- cruise

We flew from London on BA, and stayed 1 night pre cruise at the Nova hotel. The hotel was a small 3 star, but really central, clean and with friendly receptionists. There was a continental breakfast buffet included.

Unfortunately the night before boarding I fell down a curb in Amsterdam and twisted my ankle, the hotel were really nice about getting me ice for it.

 

Embarkation

Took a taxi from the hotel to the port, and arrived around 1115. The check-in was quick, but boarding took longer than usual. We sat in the waiting area for our assigned group until about 1245, and were on by 1pm

We had lunch in the lido, which was hectic, but fine. The Koningsdam lifeboat drill if different to other HAL ships, and we preferred it. I think you can still learn what to do in an emergency, without standing on deck and listening to a list of names called out!

 

Cabin

We had 6196, a VD balcony towards the aft of the ship. port side. This is a cabin which has a connecting door to the one next door, and I was concerned that it might be noisy, but we had no issues with hearing our neighbours.

The new interactive TV is great, and we liked the position of it across from the beds, but it is annoying that you can't get the ships announcements on it. By using the drawer under the beds, as well as the little cupboards and wardrobe, we had enough storage for everything. Why HAL only assign one foot stall on the balcony I have no idea, it was a problem with my bandaged ankle, and because of this our steward managed to get something for me to rest my foot on.

 

Captain

The Captain was Darrin Bowland, who I think was in charge of our Eurodam Northern Transatlantic 5 years ago. We really liked him, his daily announcements were always interesting and entertaining.....even if he always thought the weather was great, when it was cloud & raining! He had his son with him on this trip, and it sounded like they did some good hiking.

We felt he genuinely cared about the passenger experience, twice arriving at a port an hour early to give us more time, and making a detour to show us a waterfall as we left Eidfjord

 

Entertainment

After reading up on here, quite honestly we weren't expecting much, but it was great. We saw 2 shows with the singers and dancers in the main show lounge, which were good. Plus the guest vocalist Andrew Derbyshire, who was really excellent. The illusionist was not to our taste at all.

Our main highlight was B.B. Kings, we loved them. Such a great talented group of musicians, one of the singers, Marquis Murphy, was just amazing. I don't know if all the B.B. Kings groups are that good, or if we just got lucky

 

Spa

We prebooked a couples pass for $499 for the 2 week cruise. When we got on board there was a special price of $460 if you signed up before lifeboat drill, and the honored that for us and refunded the difference.

This was our first time using a HAL spa, and it was perfect for the cooler sea days on this trip. It wasn't as good as NCL spas, but it was nice. It's a shame there is no spa for some regular loungers. The ceramic heated beds aren't well shaped for reading on, and the ones in the relation room are the same shape. The pool itself always looked clean, and generally the area wasn't too overcrowded.

If I was on a Caribbean sailing I would prefer to have a Retreat Cabana, but for Northern Europe, this was more useful.

 

Areas around the ship

Loved the light evenings in the crows nest, it was popular, but you could usually find a spot. Also loved that the Captain opened up the bow area of deck 5 for scenic cruising a lot (although they need to turn up the commentary out there, it's really hard to hear)

I wasn't keen on a couple of aspects of the Lido pool area, firstly they play music which makes it hard to read or listen to your own music with headphones. Also I really do not like the movies by the pool. It stops that area being used to relax in the evenings, to play cards or watch the scenery quietly. I think they should compromise and show a movie alternative nights, rather than all evening every night.

As I mentioned we didn't have a cabana this time, but the smaller retreat cabanas would not put us off, we took a look and they still work Ok for us.

 

Staff

They were wonderful - friendly and attentive. Our cabin steward was especially great.

 

Food

MDR - Better than our last 2 cruises, but still not a good fit for us. There are a lot of things I can't eat for medical reasons, and it was just too complicated to avoid them in the end. Plus, for our taste the food is way too salty. We tried it 3 times, but preferred other eating areas.

Lido - Great for breakfast and lunch. At dinner time we found it was better to use the pasta station, salad, or stir fry as the hot food which was out doesn't stay hot. It is super crowded at times in the day, but there isn't much HAL can do about that.

Canaletto - Nice meal, apart from the desserts which were disappointing

Pinnacle Grill - Good, but why can they not cook lamb medium in there? This is the 4th time we have ordered Lamb cutlets medium, and they always come out well done. I need to bring the chefs to my little kitchen at home and show them how to cook cutlets!!

NY Pizzaria - Loved it, shame about the noise from the Lido movies in the evening.

Dive in - Yummy burgers & fries

Dutch Cafe - Only ate there once, but very good.

Room Service- Food was hot, delivered quickly, and really nice. Only used once as not much room to eat in the cabin these days

Gelato - We did use it once, and for $2 you get a cup with 2 flavors and 2 toppings, so if you like gelato it's an inexpensive treat.

 

Wildlife

We were really lucky to spot a huge pod of dolphins from the spa on one of the Arctic circle sea days, and an hour or two later, a pod of several Orcas very close to the ship (the officer of the watch made an announcement about the orcas)

 

Dis-embarkation

We had the earliest non-priority and it was all very smooth. Off the ship at about 7.45 I think, collected our luggage, and straight into a taxi to the airport. Made our 10.15 flight to London easily (although the lines at AMS airport for non EU passports were very long, so I wouldn't recommend it to everyone)

 

Ports, Weather etc

I'll do a separate post about the ports later or tomorrow.... but it was a wonderful routing. The main downside is we didn't get much sunshine in the fjords, it was mostly overcast with some rain. But we were lucky with sunshine in the Arctic Circle. The seas were mostly fairly calm, the Koningsdam seems to cope with the swell well. We had one day with 45 mph winds, and 20 foot seas, but it really wasn't bad.

There was a lot of wonderful scenic cruising to enjoy, and it is really spectacular. I would love to do another Norwegian itinerary in the future.

We are considering this ship but have found conflicting info on the cabins. HA lists refrigerators in oceanview and balcony but It is not clear if that is for all ships. We have avoided HA for years because of the lack of fridges. Can you help?

Thanks. Maureen.

Thank you for posting those "When and Where"s. It answered a lot of my questions about the entertainment in the Konigsdam.

You're welcome :)

Debsjc - THANK YOU for your postings about the Koningdam!!! I am super excited to see her in person next month. You take great ship photos too.

Thank you, hope you have a wonderful cruise