Live from Nieuw Stat sailing from A to A!

[Mike B Landlubber]

I arrived in Amsterdam three days early for my Amsterdam to Athens cruise. I blew a bunch of Hilton hotel points staying at Twenty Seven hotel in Amsterdam. It was really nice, but nothing special to recommend it as a base hotel for Amsterdam cruisers. As boarding day approached, I had some worries about protesters who have interfered with some cruise ship transits in Amsterdam, but no sign of them when the big day came. And I think boarding was the fastest and smoothest I’ve ever had. I arrived at 12:05 and twenty minutes separated handing off my luggage till I was settled in my prepared room! But I did cheat by having Priority. And my bag arrived perhaps an hour later. I had plenty of time to head to the Grand Dutchman Cafe for split pea soup and a pastry.

I had some frustration getting internet access, including to the Navigator app—Both on my iPad and iPhone nothing worked till a service desk employee patiently told me I had to turn off my VPN. I would have sworn in court that getting Premium Internet allowed use of VPN, but it isn’t working for me this cruise! Everything worked fine once the VPN was off. We left harbor about dinner time. Passed through the locks without any interesting photo op, and are steaming down the English Channel at a heart-pounding nine knots! Tomorrow is a sea day. I have a reservation for lunch at the Pinnacle and will be interested to see what if anything has changed on the menu!

 

The central core stairwell of my hotel was kind of dramatic.

 

 

HAL may have Dam ships, but Amsterdam has a Dam square…

 

Another store to convince me tourists will buy anything!

 

On a canal boat tour of Amsterdam. Supposedly there are seven bridge underpasses visible here. 

 

I’m accustomed to my favored stern balcony cabins having a closeup view of some rusty old ship when we are in port, but my view of Amsterdam was kind of nice!

 

Safe on board at the Grand Dutch Cafe.

Edited September 7 by Mike B Landlubber

[Ipeeinthepools]

I’ll keep you company every step of the trip 

[Huskerchick]

Safe travels. Thanks for taking us along 

[Haljo1935]

Thanks for bringing us along! 

[cccole]

Wow.  This will be a great cruise.  Thank you for letting us cruise with you!!!  Do you have an aft cabin?  Looking forward to "our" adventure.  Cherie

[oakridger]

Ah ha!  Pea soup and a Bossche Bol!  Getting the party started the right way!  😉

 

The rubber ducky store is some cruiser's dream....not for me.....but some cruisers!!

 

Thanks for doing this Live From @Mike B Landlubber!

 

~Nancy

[canadianbear]

Have a great cruise!  

[ski ww]

Have a great cruise, looking forward to your posts. 

[geer55]

Love to do this voyage in the future! Have a wonderful trip.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Have a great cruise.

[AKJonesy]

Let us know about your lunch at the Pinnacle if anything has changed, price, etc?  Have fun.  

[WriterOnDeck]

I'm so glad to see you are doing this Live From... thread. I'm doing virtually the same cruise next year and will love following along. In fact, we are in many of the ports in 2025 on the same calendar days you are there this year -- which has caused some confusion in booking independent tours.

 

Regarding the VPN, my experience is that you can't log into the internet when your VPN is engaged, but once you are in, you can engage it. I cruise a lot and always use my VPN when I am handling financial matters. If I forget to turn it off, I realize next time I get knocked off the internet and can't get back on.

[albingirl]

Excited for you.  Bon voyage!!!

[Mike B Landlubber]

 

The first full day is a sea day. I made a lunch reservation for Pinnacle Grill, eager to see about supposed menu changes. To me the menu looked unchanged, but I asked about it. In short, my waiter says he heard nothing of proposed changes except some minor additions. It occurred to me later that I should’ve asked the maître d, but I didn’t think to ask at that time. According to my waiter, the two lobster surcharge items and the prime strip loin surcharge items were added not long ago. I’ve never paid any attention to surcharge items at lunch so I wouldn’t know. I have attached a photo.

 

The weather this morning was cool but pleasant. It’s gotten a little more unpleasant in the afternoon, but not bad. Clouded up, got foggy, and some light rain.

 

I tend to load up on special restaurants during sea days, so dinner at Rudi’s tonight.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8 by Mike B Landlubber

[gizmodog]

Following this review…thank you. I will be boarding in Athens Oct. 5

[Mike B Landlubber]

I originally signed up for just the first two weeks of this cruise, ending in Rome. I had thought of spending a few days in Rome afterwards, but a combination of hearing stories of how crowded Rome is this year, plus the allure of getting back to Egypt and at least seeing the great pyramid caused me to book the second Rome to Athens leg as a back to back. Alas, I have my beloved stern balcony cabin on the first leg, but just a regular balcony cabin on the later leg. This is technically a repositioning cruise as NS is leaving the northern European Waters it has spent the summer in and heading to warmer weather in the Mediterranean.

 

Yesterday we made one intermediate stop in between sea days. We docked in Weymouth England. I am a fan of World War II history as well as an admirer of big things that make noise and go boom so I was eager to use an excursion to The Tank Museum, one of the foremost museums of this type in the world. I was disappointed that the ships excursion only allowed us two hours at the museum. But I made the most of it and covered a lot of the stuff that I really wanted to see. I’ll have to arrange for a shore vacation that lets me stay longer next time.

 

 

In the 1920s and 1930s, some lucky English soldiers got to ride in style in this Rolls-Royce armored car. Note the not-so-plush turret with machine gun!

 

The Tank Museum is co-located with a functioning British Army base. Our bus followed this big bruiser in. I’m not sure, but I believe it is a tank recovery vehicle.

 

I’m sure it is touristy, but I still would’ve loved to stop and grab a bite at this establishment. Unfortunately, our tour bus just drove on by.

 

 

Steak tartare at Rudi’s last night.

 

One more from The Tank Museum, this is the driver position on a World War I British tank.

Edited September 10 by Mike B Landlubber

[ski ww]

I'm pretty sure that tank is used to teach student drivers. You'll notice that on the back left there is a small white square with an L which I believe in England means student driver.

[Megamixer]

Did you get the VPN problem solved? I'm also on this cruise. (First leg)

[Mike B Landlubber]

47 minutes ago, Megamixer said:

Did you get the VPN problem solved? I'm also on this cruise. (First leg)

@WriterOnDeck posted that I could turn on my VPN once I was logged in on board, and VPN would work. My brief experiments have confirmed this, though I haven’t left VPN on for a long time because I don’t want to draw attention to myself. As she mentioned, I will use it for financial orother things that I want to keep quiet. 😉 

[Megamixer]

OK that's what I was going to say. I sign in with VPN off then just turn it on as needed and it works. I'm on Android and not Apple though. 

[Mike B Landlubber]

We are now in Bilbao. I’m having an unwanted ship day, last night when I got up briefly, I whacked my toes into a corner and I’ve decided to keep off of them for the day so they won’t be so tender! I know some people are following this because they expect to follow the same itinerary. They may be interested we were told there are free shuttle buses into town, but you have to walk about 200 meters to access them. Here are a few pics from this morning and yesterday:

 

This morning’s breakfast—Yummy salmon omelet!

 

Virgin Resilient Lady backs into place near us.

 

Being cool at the pool!

 

This motorcycle by Matchless wasn’t seen as useful in the trenches of World War I even if it did mount a menacing machine gun.

 

Two unlucky Italian soldiers were shoehorned into this tankette during early World War II. If they managed to see a target through the vision slits, they could maneuver to point a machine gun or a flamethrower (!) at it.

Edited September 11 by Mike B Landlubber

[Ipeeinthepools]

Since you aren’t getting off the ship, I’ll chime in.  There are free shuttle buses but the line is tremendously long waiting to get on the buses, probably a couple hundred people.  They promise more buses are coming but if it were me, I’d plan on taking a cab.  Nothing exciting for me today, just a walk along the shoreline at the port.

[VMax1700]

3 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

Since you aren’t getting off the ship, I’ll chime in.  There are free shuttle buses but the line is tremendously long waiting to get on the buses, probably a couple hundred people.  They promise more buses are coming but if it were me, I’d plan on taking a cab.  Nothing exciting for me today, just a walk along the shoreline at the port.

Are cabs available at the pier?  Do you know the approx price into city centre?

thanks!

[Ipeeinthepools]

I saw a couple cabs and Ubers at the cruise terminal exit.  I suspect any available cabs were taken by the people waiting in line.  I don’t know the details about price but you may have better luck by calling your own cab.  All I can tell for sure is that for at least for the few couple of hours in port there were long lines waiting for the shuttle.

Edited September 11 by Ipeeinthepools

[Mike B Landlubber]

I’m not super-connected, but from what I hear, the shuttle busses were a mess today, with people waiting well over an hour sometimes to get on a bus from town back to the ship. Apparently a big part of the problem was that there were two ships in port at once. I am glad I stayed afloat!

Edited September 11 by Mike B Landlubber