Westerdam Panama Canal April 15, 2011

[High Seas Texan]

Oh Rick, please share any and all pictures you can, as well as shore information. Knowledge is power! I for one enjoy learning as much as I can regarding an upcoming trip so I feel confident in my decision making. I enjoyed the pictures on your above posting, especially the food ones! I always remember my travels by what I had to eat.

 

We are going all the way to Seattle, and we are looking forward to a couple of days in that city at the end of the voyage, probably staying at The Olympic Hotel. We need to find a hotel in Floriday to stay at at least one night prior to sailing as we do not like to cut things close with the possiblilty of weather dealys, lost luggage, etc. We did that this year on our Hawaii cruise round trip and really enjoyed the Hotel Del Coronado. A hotel along those lines in Florida would be to our liking. So far everything I have found looks terribly "trendy".....any thought anyone?

 

I fear we may bore our friends to death in the next year with our excitement and planning, so nice to share on this board with others in the same situation.

 

Cheers!

George

[rajkr74]

Oh Rick, please share any and all pictures you can, as well as shore information. Knowledge is power! I for one enjoy learning as much as I can regarding an upcoming trip so I feel confident in my decision making. I enjoyed the pictures on your above posting, especially the food ones! I always remember my travels by what I had to eat.

 

We are going all the way to Seattle, and we are looking forward to a couple of days in that city at the end of the voyage, probably staying at The Olympic Hotel. We need to find a hotel in Floriday to stay at at least one night prior to sailing as we do not like to cut things close with the possiblilty of weather dealys, lost luggage, etc. We did that this year on our Hawaii cruise round trip and really enjoyed the Hotel Del Coronado. A hotel along those lines in Florida would be to our liking. So far everything I have found looks terribly "trendy".....any thought anyone?

 

I fear we may bore our friends to death in the next year with our excitement and planning, so nice to share on this board with others in the same situation.

 

Cheers!

George

 

George,

We will work on getting more of the Panama Canal pictures posted. Maybe later in the week. I am worn out from watching the NCAA final basketball game tonight.

 

We found the cost of flying into Ft. Lauderdale and hotel costs to be too much that we decided to fly into Orlando. We were going to stay with some friends, but that did not pan out when one of their kids came into town that week and took "our" room. We just went on line and found a hotel close to their house. But when we got to Orlando we found out their whole house was sick with the flu so we did not get to see them either. We rented a car at the airport and drove to our hotel. We were close enough to Downtown Disney that we took a couple of hours and got our Ghiardelli chocolate sundae fix.

 

The next morning we got up early paid the Toll Road fee ($13) and drove down to Ft. Lauderdale. It took only 3+ hrs and was an easy drive with little traffic. Filled the car up at a Costco in FtL. and drove it to the Budget car store near the dock. They had a shuttle to the Westerdam and we were in line at 11:30AM. Very easy. We netted about a $200+ savings by going to Orlando.

You won't bore us with your planning since we are the same way.

[rajkr74]

George,

I forgot to give you a link for the Panama Canal Web cams:

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html?cam=Miraflores

 

Rick

[bcirish]

I know what you mean about the research - for me the research is half the fun of the traveling. Many of our ports this time are new to us but the ship is a good " friend " really seem to like her and am hoping that we will luck out with the chef like we did this winter- he was awesome and so was the food! Dewar our server had just come back from a trip home and may well still be on board - he was the best. Shane has periodically been the Cruise Director- does an okay job. This past cruise we got to know some of the entertainers - kind of learned a different side of the ship entertainment- the four leads worked really well together and presented some great shows including a Broadway revue one afternoon while at sea - nice surprise.

We have stayed at several places in Ft Lauderdale before cruises but we usually look for one that includes parking since we spend part of the winter in Florida. This time will be different because we will be flying in but know that we want to be close enough to Total Wine so that we can go pick up our wine before the cruise- gonna need at least two cases for this one!!

We are also going to Seattle and am not sure how we will come home - would love to do a one way rental and drive back through Glacier National Park and maybe a couple of other National parks on the way home- my SIL is actually thinking about meeting us in Seattle for the road trip home - that would be fun too.

I love entertaining all of the possibilities of travel!! Before we get to this cruise we have at least 7 weeks of traveling before Christmas and a month in Florida before a Feb cruise with Cruise Critic friends - retirement is tough!:)

[NoWhiners]

Just posting to keep us near the top!

 

Rick--all your pix were great. The food ones made me hungry and missing great HAL service. Need to start thinking about excursions and looking forward to your suggestions.

 

Mary Lynn

[rajkr74]

Just posting to keep us near the top!

 

Rick--all your pix were great. The food ones made me hungry and missing great HAL service. Need to start thinking about excursions and looking forward to your suggestions.

 

Mary Lynn

 

Hi Mary Ann,

 

We will post some other pics on the Canal this weekend and link them to a post here.

 

We found that last year the excursions were not even listed until later in the year. If you go to the home page for Hal and hit the tab "For Booked Guests" and hit the "Book Shore Excursions" box then hit the blue tab for "book excursions" then enter your booking number and name, you will see those excursions specific to our cruise. There are very few listed presently for our cruise. I only see some excursions for Puerto Vallarta and Cabo listed. We found they will add excursions and cancel excursions from now until Jan 2011. We did not book until two months before the cruise on most our excursions. At that point we felt they had established 98% of the excursions for our cruise. Probably has something to do with price agreement between Hal and the tour operators.

 

There is also a separate drop-down excursion menu on the Holland site for the ports. Those listed on this drop-down may not be available on our curise. Example: Puerta Vallarta in the drop down menu for that port shows the "Rhythms of the Night" listed but I know it will not be offered on our crusie since it starts after our ship leaves port.

 

We will give you a run down of what excursions we did along with what ones our friends did. That's not to say those will be on the cruise next year. We booked most of our excursions the end of Feb. before we went on ship on 4-18-09.

Rick

[rajkr74]

Thought maybe you'd like to see some web cam shots of the Westerdam going thru the canal last year 4-25-09. Sorry I can't point out were I was on the deck....lol.

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2281124900079366995OugySp

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2226911000079366995znSTud

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2253029730079366995fupwBp

[High Seas Texan]

Rick, Thanks for posting the pics. It is just a year off until we sail and we are SO looking forward to this. I keep looking at the pics, over and over......dreaming. The year will go fast I know as we plan our adventure.

Thanks again!

[rajkr74]

Like I promised here is a link to our website and an album that is all canal transit pictures.

 

Panama Canal Transit-2009

After you click on the link you will get the album and all the thumbnails. Just click on the "slideshow" tab on the upper left and you will get a larger picture. At the bottom of the slideshow window there is a small square icon next to the arrows that you can click that will increase the pictures again. The arrows will allow you to go thru the pictures faster or backup to look at one again.

As we come to the canal early in the morning, like 5:00-5:30am, I was up and noticed a whole bunch of ships anchored in the bay. We were informed that they wait there for available times to go thru the canal. By doing that their fee is substantially less. We were told that the Westerdam paid $300,000 to go thru the canal at a specific time and during daylight hours.

 

They will open up the bow to viewing and you get access to it via the 4th deck, the Upper Promenade deck. We went up one deck and there is a small open area that we took pictures from looking down on the bow. It was less crowded. On Aruba when I was going back on the ship I dropped my video camera and broke it on the dock---yuck. We scrambled to learn how to use our backup Nikon D-90 still camera for taking video. We put a 4 gig card in and setup the camera on a tripod out front on deck 5. It worked very well and we got good video from a still camera. I have a new one that has two straps so if it comes loose in my hand it won't drop on the ground.

 

This time I am going to roam the ship and get other angles to shoot pictures. We spent a lot of time on the 5th deck up front. I know there is a way to reach out and put your hand on the lock's wall and get a picture. I think you do that when we are in the western locks like the Pedro Miguel or Miraflores Locks. We heard about people doing that but we did not. There is only about 2 feet between the ship and the concrete walls. We will do some more research and figure it out.

 

They also have "Panama Rolls" available during the morning to eat. We noticed them on the bow and promenade deck but I would guess they are else where in the ship. They are pretty good, a puffy orange filled roll like a Danish.

 

We will work on the excursions now for those ones we took. We can also put pictures we took for each excursions in albums for viewing.

 

Our weather out here in Oregon has been rainy (what a surprise) and around the mid 50's. It has been a cold spring and I am looking for warmer weather. We are expecting 70's on Sunday....I hope.

 

 

[bcirish]

Am looking forward to seeing them - need enough time to enjoy the- right now have 3 year old and 9 month old for 5 days 24/7 while their folks are out of town - they are great and we're having a good time but lets face it retirement has changed my attitude about schedules etc and how can something so small weigh so much - figure this is like weight training and step aerobics combined :). More later when I am more coherent!

[rajkr74]

Oh retirement.....it's a couple years away for us. No grand kids either. Our two kids have to get married before that can happen.

[bcirish]

Great pics! Almost wish we had boarded the ship today!!!!

 

Yeah- we both got early retirement and vowed to travel as long as we can and the gkids - we have 9 now - got three little girls over the last year so the nine range from 6 months to 11 years but we also have 4 kids so that helps. Right now all are sleeping including DH - two days down and two to go! Wether is great so we spent lots of time outdoors!

[NoWhiners]

bc

 

Just got home from Michigan and we signed up 2 more cousins--Jim and Cindy from Saginaw!

 

Add them to the list--they got a SS guarantee for a great price!

 

Off to DC for the week tomorrow morning. Have fun with the g'kids!

 

ML

[bcirish]

bcirish - Ed and Barbara from Chicago first posters

nowhiners - Mary Lynn and Doug - first posters

with nowhiners Carol and John from Michigan

with nowhiners Kitty and Jim (also in Albuquerque)

with nowhiners Jim and Cindy from Saginaw

RAJKR74 - Rick from Oregon

High Seas Texan - George and Rand from Forth Worth Texas

[High Seas Texan]

Greetings everyone. Just realized last night during dinner, that just one year from now, we will be ON THE CRUISE! Is it too rediculous to be this excited so far out?

[bcirish]

Sounds good to me - actually have another cruise a couple of months before this one and another which I just booked 6 months after this one and their board is crazy. They have list and signup and competitions and gift exchanges - they have all booked their hotel and are heavy into their excursion plans - I keep thinking - it is not for 18 months and 3/4 of the trip is at sea - hope they slow down before we embark!. I find our board very pleasant - excited about the cruise - I am really looking forward to it and will over the next year enjoy my research.

 

I look forward to the actual cruising experience and think we will have fun with our wine crawl. I found myself thinking how fast this next year will pass and we will be boarding before we know it - now that is exciting to think about.

[NoWhiners]

Me too--I am counting the days. First to dec 23 when I retire and then until April 15 when we leave port! Haven't even tried for hotels yet since we don"t know when we get there, other than at least the day before. Anyone have hotel rooms in FLL yet? Anyone have any inside scoop on where to stay? We usually just go to priceline and bid--always done well going this route. If we get in a few days early, we will also rent a car. We might add a day or 2 in San Diego at the end too.

 

Back home for a week then back to DC but that may be it for a while. I will try and get the rest of the No Whiners-associated crowd to sign up on CC and have them participate on this board!

 

Everyone have a great weekend,

ML

[High Seas Texan]

We are looking for a hotel in the Ft. Lauderdale area to stay at least the night before as well, and maybe even 2.....nothing jumps out at us yet. Last year I was in Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood area and stayed at The Westin Diplomat....was okay, but not anxious to return. Would love to find something with old school charm, but everything seems to be glitz and "south beach" style. We are considering the Aqualina, or maybe even going to Miami area and looking at The Biltmore. We want something special for this cruise.

This past year, sailing out of San Diego, we booked the Del Coronado before and after the cruise and were very pleased.

Happy planning to everyone!

[bcirish]

I actually will be looking close to the port in Ft Lauderdale - I have several in mind - am thinking that I want to be close to the wine store. In the past we have driven in and used our car to pick up our wine or last year we brought the wine with us. For this trip I will pre order some of our favorites from Total Wine. Miami is a bit of a drive from Ft Lauderdale - just a heads up.

[ski ww]

Good morning. Well you now have one more. We just got off the Amsterdam on Monday. We did a segment of the Grand World Voyage from Singapore to Vancouver. Have never done Panama, but lots of Caribbean, so we booked this on board. Had a real great time. The ports of call were what we wanted to see. Had always read and heard about Asia and had always wanted to visit. We met lots of people that we cruised with on the Princendam two years ago, a bit of a surprise to meet people after a couple of years on board a ship, half way around the world. Just goes to show how small the world really is. We are looking forward to this cruise, and well keep checking this board for postings. I'm sure more people will post the closer we get, it's still almost a year away. Looking forward to meeting everybody.

 

Allan & Marlane :D:)

[NoWhiners]

Welcome Allan and Marlane! Even though its a year off, we all seem to be enjoying the anticipation!

 

I am going over to the East Coast departures board to see what priceline hotels have been used by people leaving FLL this month, just as a baseline.

 

ML

[rajkr74]

We are looking forward to this cruise, and well keep checking this board for postings. I'm sure more people will post the closer we get, it's still almost a year away. Looking forward to meeting everybody.

 

Allan & Marlane :D:)

 

Hi Allan & Marlene.

 

Welcome to the Panama cruise Roll Call. We did this cruise last year and had a great time, so much so we are doing it again. However, we will get off at San Diego instead of going to Seattle. I posted a number of pictures for everyone to see. Just go back to my previous postings and look for the links to our albums within the posting.

 

We are now working on providing info and pictures for excursions that we and friends did last year. I just checked today and HAL has added some excursions for some of the ports specific to our cruise. However, there are still many ports that are missing excursions and there will be others added (and subtracted) based on what HAL did last year.

 

Let me know if you have any questions and we will try and answer them. We are not experts, having taken only 2 cruises so far, but we did a lot or research prior to going and have a ton of pictures.

 

Rick & Joyce

[ski ww]

Thanks Rick I will be looking at your pictures. We where just looking at the deck plans for the Westerdam and we didn't see any laundry rooms on the passenger decks, does that mean we have to send our laundry out to be done? The other HAL ships we cruised on had laundry rooms on each deck.

Al & Marlane:):)

[rajkr74]

Thanks Rick I will be looking at your pictures. We where just looking at the deck plans for the Westerdam and we didn't see any laundry rooms on the passenger decks, does that mean we have to send our laundry out to be done? The other HAL ships we cruised on had laundry rooms on each deck.

Al & Marlane:):)

 

Al,

The Vista class ships, of which the Westerdam is one, do not have laundry rooms. They have a laundry service where you "stuff" as much as you can get into a bag for a $12 fee. You will have it back the next day. We did not use it last year but I have heard that the system works well with other passengers that used it. We just took Woolite and laundered some things in the bath tub. There is a laundry line above the tub that you can hang things to dry.

 

We did OK with clothing for that long of a trip.

 

[ski ww]

bcirish - Ed and Barbara from Chicago first posters

nowhiners - Mary Lynn and Doug - first posters

with nowhiners Carol and John from Michigan

with nowhiners Kitty and Jim (also in Albuquerque)

with nowhiners Jim and Cindy from Saginaw

RAJKR74 - Rick from Oregon

High Seas Texan - George and Rand from Forth Worth Texas

 

Hi guys you can add Allan & Marlane to the roll call. We are from Victoria Harbour Ontario Canada. Thanks.

 

Allan & Marlane :D:D