Prinsendam Grief

[kaymoz]

I'm still not over it.  I only had a chance to sail ONCE on the Prinsendam, literally her last sailing.  She was clearly my favorite of all the ships I've been fortunate to spend some time aboard.  There is  nothing like her that I know of now!  With the covid-induced demise of Pullmantur and Cruise & Maritime, the smaller cruise ships seem to be even more of a rarity.  How I wished I had sailed more on Prinsendam -- if I had only known!  I'm grieving the opportunity to sail all over the world on a delightful, smallish cruise ship with impressive service at a reasonable price. 

Why did I post this?  Just to commiserate, I guess.  Or maybe someone will tell me there is a long-lost cousin to Prinsendam lurking in a passenger fleet unknown to me....dream on! 

Of course, I've fantasized about following Prinsendam to her new life with the Phoenix Reisen cruise line as Amera.  But there is the language barrier for one thing, and also the HAL element.   Sigh.

[RuthC]

I understand precisely where you are coming from. I had barely decided that from that point forward I was going to concentrate on making Prinsendam by ship of choice, and would sail her every opportunity. I would choose that ship over any other, regardless of itinerary. The ship would be more the destination than the itinerary (although her itineraries were fantastic. 
And then HAL announced her sale. 

So much for that idea. 😞

[CruisinTexans]

We did our first world cruise on the Prinsendam and have loved her ever since. Hated it when Captain Gunderson retired, but she was still a wonderful ship.

 

[aliaschief]

My Prisendam substitute has been Azamara cruise ships. About 8 tons smaller and less then 700 cruisers and we really enjoyed the experience. Now have many days booked including a 155 day world voyage. Loved the experience and met several former Hal cruisers who agreed.

[dockman]

the prinsendam....what a wonderful experience it was....glad i got to experience it at least once for 21 day cruise....

[aliaschief]

1 minute ago, dockman said:

the prinsendam....what a wonderful experience it was....glad i got to experience it at least once for 21 day cruise....

In deed it was. Miss Her.

[ski ww]

We did three cruises on her, all Trans Atlantic, two east bound, one going west. We really enjoyed sailing on her.  

[Padraic]

The Prinsedam was without a doubt the favorite of my wife and I. We had the opportunity to cruise on it five times.

[Mabs]

She was the best ship ever. Only went on it a couple times and loved every minute of it. Sure do miss the smaller ships that HAL had.

[Sir PMP]

And she was a money maker too, did over 200 days on her:

 

 

 

[prescottbob]

Our  fav HAL ship also. Only spent 80 days plus on ‘her’ that included ‘her’ last month with HAL.

We just saw ‘her’ docked in Montreal 29/30 Sept. methinks date wise prior to boarding the Zaandam.

Now re-named the Avera, by the current owner, she looked fabulous, at least exterior- wise. Looking at interior pictures from various sources ‘she’ looks even better inside.

We hope to do a cruise on ‘her’ again if we can. HAL really lost a gem when ‘she’ was sold off IMHO.

 

Be well.

Bob

 

[Steirisch]

We sailed on her once as Royal Viking Sun and once as the Prinsendam. She was a pleasure to cruise on.

[Broon]

We prefer smaller ships and were most fortunate to sail on her three times, over 10 years. We started with a Christmas/ New Year’s cruise in the Caribbean, then looked for other sailings. We got onto a longer cruise on her for an itinerary from FLL, to Antarctica, to Buenos Aires. Finally, just before she left HAL, we sailed on her from Amsterdam around the British Isles. Yes, the newer, bigger ships have more features, but, we still prefer a smaller ship, and the PRINSENDAM remains our favourite.

[Kay S]

It's so sad that Carnival Corp keeps selling off the small ships.

[kaymoz]

Even tho she was "small" she still had some nice features that could enhance days at sea -- like the cooking demo lab and the computer classroom.  The R ships (Azamara and Oceania) are just a little bit smaller so as lovely as they are,  it seems there isn't space for that kind of thing.   

 

[rkacruiser]

3 hours ago, Steirisch said:

We sailed on her once as Royal Viking Sun and once as the Prinsendam. She was a pleasure to cruise on.

 

There must have been quite a difference when she was Royal Viking Sun, particularly for dining.  

 

Prinsendam earned a special place in my memory for the best Christmas/New Year's Cruise for my traveling and companion that we had.  The entertainment staff outdid themselves on New Year's Eve when we celebrated the New Year twice.  We were sailing in the AST zone, but, a big screen TV with live music was set up in the Ocean Bar.  We watched the "Ball Drop" in Times Square at EST and the party went on and on and--.  I went to our stateroom around 2:00 A.M., AST, on January 1.

 

I didn't care for what I thought was an inconvenient access to the aft pool deck area.  

[RuthC]

4 hours ago, Steirisch said:

We sailed on her once as Royal Viking Sun and once as the Prinsendam. She was a pleasure to cruise on.

I sailed on Royal Viking once, and didn't fully appreciate how truly elegant that line was at the time. It was my first cruise to Alaska, over 14 days. Simply wonderful time. 

I am curious, which incarnation of the Sun/Prinsendam did you prefer? And why? Or were they too much like comparing apples and oranges to be able to make a fair evaluation? 

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

2 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

There must have been quite a difference when she was Royal Viking Sun, particularly for dining.  

 

Prinsendam earned a special place in my memory for the best Christmas/New Year's Cruise for my traveling and companion that we had.  The entertainment staff outdid themselves on New Year's Eve when we celebrated the New Year twice.  We were sailing in the AST zone, but, a big screen TV with live music was set up in the Ocean Bar.  We watched the "Ball Drop" in Times Square at EST and the party went on and on and--.  I went to our stateroom around 2:00 A.M., AST, on January 1.

 

I didn't care for what I thought was an inconvenient access to the aft pool deck area.  

 

On our last Prinsendam cruise in 2017,  we had dinner with our friend the Event Manager and one of the guest entertainers.  For several years, he was the resident pianist when she was Royal Viking Sun, and would do two shows a week.  He told us that the enrire area where the dining rooms, Ocean Bar and Pinnacle Grill were was all one dining room.  It was big enough that there was only one seating at dinner.  He added that the showroom started as more of lounge with nightly entertainment.  People didn't all face the stage, and they would talk during performances.  It was interesting to hear about the differences between how the cruise lines configured the ship.  Yes, she was our favorite ship.

[CurlerRob]

6 hours ago, Steirisch said:

We sailed on her once as Royal Viking Sun and once as the Prinsendam. She was a pleasure to cruise on.

My memory is fuzzy on this (it goes back to 2015), but I believe that the kimono pictured below was donated to the ship when she was RV Sun - and kept on display on Prinsendam. We were always fascinated by this history and connection. Wonderful ship!

 

Perhaps someone with a better recollection can expand on it ... 🍺🥌

 

[kazu]

9 hours ago, CurlerRob said:

My memory is fuzzy on this (it goes back to 2015), but I believe that the kimono pictured below was donated to the ship when she was RV Sun - and kept on display on Prinsendam. We were always fascinated by this history and connection. Wonderful ship!

 

Perhaps someone with a better recollection can expand on it ... 🍺🥌

 

 

I believe you are correct.

 

I too miss that ship.  Anyone who read my posts knows full well she was my favourite ship in the fleet.  We sailed on her as often as we could.  My regret was waiting so long to try her.  Once on her, we were in love and all I had to do was say Prinsendam to DD DH and he was “in” for the cruise.

 

That ship always gave a superior experience on board - activities - hors d’oeuvres at sail a way, meals, etc.  Just fabulous and I miss her so much 💔 

[kaymoz]

The kimono photo is reminding me about the art collection on board -- the kind of thing that accumulates over time, not readily created.  Ship models under glass.  Gifts from various port events.  And those little hand-crafted ceramic tile wall pieces by each cabin....so many nice touches!   I wonder what happened to all those things?

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by kaymoz

[StLouisCruisers]

We discovered the Prinsendam quite by accident in late 2014 when we had a Princess cruise to the Black Sea and Holy Land cruise booked.  Due to political problems, Princess began cancelling ports and replacing with not so great substitutes.  In frustration we looked at HAL and found a much better itinerary even with their own cancellations.  So off we went on this new ship and cruise line.  We loved the warm, welcoming, small ship experience.  We were hooked!

 

We had already booked up 2015 completely but from 2016 to 2019 we cruised HAL, primarily on Prinsendam and loved every cruise.  If our favorite cabin was available when we checked out a cruise, DH would say book it!  It was a sign to us we were meant to be onboard.  In that short amount of time we sailed on Prinsendam 186 days.  That ship took us to so many unique small ports we never would have seen otherwise.  We miss the Prinsendam tremendously!

[St Pete Cruiser]

I wear my Prinsendam pin on Gala nights and always get the nicest comments, from guests and crew who were on her.

[grayjay]

I fully understand you - we too loved the Prinsendam and sailed on her several times even though during the last few cruises renovations/dry dock became really urgent in some spaces . One of my fondest memories is the last cruise which was really special before she was sold.

Now , being German and thus having no language problems, we sailed on her a few weeks ago - she is called Amera now.

Some of her best features are still there, of course  the space on her decks, the comfortable cabins with lots of space ( one minus is that the bathrooms have not been renovated yet and you have to choose between a clingy curtain or a bathtub to stumble in...) , a lot of the original furniture is still there, the lounges and bars, the Lido buffet partly with new furniture, the restaurants unchanged. In that Phoenixreisen, the new owner, has done a good job. Internet and TV is working fast and efficiently, but not even Sky news or another English-speaking programme on sight - sigh... And the service is still fantastic - most of them come from the Philippines and Indonesia and quite a lot have sailed on one of the HAL ship before. That was a lovely experience! But to be honest - in some other aspects we found the ship too "German" - the food was really good but not at all with an international touch, the lecturers spoke only German of course as there were only a handful of international guests, the shows - let's not talk about them... . Most of them we found really awful in regard to professionalism.

We enjoyed the experience on Amera, though, and to bekind of  re-aquainted with Prinsendam but won't go again.

We're very much looking forward to sailing HAL again in February!

[rkacruiser]

19 hours ago, Quartzsite Cruiser said:

He told us that the enrire area where the dining rooms, Ocean Bar and Pinnacle Grill were was all one dining room.  It was big enough that there was only one seating at dinner.  He added that the showroom started as more of lounge with nightly entertainment.  People didn't all face the stage, and they would talk during performances.

 

The gentleman recalls regarding the showroom what I remember from the similar venue on Royal Viking Sky.  I don't remember much conversation during the performances.  But, it was a different arrangement of seating.  

 

When I sailed on Prinsendam, every time I walked into the Ocean Bar, I remembered how that space had been used on Royal Viking Sun.  My dining table on Princendam was in the "annex" to the main dining rooms on RVS as well as on Prinsendam.  When I first saw that on a deck plan of RVS, I thought--how horrid!  A second class guest experience!  Well, on Prinsendam, it wasn't.  It was a delightful and more pleasant dining experience than might have been if we had been assigned a table in the MDR.  

 

4 hours ago, grayjay said:

( one minus is that the bathrooms have not been renovated yet and you have to choose between a clingy curtain or a bathtub to stumble in...) ,

 

That probably means that the wall mirror next to the Signature Suites bathtub's wall allows one to view one's showering/bathing.  That was weird.