sailingdutchy

On 7/17/2022 at 2:10 PM, Torquer said:

 @Torquer  festive song.  BTW, does anyone know the words to the song and what it translates to in English?

To add a little more history about the celebration song  @StLouisCruisers  the tune and meaning of this song are from the original Dutch song  " Lang zal ze leven  "  ( Long may she or he live ...)  and because Indonesia was once called the Dutch Indies  (1816 - 1948 )  the people in Indonesia have taken over this tune and set it to words in Bahasa .

So I always sing it together with the crew but than in Dutch and add at the end of the song  : " hip , hip, Hoera !  3x "........

Tony 

Bon Voyage everybody , have a wonderful Cruise ! 

Dear Jacqui @kazu,  over the last year especially I have often thought back of the wonderful cruise on the Prinsendam in company of you Jose and a great number of other friends having dinners together on board ship at the Captains table in the Pinnacle and doing  a large number of tours in your company , we had such a wonderful time . I remember in particular that on our tour from Dover to Canterbury we bumped into your group and I said my goodbye to Jose . That was 2019 ..........and yes I have thought also of this tour in Guernsey and have this picture in mind .

Than this year after following closely your postings on CC and always thinking back about this lovely man we were again with Andrea on tour the day after I heard of the passing of Jose in a very small medieval town in France we lit a candle together and said our prayers for him ............ 

We wish you all the strength and peace , please take care ! 

Tony and Martha 

7 minutes ago, Vict0riann said:

All my pots have been moved into the courtyard, as DD has advised me she will only  be watering in there.    My bag is locked and out in the hall,  my carry-on is heavy, as I have some plates I am taking to DD in Gander, once they are gone the bag will be much lighter and I will be able to put in a few more "necessities" for the next flights.  Pat has been allowed to check in for both flights tomorrow, Air Canada has not advised us of any cancellations ... yet....

 

Bon Voyage Ann and Pat  @Vict0riann , safe travels and have a great time ! 

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

I am very confused by this because I am booked on the 150th anniversary cruise leaving from Rotterdam on Oct 15th.  I tried to find the itinerary you are speaking of but it is not showing up on the HAL or online cruise site I searched on.

@*Miss G*The cruise you are doing in October is celebrating the 150th anniversary of a ship from a still to be formed company made the original  TransAtlantic voyage from Rotterdam to New York . Maiden voyage of Rotterdam.

What this new changed itinerary is all about is the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the date this company was established  on April 18 , 1873 as Nederlandsche - Amerikaansche  Stoomvaart Maatschappij ( Netherlands-American Steamship Company ) In Rotterdam

The companies first ship was called  Rotterdam (1872 ) and the ship we will be going on is Rotterdam VII.

Myself I had been wondering why this big milestone was not being celebrated until this announcement today and I look forward to and hope it will be a very special cruise and I also hope that the wonderful historian of Holland America Captain Albert will be on board and will make his amazing presentations !

Tony 😁

Have a good rest Colin @VMax1700 glad you had another nice cruise . Thank you very much for all the info about the Oosterdam and some of the ports  . We are starting to get ready for our September cruise on her . 

Take care 

Tony

2 hours ago, Vict0riann said:

.

Graham, I will be showing Pat your pictures - he said this morning that he planned to just pack long pants for our trip, and I told him he must take shorts as well!  Maybe I'll take a picture of him in Greenland in shorts, you never know......................   

 

What's is that Ann   @Vict0riann , NO WAY , my pal Pat without shorts I can not believe that  !!!!!!  He must have told you that in a weak moment  ! 

I was going to add a number of pictures with Pat on tour when we cruised together .........

I better not .

Tony 😁.

10 hours ago, tcudarling93 said:

Vicid1969- we will be sailingon the Rotterdam in September also as Club Orange.  Based on the dinner menus for the week which night do you suggest doing a Specialty restaurant instead of CO? We don’t want to miss a great night in CO!

The evening meals in the CO were always very nice in our experience , the food is hot and almost always nicely plated because of the lack of sommeliers in the dining room , in CO it is almost never is a problem to get your glass filled or bottle brought to your table .  

We went quite often to the specialty restaurants for Chefs Dinners in the Pinnacle or the Canaletto and also the Gala dinner  plus we really enjoy the Tamarind . But we never skipped a breakfast in CO except for one day when we had to tour quite early . For that reason alone we found CO on the Pinnacle Class ships worthwhile .

I was just preparing and putting my story together and all of a sudden all these pictures started showing up . Thank you all but here is my contribution . 

Just to be clear dear Martha did NOT bend that tree 

We had to abandon our seats on the front row on the terrace  but 20 min later everything was normal again ,

After returning on the shuttle and the captain was ready to leave we enjoyed watching a beautiful sunset  in Souda 

Thank you @VMax1700 for doing a nearly live report from the Oosterdam we hope to be on her for 3 weeks starting on Sept 16 from Barcelona we have been on the Oosterdam a couple of times and enjoyed her but like you mentioned we will also miss the Tamarind although the might have a once a week pop up Tamarind in the Pinnacle Restaurant  with a slightly smaller menu . Could you please let us know if they still do that . Yes the Pinnacle Class ships have spoiled us as far as specialty restaurants are concerned . 

Wishing you a great cruise and safe travels  ! I will be following you and read your reports . 

Tony 

@Copper10-8 Thanks a lot for posting this very informative and well put together post John , very much appreciated . We were suppose to be on the maiden voyage about a couple of years ago now when Covid broke out and the date and itinerary was changed a couple of times and than completely cancelled . 

Now we hope to finally get on her in April of 2023 crossing the Atlantic to Amsterdam your place of birth. This should also be a very special cruise because on April 18th 2023 Holland America will be celebrating its 150th anniversary and we will have a couple of personal celebrations , one of them also on April 18th ..........

2 hours ago, rafinmd said:

Question for Canadian Dailyites.  I know Victoria Day was last week but have a feeling it is not the same as our Memorial Day.  When do you honour your war dead.  I think in the UK it's in November with poppies always sold on QM2.   Same for you?

 

Roy

Thank you for asking Roy , in Canada we call it Remembrance Day  and it is on the 11th of the 11th at 11 am  like in Great Britain  which marks the end of the hostilities during WW1 .

In the Netherlands it is celebrated on May4th  when people commemorate civilians and soldiers who have died in the Kingdom of the Netherlands or elsewhere since the outbreak of the Second World War .  This is on the day before the Netherlands was liberated from *** Germany on May 5th 1945 .

There are official celebrations in Amsterdam and the whole country will stop for 2 minutes , traffic , trains etc etc . The celebrations will than start on May 5th 

Tony 

5 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

So, who won?

 

I do most of my motorsports TV viewing via DVR, and I guess I didn't add enough time onto the Monaco event to accommodate the various delays.  My DVR stopped recording with about 2 minutles left in the race.  I see that there is a replay this afternoon.  I may interrupt my viewing of the I500 to catch the end of Monaco.

 

And lest readers be too concerned, yes, there was a wreck at Monaco that caused the race to be stopped to allow the course workers to clear it.  However, the driver walked away and appeared to be fine.

 

So, I still have 1100 miles of racing to watch, today.  Life is good.  😁

Perez won and Max  Verstappen  , the Dutchman was third , thats for the Red Bull fans  !  Ferrari were 2nd and 4th .

6 hours ago, Vict0riann said:

I heard from @sailingdutchythat they survived the big storm, just a few trees down on their property.  I think he'll be out cutting firewood for a while!  

 

..

Yes you are right Ann , I can not remember a storm like that hitting us here , we lost quite a few trees in our woods , huge maple , beech and oak trees 70 or 80 years old and yes I will have lots of firewood for the next few years or maybe I can start a new business .......... it really was a scary 10 or 15 minutes to see trees all around us bending to their limit , losing their crowns or dropping all together  with roots and all .

Happy Victoria Day  @VictOriann in Victoria  !  Tell Pat to take it easy with the fireworks  ! 

Tony 😍

Dear Jacqui @kazu, Martha and I are so sorry to hear that the love of your life , Jose has passed away , our deepest condolences to you  , may he Rest In Peace ! 

Having met Jose and you at better times , enjoying immensely his company while on the  Prinsendam cruise , touring , and dining together , having fun and nice conversations with this kind,  kind man , my words fail me to express how sorry we are . 
May his memory give you strength and comfort , please take care .

Tony .

Hello from the New Statendam to all of our cruise critic friends , thank you all of the nice Birthday wishes for Martha , who is sharing her birthday with Holland America , today .
 

for those of you who watched the sail away yesterday from Ft Lauderdale , it was just amazing specially when the captain let loose on the button for the most amazing big tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot  once we got into the channel . I have never heard a huge toot like that before . The captain told us we have to make sure that all Holland America fans on shore and those watching us on the cameras can hear how good we feel cruising again . Captain Noël O,Driscoll .
 

thank you @VictOriann for the pictures from Martha and I on this sail away , you could not believe how happy we were to get back on the ship after our disastrous last cruise ,

just a few weeks ago . 
 

Tonight I am taking out Martha and three other ladies for a very special Pinnacle dinner ! 

Martha already had her first birthday cake this morning at the Club Orange breakfast . We left it there for the crew to enjoy .

Take care everybody , greetings 

Martha and Tony 😍

Sorry forgot to mention to JacquI @kazu to give you greetings from Andrea and a big , big hug to Jose ! 
 

Happy Easter everybody !

thank you Rich and Roy and all contributors to the daily keeping us HAL loyal fans connected ! 
 

We are waiting for our transfer to the ship in half an hour , and will do a very big Happy Dance when we arrive in our cabin , it has been a little bit of a stressful couple of weeks after we had to get isolated on our last cruise , and now we can almost see and smell the sea! 
 

take care everybody , hope to send some pictures or messages from our Transatlantic crossing . 
 

Tony 😍

On 4/15/2022 at 4:54 PM, ger_77 said:

Stuff like that really burns my biscuits.  I think the next time a woman walks into a dealership, she should be wearing the t-shirt that I got recently.  It reads:  Underestimate me, that'll be fun.

 

@sailingdutchywe'll be looking for you; do you know where you'll be at sail-away?

@ger_77 our balcony is on the opposite site from the camera so likely on one of the higher decks  as long as sail away is not too long after 7 pm when we will be at the Tamarind .

Hello everybody , we made it to FtLauderdale tonight after a tense time the last couple of weeks if we were able and allowed to make it back on the Nieuw Statendam .

in the morning we have booked the shuttle for 11.30 which is great because we have priority boarding at noon !  Soooooo. looking forward to see our friends of the wonderful crew and a number of cruise friends we met on former cruises , Andrea , and Michael & Arlene , and Dr Randy , we have met each of them on one or the other Prinsendam  cruises plus also Rich Fielder who we met on the Eurodam last fall . 
 

Really looking forward to our next 21 days so we can forget all about half our last cruise we had to miss due to the Covid 

take care everybody have a wonderful Easter .

Tony and Martha 

psssssttttttt it is her birthday on Monday , again her 39th ! 
 

1 hour ago, Vict0riann said:

Good Friday, all.  We have been isolating all week, just in case, as, last Saturday, we were with someone who tested positive for  covid on Monday.  We all seem to be okay, and I think we will now come out of hibernation.  It is such a relief to have a lot of tests in the house so we can check on ourselves.  

 

Hopefully, @sailingdutchy and Martha will test negative today, so they can travel tomorrow.  And good wishes for little Gracie puppy, hope the vet can figure things out.  

 

Jacqui, I hope your day today is better than yesterday!  

We visited Puerto Chiapas on a very fun Panama Canal cruise with Jacqui and Jose and a really good roll call!  Most of what I remember from that day is HEAT!  We had a tour booked, but I was wiped out from the heat and did not go.  Pat went to Izapa and enjoyed it, but said I would not have!  Eventually, I did go ashore and took the shuttle to Tapachula took a few pictures and then went back to the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martha and I are very happy that you and Pat are doing great Ann @VictOriann with this 6th wave taking off there are so many people effected again , the new variant spreads very easily but it seems with lesser severe symptoms .

We just jumped another hurdle , there are two negative very happy people who should be able to fly tomorrow to Ft Lauderdale . I was very pleased to find a pharmacist willing to open his door for us on Good Friday so we could get tested , than fly and also are within the Holland America rules to get on board on Easter Sunday . 

We will have a huge celebration when we sail away out of Port Everglades , I have packed and will wave the Canadian flag !  

Take care everybody , have a wonderful Easter !

Tony 😍

Busy , busy packing and last minute stuff , double checking our list of things to do , BUT I would like to shout out a BIG Welcome  to the Zaandam in Port Everglades a lovely ship we have been on a number of times .

She is one of the last ships of the fleet to get back to active service after a long long time being tied up in Greece for many , many days with her sister ship the Volendam and a long dry dock in Spain .

I will try to include a couple of pictures  of when we last saw her while on a tender from the Eurodam in October 2021 

Have a great day every body , take care and stay safe .

Tony 😍

6 minutes ago, Overhead Fred said:

Here are a few less common views of Half Moon Cay from our last cruise -

 

 

 

 

 

We missed that day with you guys Fred @Overhead Fred  thanks for the beautiful pictures , our cabin was facing away from the Island so we could not see anything but blue water !