Pete and Judy's 2020 World Cruise on the ms Amsterdam, Holland America Line

[The-Inside-Cabin]

We are still in SYD.  Cleared security and immigration.    They carefully reviewed our passport for evidence of recent travel to a restricted country.   We were good to go and got a red dot!  
 

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Some Tim Tam aficionados claim the US versions are made with different chocolate and not the same.     For me.....I can't tell the difference....... 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

I am glad to be on a plane heading back rather than doing what the Zaandam is facing.  
 

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

 

Our flight has WiFi....Yeah!

 

Everything went smooth this AM.   We found a luggage trolley abandoned nearby, saving us $4 AUD.   Check in at United was a breeze.   They did ask if we had been to a long list of countries in the last 14 days.  Generally Europe and Asia.   We have been in Australia since 7 March - so not a problem for us.

 

After check in we cleared immigration - there was zero lines - same for security.  

 

Once past security, it was like we were in the Mall of the Americas.  Dozens of high end shops - all open but not very busy.

 

I found the tax refund office and got my Australian Tax refunded for our purchases.   No line and very speedy.

 

We picked up a few TimTams, water and diet coke and headed to gate 53.

 

I was going to get a Starbucks, but is closed at noon for some reason.  I didn't ask why.

 

Sometimes when you are leaving for a USA bound flight - there is another layer or security.  Today there was a table set up to randomly swap bags for explosives.   We've observed that once the tables are full, scurry by as quickly as you can, because once they have a free spot they will grab the next available passenger.

 

Boarding was efficient and we were soon settled into our Premium Economy seats.   They were at a nice price point $1200 one way, but have much more leg room with a 2-4-2 configuration.  

 

We took off on time and I was pleased to find their was Wifi available.   $28.95  

 

Settling in for a long flight...

[MMDown Under]

2 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

We are still in SYD.  Cleared security and immigration.    They carefully reviewed our passport for evidence of recent travel to a restricted country.   We were good to go and got a red dot!  
 

 

Enjoy your long haul flight and your Tim Tam's.  I'm finding in self isolation, you can never have too much comfort food!

(Did you catch up with the fast moving news in Sydney?  You are leaving JIT.  Aussies are banned from travelling overseas now.  Virgin is putting off workers and reducing capacity. Australians off a cruise ship (Vasta da Gama?), which was terminating at Fremantle, are going to be put in quarantine on Rottnest Island.  Two other cruise ships are off the Coast of Fremantle, but passengers and crew cannot disembark, except for serious illness.  WA Health officials have gone on board one ship to help them identify which people are ill.  Australians are now receiving text messages from the Government.  The first looks like a test -Coronavirus Aus Gov msg: To stop the spread, stay 1.5m from others, follow rules on social gatherings, ash hands, stay home if sick. aus.gov.au  I hope you have a smooth flight.) 

Edited March 25, 2020 by MMDown Under

[Kindergirl]

12 hours ago, MamaFej said:

I'm looking forward to hearing that you are home safely. Each time I hear that someone is, I think, "Woo hoo!"

 

I was so pleased to wake up to an email from my aunt (in-law) that said she and her husband are home safely in Hawaii and under quarantine.

@MamaFej I am so glad to hear your aunt and uncle made it home safely as well!

[IllinoisGirl1978]

9 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

I was going to get a Starbucks, but is closed at noon for some reason.  I didn't ask why.

Heads up all cafe Starbucks are closed for two weeks or more. Certain drive thrus are only open with VERY limited hours in the US and Canada.  

[MMDown Under]

10 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

Our flight has WiFi....Yeah!

 

Everything went smooth this AM.   We found a luggage trolley abandoned nearby, saving us $4 AUD.   Check in at United was a breeze.   They did ask if we had been to a long list of countries in the last 14 days.  Generally Europe and Asia.   We have been in Australia since 7 March - so not a problem for us.

 

After check in we cleared immigration - there was zero lines - same for security.  

 

Once past security, it was like we were in the Mall of the Americas.  Dozens of high end shops - all open but not very busy.

 

I found the tax refund office and got my Australian Tax refunded for our purchases.   No line and very speedy.

 

We picked up a few TimTams, water and diet coke and headed to gate 53.

 

I was going to get a Starbucks, but is closed at noon for some reason.  I didn't ask why.

 

Sometimes when you are leaving for a USA bound flight - there is another layer or security.  Today there was a table set up to randomly swap bags for explosives.   We've observed that once the tables are full, scurry by as quickly as you can, because once they have a free spot they will grab the next available passenger.

 

Boarding was efficient and we were soon settled into our Premium Economy seats.   They were at a nice price point $1200 one way, but have much more leg room with a 2-4-2 configuration.  

 

We took off on time and I was pleased to find their was Wifi available.   $28.95  

 

Settling in for a long flight...

From noon all cafes and restaurants in Australia had to close.  They had to remove all furniture by noon.  They were permitted to sell take away coffees.  NZ has started at the top level of restrictions and do not allow the sale of take away coffee.  Overseas holidays are banned.  The Governments want everyone to stay home.  On Wednesday midnight, Qld was the last state to close its borders with NSW.  No-one can holiday in Qld - the Sunshine State - camp grounds and Nat Parks all closed.  You may have read Bondi Beach was closed because only 500 people were allowed on that huge beach, at the one time.  Virgin has laid off 8,000 staff.  All elective surgery has been suspended.  The States and the Federal Government Combined Cabinet is holding daily meetings on how best to manage the spread of the virus.  

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by MMDown Under

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, MMDown Under said:

From noon all cafes and restaurants in Australia had to close.  They had to remove all furniture by noon.  They were permitted to sell take away coffees.  NZ has started at the top level of restrictions and do not allow the sale of take away coffee.  Overseas holidays are banned.  The Governments want everyone to stay home.  On Wednesday midnight, Qld was the last state to close its borders with NSW.  No-one can holiday in Qld - the Sunshine State - camp grounds and Nat Parks all closed.  You may have read Bondi Beach was closed because only 500 people were allowed on that huge beach, at the one time.  Virgin has laid off 8,000 staff.  All elective surgery has been suspended.  The States and the Federal Government Combined Cabinet is holding daily meetings on how best to manage the spread of the virus.  

 

 

What are they supposed to do with the furniture? Is that order a way to stop eat-in service?

 

I've lost track of the Amsterdam travelers. Is there anyone (that we know of on CC) still to arrive (or soon to arrive) after The-Inside-Cabin?

 

[MMDown Under]

8 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

What are they supposed to do with the furniture? Is that order a way to stop eat-in service?

 

I've lost track of the Amsterdam travelers. Is there anyone (that we know of on CC) still to arrive (or soon to arrive) after The-Inside-Cabin?

 

Yes,  We sadly watched our little local family cafe packing up their new furniture prior to the noon deadline.  We hope they are going to continue with take-aways.

Edited March 25, 2020 by MMDown Under

[rafinmd]

Pete and Judy should be stateside within the next 3 hours or so.

 

Roy

[1ANGELCAT]

14 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

Pete and Judy should be stateside within the next 3 hours or so.

 

Roy

According to UA flight status , they landed 38 minutes early at SFO

[The-Inside-Cabin]

 

We arrived safe and sound in SFO early.   Our connection to San Diego went fine - only about 10 people on the plane.   

 

Our long time driver met us and took us to the grocery on the way home.   

 

Both car batteries were dead.   Next time I will disconnect batteries as someone suggested.   No one easily available here to run cars from time to time. 

 

All good.   More to come as I recover from Jet Lag.

 

Glad to be off the ship - HAL did the right thing getting us home.

 

[Mr. Boston]

Welcome back. This year’s world cruise definitely had a different twist!  Glad you are both safe at home.

[Storylady]

On 3/21/2020 at 1:13 PM, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

Day 77, Fremantle, Western Australia

KEEP SMILING

 

Today is the final night of our abbreviated Grand World Voyage.  As you recall, my first post had the headline “Happy Days are Here Again!”.  This post is labeled “Keep Smiling”.  Although we are disappointed that we didn’t complete the cruise, HAL has been very generous with their FCC and we will be able to go on the 2022 World Cruise with little additional cash outlay. 

 

 

For the most part,  everyone is still smiling. There are always some who never seem to be happy, but that is their problem if they want to look for the bad side of every situation, always seeking to assign blame and tell everyone how they are doing it wrong.  We even heard that someone complained that the spa people were smiling too much and were too happy considering the circumstances.  Well – to them I say “Keep Smiling!”

 

 

The salad makers in the Lido keep smiling!

 

STRESS

 

Much of the stress among some passengers is a byproduct of the cruise experience.  Cruising allows travelers who aren’t experienced in navigating strange airports, dealing with taxi drivers, switching terminals,  reading funny menus, etc. to see the world in the comfort of the Holland America bubble.  They can see the world without flying and come 'home' to familiar food and the same bed every night.  Shore excursions are planned and the only travel skill required is to know how to find the main stage meeting point for a tour excursion.  When the HAL bubble burst, through no fault of HAL, some people who never made an airline reservation on their own, never rode in a taxi, don’t have cell phones, don’t know how to navigate internet were in maximum stress.  HAL would eventually sort everything out, but their stress was understandable.

 

THE BLOG CONTINUES

 

I will complete the rest of the cruise blog port posts as I get time over the next week.  I try to write my blog with an eye toward future cruisers to use as a port reference in addition to a daily chronicle.

 

JESSE AND COLLEEN KAZEMEK

 

Here in Fremantle, we were berthed between Seabourn and Princess.  While we were in the Crow's Nest,  Jesse and Colleen Kazemek,  guest entertainers from the Beatles Show, emailed us from the Pacific Princess.  We ran out to the forward observation deck and they went out to their aft dining area and we waved and took pictures of each other.

 

 

They got on the Pacific Princess on 29 Feb and will remain onboard until April 14th or so.  They are doing new shows with all the other guest entertainers who are stuck on the Pacific Princess.

 

 

Keep Smiling!

 

 

This photo was taken thru the Crow's Nest glass, making it a little fuzzy

 

SPOTLIGHT SHOW

 

Emilio, the extremely talented lead guitar for the HAL orchestra, performed a spotlight show at 7 PM tonight and was wonderful. He played for 45 minutes and was backed up by the HAL orchestra.

 

 

He played a mix of Beatles songs and Santana with a little Chuck Berry and surf music thrown in. The audience leapt to their feet in a rousing standing ovation when he finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RUMORS

 

We heard a rumor, unconfirmed, that a select few passengers from Seabourn and the Amsterdam may be sailing back to LA on the Pacific Princess.  It may be guest entertainers or crew or passengers, but it made for interesting speculation.

 

HEADING HOME

 

We are heading back home on the 22nd at 3:20 PM Perth Time.  We have arranged for a driver service to take us to the airport ($100 AUD).  Once we land in Sydney, we will stay at the airport hotel until 1 PM on the 25th when we take a United Flight to SFO and then on to SAN.  We should be back home by 2 PM on the 25th. 

 

Our driver in San Diego has been taking us to the airport since 2008 so we know him quite well.  He hasn't had a job in 5 days and has nothing scheduled for 3 weeks.  We plan to have him take us to the grocery on the way home as our cupboard is bare.  

 

 

Our debarkation window is supposed to be between 8 and 11 AM tomorrow, but we will be ready for changes as passengers who left the ship today waited several hours past their original debarkation time.

 

Pete,

 

Wonderful blog as usual. Love your comments about HAL Guest Services and the stressed out passengers who have never made an air reservation and don’t use the internet. Our TA hosts onboard were helping many of those passengers who had failed to get the NZ visa or the correct NZ visa. And until Sri Lanka was cancelled, they were helping with the Sri Lanka visa.
 

Then when the news broke that our cruise was cancelled and we would be leaving in Perth. Our TA hosts took information to send to our TA agency so the staff could book flights, hotels, etc. for them. Our hosts are just as old as us and they worked just as hard as HAL to book everyone’s flights. We were the lucky ones in that we chose to fly on ANA to Tokyo and then to LAX using air miles. We won’t get reimbursed for our air miles, but having saved them for long flight such as we had, I didn’t mind as we would be more comfortable flying in Business Class. Our first flight doing so. So even though our cruise ended abruptly, we had another adventure flying on ANA which definitely deserve their #3 ranking in the world.

 

As for the rumor about passengers being allowed to go on the Pacific Princess. We heard info on that from a Pacific Princess Passenger who said about 15 HAL passengers were escorted to the Pacific Princess for the trip back to Ft Lauderdale on Monday. They all had to sign a waiver. He also said that the Pacific Princess would be collecting a few passengers from other ships. 
 

Keep posting as we will enjoy reading your new blog entries plus your old blog entries (slow internet prevented me from blog reading plus just enjoying each day on our cruise which definitely had lots of highs despite the abrupt ending).

[Storylady]

On 3/25/2020 at 8:23 AM, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

What are they supposed to do with the furniture? Is that order a way to stop eat-in service?

 

I've lost track of the Amsterdam travelers. Is there anyone (that we know of on CC) still to arrive (or soon to arrive) after The-Inside-Cabin?

 

We were part of the last 200 onboard that departed Monday. As I have said repeatedly, we were one of the lucky ones who made their air reservations immediately. Was going to have my TA do it. When checking to see if I had enough air miles for Business Class (we had been saving miles for when we did another super long flight),  we discovered we did. We then booked our flight on ANA to Tokyo and then to Japan. Jeff and Joyce were on the first leg of our flight along with Bob & Judy. Jeff & Joyce who are frequent flyers helped Bob and Judy get home to Florida. They hadn’t flown for 24 years. We found a lot of Amsterdam passengers were helping other passengers who weren’t as internet and flight savvy. Kudos to those on the Amsterdam who helped others out.
 

Our travel went without a hitch. We were able to use the Air NZ lounge (partner with ANA) as soon as we checked our luggage and got our boarding passes. While in the ANA Lounge in Tokyo, we literally had it to ourselves. On our flight to Tokyo, business class was full of Amsterdam passengers. And on our flight to LAX, there was only 9 of us in the business class section that had 46 seats. Rest of plane was just as empty. ANA took hygiene to the extreme and I felt safe onboard which helped reduce some of the stress I had about having to fly home.

 

We also can’t say enough about the HAL crew: Henk, Crystal, the Front Desk staff, Glenn-Michael, the shore excursion team led by Diamonta who pitched in to help shorten the line. But the real heroes are the Front Desk team who stood there hour after hour fielding questions and keeping a smile when I am sure they wanted to quit or cry from some of the abuse they took from some of the HAL passengers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Storylady]

3 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

We arrived safe and sound in SFO early.   Our connection to San Diego went fine - only about 10 people on the plane.   

 

Our long time driver met us and took us to the grocery on the way home.   

 

Both car batteries were dead.   Next time I will disconnect batteries as someone suggested.   No one easily available here to run cars from time to time. 

 

All good.   More to come as I recover from Jet Lag.

 

Glad to be off the ship - HAL did the right thing getting us home.

 

Pete, get a battery minder. Our nephew who is a truck and car aficionado recommended it to us. We have been using it for years and it works beautifully. Batteries were a 100%

 

Thanks for all your postings. That’s a lot of work doing a blog and posting on CC too. It is fun ready everyone’s adventures.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

3 minutes ago, Storylady said:

Pete, get a battery minder. Our nephew who is a truck and car aficionado recommended it to us. We have been using it for years and it works beautifully. Batteries were a 100%

 

Thanks for all your postings. That’s a lot of work doing a blog and posting on CC too. It is fun ready everyone’s adventures.

We live in a condo with no electrical power in the garage.    I think all the trickle chargers need power.   Not sure if there is Big Battery version.....

[MMDown Under]

2 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

We live in a condo with no electrical power in the garage.    I think all the trickle chargers need power.   Not sure if there is Big Battery version.....

No electrical power in your garage - where is your men's shed?  What is  trickle charger?

[The-Inside-Cabin]

11 minutes ago, Storylady said:

 

 

We also can’t say enough about the HAL crew: Henk, Crystal, the Front Desk staff, Glenn-Michael, the shore excursion team led by Diamonta who pitched in to help shorten the line. But the real heroes are the Front Desk team who stood there hour after hour fielding questions and keeping a smile when I am sure they wanted to quit or cry from some of the abuse they took from some of the HAL passengers.

 

Diamonta was very proactive with her team in working the queue of people waiting for guest services.   They were able to triage many questions that didn't need guest services access to accounts and computers etc.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

5 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

No electrical power in your garage - where is your men's shed?  What is  trickle charger?

I live in a condo - no power in the garage - except in  our storage room.  I can't run an extension cord across the floor for that long. 

 

A trickle charger is a low amp battery charger that will replace the  natural small decay of batteries to keep them at about the same level for extended periods of time.  

[The-Inside-Cabin]

To help transition back home from the comforts of the ship, I adapted the HAL menu to reflect our menu for tomorrow from a local Sushi Place via Carry Out. 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by The-Inside-Cabin

[Cruise Suzy]

8 hours ago, Storylady said:

Jeff & Joyce who are frequent flyers helped Bob and Judy get home to Florida. They hadn’t flown for 24 years. We found a lot of Amsterdam passengers were helping other passengers who weren’t as internet and flight savvy. Kudos to those on the Amsterdam who helped others out.

 

Welcome home, take care. Yes, kudos to cruisers helping others - and, as you mentioned, crew helping cruisers.

[jimbri]

Welcome home!