Ineke

I’m looking forward to following your ‘Live from…’ adventures while we are floating around the Caribbean. We have been contemplating a river cruise in conjunction with a family visit in The Netherlands, so this may just clinch this decision. Oh, and by the way, I got my new knee last summer, after a lot of hesitation. So glad I did, it literally changed my life. Have a wonderful trip, i’ve always followed your posts when you were still traveling with your children.

1959-HAL De Groote Beer, Rotterdam to Montreal. We immigrated to Canada, 10 day cruising and 4 days by CPRail to Vancouver. Loved it ever since, but had to wait till 1995 for the next one, Rijndam Caribbean cruise.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! I am enjoying it immensely, and taking notes as we will be transiting the canal on the Nieuw Amsterdam next month. And I have the same Canon camera, hoping for pictures as good as yours.

I wonder when the Legendary Voyage tiles were introduced? We were on the Tales of the South Pacific Legendary Voyage, and did not receive any tile, not even a regular one. But it sounds like there are a number of ways that Legendary Voyages are different now - a work in progress?

We had Platinum insurance on our Tales of the South Pacific cruise this past fall. Never needed it, thank goodness, but imagine our shock when we were told we could not get it for our upcoming cruise in April, because we are from British Columbia. So we settled for the next best thing, and fortunately have very good emergency medical coverage. But as a Canadian, be aware. This is when living on the Wet Coast is not ideal.

If you booked an inside or oceanview cabin, we love to sit on the Promenade deck, love their comfy wooden loungers, and it is not as busy as the pool decks. If we have a verandah cabin we spend much of our time on the verandah. But that’s our thing.

I’m really enjoying your posts! Love the pictures, makes me a bit ‘homesick’ for a DAM ship. But not for long, boarding Apr. 6 for a Panama Canal cruise to San Diego. Keep up the good work!

The same is true for Educators. Find the link for Educators On-Board Credit on the HAL website.

Thanks, Kazu, will do. Much appreciated!

That’s interesting, we did not realize that. Certainly plenty of staff saw him use it every morning, including the captain, and while someone often asked what it was, no one questioned its use. Same when we were checking in. In any case, we may no longer have it, although we will certainly need to replace it if it is lost. We won’t go on one of our long road trips without it.

We’ve just returned from our Tales of the South Pacific cruise, and realized that my husband has left his Spot locator on board the Volendam somewhere. How do we get in touch with the right department to see if it has been found?

I always enjoy reading your posts, but today I am a liitle sad, because we left the ship later to walk to Iolani Palace, and there were no leis to be seen. But only a little sad, because this is Hawai’i after all. Keep on posting, please, you have a very large following!

Thanks so much for clarifying!

Hello fellow travellers Fanning Island will be our next port after Honolulu. Many of us have been purchasing a bunch of school supplies for the children on Fanning Island, and were told to drop them off so they can all go in together. We took them to the front desk, and were told that they no longer do this and we have to take them off the ship and take them through customs, and were given a declaration form. We bought them yesterday in the US, so this seems strange. And if no one is collecting them, what do we do with the things we bought? I have asked this on the Roll Call as well, but hope someone has an answer.

Yes, they did, and served with berry sauce.

Hi Copper, re Polenta. Bring out the Dutch vocab, it’s ‘griesmeel’ but more solid.

We’re long-time readers of your blog and CC posts, and have been avidly reading older posts and looking at the pictures you have posted, regarding the Tales of the South Pacific. We are looking forward to Wednesday when we board the Volendam for this year’s version. I really want to thank you for all the information we’ve been able to gather because of you! We may run into you at some point in time.

Anchorage is great! The shuttle drops you off at the Visitors Centre, from there you can take a trolley tour which is really fun and interesting. Great option.

Kazu, you live in Canada. Do you have the new booster available already? I’ve been trying to get one for DH and myself before we sail next Wednesday, but am told it’s not our turn. Frustrating. Got a ‘just in case’ Paxlovid prescription instead.

It sounds strangely similar to our May 7 Nieuw Amsterdam attempt to reach Homer, when we also experienced wild weather in that area. The captain kept us well-informed then as well, and everything he said was true. Because of his constant updates the expeeience was interesting rather than frightening.

I have a Smartphone, but don’t use it much. But I did put the Navigator app on my iPad, where it is easier to read, and I do use my iPad a lot. I haven’t tried it out to be scanned, though, so I’m not sure how that would work.

Yes, sure made me happy to know this. Leaving soon for 56 days, which will be exciting by itself. But having to keep up with some work emails should be much more reliable, so more good news.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Fascinating!

Yes, we have one and she looked after it all. Reading this, I’m glad we did.

I’ve found that the two beds made up as one are actually bigger than a queen-sized bed, more like a king-size actually. Don’t know if that helps?