Willem Ruys

HAL recently lost a umber of great Captains. Pieter Bos, Edw Van Zaane, John Scott and I think another who I cannot re call now.

John Scott has not yet retired. I expect to sail with him to Hawaii at the end of Sept.

there is only ONE hotel for me in Amsterdam...the de l'Europe...I probably have amassed over 1,000 nights there since I first stayed there in April 1982..e) Just off the Muntplein (Mint Square) it has the most central location in town and wonderful food and service.

scramble the letters spelling Park West and you get Crap Stew...which is what we think of it. I won't miss them.

Eurodam is also now scheduled to leave San Francisco an hour early, and planning to sail more slowly to Vancouver.

 

That smells like shutting down one of their two propulsion pods and tinkering with something that didn't quite get put

back together quite right during this month's drydock.

For what it's worth the reason for altered port arrival/departure times was nothing mechanical; rather it had to do with traffic separation speed limits outside San Francisco and Vancouver.

Correct, they already own Prinsendam's sister, the Royal Viking Sky....

The PRINSENDAM is NOT a sister of the ALBATROS...the former ROYAL VIKING SEA. The PRINSENDAM is 10,000 tons larger and 15 years younger than the former RV SEA. Fred. Olsen Lines owns the sisters of the former RV SEA, now named BLACK WATCH (ex RV STAR) and BOUDICCA, (ex RV SKY).

big cabin, shower only and nicknamed "the blender" because it can shake, grind and bump

Thank you.

How about good Southern fried chicken, with a crispy coating?

Southern Fried Chicken? YES but not always crispy but when it was it was great@

The Royal Princess Line was Fred Kasner's baby...In conjunction with Chandris he chartered the ROMANZA to cruise from Florida. The story is that Royal Princess defaulted on its charter hire payments and of a sudden Chandris ordered the Master of the ROMANZA to steer to Brasil where they had another charter arranged for her. End of the line for Royal Princess, which lasted for about six months (if that).

Anne,

DH worked on the Italian Lines from '68 til '75. He's since been on cruises as a passanger and has yet to find the kind of service he use to provide on the Italian lines.

And he never again will find that kind of service again. Italian Line was simply the BEST EVER! I was lucky, the VULCANIA was my first ship, I got to make seven transAtlantc crossings in the CRISTOFORO COLOMBO (my favorite ship ever); the LEONARDO da VINCI, the MICHELANGELO and RAFFAELLO. I also did Carib cruises and Mediterranean interport trips in some of them. Incomparable, all of them!

my favorite ship ever was the PASSENGER liner, NOT cruise ship, CRISTOFORO COLOMBO, the near twin of the unfortunate ANDREA DORIA. I believe these two ships were the most beautiful objects ever built by man!

Captains daily announcements are broadcast in public areas only, not in staterooms. Only announcements in a stateroom are those of an emergency nature, at least that’s our past experience

 

 

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put your cabin TV on to the bridge cam channel (or one of the others - ask onboard for the channel number).. Announcements can indeed be heard in the cabin

In our PH cabin in both the INSIGNIA (Jan 2017) and NAUTICA (June/July 2017) I seem to remember the champagne was "Chateau Migraine"...

Queen Berengaria, I rather like that, and the original ship was BEAUTIFUL. Come to think of it, were any of the ocean liners of yesteryear ugly in the same way as some modern cruise ships?

UGLY ships of yore? YES, there were many ugly ships under most flags. Their number included some hideous looking ships like the ugly "nautonaphtes", French liners with square chimneys in place of funnels (as built) although some had fantastic interiors...odd cabin arrangements though...

I was told that they were given to "charity"

I'm willing to bet this is a more likely explanation.

 

Lots of interesting speculation going on. On a recent cruise I heard that the nieuw Statendam will have some workers from Thailand instead of mainly Indonesia and the Philippines. Who knows if that is true,

If the Thais are willing to work as hard for less money than the Indonesians and Filippinos expect to see them in ever increasing numbers onboard

Not art, and hardly likely to show up at a posh auction, but what about all those maiden call plaques? What happens to them when a ship is transferred (or scrapped)? Some of them are beautiful, and I always enjoy looking at them, often hidden in a lower stairway. I forget which ship it was on, but there was one from Bermuda that I really coveted.

During the final cruise of the STATENDAM there was an auction of maiden call plaques, etc. Prices were low. That was a great cruise, 30 days from Seattle to Singapore...

What a lovely story, happy anniversary.

thanks so much, Host Hattie!

Crossing the Atlantic from New York to Southampton in early June 1989 I met a wonderful man...We have been together ever since and on our way to another line's ship this June we will have our 28th Anniversary aboard the QM2, our 6th trip in her (7th will be our Jul 21 return. In between 1989 and now we have sailed in dozens of shipsof many lines including the QE2 across the Atlantic and once around the world, SEA GODDESS I, ROYAL VIKING SUN, QUEEN VICTORIA (where we spent a month in 2011 we both try to forget)...He missed sailing with me in the SAGAFJORD but did get two VISTAFJORD crossings with me. I think there were some other Cunard sailings we did together but as we age and I have sailed in over 115 ships they are beginning to elide in my memory - except the ones we didn't like and the few we just LOVED!

there is no even remote comparison...... your asking "how is Ritz Carlson" compared to best western......words fail me.. where would a person even start!

LOVE your comment. Too bad CC has no "LIKE" or "I LOVE IT" button..

The slop disguised as food offered to us for 31 nights in the QUEENS GRILL in the QUEEN VICTORIA in 2011 was so bad and the service so nasty in the QUEEN MARY 2 few months later from Hamburg to New York has kept us off Cunard since then. I KNOW Cunard has its fans but we are not among them any longer (We MET in a Cunard ship in 1989. Friends of ours who traveled with and without us in the QM2 and QV concur with our rough assessment of Cunard Grill food. Even one stranger, a Briton, on the last night of my 60th Birthday cruise (in QG in the QM2) stopped by us as we were about to leave the Grill to mention: "Do you KNOW that we've been eating sh*t?" I laughed and said "YUP!" and don't ask me why room service in the QV one afternoon brought us a vacuum cleaner when I clearly had ordered two cans of Fanta orange.

It may not be current, however, I believe it was HAL that introduced the buffet concept to cruise ship. :)

 

NO. HAL introduced a buffet restaurant (the Lido) to cruise ships but other lines had daily buffets long before someone at HAL thought of the idea...Buffets at lunch and at midnight were long popular both on liner voyages and cruises.

Thank you, Thank you, Willem Ruys, I like that so much that I'm totally stealing it!

Might even put it on the Guest towels! :D

Feel free, men!

We're Holland America refugees also, so we are very aware of why you are "branching out", standards are falling over there faster than we were able to lower our expectations. "

 

LOVE the "standards are falling over there faster than we were able to lower our expectations"...and they haven't lowered many prices in suite (Neptune Suites? UGGGH to that name) cabins or penthouses (now called Pineapple Suites?) so last February we jumped ship, canceled 269 upcoming HAL cruise days through May 26, 2017 and fled to Viking and Oceania...

 

We are nearly convinced that their new president (who didn't even bother to come down to the pier to say goodbye to the STATENDAM when we left Seattle on her final cruise) has brought a wrecking crew with him...We used to swear by HAL, now we swear AT it.

 

(Yes, after 20 years and more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ than I care to remember we are PISSED at them)

 

My very own one and I are sailing from New York in the VIKING STAR (in, not ON, because we're NOT camping out on the topmost deck) on Oct. 14 on a 14 day cruise to the Caribbean. Will let you know how it is after we return but we have enough faith in Viking Oceans that were booked on the 2017-2018 world cruise...

I detest misspellings too :). But it is not just HAL. I've seen errors in lots of cruise brochures and on board as well. Use of spell check is deadly;)

 

One really BAD experience can finish a person. I get it. It's why we haven't returned to Celebrity or Oceania.

 

I am glad you have found a cruise line you are happy with,. So share - which HAL ship/cruise was so BAD you left and which cruise line has won you over?

 

 

It was the OOSTERDAM and her crew that convinced us to leave HAL. We now sail mostly with VIKING OCEANS....the STAR in October from NY and the SUN'S 141 day world cruise between Dec 15, 2017 and May whenever 2018... Between them we're taking O's INSIGNIA from Miami to Honolulu but not because we want O but we want to sail back to our beloved Sandwich Islands where we will remain for some weeks...then go to Seattle for 10 days...we still have plenty of HAL friends there...

so NOW curious minds know! ;)