Live from Nieuw Stat sailing from A to A!

[Mike B Landlubber]

On a sea day, here are some more ship photos

 

Weary walkers can rest their weary bones…

 

The world’s largest platter of lobster-mac!

 

hot dog from Dive Inn

 

Looking across at guest services

Edited Wednesday at 08:32 AM by Mike B Landlubber

[gizmodog]

Love these ship photos, cannot wait to get on. Do you know if there are video poker machines in the casino?

what type of cabin do you have?

[Mike B Landlubber]

16 minutes ago, gizmodog said:

Love these ship photos, cannot wait to get on. Do you know if there are video poker machines in the casino?

what type of cabin do you have?

I think there is a casino somewhere on the ship, but not certain. I am pretty sure in Craps, 7 and 11 are somehow important. That exhausts my gambling knowledge, sorry! 🙂 

I am doing a b2b, and had to change cabins in Rome. Before Rome, I had a stern balcony cabin, which is my preference. From Rome to Athens my stern cabin wasn’t available and I am in a regular balcony or technically I guess a veranda. Both are very standard cabins of the type. Once on an MSC ship, I had to change cabins like this, and the process seemed to be managed by the Three Stooges. Thankfully on HAL it was managed well. The worst thing I can say about it was that the guys who helped move my stuff to the new cabin were about 10 minutes late (which is no big deal on a complicated day like changing out passengers).

[RClark6369@aol.com]

Lovin the ship pics Mike !!!!  Keep them coming ...!!    OMG those fries at Dive In.    I cannot wait to "dive in" in a burger and those awesome fries.     I limit myself to 2 burgers a cruise.   There are 2 sea days on my 14 day itinerary, and they are staggered during the cruise, so I figure those will be my burger and fry days.   LOL

Did you have the peanut butter silk pie on embarkation day ?

 

Cheers !

Rex

[Mike B Landlubber]

47 minutes ago, RClark6369@aol.com said:

Lovin the ship pics Mike !!!!  Keep them coming ...!!    OMG those fries at Dive In.    I cannot wait to "dive in" in a burger and those awesome fries.     I limit myself to 2 burgers a cruise.   There are 2 sea days on my 14 day itinerary, and they are staggered during the cruise, so I figure those will be my burger and fry days.   LOL

Did you have the peanut butter silk pie on embarkation day ?

You’re right, Dive Inn fries are excellent! I don’t think I’ve ever had the peanut butter silk pie. Don’t remember what I got instead. The best burger on the ship in my opinion is the Pinnacle burger. It’s available in the pinnacle and you can get it at lunch. It is fairly cheap to eat lunch at the Pinnacle on sea days. 
 

You probably remember that I gave general food advice in Post 32 in this thread. I would change one thing about that post now if I could. I praised the grilled cheese sandwich, based on the ones I got through room service on sistership Rotterdam. Since that post, I ordered a grilled cheese and the grilled cheese on Nieuw Amsterdam is pathetic wimpy, lukewarm couple of strips (literally, not even whole slices!) of bread that were shown a photo of some cheese. Don’t order it! 

Edited Wednesday at 08:55 PM by Mike B Landlubber

[Mike B Landlubber]

15 hours ago, gizmodog said:

Love these ship photos, cannot wait to get on. Do you know if there are video poker machines in the casino?

We are in Port in Istanbul today and overnight. I had a short shore excursion in the morning and some time in between before going ashore tonight, so I found the casino and took a few pictures. It is closed because we’re in port. I overlooked them while I was taking pictures, but in one of my photos on the left edge, you can see part of the machine that says something about “King“. It looks to this rube like it has a poker hand on the screen. If you’re familiar with the machines, you might recognize it. But on my first look, I didn’t think there were any poker machines. So even if the King machines play poker, there are not a lot. There are some machines by the cashier booth that are turned off, I’m not sure what they do.

Edited yesterday at 10:59 AM by Mike B Landlubber

[cannongate]

Good Morning or in your case good afternoon.

 

I didn't know that you had changed rooms for this leg.  As it turns out I will be in the cabin that you occupied on the first leg of your trip.  

 

I am following along everyday as the countdown to my first Holland America cruise is getting ever so closer.  The anticipation is helping me get through these last few days of work.  Is there any chance that you could post a picture of your aft cabin balcony while I wait for your wonderful pictures of Istanbul.  

 

Thank you again for posting you have no idea how much I appreciate it.  

[Mike B Landlubber]

28 minutes ago, cannongate said:

 As it turns out I will be in the cabin that you occupied on the first leg of your trip.  

 

Is there any chance that you could post a picture of your aft cabin balcony while I wait for your wonderful pictures of Istanbul.  

 

 

LOL. I must have put something with my cabin number here without realizing it! To be clear, I formerly was in 6235. Unfortunately, I did not take an overall picture of my cabin or my balcony. I scanned through my pictures, and the closest thing I found was this picture, which I took sitting in one of the chairs on the balcony. I know it isn’t much help.

 

I can tell you I was surprised how small the balcony was. Sometimes in Stern cabins I get cabins that are long enough to put a lounging deck chair where I can lay out with my legs stretched in front of me. That was not the case this time. It was actually a little tight for two upright chairs and a small table to hold coffee or drinks in between them. Occasionally, I had to shift the small chair around to make room to move around for a vantage point. It was adequate, but my conventional veranda state room that I’m in now actually has a roomier balcony!

[Mike B Landlubber]

I’ve previously spent several days in Istanbul during a land tour, plus I have an evening excursion coming up tonight and yet another excursion in the city tomorrow morning, plus an excursion every day for almost a week coming up. So this morning, I did not worry so much about seeing everything as I worried about pushing myself too hard. I chose a panoramic excursion even though I usually scorn those. This excursion definitely deserves the rating of easy. It is almost entirely bus based. Lasting only two hours, but we do get off in the hippodrome area for about half an hour on the ground. Other than that, we just looked out the bus windows. Sometimes the bus would stop in an area and give us a steady view without dismounting. But we had trouble viewing things on the opposite side of the bus and for wannabe photographers like me glare off the windows was a problem. BUT the tour provided what was promised, and for someone with mobility problems it would probably be a great thing.

 

Street food!

 

From my ship balcony we can at least see some of the mosques

 

Clever art on the stairway, but I’m not sure I get it

 

I’m sure all the great comedians stay here

 

It wasn’t all quaint narrow oriental streets

 

I don’t think I’d buy street food from over a storm sewer….

 

Anything to push the merchandise…

 

The base under one of the famous Egyptian Obelisks

 

 

Erected in 10th Century and still Looking good at 1000!

 

Narrow streets!

 

Our ship

 

 Fortunately, the Biryani Palace had Kentucky Fried Chicken to lend a touch of class! 🙂

Edited yesterday at 01:40 PM by Mike B Landlubber

[fusion927]

19 hours ago, gizmodog said:

Love these ship photos, cannot wait to get on. Do you know if there are video poker machines in the casino?

 

In May they had 3 or 4 of the multi play VP machines that have a selection of games

on it.  Not the best pay tables (obviously), and they were located in the smoking section of the casino...

 

[gizmodog]

Thank you, kind of sad as video poker is all I play

[Mike B Landlubber]

This morning from Istanbul I took a cruise on the Bosporus, between Europe and Asia. I did not know it, but it was also Navy Day in Turkey. So as a bonus for our cruise, we saw a parade of about 13 Turkish navy ships.

[Sea42]

12 minutes ago, Mike B Landlubber said:

This morning from Istanbul I took a cruise on the Bosporus, between Europe and Asia.

Was this offered thru HAL or can it be booked on our own?

[Mike B Landlubber]

38 minutes ago, Sea42 said:

Was this offered thru HAL or can it be booked on our own?

I booked it through HAL. I’m sure there are lots of other providers. It is a common Istanbul activity. I took a similar cruise when I was here on a land trip in 2012. Here is the info on the option I booked. Alas, the Turkish navy may not be so cooperative next time!

Edited 3 hours ago by Mike B Landlubber