rajkr74

I've been following (lurking) on the Roll Call, all of the blogs and now the webcam at the Panama Canal as the Amsterdam passed thru. I came close in not getting any decent shots as a rain squall rolled thru the camera frame just before the ship came into the lock.

Rick

That was one of the best if not the best review of a HAL ship that I have ever read!!! Excellent photos and narrative!. You covered everything about the ship, ports and shows. You must have worked hard to get photos without a lot of people in them. I have never been on the Nieuw Amsterdam but this review has me going to the HAL cruises to look for one on the Nieuw Amsterdam. :D Thanks, I have bookmarked your website to read additional reviews that you have done.

We usually pull a copy of our account from the front desk or kiosk a day or two into the cruise to verify that all of the OBCs have posted. So far we have never seen any missing OBCs. All HAL approved OBCs were "use or lose" credits and were used first before any TA credits. Unused TA credits were credited back to our credit card at the end of the cruise. Any and all charges on our account, including hotel service charges, were reduced by any OBCs that are posted on our account.

We have done the canal twice from east to west and will be doing the canal again from west to east in April 2018 on the Maasdam. Don't stay in one place on the ship while going thru the canal. Go to the stern and see what other ships are following you thru the locks. Go to the bow and on both the port and starboard sides of the ship on the Promenade deck for different views of the traffic going thru the canal. Don't miss the Panama Buns that HAL serves on the bow and outer decks during the morning, they are very good.

Unbelievable and fascinating!!! The time lapse play on the video may have covered up any "glitches" in moving the crankshaft down into the ship thru the tight quarters if there were any glitches. That was not an easy task.

Also known as a crumble or a cobbler.

We make a crisp (crumble) with butter, brown sugar, uncooked oatmeal and flower that is mixed up and spread over the top of the fruit and baked. We make cobbler with Bisquick as the only ingredient that is spread over the top of the fruit and baked.

I have always enjoyed HALs crisps even if the toppings are a little different than what we make.

Little late posting this but we drove an hour north to Corvallis OR with clear skies and got 100% totality. Completely dark with stars coming out. Got a number of corona shots on our camera and viewed the eclipse, at totality, with the naked eye. The corona was amazing and spectacular. We have seen a number of eclipses in our life time but not a totality eclipse. Pretty cool!!!!

But how does it work... is it a special program, or a perk for suites or higher mariner levels. Or are all cabins ready 'as early as 11:30am'? :confused:

It is not a special program, when they start letting all passengers board you can go directly to your cabin and it will be available to drop off your carry on items. The timing may not always be 11:30am for boarding, our last cruise we did not start boarding until just after 12:00 noon. There maybe some situations when this will not happen but on our last 7-8 cruises our cabin has always been available by the time they started the boarding process. Sure makes things nicer not having to carry items around until the cabins were accessible.

We also were on the cruise listed in the link in post #2 above. It was a 30 day cruise across the Atlantic to Rotterdam. We found the Rotterdam in good condition. The staff was the greatest as usual. The art work on board is one of the best of the HAL ships we have been on. HAL has cut dinning room staff over the years but we found our service on AYWD was not hurt. The entertainment was just OK nothing great. However, we felt the HAL singers and dancers were much improved from prior cruises we have taken. HAL is now using a different agency that provides the singers and dancers for ships and it shows. We enjoyed their performances. The food in the dinning room was good but we felt that the selections during lunches in the Lido were repetitive and some what boring day to day. We had no barbeques on the lido deck during them whole cruise. There has been some discussion about this on another thread on this board.

This was the first time for us on the Rotterdam and we really enjoyed the ship and staff. Here is a link on OneDrive to some of our photos of the ship and staff.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsptL998yK8HgcMF6Q8b_rQpqOSuUA

Just click the first photo and it will start a slide show.

Sorry but it appears the link is not working, so just copy and paste it into a browser.

Oh that was GOOD. DH and I really enjoyed it too :)

Glad you had it also! I should have ordered two of them and put one in our fridge for later consumption, of course without the ice cream. I was hoping we would have had it again on the cruise but alas it did not happen. :(

My vote would be the "Snickers Cake". We have had it about 3-4 times on different ships. Not always offered. We had it only once of our last cruise across the Atlantic a month ago. Some rumors we heard is it is made outside HAL and not on board which would match with only having it on one dinner out of Ft. Lauderdale early on our 30 day cruise. It is really rich and very good.

Thanks everyone for following along.

 

The live thread has reached it's inevitable end just like the cruise when we had to say good bye to our great crew.

 

Thank you for following along with us. It was a great vacation!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks Jacqui for all the work you did on the cruise and the help you gave Joyce and I. Finally had the chance to fully read your "Live" thread and see the sites you went to. I also appreciate the purchase you made for us from Canada, kept me from having to drive to Canada to buy it, thanks. It was a great cruise and we met a lot of new friendly people on the cruise. Wish you and Jose the best and maybe we will run into you both on a future cruise.

Rick

For anyone recently on the Rotterdam, how were the temperatures inside the ship. On our last cruise the Oosterdam I froze the whole week and we were in the Caribbean. Also are there DVR player in the room or has the system been upgraded yet? Off to Norway soon. Thanks

 

 

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We were on the same cruise as kazu, for 30 days. The temps in the ship were comfortable and we did not feel too cold or too hot. We had a table at the stern of the ship in the dinning room and while traveling east on the Atlantic the sun shined in the windows during our dinner and the temps got a little warm there. Our room, 3404, was very comfortable and the thermostat worked well on keeping it cool during the first portion of our cruise when the outside temps were warmer. It also worked fine when the temps went down as we traveled northerly toward the end of our cruise.

Yes, there are still dvd players in the cabins. We did not use ours.

Over all the cruise and ship were great. Staff was the best, always smiling and helping out were needed. We enjoyed the cruise and would sail the Rotterdam again.

Sorry about the link, the link works on my computer, so lets try this direct link to the video:

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AsptL998yK8HgcFxOjtbty_TzV7bZQ

Well everyone that was on the excursion to Rouen has remarked about the bells ringing at noon at the church that I thought maybe I should post a video that I took as we walked by the church. I could not resist taking a video. I madly took out my camera and clicked on the video button and got most of the bells. Here is the link to the file on our Microsoft's OneDrive, then just click the picture to open the video file.

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=7AFC87CDF2F6DCA%2124816&cid=07AFC87CDF2F6DCA

It was something pretty special.

Rick

Finally got free internet service here in Marseille France andhave the time to post something to the “Live” thread. Everything has been going well for us on the cruise with the TA portion of the cruise smooth thank heavens. Weather has also been good with temps in thehigh 60’s F to low 70’s.The firstM&G was well attended with good participation from everyone.We had no problems with our keys the firstday but I am now into my 3rd key card.

Hi Dave yes we are on the cruise and it’s easy to spot me onthe sail away pics from FLL.I have nothad the chance to read all of Jacqui’s thread so probably missed some comments.

Thanks Jacqui for all the work on the Roll Call thread andthe Sail Away out of Barcelona, nice job!

Rick & Joyce

:). Happy to say that we are at Montreal airport. I think we have more wait time than flying time ;). But, that's ok. At least we have the lounge which is much quieter.

 

So glad you got the flight out to Montreal...YEAH!!! We will see you on board Thurs.

 

Rick & Joyce

Hi rajkr74 ,

I just read your review in preparation for our July land/cruise with HAL.

If you don't mind I have a few questions. How did you book the trip that included the dogs? Was it through HAL? You described it by writing, "We took the shuttle over to the visitor center then walked over to the Murie Science and Learning Center. We went back to the Transportation Center/Bus stop near the Visitor center and got in line at 1:20pm for the shuttle to the Sled Dog demonstration. This is one not to miss if you like dogs."

Also, could you take some time to tell me about the carryon that you keep with you while HAL takes care of your suitcase? Does it have to be small? We are planning to bring 21inch hard case carryon because we need the wheels for while in airport.

I thought I had another question but getting late after a long day of work and an enjoyable evening of reading your review.

Robin

The dog sled tour is not an excursion. It is part of the National Park Service and they put on two shows a day and it is free. I stated above how to get over there via free shuttles. Once at the Bus/Transportation center look for a sign for the Dog Sled Tour, just line up and wait for the bus. It was very easy, just check the times for the daily tours/show.

HAL delivered our suitcases to our rooms so quickly that we only carried a day pack for minor items. No need to haul around a small carry-on suitcase. Every time we got to a WestMark Hotel (HAL) our luggage was delivered within 15-20- minutes, pretty quick. We never had to haul anything.

Hope that helps.

We're deciding between the Northbound or the Southbound version of this land/sea cruise. One leaves on 5/26 on Noordam the other 5/28 on Zaandam. Both look great but the bigger questions are about the land portion as I can find little information on this. (And I've searched!)

 

I can't find a review of this particular tour. Should I assume that at Fairbanks we just have a hotel and are left to ourselves? Then we have a day/night in Denali and then take a long bus ride to Seward? Can anyone give me a play-by-play of the land portion?

 

Also, on the Noordam we'd probably choose the VB balcony on the Observation deck. I've seen both good and bad about this. On the Zaandam, we'd have a Vista Suite. Thoughts?

 

Lastly, what about the Oak Room on the Noordam? My husband likes a cigar once in awhile but it's not a necessity. Do they allow cigarette smoking in there as well?

 

Thank you!

Like you, we found very little information/reviews on the board for the HAL Land-Sea cruises. There are 26 different Land Sea cruises that HAL puts out so finding one that perfectly fits with the cruise you are wanting to do is going to be tough. We did a review on CC last year for our cruise which was a Y2C cruise for 14 days from Seattle. We bused to Vancouver then got on the Volendam. I also would recommend at least 2 days in Denali but 3 days is better like we did. You just can not truly see Denali in one day.

Here is the CC review link.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2380606

We also posted pictures on OneDrive. Here is that link.

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=7AFC87CDF2F6DCA%2122255&cid=07AFC87CDF2F6DCA

CC is not bringing over a true link for the CC review. So you will have to copy & Paste the url into a browser.

McKinley Explorer does not have assigned seating, just assigned car. On a certain HAL fact site you will find the photos I took last year of a typical car. The menu is the snack menu not the meal one downstairs.

On our Land-Sea last year we were assigned seats on the train from Denali to Anchorage. The good thing is there is not a bad seat on the train coach. Also, the train was not full so we could move around as need be. The one thing we did not know is they served breakfast on the train. We did not need to find breakfast at the McKinley lodge before getting on the train.

Try this link for OneDrive: https://onedrive.live.com/?id=7AFC87CDF2F6DCA%2122255&cid=07AFC87CDF2F6DCA

This link for the CC review: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2380606

Good Afternoon

 

I was hoping that someone who has done a land and sea package via Holland America to Denali can shre their train experience. Are seats assigned, are meals and beverages included while we are on the train.

 

 

Thank you for any information

We did the Land--Sea cruise last year with HAL in 2016. It was the Y2C from Seattle by bussing to Vancouver then getting on board the Volendam. If was for 14 days total with only 3 on the Volendam. We did a full CC review on the main board since prior to doing this cruise I could find very little photos and reviews on the Land-Sea cruises. Here is the link:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2380606

We also posted photos on Microsoft's OneDrive:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=7AFC87CDF2F6DCA%2122255&cid=07AFC87CDF2F6DCA

There are some duplication of photos in both sites. We really enjoyed this cruise and HAL did a great job. I really enjoyed the train trip from Denali to Anchorage. Understand there are about 26 combinations of this Land-Sea cruise. Ours was for 14 days and strated with the sea portion first. I would not go to Denali any less than 2 days but 3 was better.

Looks like the links don't work, just copy and paste the link into a browser, sorry.

Wow - great info. I did try booking the R2C and was told all dates had a waiting list - so now I will check the R2L - thanks so much! Now I'm not sure if the TA meant all Nieuw Amsterdam or just the R2C. DB

I'll jump I here and add some information on the Land-Sea cruise we did in June of 2016. It was Y2C originating at Sea-Tac airport in Seattle with a bus ride to Vancouver and then we boarded the Volendam for 3 days getting off in Skagway to start our 11 days on Land. The following CC link was our write up of the cruise since we did not see very many write-ups on HAL's land sea cruises. I posted a lot of pictures on this review of the cruise in the following writeup.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2380606

We really loved the whole cruise and would recommend it. Don't do just one day in Denali, you need at least 2 days, more preferably 3 being the best. We always thought we wanted to do the land portion first with the sea portion last. It worked well for us to do the sea portion first and on our cruise it was also less expensive.

Great photos - thank you! Enjoy PV!!

Good to see other Oregonians on the CC boards!! :p

Let us know if you need any ideas on things to do in PV. We have been going there for years. You can contact us off this site at rreedfam (at) Comcast (dot) net.

Rick

Would a $60 tip be reasonable for a 15 day cruise for normal service?

I pulled up your HAL itinerary for your cruise on 1-28-17 and see that you will be in Puerto Vallarta MX on the 1-31-17. We are also in PV on that same day staying in a time share condo two blocks from the cruise ship dock. :eek:

Also, we have some friends we met on another cruise that sent us pictures of the Rotterdam that I have been posting on our CC Roll Call page. Here is the link to the first pictures I posted. We have also done the Panama canal but in the opposite direction that you are taking. You will love the experience. We enjoyed it so much we have done it twice....:D

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2336918&page=29

If you page forward to other pages, I have more photos that you can see. I posted more pictures on pages forward of this page. They were taken in the spring of 2016 as our friends went on the Rotterdam to Norway.

Sorry for high jacking this thread....:o

Rick