Live Heading to the Zuiderdam for August 11 Sailing

Creating this thread to write live as we head to the Zuiderdam from our home in Orlando.

Little about us: We are both in our mid 50s and very active. Been married 34 years. This will be our 3rd HA cruise. Last year we sailed on the Oosterdam right out of dry dock doing the Adriatic Sea. We had an amazing time on what was our first trip to Europe. Decided to make HA our preferred cruise line. Although we did sail on the Oasis with DSs in June as they wanted a ship with tons of stuff to do. We will be leaving on the noon flight on Wednesday from our home airport Orlando>Detroit>Amsterdam>Copenhagen. Arriving at 9am via Delta. We will be staying at the Marriott. I'll try to be funny along the way so you all can have a laugh. Please forgive my terrible typing. I'll try to update nightly when I can or early morning. You can always look up my other live reports and see if my writing interests you.

Anyway!!! The bags are almost packed. Hold on to your seats and come along for the adventure!!

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Have a wonderful cruise and thanks for taking the time to post!

I am looking forward to all of your reports.

I hope you have smooth flights, fair winds and smooth seas.

Bon Voyage!

This is great! We will fly to Copenhagen in May 2018. Did you make your own flight arrangements or did you use HA?

Looking forward to your reports.

Have a fabulous cruise.

Looking forward to your posts! We leave for Copenhagen on the 19th and board on the 23rd! :)

This is great! We will fly to Copenhagen in May 2018. Did you make your own flight arrangements or did you use HA?

Made our own arrangements. My DMIL is our TA. all luggage is now packed - 2 duffle type pieces and 2 carry-on. The wife needs one just for shoes! It's all about what looks good lol!

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Safe travels! Looking forward to your fun updates.

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Looking forward to your Live reports.

Have a great cruise.

Bon Voyage!!

Looking forward to your report. Enjoy the Zuiderdam.

Got through security Pre-tsa really quick. Actually the regular line was even shorter. Pretty empty line. But arrived in Delta terminal and there is literally so seats. Crazy crowded. I travel for work a bit and i have never seen the delta terminal so packed. Can you say "germ city"!

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Got through security Pre-tsa really quick. Actually the regular line was even shorter. Pretty empty line. But arrived in Delta terminal and there is literally so seats. Crazy crowded. I travel for work a bit and i have never seen the delta terminal so packed. Can you say "germ city"!

 

 

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We'll meet you in a few days [emoji4] We're sitting in the Indianapolis airport ready to fly through JFK to CPH! We're very excited as well and can't wait to get there at 11 am tomorrow morning.

There's no better feeling than being at the airport ready to fly to our embarkation city. [emoji4]

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Sitting in Detroit airport. Plane is here but we are 45 minutes late in boarding. Every 5 minutes they get on and say 5-7 more minutes. Lol

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Following your posts with great interest as we're looking at this cruise for next year. Thank you for taking the time to do a "live from" for us all!

Enjoy your Baltic Sea cruise! We enjoyed our June cruise with perfect weather. Hope your weather is as good!

Bon Voyage!

Arrived in Amsterdam 35 min early. Just note that even though you aren't staying in country you have to stand inline for border control. Didn't expect that. Didn't sleep much on the flight. Had economy comfort. Lots of room. But because we left Detroit at 4pm and basically arrived here at 1130pm EST it was hard to sleep. Actually didn't see many sleeping. Did watch a movie, watched 2 episodes of Master of None and read 90 pages in my Ernie Johnson book. Detroit airport by the way was very nice, clean and modern. Lots of food options in the international terminal. First time ever there. Amsterdam on the other hand is not so nice and just and FYI - my DW and I have been to 2 different bathrooms and they were nasty.

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Landed in Copenhagen right on time. Short 1 hr flight. It was a Delta code share on KLM. Was weird because KLM let's everyone board at once. Mad rush to be first so you can get overhead space. Took cab to the Marriott. Cost approx $40. Of course even though I am Marriott Gold and wrote the hotel twice no room was ready for us to check in early. So we walked into the old downtown area. For people with mobility issues the walkways are cobblestone and rough. Had breakfast at 1045 in English was the Little Yellow Coffee house. Great food. The rye bread is not like what we eat in the US. was more like a sprouted grain bread. The hot chocolate was really warmed up chocolate. Really amazing. This little cafe which was quite casual and looked to just be a normal inexpensive place ended up costing almost $40. Finding out that food here is very expensive. Even coffee. While we were eating, hotel sent me a text that the room was ready. Found our way back the long way to the hotel. By this time we are pretty tired. No sleep and we really wanted to get out of our travel clothes. The rooms in the Marriott are VERY spacious. Beautiful room with a view of the river. Concierge lounge is open to midnight. Never in the US would that happen. We were so tired we went right to bed. Matter of fact DW is still sleeping. Would post a pic but the divorce would be bloody if i did that. I slept 2 solid hours. I'm ready to go out but wife wanted 4 hrs. So I will let her sleep. I will try to add pics at times when I can. Below is a pic of breakfast. No pics of us as we looked pretty bad In our travel clothes.

Spent last night in the Nyvan district (the area with the painted buildings on the water). Was lots of fun. Had the best vice cream at Wafflebageren. Had a soft serve vanilla dipped in chocolate. So creamy. Of my gosh and so good. Had dinner in a food hall across the river from Nyvan. This is a place for locals. Not many tourists. Literally thousands of people. Music, lots of beer, great place to watch sun set. Tables inside and out. Got our food at the place which had the longest line. Marrakesh Street Food. We shared. We than walked back to the hotel. All in all we walked over 10 miles in one day. We are walkers so it was fine for us. Others might need a cab at this point.

Forgot to say earlier that around 330 people start gathering on the boardwalk along the river. They take off their shirts and lay in the sun. They use it like a beach. There are areas of the river they jump in and swim. We are not talking a beautiful crystal clear river. Matter of fact I compare it to more like the Potomac in DC. Kind of nasty to me. But then again I am from Florida we I am spoiled by beautiful beaches. We never swim in water were you can't see below the surface. Plus that water had to be freezing. the women change in to bathing suits but the men many wearing their boxer briefs from under their work cloths. view from our room. Notice the people in the riverNyvan district.

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Got up this morning and did breakfast in the concierge lounge at the Marriott. One of the nicest concierge breakfasts we have ever had. We that walked to city hall to talks the Copenhagen free walking tour for 2:45. Tour started at 10 am. We had Magnus. He was great. He gave lots of details and cracked a few jokes. Never realized how the Danes hate the swedes. Turns out he took us to many of the same places we had been but we didn't know what we were looking at till he explained it. This tour was free but would have been worth paying for, so Magnus got a nice tip. We walked 4 miles in total this morning. We than took a cab back to the Marriott. Got our *...t together and took a cab to the port arriving around 145pm. Two other RCCL ships were parked next to us. We literally got out of cab they took out bags, walked right up to the check in and onto the ship. Total time from cab to on ship was about 3 minutes. There was literally no one else in the checkin pavilion. Was kind of weird. Went to our cabin and the ship seemed empty. Walked all around. Found out later most arrived around 1130 even though checkin said starting at 1pm. Ate in the Leido Deck...our favorite is the salad bar. Toured the ship. The room seemed tired and in need of updating. The rest of the ship was nice but also a little tired looking. After it comes out of dry dock this fall I'm sure it will look just as good as the Oosterdam that we sailed last year. We are by far one of the youngest couples. The average age is probably around 70-73. But that doesn't bother us. As long as the people are fun. Tonight for dinner we did Any Time dining. First time we have ever done this. Sat with 2 nice couples. I think this will work just fine. Before dinner had drinks in the Pinnacle Bar. Dinner was for me app of scallops with bacon and avocado purée. DE had Tomato basil soup. Our mains were lasagna and eggplant Parmesan cannelloni. Both excellent. Dessert Banana crisp topped with vanilla ice cream and apple strudel with vanilla ice cream. After dinner visited the BB King and the piano bar. The Northern Lights were empty. In the morning we are going with 2 other couples we met on cruise critic and taking the train to Lubeck.

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Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at the M&G. We were at the Marriott too, and waited 3-1/2 hours for a room. Unreal!

Edi

Wonderful reporting.

Sounds like you are off to a great start.

Sorry to hear that the Zuiderdam is looking a little tired.

Who is the piano bar player?

Have a wonderful time. Thanks for telling us all about it!

We can relate to the age thing....

Our first HAL cruise was a WWII reunion cruise (which we had no idea of this group which filled most of the ship.) We were the age of their children! Very few people bought the raffle tickets for the free week cruise, so we bought a few. We won the week!

So there are some benefits. ;)

Cheers!

Who is the piano bar player?

The piano player is Keith from Canada. His first time on a cruise ship. He has been packing in the crowds every night. Standing room only.

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Yesterday in Kiel we opted to take the train to Lubeck with 2 other couples we met on cruise critic. The weather was wet and cool especially being from Florida. High was around 60. Glad we brought had puffy Jackets. Using the train was easy and the info to do it on cruise critic was accurate. But had to say I wouldn't do it again. It was very commercialized. Big town, lots of shopping. Some old churches. I heard the folks who stayed in Kiel had just as much fun. Plus we had a little experience. I now understand why some folks only do tours from the ship. While the train was easy, modern and clean we did have a problem coming back. We boarded the faster train at 4:06 that would take us back in and hr. The train went one stop and stayed still for a long time. Of course the announcements were only in German and not everyone in this area speaks English. We found someone to translate and apparently a tree fell across the track and we would have to wait an hour for it to be cleared. An hour later and the track was still closed and the train went backward to Lubeck. The option was to take the train to Hamburg to Kiel and that would now be 3 hrs. Except that would cause us to miss the ship. So we all crammed into a small, very small, 6 passenger taxi that cost $200 cash only cab to get us to Kiel. Did I say the taxi was small? My wife and I being a bit younger then the other 2 couples climbed in the way back. I'm 6ft and it was not easy getting back there. Did I say the taxi was small? So the driver gets us to the highway and it was closed for some reason. Now we are getting nervous. He takes the back roads and the traffic is awful. The hr drive takes us 2 hrs and we barely get on the ship with an hr to spare before it departs. We stopped at the bar on our way to our cabin. A drink was needed at this point. Oh and by the way I had to be pried out of the back seat. All in all Lubeck was nice but not worth the chance. I would never do a venture on our own again away from the port. Today is a sea day but we also had the cc meet and mingle at 9 am. We moved our clocks ahead 1 hr and we also went to sleep at 130. So it is currently 1050 is what ever time zone we are in and we are back in bed. Tomorrow is Tallinn.

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