Volendam review Aug 17 -24th

[gillybean1974]

We got back from our cruise on the Volendam yesterday, apart from the weather we all had a wonderful time. It's a very well run ship, staff were very friendly. I had read some stuff about the ship being tired and worn but we didn't really notice that som much, the ship is very clean and fresh.

 

I met my DH in Alaska working on Celebrity Mercury, we were excited to finally be able to take a cruise as passengers albeit on a different cruiseline. I have had my heart set on going back to AK for a long time.

 

Embarkation - We were surprised how quick it took us to board the ship, it took us just over an hour from getting a ride to Canada Place to entering our cabin. The biggest suprise at embarkation though was a new cabin number. We had booked L2514 for the 3 of us but we were upgraded to FF 1960. We were all happy to be getting an oceanview.

 

Cabin 1960 - This cabin is an aft triple ocean view. We did find the cabin a little noisy on occasion but it didn't seem to bother us too much, although sailaway from Vancouver the cabin really shook. I found the cabin closet hallyway very cramped but that was the only compaint. Our cabin steward Tony was great, always kept our cabin clean, filled the ice bucket without even asking.

 

Food - I would probably grade the food on board a B. The desserts were the only food on board I didn't care for though, I found the looked beautiful but were kind of bland. The bread pudding and vanilla custard was the exception though, yum. The fruit also was exceptionally fresh so we often had fruit instead for desset. We ate at the dining for 4 of our dinners, we had Yudhi as our steward and Made as the assistant. Both very professional, friendly personalities. My hubby and son preferred to eat in the Lido though as they both found dinners to be too long.

 

Ports - We had a lot of liquid sunshine on this cruise so our plans for excursions didn't happen. We just spent time wandering around the ports. I was dissapointed with Skagway though, there were twice as many jewellry stores as I remember from last time and not much else to do.(We were planning to hike but the weather was horrible). Sitka would have been much nicer in retrospect.

 

Will post more the rest later, sigh I have to cook dinner now....Wish I could pop up to the Lido :)

[Osmosis Jones]

Thanks for your review, sounds like a great cruise apart from some weather.

 

I always miss the Lido when we come home too . . . makes me spend hours searching for the next cruise to get back to it! ;):)

[Himself]

Thanks for your report. Sorry the weather was wet but that is often Alaska. I have done several cruises on this ship and I have always liked it.

[erewhon]

Thank you for your report.

I will look forward to reading your next report.

I agree with your comment about the desserts, look good but many have no taste.

[gillybean1974]

Thanks for your comments! :) Osmosis Jones, I hope your wait goes quickly till your back on board

 

Review Part 2

 

Wildlife - While we weren't lucky with the weather this cruise, we were very lucky with the wildlife sightings. On the first sea day a pod of humpbacks were spotted, they were in a circle and spouting. Was wonderful to hear my son squealing with delight at the sight. Later on while having dinner in the Lido (gave the 1st formal a miss) there was a large school of dolphins (at least 50+) swimming along side the ship. The sighting were still in BC, I think it makes a hugh difference travelling on east side of Vancouver island. We did not spot much in Alaska, the odd whale spout here and there.

On the way back from Alaska, again between Vancouver Island and the BC coast a couple of groups of Orcas were spotted. Captain Peter Bos did a fantastice job of trying to find out from the tour boats were the resident Orcas were and just when we thought that we were out of luck, the were spotted at last. Although we didn't get to see any breaching we saw lots of spouting and a few tails. Captain Bos slowed the ship down so we could see as much of them as possible

 

Club Hal - My son had a great time at Club Hal. There were 30 kids of board in his age group (8 - 12), although usually about 10 showed up. They did have a list of activities, though the boys up there spent most of the time playing Mario Kart Wii. He was allowed to sign himself in and out so if they had to do an activity that he found boring, he went back to the cabin. We checked on the cabin frequently to see if he was there.

They had a movie night, cooking classes, Volendam Olympics, quite a lot of variety.

 

Entertainment and Public Areas - We went the whole week without seeing a show so I can't comment on the shows. I did hear the comedian, Lee Bayless, was very funny. My husband and I spent most of out time on deck relaxing. I did listen to the adagio strings for a while, very beautiful music. The guitarist Ashlee Rose also was great, she can play such a wide variety of music and is a great singer. Hubby found the singer Kal from the Halcats awful though and steered clear of them the rest of the cruise. My favourite lounge was the explorations cafe. They had a lot of board games here also, scrabble tables and a very well stocked library both fiction and non-fiction.

My husband did the poker tournamnents on the seadays, he enjoyed those. He wanted to play on the craps table also but it there never seemed to be a game going. The slot machines always seemed to be busy, table games not so much.

 

Staff - All of the staff we encountered on board were friendly and polite, from the officers to the pool attendant. Captain Peter Bos was terrific.

 

Disembarkation - We had chosen to take our own luggage off the ship. It was very easy to do, only a slight incline and we were wheeling them anyway.

 

That's all I can think of for the moment, if anyone has any Q's I'll do my best to answer them. Now I have to try and talk my hubby and son into a HAL cruise next year, fingers crossed.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[erewhon]

Thank you for completing your review.

[kazu]

Thanks so much for your review. Too bad about the weather

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for your review.

 

I can remember our first cruise back in the 80's to Alaska. Skagway was so quaint -- no jewelry stores. Then over the years they started to crept in.

[Waryman]

I collect minerals do the jewelry stores in Skagway have any such items?

[Johanna7]

Gillybean:

 

We were on the cruise before yours. We only had one day of rain and that was in Ketchekan. No problem, it was fun.

 

We were on the same cruise on the old Westerdam in 1998 and found Glacier Bay a LOT different. They had lots of snow and ice all the way to the top and quite a lot of calving. This time it was only up to so far.

 

As for the ports, we took the incline thing to Mt. Robert and really enjoyed the views from the top and also the scenic walks with the many look-outs. Also were facinated by the bald eagle and her handler. Found out that females were larger than males. She had been injured and could not be released. So interesting to see a living bird like that up close. Never knew they wer so large.

 

We found the people in the gifts shop most pleasant.

 

Skagway. Yes, it had a lot of jewelry stores. In fact, I thought I was back in St. Thomas but didn't mind at all. Some had good deals and nice stuff. They were very anxious to sell as much as they could as they had to pack it all up in September in order to ship it back to their sister stores in the Caribbean.

 

We took the White Pass and Yukon train to the summit and back and really enjoyed it.

 

Ketchekan was nice. It was raining but it is only water. Enjoyed our few times around the town in their free bus (we did tape the driver and she was very appreciative). It was like getting a free shore excursion. Spent some time in the library there too and send some emails. So slow on the ship. We did make a donation to their library fund. Nice to have the faster internet.

 

We saw lots of wildlife. Much more than on our May 1998 trip.

 

We are now looking into the 14 day trip from Seattle next year. Probably also late in the summer.

 

In was interesting to read your reviews.

[gillybean1974]

Glad to hear you had such a fantastic cruise also! We did still have a great time regardless of the weather. Being from Vancouver, we are used to the rain.

 

Waryman, I am not sure what minerals you are referring to. I didn't go in any of the jewellry stores myself but browsing though the windows they seemed to have a variety of stuff. My son spent a lot of his pocket money on different types of rocks and stuff, not sure what they are though.

 

Forgot to mention that we did see Mama Lou on board. Looks like she was having a lot of fun, every time she walks past the crew they are smiling and waving at her. She had her seeing eye dog with her, a large stuffed huskie. I really hope when I'm her age I'm spending my retirement living it up on HAL.

[erewhon]

gillybean,

 

Thanks for mentioning that you saw Mama Lou on board, she is an amazing lady. Did you speak with her?

 

I guess that Mama Lou will move to another ship before the Volendam begins the Trans-Pacific journey.