LAFFNVEGAS Live from the Nieuw Statendam December 10, 2023

[Cruising-along]

I'll have the croquette, pot roast and lemon torte please.

[Dismomx5]

Croquette, pot roast and the meringue for dessert. A glass of moscato before dinner and some Sleepytime tea with my dessert.

[lazey1]

White Zinfandel, French Onion Soup, Peruvian Chicken and Lemon Torte with Decaf Coffee for me please.

 

[SusieKIslandGirl]

Start with sangria, please. Then the croquette, pork tenderloin, lemon torte and this time I'm not forgetting the Bailey's! Thank you!

[erewhon]

Dinner:   Croquette, Peruvian Chicken, Meringue.

[ger_77]

Aperol Spritz, or maybe a Lemon Drop, oh what the heck, I’ve got the SBP, so I’ll have both, I’m not driving!  Shrimp Cocktail, Salmon, and Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cheesecake.   Oh yum!

[nw gardener]

One, or two Cosmos...Ceasar salad, Peruvian chicken,  lemon torte. Thank you for this thread!

[LAFFNVEGAS]

2 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Hey @LAFFNVEGAS does your Daily lust tree lighting tonight? I see it in the Navigator. 

Yes they did do that tonight but we got to Club Orange at 5 and was not done eating till after 7:30, service was extremely slow, wrong entrees served. Oddly Club Orange was never full. Only half full till about 6:30. Just the opposite of what we saw last month on the Koningsdam.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Ok for what we ordered , I had the Tomato Mozzarella, Fresh Snapper and Brazo de Mercedes. Tom had Caesar Salad, Steak and Lobster and Hot Fudge sundae. There is also a picture of the Peruvian Chicken Marcia had.
 

[SUESEABE]

Late to party but following. Have a great cruise!

[LAFFNVEGAS]

After dinner, we walked around the ship, tryed to bargain for some earrings at Effy, obviously too early in the cruise 😂

we did see some of the very beautiful Holiday displays.

 

I upgraded on board for the premium WiFi but I am actually feeling like it is worse than the Standard WiFi we had on the Koningsdam. Still problems with WiFi.

i am giving up for tonight . No pictures will upload , I would say it was CC but have had problems with FB.

[POA1]

Sorry to your Club Orange dinner was sub par. We presented ourselves a little after 8 and things were running smoothly.

 

I noticed a weird hand-off issue with the wifi. That should give us something fun to discuss at the meet & greet. 😉

[Haljo1935]

The wifi issue is baffling - we had only a very brief few minutes on one day that it wasn't working. It did constantly log us out if we weren't actively using (yes, we should do that anyway) requiring us to log back in each session, but no connectivity or speed issues.

[Vict0riann]

I think I would have gone to Tamarind tonight.  Nothing on the CO menu appealed to me! 

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Good morning from the Beautiful MS Nieuw Statendam.

It was rocking and rolling some through the night here in the aft but that just made for excellent sleep. I had preordered a topper for the mattress and it was perfect. 
since it is early in the morning will try to upload photos although I know part of the problem is with my new iPhone the file size seems to be too large for CC. I had to resort last cruise to doing a screen shot of the photo then posting which is a pain. Weird because I did not have problems with my iPhone 14 PM but this 15 PM Will not work . If anyone knows an easy way to fix let me know. Although I do really like my photos with this new phone.

Today’s plan is breakfast in Club Orange at 8, then Meet and Greet at 10, lunch at Pinnacle Grill at noon. Then see Future Cruise Consultant at two want to book a cruise for May 2025 that currently sailing with me friends are going on but figured I would wait till on board for extra SBC. Although probably should have done on Black Friday sale since I could have also had the Welcome Home Promo.

Not sure video with upload 

 

 

 

[jimbri]

Have a wonderful time!

[LAFFNVEGAS]

We are sitting in Club Orange but having a lite breakfast. Today is the Caribbean Brunch deck 2 Main Dining Room from 9 to 1 so we will go to the M & G then about 10:45 will go to the brunch.

[cbr663]

11 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

Yes they did do that tonight but we got to Club Orange at 5 and was not done eating till after 7:30, service was extremely slow, wrong entrees served. Oddly Club Orange was never full. Only half full till about 6:30. Just the opposite of what we saw last month on the Koningsdam.

 

Two and a half hours?  I would have ordered room service delivered to CO.  lol.

 

On the plus side, it can only get better from here.

[cbr663]

Lisa, try this on your iPhone to reduce the file size of your photos (from Apple support)

 

To enable this format, go to "Settings" > "Camera" > "Formats" and select "High Efficiency" instead of "Most Compatible." This way, your photos will be stored in HEIC format, reducing file size without noticeable quality loss.

 

[whogo]

I read about the photo problem in the fact based media a couple of months ago:

 

"Thinking about an iPhone 15? There is a hidden cost to that new camera"

"Apple’s new iPhone takes photos that are about 65 percent larger than older iPhones. You could end up spending more to store them in iCloud."

 

The article is probably behind a paywall:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/26/iphone-15-camera-photo-icloud-storage/

 

Thanks for another great blog, LAFFNVEGAS.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

I looked and I saw as already on High Efficiency but I am trying 12 mg, that seems to work.

 

[dchip]

Regarding the new iPhone 15. They have increased the resolution from 12 MP to 24MP. That may be the problem with file size. 
 

As far as WIFI is concerned, does the ship have Starlink? Our 52 day South Pacific cruise on the Volendam had Starlink. I was shocked to have WIFI the entire cruise. It was like being at home. Including FaceTime with the grandkids no matter where we were. 
 

Denise

 

I’m going to attempt to post a photo here from my iPhone 15 pro max. 

[LAFFNVEGAS]

9 minutes ago, whogo said:

I read about the photo problem in the fact based media a couple of months ago:

 

"Thinking about an iPhone 15? There is a hidden cost to that new camera"

"Apple’s new iPhone takes photos that are about 65 percent larger than older iPhones. You could end up spending more to store them in iCloud."

 

The article is probably behind a paywall:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/26/iphone-15-camera-photo-icloud-storage/

 

Thanks for another great blog, LAFFNVEGAS.

I have plenty of storage on the new phone plus what I have with iCloud is good. 
The big problem is with CC but it appears lowering my pixel size worked perfectly.

[ClippyJoe]

I'm having a case of cruise envy just looking at your photos ! Have a wonderful time.

[horseymike]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:17 AM, LAFFNVEGAS said:

Greetings and Good Morning HAL Cruisers, Yes, Lisa and Tom are at it again. We are flying today to Florida for our cruise tomorrow. We are flying via American Airlines Non stop to Miami on a very Early flight. From LAS there were no Non Stop to FLL, since I booked Hotel through HAL and they will provide transfers for their hotel from either FLL or MIA this seemed to work out for the best.

This will be our first time on the Nieuw Statendam and will complete us having sailed on all the ships of the current HAL Fleet and it will be our first time cruising since reaching our 5 Star Status. Although I suspect we will see no difference as far as that is concerned. Except I might get a Spa Day in the Thermal Suite 

We are sailing in a Neptune Corner Aft this cruise, while we have cruised Caribbean several time we had not done it in the Corner Aft so this will be a bit different, as well as this is our first time to sail on a ship with a separate Club Orange Restaurant when having a Neptune Suite, No Pinnacle Grill for Breakfast.

 

I will go ahead and continue my recent Live From tradition of What's For Dinner?. I am looking forward to see if there is much change from our recent Koningsdam cruise. I have been watching the current 14 day crossing of the Nieuw Statendam and there has been some interesting menu items as well as it appears they did two Brunch's so I am hoping they will also have one for our cruise. Possibly next Friday our last Sea Day.

 

We have reservations this evening at J. Alexanders that is very close to our hotel for tonight, the menu looks good and I have seen on other reviews it came highly recommended. I will report in on that this evein.

 

Thanks for following along!!

Hope you have a great cruise. 🚢
 

Edited December 11, 2023 by horseymike