seatrial

The Zaandam seems to be improving a little each day. Pinnacle Grill is not open for dinner the last three nights of this cruise. I think this is due to staffing issues. Dining room dinners have been good in my opinion. The menus are nice. Two of my excursions were canceled due to a lack of bookings. Hopefully this won’t be a problem on future trips. I wanted to share a picture of Zaandam docked in Sydney NS; we had great weather.

Hi. Just reporting that the dining room has been open for breakfast for the first two port days. It is not listed as open on the Navigator App, but is shown on the When and Where paper.

The Zaandam did exceed 25 knots. The captain said it was like a Lamborghini on the sea. We were helped out by a strong current. According to the captain, we have to slow to 10 knots at some point for 70-80 miles due to whales that are hit by ships in an area near Boston. We needed this speed to allow for a time of slow speed. They played the ship’s pipe organ in the atrium yesterday. It seemed to be working.

On a positive note from the Zaandam, dinner last night went better. The service seemed less frantic. The ships public areas feel refreshed and there appears to be lots of new carpet (including the shedding that comes with new wool carpet). The singer/piano player in Mix is really fantastic. She will be on board for several months. There were no flower arrangements when we boarded, but they have now appeared around the ship and are really very nice. I appreciate that HAL still does this. The dining room being closed for lunch and only open for breakfast on sea days was a really bad decision for this ship given the number of passengers on board. Tomorrow is the first port so no dining room breakfast. We will see how that goes. I’m sure that the ship’s management is getting an earful about it. I think the Mix concept is great and really the best for a ship this size. It feels so much more classy than Billboard in my opinion. I do like the Music Walk, but for this ship Mix is great.

On every HAL cruise I have ever been on, the dining room was open for Mariner’s lunch on boarding day and on each sea day. The lido market today for lunch was absolutely horrible. HAL should be embarrassed. The crowds were just too much and the food is below HAL standards. Given the prevalence of Covid having this many unmasked people in the lido is a recipe for problems. Knowing that there was a looming crew shortage HAL should have kept the number of passengers for this cruise lower. If this were my first cruise, I would never go again.

Hi. I am also on Zaandam today. I am happy to be here. Thankful for the hard-working crew. The ships public areas look great. It appears that much of the furniture has been reupholstered and I believe the chairs in the dining room are new; they are very nice. The ocean view cabin I am in does have the updated bath, but otherwise is very dated; no new television. The ship has been exceeding 23 knots and is very smooth and running nicely. On a negative, and surprising note, due to a lack of crew, the dining room will never be open for lunch on this entire cruise. Additionally, the dining room will only be open for breakfast on sea days. We are quite disappointed by this as this is a big reason we cruise HAL. There is no classical string duo on board for this trip; not sure why. it’s a beautiful day at sea today.

The dining room hours for the first Zaandam sailing on 5/12 were posted in the Navigator App today. The dining room appears to be open for breakfast only on sea days and is never listed as open for lunch. This isn’t what I remember from my last HAL sailing. Is this a new thing?