Huskerchick

13 minutes ago, POA1 said:

I had the Tofu Cheesecake. It had a brûléed top, providing a nice, crunchy contrast to the cheesecake.

 

 

 

The little blue ball on the right is a blueberry granita. Also note the collectible chocolate coin. I'm accumulating quite the assortment!

 

 

 

I know you will all be shocked given my love of all things chocolate but that cheesecake was delicious and I would seriously consider ordering it on a future visit

Morimoto was an over all fantastic experience. As Brian said entirely too much food for two people, we need some friends, but it was all very good and something we would definitely do again. 

Yes, the milkshake is covered under the beverage plan. So are the smoothies. 

And we had a medical emergency on the ship very early this morning (around 4am) and we had to make a quick stop at Curaçao. At noon when the Captain did his talk he mentioned it and said the person was having surgery and said thoughts and prayers were with the person and their family which I thought was very kind that he gave us an update. As you long time HAL cruises already know the staff on the ship is simply fantastic. 

It's a lovely day Cabana day on the Rotterdam as we sail at 7 knots the 100 some odd miles to Bonaire.its not very windy today so Poohby Joe is very happy to be enjoying the day on his lounger out of his Poohby bag 😉

A lovely good morning from Aruba. I grabbed a vew pictures from the balcony before we headed to breakfast. We are going to be sticker people today and have two excursions planned. We're the only ship in port today 

7 hours ago, POA1 said:

On the IMPORTANT RESEARCH front, I am pleased to report that scratch made Painkillers can be had, if you ask nicely.

 

Pictured here on the right, with a Cuba Libre Cero on the left.

 

 

The Painkiller was very good and reminded me of the one we had on Tortolla at the Pussers Bar

Damn these new Cabana amenities. I had managed to resist the pastries at breakfast only to have them thrust on me by our efficient cabana guys 😋

Trish. Thank you for your fantastic review. This cruise is on my list and I loved your photos and that you shared your excursion experience. 

Thank you.  Poohby Joe is very excited that he gets to debut his Spring 2024 cruise wear collection 😉

14 hours ago, Scrapnana said:

I will do my best!

 

Do you know what that huge building going up on the corner of SE 17th and Eisenhower is?  We have been debating offices vs. apartments/condos.  

It's actually part of the Convention Center. It will be part hotel, part parking and meeting space

Thank you Mary Beth for the fantastic review. Your photos were amazing. Sadly HMC is a port stopped that is missed quite frequently, thankfully they are building a pier which will hopefully solve that problem. Can't wait to follow along on your next adventure. 

We did Club Orange on the NS and have it booked again on the Rotterdam at the end of the month. It is an extra charge and I admit we would probably only do it on the ships with the separate Club Orange dining room. We liked the smaller room and the extra entrée choice each evening were some of my favorites. They are only open breakfast and dinner same hours as the MDR

The fries and the ham and cheese sandwich were fantastic and on my must try again list for our Rotterdam cruise next month. They also had a very good espresso martini. Now I'm hungry and thirsty 😂

I'm a Vodka drinker and Ketel One is my normal go to but I do recall the other usual suspects of Tito's and Grey Goose 

What a lovely gift. An alternative suggestion would be to book your husband in the veranda cabin as a single and then book you and your son in the inside cabin. Once you are on board only you will need to visit the front desk to secure a key to the veranda cabin and your son will be in his right room

We live in Fort Lauderdale and Joe's Cafe is one of our favorite breakfast places. Enjoy the rest of your stay here. 

Yum! Everything looks great. We are on for Easter wonder if they do something similar. Thanks for the food porn 😋

21 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Question - have you read enough about the "stuff" and want more happy talk? Or do you want to know when things go sideways?

I'm asking because we're in this together and I want to give an accurate representation of this cruise, but I don’t want to bring anyone down with the negative news.

So, let me know where you sit on the Real-O-Meter.

Maybe @POA1 can sprinkle some Awesome Dust on us - here's our location to help you find us 😉

Unpleasantries aside, I am having a marvelous time - the seas are beautiful, I've met some wonderful people and we have a sparkly clean new year ahead of us. 🥳And I'm off to enjoy a PG New Year's Day brunch (my first)!!😊

I do have a question about the PG Brunch is this different from the regular lunch menu and is it offered because it's a holiday? 

Yay I've been watching for your post.  Hope you are posting to your Blog as well as I love seeing your photos. Lots of "ifs" with this voyage but fingers crossed all works out. Have a safe journey. 

2 hours ago, tigger77732 said:

I just got off NS on 12/27. I agree with the above poster as to the band itself. The music was mostly good, but I was not impressed with the singers. I did think the female singer was decent. I thought the 2 male singers were poor. My dad is 73 and has been in a rock band since a teenager(so I have heard a lot of his bands- I may be biased 🙂 ) and one thing i look for is whether a singer can change their voice to sing similarly to the original vocalist. It was poor, to say the least.  Regarding the billboard lounge, I personally thought the dueling piano singers were absolutely horrible and couldn't sing in tune to save their lives. My ears truly hurt. BB King lounge band was the best in my opinion and also got the crowd very well involved, thanks to the host, Jeremiah! All JMO.

Agree on BB King that's where we spent most of our time and they were very good and Jeremiah did a great job of getting people up and dancing. 

1 hour ago, Bruinboy20 said:

Trudy and I have a Vista Suite booked on the Koningsdam in February so we are very appreciative of your pictures and descriptions of the room. Tell HuskerChick that we are doing our best here with the Huskers, but boy, it's been a challenge. 

 

Richard

Yay a fellow Huskers.  My family is from Omaha. Yes it has been a challenging few years but I'm optimistic about the things Matt Ruhl is doing. We just need to find a QB, easier said then done I know. 

You'll like the Vista Suite. I found it to be a good size. The only disappointment was the bathroom which I thought was small but we made it work. 

We decorated our door on our NS cruise and there were quite a few others who did as well

We are just off the NS and spent some time in the Rolling Stone Rock Lounge. I'm terrible with names but the bass player was from Nebraska, yay fellow Husker, and was very good. The lead guitarist was also quite good as was Tommy the other guitar player. Where they were weak was on vocals . The poor female singer just couldn't quite cut it. They usually did 3 sets and it was generally pretty busy. Not sure how long their contracts were so you may have some different folks. Also shout out to John Lee who was one of the servers in that area. He hussled and once he recognized us always came over to take our drink order. 

1 hour ago, Navybikermom said:

I have heard good and bad things about how long the lines can be at the Dutch Cafe. I will be on the Rotterdam in May for my first pinnacle experience and would like to know how it goes for you. When’s the best (quickest) time to get a morning coffee, is there a big wait for lunch food, etc…

 

Many thanks!

The Dutch Café was definitely busy certain times of the day but the staff did a great job of moving people thru. Finding seating seemed to be the biggest issue so if there are 2 of you one might grab seats while the other placed the order