Trip reviwe: HAL Veendam Tampa-Key West-Banana Coast-SantaTomas de Castilla-CostaMaya

[nothriver]

We returned home yesterday from a wonderful cruise and I wanted to take a few minutes to briefly ouline some of our experiences.

 

First I'd like to appologize to my fellow cruisers for not participating at all in the Roll Call, life is hectic, I did a mininum of planning for this trip and unfortunately did not have time to socialize with others. Aside from one single unsupervised child, our fellow cruisers seemed to be a fabulous bunch of people and I do regret not getting to know any of them before or during the cruise.

 

We flew Allegiant, direct flight to PIE from our hometown is great but otherwise Allegiant is what it is, I always pray they get me to my destination alive and don't expect much more of them. I needed to call because I missed one letter in one persons name, and was on hold for over 50 minutes to get assistance.

 

I emailed over a dozen limo companies in Tampa for airport - hotel transport hotel, less than half even responded, one with a completely blank email and one saying they charge $90/hr, with a 4 hour minimum on Fri & Sat (no thanks). We went with the lowest priced service, Crown Royal Limousine. They were prompt and professional in responding to emails before our trip. The driver called on arrival and told us he'd wait outside, so although he did not come in he picked us up directly outside the door of baggage pickup which was very convenient. I would use them again and recommend their services.

 

We stayed at Embassy Suites Tampa Downtown Convention Ctr. This was a fiasco, do not under any circumstances stay at this hotel. We arrived at 2:30pm, got one of our 3 rooms at 4pm, and the other 2 room at 6pm. We were given $50 off the rate for each room which I don't feel was adequate considering the lengthly delay. Front desk was professional considering they had an entire lobby full of guests without rooms. There is obviously an issue with managment, training or something. Once we did get our rooms, housekeeping was still at work on our floor, socializing, and had the hall blocked so I had to lift luggage over my head to get through the carts to get to my room. Rooms appeared reasonably clean but no coffee left in the rooms. The free breakfast was equally chaotic, we arried when breakfast opened, 7:30 I believe, there was no coffee until half an hour later, no spoons were available, but the food itself was good and the people making omlets were especially friendly. Unfortunately my son ironed his khaki pants the morning of our departure and then accidentally left them at the the hotel, we called Lost and Found within an hour of checking out, and again the next day, and again on our arrival back in Tampa, and they admitted they hadn't even looked for them and acted like they couldn't have cared less. Fortunately my son was able to buy khakis at our first port in Key West, so only one night in the main dining room in his jeans, oops.

 

While waiting for our rooms, some of us walked over and visited the Aquarium and had a nice visit there, they had some nice hands on activities for the kids. Seemed a little overpriced for the size of the facility, but it was a great way to kill a few hours since we didn't have rooms and couldn't use the hotel pool as planned. We at a nearby pizza place, I dont recall the name but it was pretty good.

 

The morning of embarkation, there were taxis waiting including a van that fit our group of 6, I think he charged $18 for just those few blocks. We arrived at the port about 9:30, a porter took our bags, and we had to wait outside until 10am when we were among the first inside and checked in. It was especially convenient that our table number was listed on our cards, so I was able to confirm we were all together and find a floor plan of the dining room while we waited to board, and decide that the location was satisfactory before even bording. Details are already escaping me, but it was maybe 11:30 before we were able to board. Sadly there was no embarkation luncheon as there was a group of travel agents dining in the main dining room. As we were among the first on board, we hightailed it for the Lido that was soon insanely crowded, no embarkation luncheon definately pushes the Lido beyond its capacity.

[chefestelle]

Is there more to come? I'm interested to hear more!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[nothriver]

So, we loved the Veendam, absolutely loved it. The staff was exceptional, service was impeciable, the ship was beautiful. I just loved the layout of the ship, our cabin location was absolutely ideal.

 

We'd originally booked Lanai cabins, three cabins for our group of 6, and were offered an upgrade to Veranda cabins on deck 9, which I reluctantly accepted at an upcharge of $199 per person. I'm so glad we took the upgrade. OUr stateroom attendants Ivan & Agus were wonderful and very friendly. My daughter so loves the towel animals. Our cabins 183-185-187 were so conveniently situated near the aft elevator, perfect for my mother with limited mobility. One deck up from fixed dining, and so convenient for the library and explorations cafe which is my favorite part of the ship, and equally convenient for my daughter in Club Hal. The one singular weird thing with any of our staterooms was one night about 9-9:30pm, a maintenance worker woke my mother when he entered the room to "look at the wallpaper"; our ship was just a week before a drydock and I do understand they must have been assessing the ship for repairs, but our family generally goes to bed early, plus my mother was suffering from a bad cold, and I though it was inappropriate for staff to be entering the rooms at that time of night. We felt the Veendam to be in excellent condition and noticed no wear to the ship. The only thing I missed about sailing on an older ship vs the newer ships was the all glass railing on the veranda, and even more so, the veranda's that can be opened for shared veranda among adjacent staterooms as we've enjoyed on Eurodam and Silouhette. Also, Club Hal is not really handicap accessible because the aft elevator does not go up to Club Hal, my mother would have had to climb one flight of aft stairs, or, walk all the way to the forward elevator then walk back across the outside deck to get to Club Hal which is not practical in the dark with wind or rain, so she simply did not go up there. Minor inconvenieces for the otherwise convenient layout of the ship and the extra attentive service we felt we received on this cruise.

 

One of my personal favorite activities is the library and the communal puzzle tables, and as a person with motion sickness, I loved having this on a lower deck at the center of the ship. The library was truly a beautiful room, wonderful books for perusing, wonderful chairs for lounging, and a wonderful librarian on staff. This is the best library I've found on a cruise ship and I truly enjoyed this space every single day of the cruise.

 

While I did attend a couple shows, and catch some snipits of other live music, Im frankly not much of a "show" person so I can't add much commentary there. I did miss the Blues Club that I'd dearly loved every single night on our last cruise on Eurodam, now THAT was my kind of entertainment! I would love if they could encorporate the Blues Club fleetwide, but that is just my personal preference.

 

We had fixed early dining. We were assigned Table 30 and couldn't have possibly have had a better location or wait staff. Kadek and Tama were excellent, the dining room manager Freddy was also extremely attentive. We love the yum yum man calling us to diner with the chimes and offering after dinner mints, this is such a quaint tradition, I can't really express how much I love this, I hope it continues. The portions of the main courses perhaps seemed smaller, but I believe this is the highest quality food we've had on any ship. At times, members of our group asked for seconds of varoius items and they were delivered promptly without hesitation. I had beef most nights and found it excellent. We are from Iowa and have raised livestock so our standards are high and rarely met when traveling, so this is high praise. Aside from the meat, all of the sides were perfectly prepared. Many of our dishes were accompanied with various greens that were prefectly prepared, seasoned, and served at the perfect temperature, which is such a difficult to task to achieve. All of the deserts were wonderful. With a family history of cardiac failure, I do wish they could go a little lighter on the sodium, but I realize we are unusually sensitive to sodium levels. Overall, our experience in the main dining room far exceeded all possible expectations and we can't speak highly enough of the entire dining staff in this regard.

 

Room service breakfasts were delivered promptly on time and as ordered, though as with past cruises, we've found it best to stick with cold items and baked goods. Lido was as expected, with embarkation day the only time we felt it crowded. One disappointment was that we traditionally grab a snack after picking up the kids from Club Hal, which closes at 10, and on this cruise, nothing at all was available in the Lido until 10:30, so no before bed ice cream for the kids as is our tradition each night on all past cruises, and was a disappointment for them, especially when the sign by the ice cream station stated they would be open at that time, but they were not, so the kids insisted on checking every night until the sign was finally changed a few days into the cruise.

 

Club Hal was excellent, one of the reasons we choose HAL is for the always excellent Club HAL, frankly I have no idea what they do there, but my daughter loves it, she never enjoyed kids club on Celebrity.

 

We enjoyed the Lido pool every day. There was always lounge chairs to be found, always clean towels and attentive staff. One child on our cruise was always completely supervised and did not follow the rules, this one child managed to stir up a commotion every day, running, jumping, pushing others. Most every day I found myself the only parent in a pool with at least a dozen children. It was amazing how a dozen well behaved children become 13 crazy children with the addition of just one unsupervised misbehaving child. Just an observaion. The ping pong tables were beautiful. We tried to play basketball but why does every cruise single cruise ship have worn out basketballs that are always flat?! Considering the cost of building and maintaining a cruise ship, is a $20 baskball too much to ask for?! Seriously, ridiculous.

 

Port notes up next.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[nothriver]

Is there more to come? I'm interested to hear more!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Thanks Chefestelle, I'm working on it. Please pardon the typos syntax and spelling. I'll try to get done what I can tonight while the details are fresh. In the past I've done trip reports on Word and edited before posting, then added photos, but my life is crazy so just off the top of my head and out my finger tips is all I've got time for right now.

[chefestelle]

Thank you!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[the2ofus]

We will be on Veendam in May so are enjoying your review. I hope nothing changes except for some sprucing up during drydock.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your report.

 

Keith

[rafinmd]

Thank you for the report. The Veendam is probably HAL's most maligned ship and my experience (past and hopefully future) is that it's far better than people give it credit for.

 

Roy

[colonialinnkeeper]

Thank you for the report. The Veendam is probably HAL's most maligned ship and my experience (past and hopefully future) is that it's far better than people give it credit for.

 

Roy

 

Agree with you, Roy. We have been on the Veendam several times and the ambiance, size, library and staffing are all wonderful. We love sailing on her.

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Looking forward to the rest of your report as I will sail the Veendam in May.

[puppycanducruise]

Thank you for your report.

I'm enjoying reading it and look forward to more.

[Cruising-along]

We will be aboard the Veendam in less than 5 weeks, thank you for your review!

[DeeniEncinitas]

Enjoying your review!!!!!

Denise:)

[nothriver]

Day 2 post cruise, I've yet to purchase groceries. We are just home from work/school and my daughter stated she is was hungry and asked me to run down to Explorations cafe and grab her a Carmelo Creamice and a brownie. I'd say she misses the Veendam! I found an ice cream bar burried in our freezer for her, sorry kiddo, its the best I've got right now.

 

Key West: What isn't to love about Key West? We pre-purchased City View Trolly tickets. Key West is totally walkable, but my mother needs a lift and the Trolly works well for us. You save a couple dollars buying tickets ahead of time, plus you can get the Senior and Student discount for a couple more dollars off, if applicable. I believe they were selling the tickets for $20/person on the ship. We were surprised to find one of their Trollys parked right outside our cruise ship, very convenient, we'd expected to have to take the shuttle into town to grab the Trolly. On our last trip to Key West, we'd very much enjoyed Eco-Discovery Center and the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Ingham Maritime Museum which were both closed this time because it was Monday, as well as the Lighthouse museum. What a shame for these wonderful museums to be closed with several ships in port, it seems to me that given the number of tourists in town they should be open despite being a Monday. In any case, this trip, my 10 yr old daughter and I headed directly to Hemingways house, for the sole purpose of visiting the six toed cats, and we throughly enjoyed our visit which was mostly spent petting cats, what can I say, we like cats, and hopefully, this will lead to a literary interest in Hemingway in the future. We managed to again get the obligatory photos at the southermnost point and Mile 0, as well as eat some key lime pie before meeting back up with the rest of our group. My mother and my son, as I mentioned previously, went in search of khaki pants for my hard to fit son, and apparantly lots of other tall thin young men shop in Key West as they found plenty to choose from there, assuring an appropriate dining room attire for the rest of the trip. My nephew and his girlfriend enjoyed some of the bars and shipping. Our trip concidintally landed on "Pi Day", and an extra special one at that 3/14/16 = 3.1416, so we actually went to Kermits Key Lime Pie shop twice, visiting both locations as we met the rest of our group there. I don't even like key lime pie, but Kermit really knows his pie, and I personally love the chocolate covered version, and my daughter likes the key lime jelly beans sold there. We had to wait in quite a long line to get the shuttle back to the ship, the people operating the shuttle weren't very helpful, we asked them if we were in the right place for the shuttle and they said yes, but apparantly they'd already counted off people to fill the next shuttle and we were waiting but they didn't tell us we werent actually in the line until after one shuttle was filled, so we had to go to the end of the line and wait for two more shuttles to fill before we got seats, my mother was miserable standing there for so long. Our prior trip the ship was docked in town and it was very convenient, this time we were docked further out by the naval base which essentially cut our port time by almost an hour because of the shuttle process to get back to the ship. Nonetheless, Key West is a great town for families, there are still a couple museums for us to visit on future trips.

[chefestelle]

Well, if I ever get there, the six toed cats will be our destination, too!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[nothriver]

Banana Coast: Trujillo, Honduras

 

I had very little information about this port before our cruise. From what I could tell, it was a completely undeveloped port. Indeed, while there were buildings at the port, the were completely vacant and unfinished, aside from the bathrooms, which were very nice, and a small store. Otherwise, there were booths set up outside the buildings. No information whatsoever about this port was provided on the ship, the booklet outlining the ports simply skipped this port entirely. No maps were provided either on board, while leaving the ship, or at the port. There was a small beach area inside the port itself, and we did spend a little time here before venturing outside the port on our own. There was a large secuirity presence inside the port area itself. We heard from those that took ship tours that they were accompanied by security, also. In retrospect, perhaps we should have been wandering around on our own, but we didn't venure more than a mile inland, and honestly we found the locals to be very friendly.

 

Immediately outside the secure port area, we found local youth offering "free guide service", which we declined. There were also a few taxis there that I assume could have taken adventurous travelers wherever they desired. An American expat who was there offering tours suggested we turn left, then right for a "nicer walk" to town, and suggested a resturant, so we followed his advice, climbing a substantial hill to the town square. The fort there wanted a few dollars per person to look around, which we also declined, and we did not check out the local church. We did do some shopping at some booths set up on the square, and we bought some nice handcrafted jewelry. We also bought and ate (against my better judgement but none of us got sick...) cotton candy and peanuts from local children. We wandered through the little grocery store and some other local market booths, where the locals seemed surprised to see us. The economy seemed to be very very poor in this area. We then wandered down a very steep hill to the restruant suggested by the man at the port, where we very much enjoyed an expensive lunch at $10-15 per meal. However, the food was excellent and the service top notch. My daughter ordered but did not eat a hamberger as she did not like the flavor of the meat, and everyone on staff was very concerned that we were satisfied with our meals, and we assured them that it was ok. The rest of us had seafood which was excellent, we ate inside in the shade but with a view of a beautiful white sand beach, and we all enjoyed the excellent wifi, but at $73 for our group of 5, steep prices, indeed, but we consider this a much needed contribution to the local economy. I'll try to edit with photos and the name of the resturant. The beach in this area seemed much nicer than the beach inside the port area, while I assume it was a public beach, we did not go out to the beach so I'm not certain. We then walked the road back to the port, less than half a mile where we passed numerous bars and resturants, and encountered some children that were begging, very sad. I don't know if this area is "shady" or if the man that sent us the other direction had some connection with the resturant he recommended and wanted us to by pass the others. Everyone we encountered expected us to pay in US dollars, no problem at all using our own currancy at this port.

 

It will be interesting to see how this port develops, it has a long way to go. We enjoyed our day, it was good to see how the locals actually live, I'm not a fan of "Disneyland ports" where tourists are totally shielded from the local culture. That said, do be cautious in this port, it seemed due to the level of security that they almost expected some trouble. I'd worn money belt with cash/passports inside my shorts and though I had worn a swimsuit, I only waded into the water instead of actually swimming with the others as I was not comfortable taking off my money belt. Again, the locals we met all seemed friendly. I wish now we'd used the young "guides" to find our more about their lives, given them an opportunity to practice their english and provide a tip for their services. I also wish I'd downloaded a map of this town to my phone ahead of time as I was nervous wandering outside the port with no map at all. I believe someone said there are 40 ship scheduled to dock here next year, vs only 10 that were here this year, so I hope significant improvements are made to the port itself very soon because it was clearly "under construction" and needed significant improvement in every way.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the report!

[Kreader]

Hi , May I ask who was your cruise director? Thanks,Kendra

[nothriver]

Hi , May I ask who was your cruise director? Thanks,Kendra

 

The cruise director was Jude, which I probably would not have remembered except for her frequent requests for "Hey, Jude" from the audience!

[nothriver]

Regarding the Veranda staterooms on Veendam, I wanted to mention a couple things.

 

There were, sadly, only two outlets in the cabin, both on the desk, one a US style outlet and the other a mainland Euro outlet. The outlet was close to the desk, so my travel surge protector which extends vertically below the outlet did not fit. However, I'd packed several Euro adapters and a couple multi USB port blocks, so we were all able to charge all of our devices.

 

There was a tremendous amount of storage space in the cabin. 9 drawers in the desk area and an additional two drawers in each of the night stands. There were four closets. We travel with carry on only, used two of the closets and only the drawers in the night stand. If you travel with a lot of stuff, these are the staterooms for you. We've been on a couple ships with no drawer space at all, so it was funny to have 9 empty drawers.

 

Also, this is the first ship we've been on with public laundry rooms. There was one forward on Deck 9, and I believe there were at least one if not two others on the ship. It was $2 to wash and $1 to dry. Stuff came our of the washing machine pretty wet, so expect two cycles of the dryer. The laundry room was locked promptly at 10pm and unlocked at 8am. Public laundry was very convenient and saved a ton of money.

[Sirdar]

Thank you for the report. The Veendam is probably HAL's most maligned ship and my experience (past and hopefully future) is that it's far better than people give it credit for.

 

Roy

 

Having sailed Veendam six times, I quite agree with this comment. I'm glad that my experience with the ship is shared by others.

[deck317]

Thanks for the review, nothriver. We were on the same March 13-20 cruise.

 

We also used the Lido pool everyday. I was the dad with a 7 year old son and 4 year old daughter in floaties. It seemed that the pool was a kid magnet, not surprisingly. But it wasn’t so bad and crowded because there were so few kids on this particular cruise: when we first went to Club Hal to check it out, we were surprised to see our kids names on the welcome board! – apparently there were only 17 kids aged 3-7 on board. I was told later that the next cruise would have 150(!), I’m guessing because of Easter week or Florida March break.

 

Highlight of Veendam for me was the dining room. I had previously read about the food being excellent, and we weren’t disappointed. We had open seating, and managed to get promptly seated every non-gala night without reservations. Reservations were only required for the two gala nights. Also top notch was the level of service, throughout the ship.

 

The library was indeed a beautiful and relaxing part of the ship. My son and I played several chess games there. But do be careful about the table edges (kidding) – my daughter somehow managed to hit her forehead on one and suffered a minor cut. The medical team was called and immediately came. She was promptly treated in the infirmary. No complaint with the medical service. There were two doctors there, which may be because of the typical demographics of the ship (and HAL in general?). There was one passenger currently there for over night observation, and the start of the cruise was slightly delayed because of a medical emergency where a passenger had to be removed prior to departure.

 

We did have a problem with our stateroom, which I don’t know if it was specific to our unit or more common on this older ship: the toilet clogged three times. We flushed it properly and didn’t throw in any inappropriate material. The problem was fixed fairly quickly each time, and was followed up with a call to make sure everything was ok. After the third, which turned out to be the final, time, we shortly received a letter informing us of a $150 OBC for the inconvenience. That was an unexpected and pleasant resolution to the whole issue. I hadn’t asked for one nor really complained to them.

[nothriver]

Thanks for the review, nothriver. We were on the same March 13-20 cruise.

 

I was also very surpirsed that there were so few children on our sailing. Our school district always has spring break the third week in March, and frankly, we simply don't travel over spring break when ours coincides with Easter, it is just insanely busy. We actually met a large group of travelers from our hometown on this cruise. I imagine the combination of a reasonably priced cruise with reasonably direct flights on Allegiant that alligned with the sail dates was as appealing to others as it was to us. We have a small airport and almost always connect through Chicago or elsewhere, direct flights to anywhere are a bit of a novelty for us!

 

I'd actually forgotten that our toilet did clog once, but we were on our way out of the cabin at that time, placed a call to let them know and by the time we got back an hour or two later it had been taken care of, so it was a non-issue for us. Though it would have been inconvenient, we were near the stairs, and just one deck up from public bathrooms, had we had ongoing problems.

[nothriver]

Santo Tomas de Castilla, Gutemala

 

We had no pre-arranged plans for this port, but I knew that tours could be booked at the dock. My mother had been suffering from a bad cold and decided to stay on the ship, so it was late morning before the rest of us ventured out. Eventually we split up, my nephew and his girlfriend took at waterfall/rainforest tour, and myself and my two children booked a boat tour. We booked right beside the boat, it appeard others had booked inside the tourism building. I don't know how much they paid, put I paid $49/adult, $45/child. I do know that those that booked inside got a free drink in the town we visited. Our boat was the last to leave at 11am. We were told it was a 3 hour tour, and yes I had the Gilligans Island theme song in my head the whole day. We in fact returned to the dock 4.5 hours later, one hour before all aboard time.

 

My nephew and his friend, both 30, met some interesting "tour operators" on the dock. They were intermediaries, arranging for the taxi drivers for cruise ship passangers. My nephew described one as a "snake", he wanted to make it clear that the drivers could take them to find "whatever they were looking for"... very shady, and a little scary, afterword, I was sorry I had left them on their own, but they did enjoy their visit the rainforest.

 

On our boat tour, our guide was Sandra. I don't know the name of the tour operator, if there was one, or if they just had random guides and random boats. I believer there were 16 passangers on our boat, there was a canopy on the boat, making the very hot day quite plesant in the shade. We crossed the Amatique Bay, past the town of Livingston and up the stunningly beautiful Rio Dulce. This is an area of fishing villages. The buildings here are all traditional stilted with thached roofs, very quaint, lots of waterfoul, very peaceful. We encircled a beautiful area of lily pads, where some very young children in dug out canoes came up to our boat selling trinkets. My daughter bought a bracelet from them for $2, it was absolutely beautiful, made of tiny shells. We then stopped at a riverside resturant where there were caves to tour for $2/person and "hot springs", though the springs fed into the river itself so there weren't hot springs on the hillside as I had imagined, just an area of hot water between the boat dock and the river bank. It smelled very strongly of sulfur. On the return trip, we stopped in Livingston for a walking tour. This town was settled by escaped slaves. Though we were warned not to purchase food off the ship, my kids and I bought baked goods at the bakery there which were absolutely delicous. No one here spoke any english so I offered them $10 for three pastries and a bottle of water and they seemed pleased. There wasn't much to see in the town itself, it is definitely a glimpse into a very different culture. We then sped back to the port, a 25 minute ride from Livingston without slowing for commentary from the guide. The area between the port and Livingston is a resort community but primarily used by professionals from Guatamela City, our guide told us they use their vacation homes there primarily over Easter and Christmas, and everyone in the community was getting ready for the very busy easter week ahead.

 

The port itself is a very large, busy commercial port. This area has very good roads inland because goods from all over the country are shipped to this port for export. There was a large building on the dock for the cruise ship guests with a large number of individual vendor booths. We were tired after a long day and though I would have loved to have shopped, I wasn't in the mood to haggle with the vendors. They all seem so desperate for our dollars, while I'm sympathetic, it just makes for such an unpleasant shopping experience. I was looking for a couple particular items and I wasn't able to just browse, every single vendor was begging me to buy. Also, at this point in our trip we were short on cash, unfortunately because they had some really great stuff at good prices there. So we just looked around quickly, and headed back to the ship. We had a very pleasant day on the water. I would love to visit this port again to see the local communities and the nature preserve.