Nieuw Amsterdam first impressions

[Donny-Joe]

Hi all,

 

Our family (me, wife, two teenage boys) have taken 4 Disney cruises (one on each ship), one RCCL cruise (Enchantment), and are now on our first HAL cruise to the Eastern Caribbean on the Nieuw Amsterdam. I thought it might be interesting to get some impressions down while they're fresh.

 

- Food. So far, very good. Lido lunch was quite good, with a few things that looked better than they tasted. Typical buffet experience. However, the good stuff was *very* good. The seared salmon wasn't much to look at, but was perfectly cooked and had a lovely avocado aioli relish on it. The Thai chicken with basil was really tasty. The sushi rolls, on the other hand, were nothing to write home about. The MDR dinner was excellent. Everything we had was, IMO, really a cut above. I think my shrimp and grits entrée was among the best entrees I've had on a cruise ship. I thought the wine list was also really well thought out, and full of reasonably-priced bottles. We know Washington wine pretty well (being from there), and we thought the Washington bottles were all solid mid-priced choices. We ended up having a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse with dinner that we really liked.

 

- Ship. Beautiful. Much nicer than the Enchantment of the Seas, and really on a par with Disney overall, which is saying a lot, as Disney really does a great job with design. I think both Disney and HAL are trying to evoke that "classic liner" feeling, pulling in elements from cruise ships like the Normandie and other great ships of the early 20th century. They both use a lot of Art Deco motifs and they both do a good job. Disney I'd have to say is a little better at tying all the elements together, but really they both have a lot of charm.

 

- Service. Really solid all around so far. The servers we had in the MDR were much more restrained than the Disney or RCCL servers we have had. The service was quiet, not rushed, and overall good. Our lead stateroom attendant dropped by early on embarkation day, asked if we wanted anything, was very helpful. When I've called guest services they have been very helpful, and my wait time on hold has never been longer than a minute or so.

 

- Demographics. There are definitely more older couples than you see on Disney, and fewer young people and families. But we have seen children of all ages and young couples. We're not the youngest people on the ship by any stretch.

 

- Misc. The library is really great. Disney doesn't have a library (they have a small rack of books in the coffee bar). I now see what people were talking about. This is a small library. My wife, an actual card-carrying librarian, was suitably impressed. The cover over the pool seems like a great idea. Embarkation was quite slow, largely because there were just too few staff doing checkin. The terminal doesn't seem big enough for the number of people they're pushing through.

 

The overall vibe on the ship is somewhat more sedate and low-key than Disney and RCCL. We like that.

 

We only have a half day under our belts so far, but we're very happy to be here. Thanks to all the folks on Cruise Critic who provided useful advice over the last few months!

 

Don

[OVgirl]

Nice to hear that your first day on board is going well. We've done 3 cruises on Nieuw Amsterdam and had good experiences each time.

 

Hope you enjoy the rest of the cruise and look forward to more updates.

[POA1]

Thanks for the early impressions. Hope you have a great cruise!

[kftw]

Thanks for posting your first impressions. Hope you will check in as your cruise continues.

[RMLincoln]

Glad to hear you are enjoying so far and first impressions are good. Hoping it continues to be a good experience. Thanks for sharing with us. m--

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for checking in.

Glad you are off to a great start.

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your post.

 

Keith

[crystalspin]

Making me homesick for the N.A., our favorite ship!

 

I give you that's 'favorite' out of only five, not a laundry list like some regulars on CC, but the Nieuw Amsterdam really hit the sweet spot of large enough to offer a varied choice of venues, without being so big one got lost (too often!). We were on her 26 days trans-Atlantic + eastern Mediterranean, and I was not happy to pack to go home! Although I was exhausted by that Med itinerary!

[legalslave]

Thanks much for your first impression. I am curious as to what your opinion is after the entire cruise as we are sailing on her first time in May. Have sailed other HAL ships and we are really looking forward to sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam.

 

Diane

[81Zoomie]

I was on the NA last week and agree it was excellent. The staff was fabulous and so friendly and eager to please. The food was very good. The ship was spotless. That goes for the public restrooms too. Our cabin and balcony were well kept and in very good condition. There were no continuous high pressure sales like Celebrity or Princess. The pool and restaurants had appropriate background music at reasonable volume. There was no blaring of movies or loud music at the pool. The ship gave off an understated elegant feeling with a relaxed vibe. It felt more refined and intimate than the larger ships. The traditional open and wide (15 ft) promenade deck that circled the ship was great. The only thing I saw that showed a bit of age were the grout lines in the shower. The minor things I would like to see improved would be more atmosphere in Tamirand and Canaletto and glass shower doors instead of the curtains. There was a very good mix of age demographics with quite a few children. We had a great cruise and I definitely recommend the Nieuw Amsterdam 🌞

[Btimmer]

We recently returned from Europe on the NA and as 4 star HAL Mariners we were impressed in many ways by the ship, with one major exception. The audio in the main theatre was far too loud. Earplugs helped.

 

Enjoy your time on the ship.

[suntan]

Thank you for your posts of your impressions of NA. We have never sailed with HA before and I have found a cruise on NA in 2017 that we are interested in.

[Donny-Joe]

Hi all,

 

I'm sitting poolside at the Margaritaville pool in Grand Turk, where the wifi is flaky as all get out, so we'll see if this posts.

 

More random notes from the cruise thus far, this time in bullet-point form for (hopefully) easier reading:

 

• Cabin:
  
  • We have two adjoining Signature Suites, which are fantastic. We usually cruise in standard verandahs on Disney, and this is a massive upgrade in space and amenities, for significantly less money. We paid about 2K per person (paid originally 1450 for a VE, got upgraded to V when the price dropped, then paid 550 for a last-minute upgrade to SS). That wouldn't even get you the cheapest inside cabin, at the lowest possible price, on the Disney Fantasy's Dec 19th Eastern Caribbean cruise - they started at 2100. An equivalent cabin on Disney doesn't really exist, but for comparison their best verandah started at 3K per person and went to 4K per person before sailing.
    
  • We've been in a junior suite on RCI, on the Enchantment. Nowhere close to the HAL Signature Suite.
    
  • We especially like the expansive balcony with plenty of furniture, the large bathroom with two showers and two sinks, and the double desks. And the big TV.
    
  • Furniture and fixtures largely seem to be in great shape. We have a slight problem with our shower nozzle in the stall (it droops slowly as you're showering). I'm putting in a call about it; we'll see how HAL handles it. Frankly it impacts us very little, as we mostly prefer the tub shower anyway.
    

  [*]Entertainment:

  • The interactive entertainment system is very good, with a straightforward interface. The selection of movies is fine, with plenty of recent movies and some older classics. The video quality is pretty good, with some glitches and compression artifacts that I suspect only a video nerd like me would notice.
    
  • We checked out the BB King show briefly last night, but the kids weren't feeling it, so we left. I thought the players were very good.
    
  • We then went to the mainstage show, "The Astoria," which was a mixed bag. The dancers were good, the singers were mostly very good (with a few minor pitch issues), but the story was a vague scenario with no dialogue, about some young men and women. Several of them fall in love. Someone's heart is broken. Someone learns to let go and enjoy life. It just consisted of song and dance numbers set to pop tunes, plus some wordless acting. There were sets that looked like a succession of urban lofts. It didn't seem to me that a scenario that thin added much to the experience. The backing music was pre-recorded, but they had an onstage "band" for part of the show that were not doing a good job of pretending to play the music. We found that truly bizarre. The cast even gestured to them during the curtain call, as if to say, "Let's hear it for the guys pretending to play the music!" At least the "drummer" appeared to actually know how to play the drums and made a half-hearted attempt to play something sort of like the music. The "guitarist" mostly just strummed continuously and didn't change his hand positions when the chords changed. I kept thinking, "HAL is paying people to pretend to be a band. Who thought that was a good idea?" I mean, Disney uses pre-recorded backing music (and background singers) for all their shows, and they don't pretend otherwise. As far as I can tell, no one cares.
    
  • Just to be clear, we all liked the mainstage show fine and will go see the other ones. The singing and dancing were both good, which is the important part. We just thought it was a little odd.
    

  [*]Misc:

  • We went to Tamarind last night, and the food was mostly very good. We thought the sushi was fine, but we can get better in Seattle. My Thai-style chicken curry was top-notch. The kids liked their duck and wasabi-crusted tenderloin. The drink service was slow, just because there was only one drink server covering too many tables. The rest of the service was very good.
    
  • The internet service has been generally pretty good. The lag is considerable, which is to be expected with satellite. It tends to get better in port, which suggests to me that they're probably switching to cellular or some other terrestrial network. An unlimited package is $249 for the whole cruise. The highest minutes package is $199 for 600 minutes, and the cheapest is 30 minutes for $19.
    
  • The Christmas decorations are all over the ship, and really nice. At the bottom of the atrium is a gingerbread village, and there are garlands, wreathes, trees and other decorations all over the ship. Supposedly there's going to be some extra stuff for Christmas day itself; I'll try to report back about that.
    
  • There are fewer family-style activities on the ship overall than with Disney. Most kids aren't going to be too excited about cooking classes, lessons about Windows 10 or tanzanite seminars. RCI also didn't have much in the way of family activities either. There seem to be plenty of activities in the teen center - my teen gets a card every day listing a whole day worth of them. But he's the only one who can do them; we can't participate as a family. Disney has family game shows, family trivia, family craft activities, etc. From our perspective this is fine, as our kids never cared much for most of that stuff except trivia. Note to HAL: our family votes for more trivia. :)
    
  • Carnival's cruise center in the Turks & Caicos is...fine. It's basically like a private island experience with more tanzanite stores, a nice pool and no free lunch. The NASA exhibit there is really small, but well put together and informative. We didn't get out of the cruise center to explore the island; perhaps we will if we ever come back.
    

 

Bottom line is that we're still having a very good time, and are generally pleased with HAL. I think people looking for a party cruise would be disappointed, but it fits our style really well. We miss a few things from Disney, but really not much.

[Donny-Joe]

Quick followup:

 

We talked tonight at dinner about the differences between HAL and Disney with the kids, and I think my statement that "we miss a few things from Disney, but not much" really only applies to me. We all agreed that this is a great cruise so far with lots to recommend it. The kids both said the food has been better, and I agree. But I asked them if they could take a HAL cruise or a Disney cruise on the same itinerary, not worrying about price, they both said that Disney slightly edges out HAL, primarily because of entertainment.

 

Disney's ships have a really nice movie theater with stadium seating and top-flight 3D digital projection. It's like a very good land-based movie theater. And they show first-run movies. They are showing the new Star Wars right now, among other films. And their video-on-demand service has pretty much every Disney film ever, including films from their subsidiaries. Plus it has lots of Disney cartoons, Disney TV shows, etc. Basically being an entertainment company gives them tremendous advantages in what they have available to show.

 

Disney's cruise ship stage shows are like condensed Broadway shows, with top-notch performers and very good stories - if you like Disney shows. It's all family-friendly and super polished.

 

The bottom line is that for my kids, their evaluation goes something like:

 

- Entertainment: Disney great, HAL acceptable

- Food: HAL great, Disney good

- Service: both great

 

The kids care a little more about entertainment than food, so Disney wins, though they were quick to say that they are enjoying this HAL cruise and would be happy to take another. They also said they enjoyed our RCI cruise and would take another of those, though they'd probably prefer a bigger ship with more stuff on it.

 

My wife said that given the choice between the two cruise lines, if it was just the two of us taking a cruise, HAL would be her first choice most of the time because of the more relaxed atmosphere, better cabins, and better food. If we were going with the kids (and again, price was no object), she'd probably pick Disney because of the better entertainment and the larger variety of family activities.

 

Just some food for thought.

[Jolie_Cruiser]

Thank you for your detailed reports. I am sure parents with children will appreciate the info. you are providing.

[Himself]

Thank you for mostly good reviews on my favorite ship

[erewhon]

Thank you for commenting about your cruise.

 

Enjoy the remainder of the voyage.

[Cruiser 4 Life 66]

Thanks for your review. I will be on the ship in a few weeks, so I'm glad to hear it's getting high marks from you and your family.

[Donny-Joe]

Merry Christmas!

 

We've had a very low-key day, as we've been going hard the last couple of days so it was nice to just nap and relax. They're doing a bunch of Christmas activities today, most of which we missed. I don't see any new decorations, but they sure have gone overboard on Christmas treats, especially cookies.

 

I'm running out of new things to comment on, but a few more miscellaneous notes:

 

- We've now been to Canaletto and Le Cirque night at Pinnacle Grill. The food and service was good at both of them, except for the drink service, which was slow and not attentive. At both of them we had to ask a passing waiter to ask our wine attendant to come by and take another drink order. They also never took away our kids' wine glasses, which isn't the end of the world, but seemed strange. At the MDR so far the wine steward has been very attentive and shows up to take our first drink order as soon as we sit down, and comes by shortly after we finish each round. I guess it really just depends on who you get.

 

- We haven't noticed any significant smoke issues. We smelled smoke exactly once, when walking down a hallway, as though a smoker had just come through. I also saw a smoker one day from a distance on the promenade deck, ironically just near a "no smoking" sign. We haven't noticed any smoke while on our balcony. Obviously we could have had bad luck and been put right next to a chain-smoking cigar fan, but I just wanted to share a data point. We've noticed smoke on each of our Disney cruises, just randomly walking past a smoking area, so this doesn't seem any different.

 

- They did come and tighten the shower spray holder. I haven't taken a shower in the stall since then, but it does seem to hold up better.

 

Overall we've continued to have a great time. I'll post my final thoughts after we get home.

[cl.klink]

Thanks for this nice review. Looking for to sailing NA in June. Only one other HAL cruise but service and feel where similar to what you described. How new vs.old did the ship look / feel to you?

 

- Joel

[Donny-Joe]

Thanks for this nice review. Looking for to sailing NA in June. Only one other HAL cruise but service and feel where similar to what you described. How new vs.old did the ship look / feel to you?

 

The ship was in top condition. I noticed a few tiny bits of wear and tear, but really nothing worth any concern. It basically looked brand-new.

[cl.klink]

The ship was in top condition. I noticed a few tiny bits of wear and tear, but really nothing worth any concern. It basically looked brand-new.

 

 

Super! Can't wait to see for myself!

 

- Joel

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Donny-Joe]

Final thoughts and miscellaneous additional notes:

 

- On our final night we ate in Pinnacle Grill and they gave us the same table with the same serving staff as for Le Cirque night. Everything, including the beverage service, was absolutely stellar. I can't honestly imagine better service. The meal itself was wonderful. For steaks and sides of that quality, I would expect to pay much, much more than $29. We all had the strip with different sauces, and we all agreed it was one of the best steaks we'd had anywhere, and we all like steak. It was absolutely on a par with the top steakhouses of Seattle.

 

- Half Moon Cay is great. Comparing to Disney's island (Castaway Cay), the basics are very similar. The food at HMC is much better than Disney's, except that Disney has tons more free beverage options. Disney also scatters water dispensers all over the island, so it's easy to stay hydrated. Disney's kid's play areas are much more extensive, including fancy water slides and more water play activities, and their snorkel lagoon is better. We've had cabanas at both, and we'd give a slight edge to Disney. Disney's cabanas have a dedicated cabana host you check in with, and drink service is included (though you can add the "butler" service on HAL). On the other hand, the HAL cabanas have A/C, a nicer included snack, and an actual dining table. And HAL cabanas are cheaper and readily available (Disney's sell out almost instantly when they become available). But really, these are quibbles. Both of the private islands are very nice. The key features of beautiful water, soft sand, plenty of loungers, shade, and easy access to rum are excellent at both.

 

- The disembarkation on HAL is much better than Disney's or RCCLs. The fact that they're running regular breakfast service, and you can wait in your room for your tag to be called (or leave your bags while you eat) makes everything much easier and more civilized. Really, I feel like HAL has had better logistics as far as moving people and bags around than any other cruise we've been on. Given that logistics and people management has always been a strength of Disney, I think it's pretty amazing how much better HAL is doing things. I guess 150-ish years of experience does matter.

 

To us, HAL felt refined, relaxing, tasteful and friendly. For comparison, I'd describe Disney as engaging, entertaining, surprising and active. Basically while they both do a lot of things well, one does better on relaxation and comfort, and the other does better on entertainment and activity.

 

If what you want is a refined, traditional cruise experience, HAL is a tremendous value, in our opinion. If you want Disney "magic," well, you kind of have to sail on Disney to get it. Disney has a unique product and they price it accordingly.

 

Bottom line is that this trip was great, and we all enjoyed it immensely. Annoyances were minor and few. We'll probably continue sailing on both lines, for different kinds of trips.

[cruz chic]

Thx for sharing your thoughts with us.

[cbr663]

Thanks for your positive review of the NA. We were on the ship for the Dec 6th run and had a really good time. The NA continues to be our favourite HAL ship.