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Are some/all of the category D rooms on Lower Promedade being converted to Lanai cabins? If so this. Could explain why those rooms get the shower upgrade (assuming total bath refresh package) and the D rooms on Dolphin deck do not.

 

This yet another example of HAL's "crazy quilt" patchwork approach to ship renovations that drives me crazy!

Thankfully no lanai cabins, waste of deck chair space IMO.

The patchwork is due to only so many days to get an incredible amount of work done. Zaandam suffered a bit in the 3 weeks after drydock due to unfinished work. E.g. not all the carpet had arrived in time so had to be done during its first post-drydock cruise. Having seen all the work done, I find it amazing that it only took such a short time. According to crew who were there it was pandemonium on board.

I'm wondering whether any of the ocean view cabins on Lower Promenade deck were converted to lanais? We love our lanai cabins and heard that the Zaandam might be getting them. We are booked to sail on Zaandam in January.

No lanais, thank goodness. While you might enjoy them, the rest of us hate them due to lack of deck chairs :-) There are enough guests as is who park their book and swan off for an hour or so leaving an empty chair.

 

Are the hands on cooking classes offered in the America Test Kitchen?

 

Yes they are. We were too late to book them, very popular. Faisal, if he is still onboard, is excellent instructor.

Overall the switch to ATK is great. Much better teaching points, the room was routinely packed, often two presentations per day.

My advise would be to go to Front Desk as soon as you board and book the hands-on. Only 8 ppl/class now, down from 12 which should mean a much better experience for attendees.

We thought we would miss the guest chef's, but ATK is a much better experience. We found in our 300+days on HAL that too many of the guest chefs were full of themselves. A few exceptions were George Geary and Ray Bear and some others. The Dutch guest chefs on Rotterdam in 2013 were also excellent, they didn't have cookbooks that they were pushing and not full of egos :-).

If anyone is live from the Zaandam, how is the Crow's Nest? Some reported it was being transformed into the new EXC Center during the recent dry dock and others have said differently.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide,

 

Tom

Crows Nest was completely refurbed as were the Explorer's Lounge and Café. Lido was refurbed, decks for main and Seaview pool redone. Carpets in hallways (at least on Dolphin and Main decks).

Fresh anti-fouling, and hull paint. Retractable roof was being painted in San Diego when we left the ship.

All the fire doors were tested and tested and tested.

If anyone is on the Zaandam, could you tell me what the WiFi package is at the moment. I know it differs by boat from a package where you buy minutes to packages which only allow access to certain sites.

Many thanks

Jersey [emoji3]

 

 

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They sell access per day, US$14.95 is lowest price, US$29.95 was highest (if memory serves) for as much as you can use. No more counting minutes. We didn't try it, lots of 'free' wifi in ports, even if the price is a pina colada at 10 am in Huatalco :-)

On the Zaandam I did see a few more terminals than there were on the Rotterdam in 2013. People were using them later in the cruise.

Although, as a 4 star Mariner, this issue is moot for me, I still find it unconscionable. Is there no end to these cost savings/revenue enhancement measures? Obviously this is intended to promote the ship's paying laundry business and, at the same time, generate more revenue with the additional cabins. The self-service laundry was a vital service to many guests, particularly on long voyages, and will be sorely missed.

It is more likely that HAL were fed up with complaints about ignorant guests who took other's laundry out of washer/dryer and left it on floor so they could get theirs done first. The level of selfishness in that room were quite incredible. This was a disturbingly routine event on our multi-month cruises.

Cadiz is very walkable from the port. Tapas bars, the parks to right of port (just follow the road), even the old fort at far end. All doable at a slow pace in a short day.

Lisbon is a gem. We used We Hate Tourism Tours for a fabulous tour of Lisbon and Sintra with a few stops along the way.

Barcelona, use the HoHo buses.

The statistics of sexual violence against women are mind-boggling; it is so disturbing and even harder to comprehend what is going on in some other cultures around the world.

 

Before painting the rest of world with a brush, consider the statistics from the US : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States

Here in Fl so far this winter there has been a person shot in a theatre for texting (during the previews) and a teenager shot for playing loud music in their car.

Violence is violence, it can and does happen anywhere, by all nationalities even in what some like to think of as civilized countries.

gerrit, wintering in Fl

i use an Sigma 18-250 for all my shots. Shoot in raw and crop what you can't frame by moving around. I learned the hard way in Alaska once that lens changes in the wild are a bad plan. LR does lens corrections automatically.

I have a Pentax K5 so low light is not a problem regardless of lens speed, I just crank the ISO level to where I get enough light.

In general if you are part of a group you are taking good quality snapshots, moving around to get the best angle of view is just not possible in most case due to time. Even worse when your only photo ops are from a moving bus with dirty windows.

I only bring the one lens, 1 spare and cleaning tools. Anything else is too much to carry.

Gerrit

http://travels.psgv.ca