LAFFNVEGAS Live From the Gelukkig Nieuwjaar Cruise on the MS Veendam

[dobiemom]

Lisa, did you use the thermal suite this cruise? On the deck plan it looks small (like the Zaandam) and doesn't have a hydrotherapy pool like the Vista class ships. Is this correct?

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Lisa, did you use the thermal suite this cruise? On the deck plan it looks small (like the Zaandam) and doesn't have a hydrotherapy pool like the Vista class ships. Is this correct?

 

Unfortunately no I had decided against using it. I am not fond of the Spa on the smaller HAL ships. If this would have been a Vista class I would have had a pass for the week.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Thursday January 2, 2014

 

Good Afternoon from the MS Veendam as we make our way back to our arrival in San Diego Saturday morning.

 

I will bring you up to date starting with yesterday. We had a very nice lunch at Blue Shrimp, it was excellent. It is located about 100 meters from another restaurant we like called La Palapa. From Blue Shrimp we walked up to the Malecon and from there took a taxi back to the pier. Puerto Vallarta like the others ports were quite busy with many staying there on Holiday. The day before we were having lunch at Blue Shrimp comedian Joan Rivers was dining there for lunch.

 

We ended coming back and I took a long nap between having a large lunch a some very strong Margaritas and the moving up the time for just 24 hours I was just not ready for dinner at 5:30 so instead we had dinner in the Lido.

 

This morning I felted rested but my back was hurting from sleeping too long but because we gained back the hour we actually made it to the Lido. I figured I would have a nice breakfast and skip lunch since we have Le Cirque tonight. After breakfast we went to see Chantel the Future Cruise consultant. I should not say this but I just cringed listening to her talk to a gentleman about pricing . He was asking for the lowest price for a balcony and she was only quoting him a VA, then telling him he can only get the ship board credit of the Above and Beyond when he books on board. The man was looking at Oosterdam and he said is there something for less and she offered VB :( we bought our Future Cruise deposit and luckily did not take long. She asked if I had a cruise in mind I told her yes but I can get more SBC if I wait and combine with the ZPM promotion when I get home.

 

It was about 10:30 when we left and was walking past the Explorers Lounge and it appeared they were setting up the Mariner Reception to this point we had not gotten any Invitation and just last night Tom and I were discussing when it would be. He assumed Friday and we were get our invite Thursday, well no......... It seems we never got our invite :( so I stopped and asked was this for the Mariner Reception. He said yes it was by invite. I said well we are 4 Star Mariners and have not received any Invite. He asked for our cabin number and said oh yes you have not confirmed you are coming I called and left you a message. So we headed back to our cabin sure enough there was a voice mail at 9:30 this morning only asking if we were coming to the reception at 11. Nothing about it being Mariners or that it was in the Explorer's Lounge. We did go to the reception and it was full, 4 couples were getting their Copper medallion but I have to ask....... How does one have 141 days and another 120 something days and not having been awarded your medallion??? That is something I can't figure out when another couple was 103 counting the days on this cruise. We then went to the lunch although Tom had said we would not go. We actually went thinking we could get our tiles and leave. Or would stay if the Officers Hosted Table but they did not. They did not hand out the tiles till lunch was almost over.

 

After lunch we headed back to our cabin and to find in our mailbox both the confirmation for Le Cirque at 6 tonight and Canaletto also at 6 tonight. I cannot quite figure out how they cannot see we have Le Cirque. Rather than call I headed up to the podium in the Lido I figured it would be better to cancel in person the Canaletto (even though I had already). In case someone wanted in but I also did not want them canceling out pre paid Le Cirque. The guy actually said are you sure you do not want to go to Canaletto tonight? Maybe later tonight?? I have confirmed we have our Pinnacle for Friday.

 

After hoping everything was straightened out I headed out to find a deck chair in the promenade to read. I probably read for about 20 minutes and decided it was just too darn windy and cool so decided to walk. I did three laps when I decided I would come into the library to type this up and get on the internet.

 

Oh message to Copper John. Captain said he could find some Bears taking a tour of the interior of Mexico ;) he also laughed.

Tonight is our third Formal night, I would be willing to bet not as many dress up we shall see but since we are in the Pinnacle it may be Bit harder.

 

I guess that is about all I have to report, in a half hour is the next session do Dancing with the Stars.

Signing off from the MS Veendam

[shrimp56]

Thank you so very much for your reports. It is a Triumphal Tour indeed!

[PathfinderEss]

You might find this interesting Lisa, on the Statendam only the people that got awards were invited to the awards ceremony. They did not send out invites to 4 'star' or 5 'star' to join in.

[sail7seas]

 

<snip>

 

From Blue Shrimp we walked up to the Malecon and from there took a taxi back to the pier. Puerto Vallarta like the others ports were quite busy with many staying there on Holiday. The day before we were having lunch at Blue Shrimp comedian Joan Rivers was dining there for lunch.

 

 

<snip>

 

 

I smiled when I read this.

I had just heard that Joan Rivers was vacationing in Mexico with her daughter and grandson and you were 'lunching'' with them. :D Hope it was fun!!! :)

 

Happy New Years,Lisa and Tom.......

Enjoy the rest of your time aboard.

 

[MollyMadison]

Just curious if anyone has heard from her

Cindi

[Linda&Vern]

Just curious if anyone has heard from her

Cindi

I wondered the same thing. It's been 3 days since her last post. They should have arrived San Diego yesterday morning.

[dobiemom]

Just curious if anyone has heard from her

Cindi

 

I wondered the same thing. It's been 3 days since her last post. They should have arrived San Diego yesterday morning.

They made it home fine, and she's swamped at work today. I'm sure she'll be back when she catches her breath. ;)

[kazu]

I wondered the same thing. It's been 3 days since her last post. They should have arrived San Diego yesterday morning.

 

I suspect the internet was not co-operating on the ship - it's certainly not like Lisa to not post.

 

If she just got home, most likely swamped with work and home duties.

 

Looking forward to whatever she has time to share:D

[dfish]

Glad to hear she made it home safely. I was beginning to worry.

 

Debbie

[canadianbear]

They made it home fine, and she's swamped at work today. I'm sure she'll be back when she catches her breath. ;)

 

 

It's always such a let down having to come home after a cruise and especially getting swamped at work. Welcome back though.

[AlohaPride]

Great review! Thanks, Lisa!

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Hi I am here but yes extremely swamped with work.

Andy YES definitely lots of Internet problems, I was told by the Internet Manager that the Veendam has not had any updates to the system for many years and while many are getting a whole new system but they updates and things done to extend the bandwidth for the ship the Veendam has never had any of this done to her like all the other ships in the fleet. This system is actually quite hard to connect to iPads where the updated system on all the other ships are much better. Really nice Internet Manager even gave me back minutes because of the problems he knew I encountered.

 

There is actually a lot I want to say and also about the new Pinnacle menu but it will take me a few days to get everything down in how I want to report it. But since I have to work this coming Saturday I will have part of Tuesday off so will try to finish up a full review then but YES we got home safely yesterday with no problems.

[dfish]

Thanks, Lisa, for the explanation. I was worried that something had happened health wise or otherwise. I have experiences the internet problems on Veendam on two cruises now, so I understand totally.

 

I'm happy that the only problem is being swamped at work. That means they missed you.

 

Debbie

[buckirj1]

Glad you made it home safely. I've enjoyed reading your report so far, and look forward to your wrap-up.

[sail7seas]

Welcome Back, Lisa.

Looking forward to more comments re: Veendam. :)

[solocanadian]

Welcome back to home and the rat race at work. Enjoyed your posts and hope you got photos of the Christmas decorations. Tom looked well in all his pictures, which is a good thing. Looking forward to your final report.:)

[shrimp56]

So glad you and Tom are home safely. Looking forward to your comments on Veendam.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

I said that I would come back on Tuesday and try to give you a wrap up of our cruise. First I must say that this is kind of a difficult wrap up. No cruise is perfect some are just better than others yet being at sea, with my husband and enjoying our time together is better than being at home working or having your husband in the hospital any day ;)

I think I last left off talking about what happened on Thursday so that brings us up to Friday. It was a bit cooler and windy day as we headed back to California yet the sun was shining. On Saturday we had a Noon flight so I needed to check in with Southwest the unfortunate part was about half of the ship also needed to check in, even though I started to attempt to get on line about 15 minutes before check in while sitting in the Explorations Cafe me and about 20 others in the area could not access the internet due to the low bandwidth. It took be over 40 minutes to log in. Once I finally did that we headed to the extremely crowded Lido.

 

What happened next has now appeared on several of the San Diego New Stations and I am not going to go into detail nor do I feel comfortable answering any questions but yes we did have a Passenger go Overboard that did not survive. What I do want to talk about was the absolutely amazing job the Captain, Officers and crew did. The Crew do constant Drills for Man Overboard in hopes of never having to do this when it is NOT a drill. From the moment we heard screams that passengers witnessed from the Lido window, till the ship was stopped and the Man Overboard Signal was given was maybe two minutes at most, then with in the next 3 minutes the ship had sent out the flare to where this happened, we were circling the area and the Captain asked that we all kept our eyes are the water to help spot the person. Instead of a rescue mission it became a recovery mission and there were announcements to stay inside and out of the outside decks. Then it was necessary that all passengers return to their cabin for a complete head count and to help ID the passenger. The actual recovery and once the ship was back underway was probably slightly less than an hour which is contrary to the San Diego news reports.

The Captain had to make numerous announcements about getting all passengers to their cabin and at one point he was quite upset and stated if we do not have everyone in their cabin he will be forced to make everyone go to their life boat station. Cabin Stewards came to each cabin to confirm that all passengers were accounted for. The Captain gave an announcement requesting that we Do NOT go and publish this on Social Media, Web Sites and YouTube to allow the family privacy and to grieve and for the Officials to be allowed to do what investigations they must do.

For obvious reason being the last day it was rather sad through out the ship and was a very strange way to end a cruise.

 

That evening was our Pinnacle Dinner, we had Le Cirque the previous night and I guess I have not mentioned that either :)

Well let me step back to Le Cirque. I will say that it is good but thankfully we had paid the $39.00 price and purchased prior to sailing because in all honesty it is not worth the $49.00 price. One can compare all day that it would cost $150 PP at the real Le Cirque but let's face it we are not in the real Le Cirque we are still in the Pinnacle and while yes Pinnacle is good it is still not the service as a true Le Cirque nor the atmosphere. The quality while good to Excellent is not what I call amazing. We ordered the Wine Pairing and probably should have saved our $40.00 because all they really served were the house wines :( The starter glass of champagne was the usual cheap champagne that HAL serves and the Captain's Toast. I want to say that HAL's Le Cirque was definitely much better in the first few months they introduced Le Cirque. This was our fourth time to dine Le Cirque and each time while not terrible just was not the higher quality it should be.

Then Pinnacle Night Friday, they had the new menu gone was the Land and Sea that I always ordered so I thought I would get daring and order the West Coast Style Cioppino but first I ordered the new Tomato Broth with Spicy Lemongrass Chicken and the Cesar Salad, Tom had his usual 10 oz filet and Shrimp cocktail and baked potato but he also ordered the baby carrots.

OK first off the soup was not good at all basically it taste like a pepper soup, I was so disappointed and hoped it would be good like the previous Spicy Thai Lemongrass Soup. I had not read about what the new Cesar Salad was like and really all I could do was laugh when they brought it to me. I think I would rather they get me one from the main dining room and place a couple of anchovies on it :D Now the Cioppino as others have mentioned it is quite fishy and the problem is you would expect more mussels, clams and other shell fish I was served two tiny crab legs of which one was just the shell not crab meat in it, two tiny clams again one with no meat and the mussels tasted very dry and over cooked. There were two large pieces of fish in this one was a cod and it was fairly good the other piece tasted like a very over cooked piece of dry halibut. Tom's steak was good as was his shrimp cocktail but the carrots were 5 very tiny petite carrots lined up and the smallest baked potato I have ever seen on HAL. We laughed because the carrots were to be part of the Large Sides that are share-able :D Now interestingly enough the dessert menu was the old menu that still had the Creme Brulee' and the Chocolate Souffle. So they were not quite switched over.

I will also mentioned that for this cruise we had the Explore4 Beverage Card of $50 PP, I had not used mine much so we used it up in the Pinnacle and could use it for two glasses of Veuve Clicquot.

 

Basically this cruise just confirmed that I really am a Vista Class Girl, I truly missed the Thermal Suite that is found on the Vista and Signature Class Ships, I missed having a lot of entertainment happening trust me other than New Years night there was not a whole lot going on unless you did Trivia at 7:30 in the Mix. I did totally enjoy spending New Years Ever at Sea and on the ship. It was extremely entertaining in so many ways. I also absolutely LOVE those three Mexico Ports, I found Mazatlan to be the great wonderful Mazatlan we always loved and felt totally safe and no different than it has been before. Of course we also love Puerta Vallarta and Cabo. I want to do this same itinerary for New Years next year but until HAL changes ships for the west coast we will most likely look to the NCL Star.

 

Overall I do not think the Veendam is a good fit for the West Coast Cruiser but then I do think the Veendam has some serious issues.

It was great to finally be on a cruise again and I so love sailing out of San Diego. For not having had an Ocean View in 30 cruises going back to one really was not too bad and I actually liked being on the Lower Promenade Deck.

Next up for us is sailing out of New Orleans on the Norwegian Jewel, new ship to us and new port for us so looking forward to visiting the Big Easy in March.

 

 

 

 

 

[dobiemom]

Thanks for the wrap up, Lisa. I'm glad you and Tom are cruising again. :)

[rwams]

Thank you for the review and update Lisa. Also glad that you and Tom are back to cruising.

 

Rick

[startwin]

Thanks Lisa. Good information, and I know you wouldn't be critical if it wasn't deserved. I think I would have shared your reaction to the Caesar Salad too, having seen a photo of it.:D Interesting to read how the unfortunate incident was handled, too and that the Captain urged the passengers to be sensitive to the situation.

[erewhon]

Thanks for completing your Veendam review.

[kazu]

Thanks for taking the time to finish your report Lisa.

 

A very interesting report indeed especially with the sad event that you encountered.

 

Appreciate your insight to the Veendam and Le Cirque.

 

The new Caesar salad doesn't appeal to me either ;)

 

Glad you are home safely and you and Tom are cruising again:)

 

Welcome home:)