When was the first HAL cruise you sailed on???

[doone]

My very first HAL cruise was on the old Noordam in 1986. That's when HAL won me over!!

[RevNeal]

My first HAL cruise was on the Nieuw Amsterdam in the early Spring of 1994.

[cruisequeen10]

First cruise on HAL Veendam May 1999 Mother's Day cruise from Vancouver, Asoria (Oregon) and back to Vancouver. Very short trip. But I started cruising 1980.

[vandamone]

First cruise was on the Westerdam 1992.

Will do HAL cruise #15 in May on the Ryndam.

#16 on the Zuiderdam in September.

[vml_1]

My first cruise will be this Sunday, April 2, 2006 :D on the Ryndam.

[Atomica]

My first HAL cruise was on the Oosterdam in May, 2005, and this May I get to introduce my girlfriend to the Wonderful World of HAL on our short 2-day Veendam cruise :D

[IDoLoveToCruise]

Our first was the Veendam 10/24/99 then Noordam 02/24/2001, Maasdam 11/09/2001, Volendam 01/24/2005, Zaandam 04/09/2005, Volendam 01/26/2006 and next HAL is Volendam Dec 6, 06. We have 3 others lines booked between now and then. Lots of other lines but HAL is BEST.

I must admit I was a bit tentative on the Veendam when I was told it had been cut in half and a chunk added in the middle!! Every wave for a few days made me grab the life jacket. Finally was convinced it was seaworthy and relaxed.

[Travelnuts Wife]

Our first HAL cruise was June 1994 on the old Noordam. We did the Inside Passage to Alaska. In July we will take our 3rd cruise to Alaska on the Oosterdam and will be nine days short of our copper medallion. Guess we will just have to book another cruise.

[RuthC]

I must admit I was a bit tentative on the Veendam when I was told it had been cut in half and a chunk added in the middle!!

Unless I passed through a time warp and never heard, you worried for nothing. The Veendam was never altered that way.

The old Westerdam was.

[seacruise9]

My first HAL cruise was on the Rotterdam V in Alaska in 1992. I am glad that I was able to sail on this legendary ship. Also, I cruised aboard the Veendam to the Caribbean in the summer of 1996 when the ship was only about one month old. Last week, I cruised aboard the Westerdam in the Caribbean. All three ships were great!

[OVgirl]

Hi, first time poster here.

I first 'sailed' in 1952 on the Leerdam II.

My first cruise was in 1994 on the Zaandam.

Now DH and I are looking to do b2b on the

Maasdam in February 2007 (#4-5).

It's a great way to vacation!

[ekerr19]

First HAL cruise - Noordam III in 1984. Loved it - each & every minute of it - couldn't wait to cruise again. :)

[kakalina]

April '02. We boarded the Statendam for a long awaited cruise to Hawaii. Haven't stoppped since. . .

[Copper10-8]

My first cruise (if you can call it that) with HAL was during the summer of 1967. I was travelling as a foreign exchange student with American Field Service to Norway. The Seven Seas took 10 days to travel from New York to Rotterdam at the beginning of the summer and 11 days (The Queen Mary passed us twice) to return at the end. As I recall, they retired the ship after that voyage. We had to journey through Hurricane Faith and barely limped into port at that time.

 

Does anyone else know any information about the Seven Seas? The American Field Service had used the Rotterdam the summer before as I recall.

 

Been trying to find some info about "the Seven Seas" for you but been striking out! Do you have any additional details on that vessel? What cruise line, original name, etc.? Maybe Doug knows anything about her?

[jhannah]

Our first HAL cruise was on the Rotterdam, Montreal to Boston. It was a totally wonderful experience that hooked us on Holland America.

[Alexborngal]

Just interested in when folks on these boards first sailed on HAL.

 

Amsterdam December 2005 San Diego to Hawaii. Booked on Zaandam October to Mexican Riviera. Cruised with my kids in the 80s on NCL as a single mom. Introduced my husband to cruising on Carnival a few years ago. My husband said he didn't want to take any vacation other than cruises so we've been taking 2 cruises a year on Princess, Royal Caribbean and Carnival. After our Amsterdam experience don't think we'll take any cruise ship other than on HAL. We love the larger stateroom, the bathtub - I wake up with back aches so a bathtub is heavenly to get rid of the morning kinks. On a 15 day cruise on the Amsterdam we were so impressed with the variety of food on the menu in the dining room that we sent special compliments to the chef. We really enjoyed not being hustled for drinks. After our last Carnival cruise we found so many little things to be delighted about on HAL - the shows were fantastic, the selection of movies was wonderful, popcorn, fruit in the stateroom which made for a low calorie snack in mid afternoon, and so on and so forth. Our next cruise will probably be to the Baltic Region. Sorry for the long-winded book.

[obriendan]

Our first HAL cruise was on the Nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska in May, 1999. But, as I've bragged here before, my first cruise was on the ms Lurline in November, 1941 to Hawaii.

[NancyIL]

My first and so far only HAL cruise was on the Zaandam in Feb. 2004 with my 78-year-old mother. It was also my very first cruise. The seas were rough, my mom wasn't feeling well and spent most of her time in the cabin, and we had engine trouble...so didn't get to our first port (Tortola) until early afternoon. The food and service were very good, but it wasn't a great introduction to cruising. I have since been on 3 Royal Caribbean cruises - all of which I loved - but am considering HAL for Alaska in 2007 with my husband.

[TxGal]

My first HAL cruise was on Nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska in August 1996. We booked an inside cabin and got upgraded to an outside cabin with a porthole. OMG, we thought we died and went to heaven - winning the lottery couldn't have been any better. Then we discovered the word verandah. Don't try putting me back in a cabin with a porthole ever again!:D

[ejbmorr]

So sorry. This whole system is really frustrating tonight! Tried to double the entry after doing the white screen thing to me several times.

EBM

[ejbmorr]

It looks like a number of us enjoyed our first Holland American cruise on the Niew Amsterdam. For us, it was a Western Caribbean cruise in February of 1991. Prior to that we had only travelled on Cunard and Royal Viking. We have always enjoyed all of the HAL ships and the places they have taken us. Isn't cruising wonderful?

EBM

[BCEagle78]

We booked a 7 day cruise on the old Westdam in Mar 1998 which was about the time the ship was going to be retired. We booked it in part because it was less expensive. We did not make as much money in those days and it seemed like a good choice for a start.

 

8 weeks before the scheduled departure, they called us to say that the ship was overbooked and asked if we had any flexibility in our plans. They also mentioned that if we changed, that the would refund 75% of what we had paid, plus give us a 2 category upgrade. Being novice cruisers, how could we say no!

 

Anyway, they booked us in early April on the Veendam, a much newer ship. We thought we were in heaven. We were in love with Holland America!

 

Anyway, we have sailed many more times since then, mostly with Holland America and we will always remember our first cruise that ended up costing us less than a weekend at the local Ramada Inn....