REVIEW W/PHOTOS - Rotterdam Panama Canal 2/25-3/8/24

[Trish Traveler]

GEORGE TOWN, GRAND CAYMAN    Wednesday 3/6   TENDER PORT  7AM-4PM

 

Our last island sailaway for this cruise was nice.  It was another Dressy Night, with a menu of special items we really like.  Enjoyed the Shrimp Cocktail, French Onion Soup, Cracked Pepper Tenderloin with Grilled Shrimp, and shared a Cauliflower Steak (which is a Veg Entrée). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below are the first two pages from the MDR wine list:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed the Step One Dance Company performance of In Tandem in the World Stage tonight.  Later we popped up to the Lido to catch a bit of Mamma Mia on the big screen.  A beautiful night to enjoy being outside.  The NY Deli offers some special movie snacks. I really wanted to try the pretzel, but was very disappointed when it was the same pretzel bread roll they serve in the buffet, and their popcorn is too salty – so those snacks were a miss for us. Not that we were hungry anyway LOL.  We also perused the musical offerings on Music Walk, while enjoying some chocolate snacks being served at 9:45pm as the Chocolate Surprise!  A towel elephant and chocolate greeted us back in the cabin.

 

 

 

[Huskerchick]

Trish. Thank you for your fantastic review. This cruise is on my list and I loved your photos and that you shared your excursion experience. 

[Trish Traveler]

SEA DAY  Thursday 3/7

Our day began with a relaxing hot tub soak before breakfast.  We enjoyed sampling that smoked trout at breakfast (good, just too salty for us as most smoked meats are). I really enjoyed the  City On the Sea presentation this morning in the World Stage, which explains so many interesting details about the behind the scenes operations on the ship.  It was another beautiful sea day with very calm seas.  I spent various chunks of time packing while enjoying the ship in between. My luggage was feeling a bit heavy for airline restrictions, so we decided to weigh it at the HAL provided scales at the midships elevators on passenger floors, that are out on this last day of the cruise. I forgot to mention that we had received two more HAL 150 Anniversary Coasters as a gift, so we now have a set of four!

Smoked Trout top left & Smoked Salmon top right:

 

Smoked Salmon:

 

 

 

City on the Sea Presentation:

 

 

 

I took a few more pictures at buffet lunch.  I definitely did not cover all the buffet foods on any day of the cruise with my pics and I didn't always snap every menu board at each station.  So there was definitely even more variety than is shown here.  Plus, I see I didn't have much in the way of pics of all the many carved meats: Rotisserie Chicken (seemed it was available daily), Pork Roasts, Whole Pig, Various Beef Roasts, BBQ Meats, Steaks, Brisket, Ham and more.  Today at lunch there was a special Cake Event in the Lido, which was quite popular.  I snapped my photo before the crowds. I'm not much of a cake eater so can't comment on taste, but they looked good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trish Traveler]

Con't. SEA DAY  Thursday 3/7

One last beautiful sunset for this cruise, while we enjoyed another alfresco Lido Market dinner sitting aft.  Our last music walk variety of music offerings before putting out our packed luggage.  Be sure to keep clothes and shoes for the next day, all your important documents including passports, and medications & toiletries.

 

 

 

 

Jerk Lamb Shank DH loved this dish:

Chicken Parmesan:

Shrimp fingers?  They were tasty!

 

 

Perfect dinner spot in nice weather:

Billboard Piano Player was very good - crowded most nights:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trish Traveler]

30 minutes ago, Huskerchick said:

Trish. Thank you for your fantastic review. This cruise is on my list and I loved your photos and that you shared your excursion experience. 

Glad you enjoyed it!  Panama Canal had been on our list for a while also, so we were glad we finally sailed there.

[Ellencruise]

Wonderful reporting and fabulous photos

[Trish Traveler]

7 minutes ago, Ellencruise said:

Wonderful reporting and fabulous photos

Thank you!  Glad you're enjoying it.

 

[Trish Traveler]

DISEMBARKATION Saturday 3/8    7:00AM Arrival

Good Morning Port Everglades. 

 

 

As we had a later flight out of FLL, we booked a HAL tour using our OBC.  The tour was the Everglades Airboat ride and transfer to Fort Lauderdale Airport with a departure time of 8:30am.  We received a tour info debarkation packet a couple of days ago giving us specific luggage tags corresponding to our tour departure time.  I think we were called between 7:45-8am to disembark and claim our luggage.  Face recognition was used in the terminal and we were directed to our tour bus where they put your luggage in the storage hold until you arrive at the airport.  We had a wonderful tour guide who was full of interesting Ft. Lauderdale facts to entertain us on the ride to the Everglades Holiday Park.  While lining up for our boat ride, they have a photographer that takes a FREE picture of you, which the tour guide passes out later. 

 

The boat ride was about an hour long through the pretty everglade canals with lots of foliage including trees, lily pads and grasses.  Most of the time the boat travels slowly, but occasionally speeds up on the open areas, when it gets loud (I brought along ear plugs along for this).  There were many birds to see including Cormorants, Blue Herons, Starlings and the cool blue Gallinule.  Then the captain spotted an alligator near the bank and brought us closer to see, rotating the boat so both sides had a view. Later, one more alligator was spotted swimming in front of our boat.  Really enjoyed the boat ride.

 

Cormorants:

 

 

 

Gallinule Birds

1st Alligator spotted:

2nd Alligator sighting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[seagarsmoker]

Thanks for the wonderful review and excellent photos.  

[ChutChut]

What a wonderful review and utterly beautiful pics. You certainly have a wonderful eye for photography!

[Trish Traveler]

Con't. DISEMBARKATION Saturday 3/8    7:00AM 

The second part is an alligator show put on by one of the guys from Gator Boys.  This is an animal rescue for mostly injured alligators, including Stumpy who lost most of his tail.  He explained their care and did some daring stunts (don’t try these at home folks), which the animals are trained to “perform” with the promise of a chunk of steak at the end of the show.  Back on the bus for the final leg to the airport.  We were really glad we took this tour making our last day feel like we were still on vacation, while using up more of the time we would have been sitting at FLL before flight check in. 

 

 

 

 

 

Alligator gets a steak treat after his performance:

 

Farewell Ft. Lauderdale, until next time...

[Trish Traveler]

4 minutes ago, seagarsmoker said:

Thanks for the wonderful review and excellent photos.  

You're welcome!

[Trish Traveler]

4 minutes ago, ChutChut said:

What a wonderful review and utterly beautiful pics. You certainly have a wonderful eye for photography!

Thanks for the kind words.  

[Trish Traveler]

REVIEW W/PHOTOS - Rotterdam Panama Canal 2/25-3/8/24

FINAL THOUGHTS

We loved this cruise!  We liked coming back on to the Rotterdam and having much more time to explore and enjoy the ship than on our last 7 day cruise.  The crew is excellent!  Thanks for all your hard work, friendliness and professionalism.   We really like this mid-size ship category and don’t really have much interest in a mega-ship with other cruise lines.  At this stage of our lives, we like the more varied, longer itineraries.   We are not anti-children by any means, but prefer to sail with adults in the majority.  This being a longer cruise and just prior to major spring break vacations, we had a small number of children.  Personally, I only saw one young girl.  The age for longer cruises does seem to lean older for sure, but we saw plenty of younger ages also 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and up.   This was a terrific itinerary as we had been wanting to visit the Panama Canal for a while and also added some ports we had never been to.  Although, we are a bit hyper and tend to pack our port days on cruises, we definitely enjoy all the sea days on longer cruises.  And once home, my vacation adrenaline crashes and I am exhausted for a while!

 

We love the classy décor on the Rotterdam, and all the interesting art!  Our cabin suited our needs just fine.  Initially, it felt slightly smaller than some of the recent insides we have had on other cruise lines.  But the storage was very good.  We bring our own magnet hooks for the walls for hats and such.  We bring a few light pop up fabric bins to stow other items we want readily available.  The outlets and USB ports were plenty for us.   And for drying bathing suits there is a clothesline in the shower, besides all the towel racks can be used too.  And I must say again, how nice the large shower is, with glass doors and a small footrest for lady leg shaving. 

 

You should already know from the “food porn” pictures and descriptions that we really enjoyed the food.  Of course, food is subjective, but we found most everything very good to excellent.  We love trying new cuisines and have learned to love many new dishes in all our cruising days.   And one of the best things about cruise dining is that if you don’t care for something, you can order or choose something else without an additional charge.   I think for hygiene reasons it is nice to have the HAL crew serve you in the Lido Market Buffet.  And particularly when viruses may be circulating, it is especially prudent.  On this cruise our wait times were none to 10 minutes tops for dining in the MDR anywhere from 5pm-7:30pm arrival for a table of two without reservations.  We never did get around to eating any breakfasts or brunches in the MDR.  And most meals were in our desirable one hour time frame.  No big gaps between courses.  Both our included HIA specialty meals at Tamarind and Pinnacle were great. 

 

We enjoyed having the HIA drink package as it also included water and specialty coffees.  We did notice some price increases on a few items since our September cruise which just were awkward because they might be like $11.50 or $12, which is just above the $11 drink limit in the Signature Package.  I don’t particularly mind an extra small charge for a drink I really like, it just seems odd.  The quality of liquor and wine choices in the Signature package seemed good to us.  We found the alcoholic drinks to be a nice variety and most always were made well.  When we didn’t care for a drink, then we ordered something different.  A few times things were off such as an overly sweet Old Fashioned at Music Walk, but by just letting the excellent server Mae know that and soon a traditional version arrived.  In general, during the day I enjoy a tropical drink, but often found them too sweet – so I would just ask for a less-sweet version and the bartender would comply.  I don’t think I mentioned earlier that it was nice to have a smaller bar in the Lido Market for specialty coffees, wine and beer with our meals there.  Of course, you also have the outside full service bars on deck 9 if needed.  And of course the Lido servers will also get your beverage orders.

 

Overall, we really enjoyed the HAL entertainment on the Rotterdam.  Our overall favorite this cruise was the Island Magic Steel Pan Group, who performed twice.  They were outstanding.  They have another Island Magic Band (relatives) on another HAL ship currently, so that’s good news.  And just like on our Norway cruise, we really enjoyed the Music Walk venues with the favorite being Rolling Stone Rock Room, which is nicely alternated with sets from the Billboard pianist.  You can sit in either venue and hear both, if you don’t want to move every set.  BB Kings is also a great band offering jazz and lots of dance music to get the crowd on their feet.   Earlier some evenings we saw some recorded ballroom dance music that some dancers were enjoying.  As we like a big variety of music, sometimes you just don’t want loud music. 

 

As I mentioned before, I do miss not having somewhere to listen to quiet music like strings or background piano (that lonely piano in the hall on deck  2 sat there unused all cruise).  I have read about the former Lincoln Center and realize this was a feature of HAL before.  However,  I see hear on a CC thread that Strings are possibly returning.  And during our Ask the Captain, a guest asked about the missing Lincoln Center and the Travel Director Karlijn mentioned that strings may be returning soon on at least half the fleet, if I heard correctly.  So that would be really nice. 

 

I enjoyed the Dance One Company Shows I have seen, but although the dancers are very talented it lacks a story.   And without live singers it just misses something for us.  Although, they did insert a BB King singer in the show I saw one night and he was good.  And since they have been the same shows for several years, I see why some HAL regulars would like some more variety.  Which again, I see here on CC a thread that some new shows may be in production.  It was nice to have the variety of the Mentalist, Comedian and individual singers added for this longer cruise.  We definitely like a variety to choose from.   In the BB King room they offered a lot of different Game Shows many nights, which we really didn’t attend, but some seemed pretty popular.  We don’t use the casino, so no opinion there.  We do really like that outdoor movies were offered at the Lido Pool, a nice relaxing evening option.

 

The daytime entertainment offered a nice variety.  We really like the enrichment type talks in the World Stage, which are well done, as long as it would be a different variety each time we cruised with HAL.  We really felt they did a great job with all the Panama Canal info including presentation prior and narration during the transit.  We also enjoy the Trivia which was very popular.  We just wished it was offered more in the morning, not just later.  There was a good variety of daily activities offered including dance, sports, crafts etc.  Once we relax on sea days we mostly like to walk, sea-gaze and read in the shade.

 

The few times we needed Guest Services they were great answering questions.  Once, we had an error on our cabin safe at night and within 20 minutes a gal was there to clear it for us.  Twice, we had a problem with our TV freezing and the room steward and guest services cleared it remotely and it didn’t happen again.  Overall, the HAL app was useful for checking menus, shore excursion tickets and daily info as well as checking our statement.  I forgot to mention in my disembarkation post that you should always check your statement before you leave the ship.  I checked it about every other day and then on the last day.  Ours was always correct, but sometimes guests have charges that they didn’t make and you always want to clear that up before disembarking.  You can check it in the APP on your phone or on the TV in the cabin.

 

The Shore Excursions desk was always helpful when I visited them.  We take a mixture of independent and cruiseline shore excursions when cruising.  We wanted to make sure we used our HIA shore excursion credit and we were happy with all the HAL tours we chose.

 

Prior to cruising, we found the HAL website was okay, no real problems.  But the couple of times I needed to call HAL customer service were not good.  Agents that seemed not well versed in the HAL product and procedures.   It was a bit painful.  I know many cruise lines are out-sourcing these jobs as there are many threads on this so I won’t discuss it further.   Just glad it is so much better once you step on the ship.

 

We were thankful that we didn’t get sick on the cruise for sure.  We always want to thank the community here at CC for all the helpful advice when cruise planning.  I know our experiences are definitely enhanced by my research here.  We met so many nice passengers on this cruise.   And we thank God that we are blessed with health and the means to be able to cruise and enjoy the world!  We will definitely consider HAL again for future cruises.  Thanks to the HAL crew for a wonderful cruise!

The End

…for those who made it to the end, thanks for sticking with me. Hope you found it helpful!

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

You did a great job posting.

Thanks 

[Mtn2Sea]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a wonderful review with great photos!

[Trish Traveler]

4 hours ago, Gail & Marty sailing away said:

You did a great job posting.

Thanks 

Thank you!

[Trish Traveler]

1 hour ago, Mtn2Sea said:

Thanks for taking the time to write such a wonderful review with great photos!

You're welcome.  Glad you enjoyed it.

[TryinCruisin]

I binge read the whole thing in two days. What a great review with a generous helping of lovely pictures. I have been thinking the Panama Canal should be my next cruise and you have certainly helped affirm that choice. Thank you so much for allowing me to travel with you vicariously through reports and pictures. You did a really great job. 

[Trish Traveler]

14 hours ago, TryinCruisin said:

I binge read the whole thing in two days. What a great review with a generous helping of lovely pictures. I have been thinking the Panama Canal should be my next cruise and you have certainly helped affirm that choice. Thank you so much for allowing me to travel with you vicariously through reports and pictures. You did a really great job. 

Thanks for the kind words.  Glad you enjoyed it!  And welcome to Cruise Critic as I see you are a new member.  It's such a great community and always a wealth of information for cruise planning!