'Twas Two Weeks Before Christmas - Live from the Nieuw Statendam, Dec. 10 - 17, 2023

[POA1]

December 13th. As I read through these, I now realize that I missed out on learning how to make an origami Christmas Tree.

 

I fear that this is going to be a repeat of the first two decades of the 21st century. Steel drum lessons were offered on nearly every Caribbean cruise, but I never went to them. Here I sit, at the age of 60... not a virtuoso steel pan player, but merely a lowly cruise blogger.

 

I suppose I should take comfort in fact that I blog for science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily-Program-2023-12-13-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

[POA1]

3 minutes ago, Sea42 said:

How good can it be if it doesn't come with its own tote bag😔

 

Well played. 🤣

[VMax1700]

14 hours ago, POA1 said:

You'll have to let me know how the wireless administration of the new model works out. It I had my laptop with me, the old model performed like a champ. It's all managed through a web interface. If you tried to manage it wirelessly, it did not perform nearly as well.

 

Also, the fact that the new version has switches and more lights probably means it far superior.

 

I will let you know how it goes.  Hope to purchase it this week in an almost local store for a similar price to Amazon, when duty and vat on import are taken into consideration.  

 

[POA1]

You know how there are casual nights and dressy nights? There's another type of dress code you'll likely encounter: Festive Orange. (I'm not making this up. You can see it on the first page of the Daily program for the 14th of December.

 

 

Despite the fact that we had many suitcases, we did not have room for our Festive Orange outfits.

 

 

 

 

 

Daily-Program-2023-12-14-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

[true45]

Thank you for the live thread.  Very enjoyable.

 

I read and/or perused the 26 pages.  You mentioned the casino was crowded and there was a slot tournament.  Was the non-smoking redo of a portion of the casino during refurbishment completed as expected?

 

 

[POA1]

1 hour ago, true45 said:

Thank you for the live thread.  Very enjoyable.

 

I read and/or perused the 26 pages.  You mentioned the casino was crowded and there was a slot tournament.  Was the non-smoking redo of a portion of the casino during refurbishment completed as expected?

 

 

 

Thank you.

 

We were not on the Nieuw Statendam prior to drydock, so I don't know. The casino was expanded, but I don't know by how much or where.

 

The casino was more full than we've ever seen a HAL casino - by a wide margin. We broke even in the casino - simply by virtue of not being able to gamble. 😉

 

The casino was noticeably smoky in places. We're not smokers but we have never really noticed much of a smoke smell in the past. We're also not big gamblers. We typically stop by the casino a few times a week, tops.

 

I didn't pay attention to what parts of the casino were smokiest. It was so full that you really couldn't find room at a machine, roulette table, or craps pit.

 

Sorry that I don't have a better answer.

 

[true45]

36 minutes ago, POA1 said:

 

Thank you.

 

We were not on the Nieuw Statendam prior to drydock, so I don't know. The casino was expanded, but I don't know by how much or where.

 

The casino was more full than we've ever seen a HAL casino - by a wide margin. We broke even in the casino - simply by virtue of not being able to gamble. 😉

 

The casino was noticeably smoky in places. We're not smokers but we have never really noticed much of a smoke smell in the past. We're also not big gamblers. We typically stop by the casino a few times a week, tops.

 

I didn't pay attention to what parts of the casino were smokiest. It was so full that you really couldn't find room at a machine, roulette table, or craps pit.

 

Sorry that I don't have a better answer.

 

Thanks again.  Sounds like you had a very nice time.

 

Maybe someone will give the info before our next sailing.  The plan sounded good with a small non-smoking area where the stairs are or were.

 

When we were on NS last yr November the casino was also crowded but the smoke was overwhelming most times.  Which meant I spent less time there — could have saved me money or cost me money.  Who knows?  🙂🙃🎰

[POA1]

Here is the daily for the 15th of December. This was a sea day before a scheduled stop at Half Moon Cay. This day, and the Half Moon Cay day, were supposed to give us the opportunity to gather up our material for the Guide to Cabana Living. Mother Nature had other ideas. The day was windy and rainy. The cabana area was closed. We had to scramble to come up with something else to do.

 

Consulting the Daily to find alternate activities would have been the smart move. We did not do that, but if we had, here are the exciting and enriching things we could have done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily-Program-2023-12-15-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

[POA1]

12 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

I will let you know how it goes.  Hope to purchase it this week in an almost local store for a similar price to Amazon, when duty and vat on import are taken into consideration.  

 

I am used to seeing your leprechaun avatar. The new one threw me off a bit. (Not that it takes much.)

[VMax1700]

9 hours ago, POA1 said:

I am used to seeing your leprechaun avatar. The new one threw me off a bit. (Not that it takes much.)

😁 Paddy McVmax (our leprechaun) became quite jealous of your Poohby Joe, so after a hastily convened family meeting (travel sub-committee) it was agreed that Paddy would appear online as our avatar only when we were traveling ( just like a royal pennant) or other major state occasions (eg St Patrick's Day 😉).  For other day to day postings we agreed to use the cover of the HAL 150 year celebratory  postage stamp. Mere humans must conform to the requests of their avatars.

[POA1]

3 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

😁 Paddy McVmax (our leprechaun) became quite jealous of your Poohby Joe, so after a hastily convened family meeting (travel sub-committee) it was agreed that Paddy would appear online as our avatar only when we were traveling ( just like a royal pennant) or other major state occasions (eg St Patrick's Day 😉).  For other day to day postings we agreed to use the cover of the HAL 150 year celebratory  postage stamp. Mere humans must conform to the requests of their avatars.

 

This is hilarious. The name Paddy McVmax is inspirational. The fact that you've adopted arbitrary display rules based on the royal pennant gives the rest of us something for which to strive.

 

I was on the 17th Street Causeway, aka the drawbridge near Port Everglades, this morning when I saw your post.

 

It's a good thing that I put the car's gear shift in Park when I'm stopped at the bridge. Otherwise I'd have rolled back into the car behind me because I was laughing so hard.

 

Don't read CruiseCritic and drive, kids!

 

 

Edited January 2 by POA1

[POA1]

Wrapping up the Daily programs...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily-Program-2023-12-16-Nieuw-Statendam.pdf

[Haljo1935]

On 1/1/2024 at 10:57 PM, true45 said:

Thanks again.  Sounds like you had a very nice time.

 

Maybe someone will give the info before our next sailing.  The plan sounded good with a small non-smoking area where the stairs are or were.

 

When we were on NS last yr November the casino was also crowded but the smoke was overwhelming most times.  Which meant I spent less time there — could have saved me money or cost me money.  Who knows?  🙂🙃🎰

@POA1 @true45 I was on both the last cruise before drydock and the first after. I did not spend time in the casino pre or post drydock other than walking through and taking very few random photos. Post drydock, we were told smoking was on the side w/the cashier w/the other side of the room being non smoking. It was never smoke-cloud smokey, but definitely smelled it inside the casino. There are no doors.

Below is the non-smoking casino annex. 

Both of these are post drydock  - if I locate the other pictures I'll post them.

[true45]

3 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

@POA1 @true45 I was on both the last cruise before drydock and the first after. I did not spend time in the casino pre or post drydock other than walking through and taking very few random photos. Post drydock, we were told smoking was on the side w/the cashier w/the other side of the room being non smoking. It was never smoke-cloud smokey, but definitely smelled it inside the casino. There are no doors.

Below is the non-smoking casino annex. 

Both of these are post drydock  - if I locate the other pictures I'll post them.

Thank you very much.  Interesting.

Hope it is not too smoky but with no doors can’t see how that works.  But I’m optimistic.  Can’t wait for our sailing.⚓️

[POA1]

From what I have been able to glean, they closed in an open stairs area to expand the casino floor. I have an old deck plan, so a comparison to a new one might help.

 

The casino was extremely busy, which you can expect when there is large tournament going on. If you are a casual player, like we are, it wasn't worth it to fight the crowds. This did have the benefit of limiting our losses. Completely. (Also our playing.)

 

The people in the tournament seemed to have a good time. I'll be interested to see how this compares to the Rotterdam in a few short months. (86 days. Not that I'm counting.)

[POA1]

So much for comparing the old & new deck plans... The HAL website still has the old deck plan. It still shows the stairs that led from the casino on Deck 3 (Promenade) down to the area between Billboard & Rolling Stone on Deck 2 (Plaza).  That stairs is no longer there.  I circled the ex-stairs in red. 

 

 

The deck plan on the site still shows Lincoln Center as well, which is the source of confusion that feeds the regularly appearing Lincoln Center threads,

Edited January 3 by POA1

[POA1]

I was getting my thoughts together for a wrap up post and I wound up on page 1 of the thread. I saw that the CC Host tagged the thread with:

 

"Congrats on your first "Live from..." Thanks for generously sharing your time at sea with everyone at Cruise Critic!

 

This "Live From" has got to be approaching our 10th. I suppose I should be happy that they think it's the first. Who knows how many "Rare," "Special," or "Gluten Free" stickers I'd have been tagged with? 🙄

[BetsyS.]

What does the Rare sticker mean?

[VMax1700]

1 hour ago, BetsyS. said:

What does the Rare sticker mean?

That @POA1 has a temperature of between 125°F and 130°F.  If the guy was any hotter he would be a 'medium'.  Now that is an entirely different story......

[Sun Queen II]

On 12/24/2023 at 10:43 PM, POA1 said:

The cabanas were sold out for our cruise as they have been for most of the cruises we've been on. We usually book ours as soon as we have confirmed our cruise booking.

 

One of the risks you run is that you might lose some cabana time to bad weather. We lost a day and a half. The terms & conditions say that you acknowledge that you are getting the cabanas weather permitting. I'm not sure how they'd handle it if you lost a significant chunk of your paid time.

 

The normal operating hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Our cabana stewards said that we could use them outside of those hours. On other sailings, we were told that you were limited to the hours when the cabana stewards were working.

 

The orange tote bag in the photo was a Lancome promo from about 25 years ago. It has served us well over the years, but it lacks the splendor of the Club Orange tote.

How does one go about booking one?

[POA1]

6 minutes ago, Sun Queen II said:

How does one go about booking one?

They're booked through Ship's Services.

[POA1]

6 hours ago, BetsyS. said:

What does the Rare sticker mean?

Betsy, you have one slapped across your avatar, just like I do.

 

Perhaps Colin is right. It's all about the temperature. 😁

[Sun Queen II]

3 minutes ago, POA1 said:

They're booked through Ship's Services.

So only blue to do this once on board? Can I do it via phone a couple of months prior to cruise?

[POA1]

1 minute ago, Sun Queen II said:

So only blue to do this once on board? Can I do it via phone a couple of months prior to cruise?

 We booked ours the same day as we booked the cruise. You can, in theory, book on board, but I don't count on it.

[Haljo1935]

On 1/3/2024 at 3:15 PM, POA1 said:

So much for comparing the old & new deck plans... The HAL website still has the old deck plan. It still shows the stairs that led from the casino on Deck 3 (Promenade) down to the area between Billboard & Rolling Stone on Deck 2 (Plaza).  That stairs is no longer there.  I circled the ex-stairs in red. 

 

 

The deck plan on the site still shows Lincoln Center as well, which is the source of confusion that feeds the regularly appearing Lincoln Center threads,

The elevator maps have not been fully updated, either. One can see the library, which is new, but the staircase is still shown. If I find the picture, I'll share it.

Mis-labeled elevator maps are very confusing.