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Our collector cruise on Koningsdam Nov 29-Dec 20th


canadianbear
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My husband and I are in our 60's and flew from Vancouver to Ft Lauderdale two nights early using HAL air for the first time. It was great. Stayed at the Hilton GalleryOne as I wanted us to go on the water taxi which is right out front on our full day prior to the cruise.

 

We stayed in Signature Suite #7105. Loved all the room in this cabin and lots of closet and drawer space for us. The area where the desk is located also has a murphy bed if there is a 3rd person. (will try to post some photos later). Like others have mentioned, the angle of the toilet is very strange. We are also used to having an overhead shower in the tub but in our cabin it was a tapered tub (with jets), no overhead shower or curtain, but a hand held one attached to the tub. My husband is a big guy and tall so found the shower stall that his elbows would hit it. Not a huge deal but if he dropped a bar of soap, good luck!

 

We booked this trip well over a year ago specifically to do snorkel excursions and check out the new ports for us for future trips. We booked 8 HAL snorkel excursions and enjoyed most of them. The best was ABC Islands which I expected. Met some great other snorkel people from HAL on the excursions which made it fun.

 

We hung out at the aft pool most of the time either in the pool or playing cards etc. The pool we found on this ship smaller than the other ships we have been on. Also, it was strange that when you walked down the steps into the pool you were in the deep end. If you wanted to enter the shallow end you had to climb down the ladder-this didn't make much sense to me. We were fine with it as we can swim but others got a shock.

 

As usual the staff were fantastic and especially our room stewards. I filled in the "Share your Thoughts" card with their names (and the email survey I got when we returned home) calling them the invisible magicians!

 

We didn't use the dining room for dinner as often as we have in the past. A lot of nights nothing jumped out at us so we ate at other venues. We did make sure we went for Gala nights though and enjoyed the surf & turf and the tender escargot. We also dined in the Pinnacle and it seemed they had more staff and the food was delicious.

 

I tried a milkshake at the Gelato place and was pleasantly surprised that being 4* I got the 50% discount-plus it was a very tasty milkshake. We also stopped by the Dutch Cafe a few times and was excellent. NY Pizza was also good and in the later evening we enjoyed a snack of the chicken wings. It is where they show the movie but it was way too loud for us to hang around. It is a nice feature with comfortable lounge chairs and popcorn to snack on for those that wanted it.

 

I won't comment on the ports other than to say we enjoyed most of the snorkel excursions and walking around the towns. Loved the Christmas decorations in Curacao especially at night. In Half Moon Cay I convinced my husband to do the snorkel excursion with the stingrays and that was really enjoyable. It did feel strange having these beautiful creatures swimming around us. Since we were in Half Moon Cay twice on this trip we also snorkeled by the rocks and saw the resident octopus. On one of our other excursions we saw turtles and I was thrilled and got a few good photos.

 

We liked that the World Stage usually had 3 different times for their productions and most performances were very good.

 

I am one that loves coming back to my cabin at night to see which towel animal is waiting. My husband finds it funny but I sure hope HAL doesn't stop this. (I am sure people that don't want it can request they aren't done).

 

All in all we had a wonderful relaxing time.

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Thanks everyone, appreciate your comments.

 

I forgot to mention the first half of our cruise was Oprah inspired or whatever it is called. We were all given t-shirts while waiting to board in Ft Lauderdale. Every night we had inspirational saying cards on our bed and were also given the Oprah Christmas magazine. There were things in the daily you could participate in and nothing was intrusive.

 

 

 

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For those that will be going on the ship soon I'm pretty sure you will enjoy it. It took me a couple of days to decide but there was more I liked than disliked.

 

A few more photos. (Sorry if posting too many but I love when people post photos).

 

Main dining room:

 

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My indulgences:

 

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Wonderful review. Makes me want to go back to the K again.

 

I didn't realize that the Signature Suites on the K had the Murphy bed. Now the suite layout makes so much sense. Thank you for posting that pic. That is a perfect suite for sharing.

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Wonderful review. Makes me want to go back to the K again.

 

 

 

I didn't realize that the Signature Suites on the K had the Murphy bed. Now the suite layout makes so much sense. Thank you for posting that pic. That is a perfect suite for sharing.

 

 

 

We didn't know it had a Murphy bed either until we walked in and it was partially down! With that plus the couch I sent a text to my (adult) kids saying they could have come, teasing them! It would be nice if there was a curtain you could pull across though between the two rooms if you had a 3rd person.

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