paulvdb1

Better wines by the glass - $30USD plus gratuity - so over $50AUD for a glass of wine. This ship astounds with it's expensive options.

Nope - you will be among the youngest on board. "Princess" is how I imagine Princess cruises to be - filled with retirees. I'd say that 90% of the people on my edge cruise were 60-90. Probably around 20 kids, maybe another 20 under 40's. I'd have liked to cruise with some younger passengers - which might have been the case on Resilient Lady

Having just got off Edge I think I'd have liked Resilient Lady more - but that always depends on what you want out of a ship. I think Edge seemed to really target naive rich Americans happy to pay ridiculous prices for all the addons. I picked none of the addons and survived OK. Lots of Princess aged passengers so sometimes old people doing silly things in narrow walkways but I was expecting some of that. Ship is quite good, crew very good, entertainment mostly spectacular, regular dining rooms good to very good, bistro generally quite good, app is terrible. I'd have liked to have had a soft drink package but crazy pricing - so brought my own on board. I'd have liked to try fancier restaurants, but left that to the NZ towns. A few tours would have been nice but MUCH cheaper to book on land.

Yep. Even more so for those not carrying USD. I just got off Eden today and saw lots of people paying the comical drink prices and off-the-planet trip prices. I didn't however see lots of people in those restaurants. Their prices are higher than many land based restaurants with awarded chefs. I think this has been a huge mistake by Celebrity. I shouldn't have to pay $AUD100+ per person to get slightly more expensive ingredients, that used to be included in the regular dining room.

I couldn't watch any of the One Step shows. They were hopeless on our cruise. I had hoped we would have had some real theatre productions but - NOTHING! HAL don't have any interest in paying for performers. I ended up seeing zero of the evening shows - a first for me. The BBS Earth film was tolerable due to the LCS performers, whom I was more interested in. The "dueling" pianists were really average as well. Even though I am not a pianist I am still enough of a muso to know that their playing was rubbish. The Rock performers probably would have been good if they could pick their own songs. They looked bored, and I was bored. They didn't even attempt to add in any local songs for our region. Lots of rock songs that may have been popular somewhere else. ...and to add insult to injury the BB Kings concept was killed a few weeks before we cruised. Same musos but likely something they would have performed better. As a person who enjoys entertainment on a cruise, I just can't see any reason to go on a HAL cruise anymore. One was enough (and it was EYE WATERINGLY EXPENSIVE - NYE cruise does that).

hmm. we were probably on around the same cruise. I thought LCS was the one redeeming feature on Noordam. There was a packed crowd for EVERY single one of their performances. I had to get in at least 15min before to get a seat. It was also in a pretty good location. I had heard just afterwards that the company decided that LCS having their own dedicated location didn't earn them any money (no bar) so it was scrapped for simplistic dollar reasons. Problem is that if this was a unique selling feature for the line (which it was) then why would future cruisers pick Holland America? I managed to listen to all of their performances and it seemed like a really good program - with quite a bit of very high quality music and playing. It seemed like these guys got to choose their music - unlike the rock guys who had to play the same old rubbish every night.

Hi Terry Is this summary and hype merited? - yes / no / depends For the reasonably fit, the city is walkable from end to end. The light rail through the middle also helps. As a local I still enjoy day visits to Sydney and am still finding new things that have opened post-covid. It's a moderately tourist friendly city although prices for many things are tourist-gouging. The botanic gardens are absolutely worth a half day visit (plus old government house). The art galleries are worth a visit (but not the gallery at The Rocks). Chinatown is gradually shutting down as there's too much competition from Darling Quarter/Darling Harbour, which are worth visiting to eat at. Also worth a quick pop-in to the Museum of Sydney and the Australian Museum. If you have time you really want to do a ferry ride to Manly or Taronga Zoo - as both worth a visit. Note MANY of these items are free so don't book expensive tours to visit free stuff. Probably worth booking hop-on/hop-off bus tickets in Sydney. Some stuff in Sydney is generic for any city but I've seen stuff hyped in other cities that is less impressive.

Taking into account value for money, If we had paid $100 a night I'd shut my mouth and just order some extra dishes to replace the not so good. In my case (Christmas cruise - which is always expensive) we were looking at around $250 a night. Inherently, when you are paying more you have higher expectations. I also had been told that HAL were much more serious about food - which simply wasn't true. I think one of the key issues is the the head chefs are not 100% sure about the food they are cooking - without being racist, it's simply not the food they themselves would normally eat. I think the MDR food was generally good - I didn't send stuff back - but it was a laugh to see what we would end up with. Very unusual items together, nothing matched how the menu described the item, foods that missed all the key items normally in that dish. I just ordered extras of a lot of dishes, which increases the waste. MDR deserts range from what-on-earth to quite good. Again I ordered extra, often. Try the licorice icecream and the coffee icecream. Had lots of what Americans call a crisp and Aussies call a crumble. Banana / Blackberry options were great but then strawberry was a few strawberries in topping !! so inconsistent. Breakfast was well cooked but very simplistic. If you like deepfried bacon, eggs, hash browns every day then you would love this cruise. I sort of wanted a bit more variety but no variation at all Dive-in was great until they ran out of their fancy chips/fries. went back to generic store-bought fries half way through the cruise. Mexican section OK Didn't risk the pizza. It looked soggy and uninspiring Tried Lido market at lunch and simply not enough variety for 16 days - same stuff every day. It's easy to be snobby but I would loved to see more Asian dishes (we eat a lot more asian food in Australia than I think the US eats). When Lido tried to make Australian items they were REALLY wrong - nearly comical and unfortunately inedible. This reflects again on head chefs who simply don't know the foods they were cooking. The few asian dishes were often not quite right as well. Would have been better if they had cooked more indian dishes.

hmm that's weird. On Noordam the Trivia was in Billboard and all the issues re too few seats for too many people - would have been better in a bigger location. Crows Nest on level 10 was never busy but had it's own pace of people playing games or sitting at the bar. The exploration lounge was wasted space and the exploration cafe seemed to only work for 10-20 people at a time, it should have been much better set up.

On Noordam we had the unusual issue of the rear pool being bath temperature, so great for short visit but not so great for cooling off. The Lido pool was cooler and busier. The rear pool does have a chair lift device for the less able but yes otherwise just the ladder. I was impressed at the pool depth of over 2m in the rear pool - I haven't seen that in other brands.

9:30 is too late for the type of crowd that like LCS. On Noordam it was often in the afternoon then 6 and 8. They're just using the management model to kill things - change the location and time, take away the more personal nature of the performance. No-one turns up, then they say "no-one like LCS any more so we've eliminated an unpopular option" On Noordam we had 100 at every show that I went to (out of 1700 passenger cruise). That was more than Rolling Stone / Billboard / World Stage for just about any of their events. World Stage in HAL is abysmal. I think the management types have just said we need $x per m2 out of every section of the ship and are killing anything free. If that continues then why would anyone travel HAL or any cruise ship if they are all doing it.

I'm quite stumped by your post. Having just come off Noordam where the LCS performers were by far the best on the ship, and certainly no funeral music. HAL is losing their differentiation to other ships

Hi - lots to answer here Australia nearly always gets the oldest ships. Sometimes that means that they are well sorted, sometimes falling apart. HAL seems to suggest that their food is premium, or their customers do. Some of it is, and much of it isn't. Certainly post covid is nothing like pre-covid HAL definitely is an old person's cruise line. I don't know if Princess is better or same - but the two seem to have the most older customers in Australia. The ship accommodates these customers well but lacks for families and more energetic people HAL don't seem to have premium experiences in Australia, but that only gets delivered by the superpremium lines anyway - so realistically they are competing with all of the middle of the road cruise lines P&O Australia is our budget cruise line but right now many mid-level companies are targeting a similar price out of season. I have travelled P&O for a specific cruise and it was very basic - but well known in advance.

hmmm. same menu on all their ships. Had PG last week on Noordam and generally very good service. I made the mistake of ordering the 15oz ribeye - lots of meat but LOTs of gristle the remove. My wife had the Filet Mignon and it was perfect. The Baked Alaska was good but family-sized. I only got through a 3rd. My daughter had the candied bacon and it was perfect. My lobster bisque was very ordinary. HAL do this thing with a bunch of scraps on the bottom of the bowl with soup poured over - no decent chunks of anything. Must be for the clientele they attract.

The Navigator app gets gradually more detailed in the week prior to travel. The Itinerary and Events section then updates to say either casual or dressy for each day. As noted by others day 1 is casual. That said, casual means long pants for men in MDR/restaurants.

For us we (back last Monday) had coolish weather in the southern ports but quite hot days in the north - sunburn risk is VERY high. Overall I could have packed some more hot weather clothing - I obviously packed for every option but only used my jacket once from memory. I do like cooler weather though. We had perfect seas in both directions but seeing some different weather this week so could be completely different

I had been told that HAL was the best for food and a key reason to cruise this line - I have to say I was underwhelmed as well. I could find individual items that were great but many items that just weren't all that well thought out - so not really poor cooking, but more like "what on earth was the head chef thinking?"

In Noordam there was the movement sensored led strip in the hallway, and the VERY bright light in the bathroom. We did however have a curtain to draw across the hallway to limit the affect on others in the cabin.

We did the tour that includes both together - but nowhere near enough time is allocated to Zeelandia. Doing them separately is best. Zeelandia is best unrushed. The Te Papa tour guide simply hadn't worked out how much time to explain each item so you'd have 30 min explaining their carpet art in one section then 5 min on Kiwi birds - could be different for different guides of course.

For those wondering, I think the staff age ratios would have been roughly 75+ 70% 60-75 15% 40-60 10% under 40 5% Kids - there might have been as many as 15-20 kids up to teenage - so largely invisible

What i found hilarious was reading your posts and noticing that you had all the same weird menu options as us - so it wasn't just our head chef coming up with those wacky ideas - it's come from head office. When I dined with Carnival pre-covid we had half a dozen options from their themed (and interesting) menu each day plus half a dozen staple items - so there was lots of choice. With HAL there isn't a theme, just a random hodge-podge of items that sometimes were good and sometimes terrible. I also paid the extra $USD15 for the tails one night and received a luke warm plate of two tiny overcooked tails, some potatoes and carrots. I did eat the tails but had fortunately order other items, and complained about the fact that the kitchen isn't checking what goes out the door. It wasn't worth making a big issue of as I'm not convinced that anyone in that kitchen has any idea about what they are presenting - there's no ownership of their product.

Thanks for not being offended. 90% of the American tourists on this ship were great but a few stood out as hard work. (refusing to wear masks / chin breathers / fake masks / bratty kids / lack of self-awareness). That said I have no doubt that there are Aussie tourists on other trips that are representing the worst of our culture as well, and would be equally offended by running into them. I did run into some lovely people from Denver and Arizona as well.

I think that for me at least the optimum size is probably 2500-4000 people. Those ships simply have more different activities to explore and a more open feel. The Noordam (and my Pacific Jewel trip) have very tiny atriums so that you tend to feel that you have to go outside to get some space around you. There are no large interior spaces other than the stage. The MDR is also quite small on Noordam. Re HAL slipping I do wonder whether it's a deliberate effort on Carnival's behalf. Simply drop the quality until they lose their last passengers then kill the brand. The cost savings they are making are probably quite small. Ultimately they need full ships to make their payments but the retirees are not going to last forever. They will run out of customers - apart from the 4/5 star mariners who are rusted on.

Hi all - thought I'd post a bit of a review of my Noordam cruise, and hope that some of my info helps others with their decision to go either to NZ or cruise on HAL Caveats I knew that HAL was popular with older clients. I was well aware that cruisers would be a mix of people doing what they were told and some that didn't care. I had assumed that tours might be still a little clunky as they got back to normal. I hadn't toured since pre covid and was aware that cost cuts had occurred since. I was aware that Christmas cruises are overpriced having on done one before but travelling with friends and time availability made this a must-do for us. Ship Noordam is a small ship that I found generally uses it's spaces well - so seems a little larger than it actually is. The only wasted space seemed to be the exploration lounge and some meeting rooms. The ship was well looked after overall (in visible areas) but seemed a little under maintained in hidden areas - so lots of maintenance guys running around fixing broken things. Baths looked to have been recoated at some time and now peeling, leaks from bathrooms, broken lights - that sort of stuff. For it's size, most areas seemed to have enough space for the passengers, although all music walk activities ran out of seats early. Lots of bars so no issue finding a drink. Eating spaces were also OK to find seating in - even Lido - although far too many 4/6 seat tables. Food / Drinks As usual there's always enough good food such that you could always build up a goo meal - but there were also cases were you simply had to ditch an item as it was not really edible. So the rule was often - 2 entrees / 1 main / 2 desserts. Noordam menus lack variety for long cruises so a lot of repetition depending on what they needed to use up. Lido in particular had poor variety compared to large ships, and really poor compared to precovid Carnival even. I do wonder whether people rating HAL highly are coming from a retirement home where the food is often poor. I found many dishes to be food-hall quality or worse - with occasional better surprises. The real laugh I had was trying to work out what I was going to get, as the delivered meal often bore no relation to the description in the menu. I wondered whether the cook who came up with these menus actually understood what they were presenting. I do wonder whether this is HAL-specific. Dive-in was mostly great and the mostly reliable option - consistently good burgers and hot dogs. Great chips for a week then back to generic supermarket chips after that 😞 Canaletti was merely OK but a cheap option. Pinnacle had great food but a fairly pricy upcharge. Everything I ate there was good (apart from the supermarket chips again). Baked Alaska that I had was big enough to feed a whole family. Afternoon tea was always funny - really nice items mixed with what-on-earth-is-this-supposed-to-be? Drinks were at the same standard as any of the cruises in Aust/NZ. It would have been good to see a drinks menu with everything on-board - needed 4 different menus at dinner to find what they had re wines and beers. I had the HIA package at half price which worked out to be good value. It meant that I could order pretty much everything knowing that it was pre-paid. It also meant that if I didn't like a cocktail then I didn't need to feel guilty about not finishing it. Cocktail mixing skills varied around the ship so sometimes didn't taste right. Coffee - I'm not a coffee drinker but found that even the Exploration cafe drinks ranged from to barely-ok to drinkable. American ships simply do not understand coffee or chocolate it seems. Lot's of tea bags around the ship of every single flavour which was good. Service HAL is famous for good service and it was evident everywhere. The room stewards are awesome, the servers are awesome (Jendriko is the best), pretty much everyone we met was genuinely great. As always if you respect the people who serve you, that gets reciprocated. Entertainment / Stuff to do HAL has been trimming and changing a lot. BB Kings changed to Rolling Stone - my guess is that with the same band who weren't always quite as keen playing the different music. Lots of repetition of music so got boring quick. Band sets that couldn't really sustain the energy BUT still quite a bit better than some of the bands we had seen on Carnival other than the stage band (HAL doesn't have one). No casual entertainment anywhere on the ships so no music really until after dinner. Lincoln Center Stage - classical quartet who were awesome although I here that this location is going to be closed to make way for a bar. Billboard duo was unlistenable to me (as a muso) but crowd liked them. Very basic piano playing with not so great singing but did songs that people liked. Main shows - HAL doesn't do these any more and it's a real shame. Instead filled with underwhelming shows of dancers performing in front of giant TVs, "comedians", and gimmick performers. Not a lot to do overall as HAL is an old person's cruise. I found it a little underwhelming at times and will probably aim for a larger ship next time - non HAL. Trivia was OK but repetitive. No Karaoke Christmas/ New Year HAL is one of those companies that recognises Christmas just enough to stop people bashing them, but nothing more. Fairly basic decorations through the ship and Christmas menu but not really talking about Christmas a lot. Some people like that and some would have liked more - not really a place to take kids then. NYE was a lot of food/booze and noisy band. Personally I found that I couldn't talk to anyone over the band so retired early. 2 hours of that noise was too much but my daughter enjoyed it. People LOT of Americans on this cruise, largely from the southern states. Generally not a problem but occasionally their opinions grated. Really a LOT of old people on the cruise but generally only a problem in hallways and on tours where they were quite slow. The ship was fairly quiet after 10 though so that was handy. Many of these two groups were an issue re covid. Lots of fake masks (crochet / hessian even), some non mask wearers, and lots who didn't manage their sneezes properly - we got to tier 2 a few days before arriving in Sydney. Locations All of the locations in NZ were lovely - very hard to pick a favourite. I would visit any of these cities/towns again. Cruise Tours Dunedin - wildlife tour was awesome to see the fur seals and penguins - this was probably the best of the tours we went on as get enough time to see everything Wellington - Zeelandia and Te Papa tour. Locations were great but the ship tour is not so great. to so long to get to Zeelandia that the guides there had to rush us through their site. Tour guide at Te papa waffled about unimportant things so we jumped ahead. Lots to see at both site but worth going independently. Rotorua - public holiday so I hadn't known about how busy the Skytower Gondola and luge was going to be. There was no visitor limits in place at all, and our tour left FAR too late, so dining hall when arrived was bedlam wit over an hour wait for food. Queues for the luge runs was over half an hour in blistering sun. I was only able to do 2 of my 3 prepaid runs. Would be much better on a normal day. Auckland - ferry queue to Waiheke was really long but fortunately we were at the head of the queue. I head that some tours were not delivered as the ferry was too busy. ziplining tour was good although again you spend a LOT of time in vehicles. We got back a lot later than planned Bay of Islands - I'm very conflicted on this tour. Wasted a LOT of the day in a bus. Puketi forest is lovely but just a 15 minute walk and talk. Glowworm caves lovely but host spent the whole time talking while we were warned to not make much noise. I don't think this tour was worth doing. All of these tours were horribly overpriced but I've noticed that the non-ship tours have matched ship prices. Will need to rethink how I do tours including more self driving. In summary HAL isn't for me. I think what we paid for this cruise was WAY overpriced compared to flying/driving/hotel. Happy to cruise on better priced cruises but the HAL experience was simply not premium enough for the cost.

The first drop off is just a couple of blocks from Te Papa - was just there a couple of weeks ago. The shuttles were quite frequent. No lines for us at the cable car other than ourselves blocking everyone while we worked out how to do a family pass. The gardens are best approached from the top of the cable car (immediate right turn once off) but there's a LOT of up and down in their gardens - fine for us but might be tricky for those with walkers/canes/etc. NOTE - try to do these attractions without a tour as the timings on some of those cruise tours are way off. Zeelandia was great but I would've liked another hour - bus driver was too slow and burnt up our visit time. Te Papa was great but tour guide spent too long on unimportant items so we broke off that tour