OneWiseCruiser

Yes, from FLL

Cruise News, January 14, 2023 Cruise News Update: “Holland America Lines Entertainment Changes”

I am somewhat confused by all the questions on Lincoln Center Stage going away or being vastly reduced. There was a Holland America Lines News Release just this past week that read as if LCS was going to remain a major entertainment focus of future cruses. Our most recent HAL Cruise which put a halt to our frequent cruise vacations ended on March 1, 2020, just as COVID-19 began its worldwide spread. That cruise was on the Niels Statendam, where we absolutely loved all the Lincoln Center Stage programs (Most especially the Meet the Musicians sessions).

We are on the SD to FL January Zaandam Cruise and chose it because it goes all the way through the PC. We have previously cruised halfway through from FL on the Zuiderdam and enjoyed it immensely. We have done all the various HAL Caribbean routs and there were no bad trips or ships. We have done two Alaska Cruises on HAL, the first also included a Land travel week with a great train segment. We took the second Alaska voyage because Alaska is one of the most beautiful and exciting environment we have ever experienced. We met a teenage young women in Alaska who told us her dad made the family move to Alaska when Montana got crowded.

We did a Panama Canal Cruise on Holland America Zuiderdam in 2010 going halfway through and thoroughly enjoyed it. The presentations regarding the Canal were most interesting and view of the Canal from our verandah was excellent and warm. Next January we will be on the Zaandam going all the way through the Canal from West to East. This time we will only have an Ocean View Cabin but are sure to spend ample time on the open decks enjoying the Canal activity. We have cruised with Norwegian several deferent times and had a great time, but we enjoy HAL more in terms of what feels to us like more classic cruising not to mention we like the food better. As far as ship size, we truly loved the larger HAL ships with the Music motif and particularly enjoyed the Meet the Musicians segments where you not only hear beautiful music, but also learn each musician’s personal music background and journey. We also have enjoyed HAL’s smaller ships because you seem to become more familiar with the crew as well as other passengers. We have been on a number of other cruise lines and can say we haven’t been disappointed on any of our sailings.

If you’re using an iPad you could just take a screenshot then go to your photos, select the photo then depress the box at the top with the vertical line (the same way you would send the photo in a message. Just scroll down all the way on the pop up and you will see “print”.

We find it fun to embrace Gala Nights and always bring along dressy clothing and shoes for the occasion. I found a tux jacket at our Steinmart (before it closed) and some surprisingly matching satin striped trousers online at Kohl’s. Also found some very reduced price Ecco dress shoes and a wonderful clip-on bow tie (I absolutely cannot tie a real one). Yes Amazon offers a number of appropriate pleated shirts and some fantastic buttons & cufflinks to match. I just have to remember socks or I just don’t feel right. We certainly understand others may not want to travel with all these items and thus have no problem sharing the evening with folks in all types of attire. We don’t have many opportunities beyond our Cruise Bookings to dress in formal clothing.

We did the HAL Alaska Cruise with the Land following the cruise years ago. Our first hotel night was in Fairbanks and also had a night in Denali. I think our hotels were all part of the HAL Cruise package and thus didn’t have to choose our sleeping accommodations. Our Land portion was partly on buses and also on the train. We were on the Veendam.