Here is my first have of my current zuiderdam trip report. East caribean days 1 to 4

[basketballdad]

We are on the Zuiderdam New Years eve 7 day eadtern carribeanian cruise 2015. We left Port Everglades December 28th. We flew all night and got into FLL at 440 am due to weather delays. My wife wisely had encouraged me to get a hotel prebokked which we did at super 8 dania. It was a 2 star hotel with 4 star hospitality At a 2.5 star price. I had called from Denver to let them know we would be way late so they wouldn't give away our room. Glad we did as they were ready for us even at the late hour and we're sold out.

 

We took LYFT over to the hotel and used a referall code and it cost us 9 bucks and after using a 5 buck credit it was only 4 bucks plus a tip. The hotel were gracious when we got to there and offered us a noon check out. That 6 hours of sleep was needed. The only hick up was that they charged up 20 bucks to take a 5th person in our group with us over to the ship on their free shuttle. They said it was up to 4 people. Ok.

 

Embarkation was pretty smooth. The ship is pronounced z-eye-derdam. Like eye… the ship is a bit old school classic. Fancier decor and we feel higher end food than many mass cruise lines. Food and service are subjective. The ship is long and tall but skinner… easy to see at the pool.. way less deck chair space starboard to port side.

 

The cabins seem a bit bigger but there is some rust and a few minor things like a cracked window or two on doors on the promenade deck that could be fixed. We are on deck 6 balcony y near the front of the ship. We must be over a stabilizer or something cause every minute or so the room literally shudders. The door a day floor and bed shake for a half second when we are in high winds and rough seas. It's like someone shaking your bed so it's hard to sleep.

 

We got a starboard- which is right side as you look forward- balcony. I love balconies. If you have a choice on Eastern carribeanian I would have taken the other side at least so far. Main reason is pulling out of pet everglades gives you the condos and apartments to the north and then at turks you are facing the island and beach and activities. Personal preference I guess.

 

We felt the staff was very friendly. The crowd older. Even on a Christmas break cruise with some families and kids the crowd seemed to average at least 65 yes of age. That's not bad but the ship seems to reflect that in some of their entertainment- which we felt were lacking. The offering was a classical violinist and a piano bar that was overcrowded cause there is nothing else to do it seemed. The b.b. king blues music place was crowded as well. It seemed for 1900 people there wasn't enough events and music. How about a 60s or 80s live band?

 

First day at sea was nice. Windy as heck- the TV said 52 mph was the effective speed or something like that.

 

A few more things

 

Looking for a more private area? Forward deck 11 are private cabanas. However most people don't realize that forward from that is a nice quite secluded deck for all paasengers. No one was up there when I went! This is right above the crows nest.

Our room came with a power strip in the side compartment on the desk. Seems most did. We could have left ours behind.

There are fridges in most rooms. Filled with stuff but my son put his insulin in his fridge.

Each room has a DVD player and the ship has a free service where you can check out one of 1100 movies. 1100! Each cabin has a catalog of movies. They are free. The front desk even brings them to your room for free!

On the stateroom TV was fox news. CNN. ESPN. A few movie type channels. Front and back views from ship and also a ship channel showing location and things.

Like most ships they have towels to take off the ship and charge you if you don't leave them at end of cruise. Also bathrobes.

We had some teens and they liked the teens club.

 

Day 3. Grand turks. I may post this separately in that thread. We almost a disaster.. First the ship time was 1 hour different than local time. Don't know why but it was 1 hour ahead of island time. The correct time was announced and on clocks on the ship but what wasn't announced is that the local time was different. Anyone see a disaster coming here?

 

The next problem was that I booked a great excursion with a 3rd party online tour organizer. I didn't realize it and they didn't advertise it but the website was just an agent and not the provider. Big mistake.

 

Before leaving home i wasn't sure we were going to make the boat due to possibly weather so I didn't book our reservations til I got on the ship. So I booked online on my smart phone after we got on board while still in port the first day. Well as we pulled out I hadn't heard anything so I called and they said they would email everything the next day. Come to find out the booking wasn't really a booking at all. It was a request and they had to go out and find a vendor to accept our request. Didn't know that from the website until we paid a 20 percent deposit. ViA PayPal on their site. I called the tour place told them I was at sea and could get my emails and they said they would call me which they never did. I could have gone to the Internet cafe but I don't recall my email password and even then I didn't know if they had sent anything. Looking back I wish I had done this and printed their instructions which did mention a possible time change issue. I

 

Advice: if you don't do a ship tour don't deal with a non local tour agent. Only deal with the provider. Having no info about our tour or if our reservation had “been accepted” i had my brother call the resrrvation place and get the details. Since texting on biard the ship is only a nickle to recieve i had my brother text me the info of where to meet and time while we were at sea after he called the middleman. They didn't quite tell him everything and the middleman staff didn't speak great English. We were excited to learn that on the first sea day that our reservation- which they called a request-had been accepted. Since we didn't have any idea of the details i had my brother call in again and ask eat we needed to know and he texted me eat they told him. We had a time and location and company name. What could go wrong? Well a lot. As said above the time was 1 hour off. The location was wrong. And the 3rd party booking company had a thick accent and my brother heard a slightly different company name. So I was looking around for wet monkey tours and it was suppose to be wet money tours. I am sure the locals I asked must of smiled behind my back at this dumb american. And the most important detail we didn't know is that we had to pay the balance due in cash! For 5 of us that was $425. I brought my visa card but don't carry that much cash anywhere.

 

We almost didn't bring much cash on the trip as everyone takes a credit card right? Well the website I booked on said nothing about requiring cash only payments but the email after our reservation was accepted did. Problem was we didn't get the email until waiting at the cruise plaza on shore an hour early and there was free wifi. I had a ton of emails and glanced over the entire email missing the cash only part. More on that later.

 

To continue we barely found the meeting place. The casino we were to meet in front of had closed and the signage removed. Again we didn't know we had to pay in cash - we later saw that after we got our emails from free WiFi on beach, and we almost missed the boat cause our driver thought 230 meant local time and 230 ship time was really130 local time… more on that later...

 

Lesson learned is if things are iffy on anything I would either book with the ship or wait til you are in port and deal with the supplier directly.

 

The good news is that yes, In turks there are cheaper local tours both right on beach and then outside the terminal gates.

 

Now the good part about our day is that we went with wet money tours. They offered what I was looking for. You can get them online directly. We went to stingrays then the wall then shallow reef then an island tour. Suprisngly the island tour was awesome. The island has No taxes a, small jail where if the prisoners work pick g up trash each day around the island they get TV and internet, saw all the churches and etc.

 

Some customers joined part of our wet money tour from buying a tour right at the dock. The tricky thing there is timing. Be there when the tour is leaving. I choose this tour specifically because they had 4 parts to their tour.. I really wanted to do the wall, stingrays, tour, and shallow dive.. The wall was awesome.

 

It seemed the other tours i found from the ship or online did not do the wall and the stingrays and city tour. I guess what I am saying is I would book with Wet Money tours but do it directly. Just be clear what local time is vs. Ship time is and learn exactly where to meet.

 

So we finished the snorkeling and such and then we had the city tour and had a few minute break. They asked for payment then. Cash. What? I opened my email and sure enough. Again I don't carry that kind of cash. We were on the beach. Our island tour was starting In 20.

 

Luckily we had brought more cash than I ever travel with and so I made a bee line to the ship. Down the beach past Jacks shack and through the shops and down the dock. Got to the room and counted out the money. Then recounted and got something different. Counted again. Then ran down the ships stairs. Down the pier. Through the shops. Down the beach to the meeting place. Out of breath. Probably took 30 minutes as my family stayed behind as collateral.

 

We learned later that because we started the tour on ships time and not local time they were planning on giving us the island tour first but since we showed up early we were put on their little boat to do the stingrays first. So when we finished the water part the tour company had some delays getting us our Isla d tour part. I want to be clear it wasn't their fault. We did have to wait a bit more and the driver had his uncle pick us up and take us to him. This was actually kind d of cool and added to the local flavor.

 

The scariest part dealt with the island time being different than the ship time. No one told us that.

Thankfully my wife had the time under control or I would be swimming to San Juan for our next stop. Lesson leaned. Serious untold the driver we had until 230. But we actually had til 130 local time. My wife had set her cell phone to ship time and thankfully the local cell phone service had not auto updated her phone time to island time. So she kept us on track and got us to the ship at 230. They untitled the stairs as we were getting on. I think we were the last ones on. Scary. Scare if the cell phone had changed times automatically as they can do as she specifically had set her cell phone clock to ship time and so we were thinking we had to be back when her phone said 230. Again local time, local cell phone time also, siad 130. God's hand was with us this day.

 

Had we missed the ship I don't know what we would have done. There is no ships or daily ferry service anywhere at least to our next stop. They fly a little puddle jumper a few times a week over to providence. We had no cash. No clothes. And a visa card. And my son's diabetes supplies and insulin and insulin pump were on the ship. Missing the boat could have honestly been a life and death situation for us unless this tiny island that was 2 miles by 7 Miles had insulin and needles and supplies they would sell us with our visa card…. More importantly I have no idea if and when we could have gotten out of there to reach our ship and at what cost. 5 of us with expensive walk up fares at the airport. Again no clothes except our swimsuits. Wow… it's got me awake at 2 am realizing the gravity of how close to disaster we came. Had my wife's phone reset to local time we would have been sunk. And we learned never cut it so close. God has saved me many times from disaster. My family was saved again and it is obvious to me God was with us this day.

 

Moving on -

 

The free WiFi at Margarita villa required a password which was ville2015. I wish we would have known that as we were within range as we pulled in to port. I sat outside watching us pulling and had wifi signal but not a password. As the year changes tomorrow I wonder if they password will change.

 

Back to the ship- The comedian tonight was funny but a bit too sexual in her jokes to have my teenage boys in room. The teens club seems good as my boys were drawn too it.

 

The library is actually huge up at the crows nest. About 5 times the size of our last 10 cruises combined so it seems.

 

We had a larger group of 7 at dinner but wanted the flexibility of anytime dinning. The first day I called the Vista and made reservations which saved a wait. He gave me 530 or 730 pm.as choices since we had a large group. Those are the times for fixed searing which is fine. During the first meal the guy at the front stand by the door came by and told us with a group of 7 he could avoid the lines for us if we took a fixed time of 530 and sit at the exact same table with the same waiters. So we decided to take it. Essentially we switched from flexible dinning to early dinning. But it was worth it to give up a wait each night or a phone call to make nightly reservations. In the Vista the 3rd floor is normally for fixed dinning and 2nd floor is flexible. But 2nd floor views are much better because the windows are right on the water where the 3rd floor has the walking track around it. 3 laps equal a mile by the way

 

We used the phones some as our group was divided amount three cabins. You dial zero then 4 digit cabin number. Guest services is 90.

 

Someone in our group didn't get their suitcase so as we left port we called the front desk 3hich is called the office and the bag had been held back because there was an iron in it. We had to sign a former that the ship would hold it til the end of the cruise. So don't bring an iron. They let a curling iron through though which could also cause a fire

 

At the muster drill they do scan your card. They hunt you down if you don't show up. In fact they take you off the ship if you don't go to the muster drill even if you are on a back to back cruise on this ship.

 

This is a non smoking ship except it is allowed on the back outside and perhaps specific designated places.

 

The lido deck food closes up a bit early with only pizza offered past 930 most nights. Our waiter told us of midnight buffet on gala night that was not on the program.

 

Most people dressed up for the gala night. Some wore fancy flip flops and their best jeans. Personal preference I guess. Gala nights were the 2 sea days even though our tickets said 4 gals nights … we though with new years eve it might be more.

 

The room safe is the standard set your own 4 digit code style. If you have your halfway door open and you open your balcony door be prepared for a gigantic wind tunnel. I mean stuff flying around .. papers and shoes and clothes and pillows. Not quite but maybe.

 

If you travel with kids or teens they put the daily schedule for that age group in your little holder outside your room the night before. That is nice so my kids knew what was going on without going up to the loft each day to check first.

 

The raved about pinnacle grill is 10 surcharge for lunch and 29 for dinner and then on the last gala night it is 59 per person I think. It turns into le cirque -a top notch NYC resturuant.

 

There are two pools and the family pool and 2 hot tubs for kids is mid ship and has a cover for bad weather. When the cover is closed it smells like a city pool. High chlorine. The back pool is for adults. The two hot tubs in back as small. 3 people.

 

Just in San Juan. US cell service as local on Verizon. Off to the free trolley

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for reporting in.

What a day you had arranging a tour in Grand Turk. Yes there are a lot of local vendors near the from of the shops area.

We were on the Zuiderdam (again) last spring.

There was a card on bed the night before we got to Grand Turk as well as notation in the daily "On Location" program about time difference and changing our clocks.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your cruise.

[sail7seas]

Thanks for sharing with us about your cruise.

Interesting reading.

Hope you have fun tonight for New Years Eve. :)

[Mtn2Sea]

Thanks for your report. Glad you made it back to the ship!

[ZSandy25]

Could feel your anxiety while reading about Grand Turk, yikes. I'm overly cautious about port time and being back to the ship on time. Would be interesting to read about anyone who has missed the ship and what happened.

Happy New Year to you and your family..

[POA1]

Thanks for your report. I hope the stress level goes down for the next segment. :)

[erewhon]

Thanks for your report.

What a worrying time you had, hope the remainder of your cruise is trouble free.

Happy New Year.

[DaveOKC]

We generally do ship excursions, but have done some on our own or through roll call groups. While these independent tours went off well, I think it really depends on the ports you are going to.

 

Since we were on HAL's tours, we did not worry, even when one of the buses broke down in the middle of a rain forest an hour from the ship, as we knew that HAL would take care of us. Our tour was running late to begin with, so we barely made the ship.

 

On the other hand, I heard several reports from roll call members with less than optimal experiences. Late tours, missing places, etc. were reported.

 

I realize that one cruise does not make a trend, but rather my point is that we are very cautious about taking private tours unless we are comfortable with the area and/or vendor. Saving a few dollars on the tour is not worth the worry IMO, and I am a person who does not spend money easily!

Edited January 1, 2016 by DaveOKC