Maasdam Review May 20-May 28 NE/Canada Itinerary

[CCaroleAnn]

I so enjoy this board and have found so much helpful information. Whether it be direct answers to my questions or just posts I've read. Thank you everyone!!!! I happen to love cruise reports and reviews the most so I'll give you my review on our recent cruise on the Maasdam. It may get a bit long so be prepared. :eek: I have tried to break up this report in sections so you can read what you are most interested in without having to read wade through it all. Hopefully I will be able to help someone else like you all have helped me. Enjoy!!!

 

All in all this was a wonderful trip. Please don't feel I'm complaining at times as nothing was a real problem. I just want to tell it like it was. The good and the not so good. There was no bad.

 

Background: I am 48 and Mom is 74. We travel together often and have traveled quite a bit within the US. This was only our 2nd cruise. Both of which were with HAL. We enjoy cool temperatures and beautiful scenery. We are not "beach" or "fun" ship people. I enjoy good food, Mom will eat anything and be happy. We also like to play the slot machines. Our first cruise was to Alaska and we loved every second of it. I was hesitant to book another cruise because the first one was just so perfect I just knew anything else would be a let down. Canada may have been a bit of a let down, over Alaska mind you, but our cruise experience on the Maasdam was not.

 

Pre-cruise: We flew out of Philadelphia a day early to spend time in Boston as Mom had never been there. We stayed at the Marriott Long Wharf. A taxi from the airport to the hotel was $25 with tip and took 1/2 hour at 4pm. The Marriott is in perfect location. Very central to all the touristy stuff. Quincy Market is just a short walk from the hotel and it is the biggest "food court" I've ever seen. I'm sure everyone could find something to eat there. We took a hop-on hop-off trolley tour and were able to see a good part of the city without too much walking. If you do walk the Freedom Trail be prepared for a few hills. Mom had a little bit of a hard time at points. We really enjoyed our time in Boston.

 

I did notice on the way to the cruise terminal that there is a new Westin being built. It is right next to the convention center. The taxi driver told us it was due to open sometime this summer. The Westin was very close to the cruise terminal but not much else. So if you are going into Boston early keep this in mind.

 

Embarkation: We took a taxi ($15 with tip) from the hotel to the cruise terminal around 12noon. I didn't notice the travel time, sorry, but it couldn't have been more than a 1/2 hour. Our taxi driver keep getting yelled at by the State Police, who were directing traffic, while he was trying to park. They wanted him to parallel park but the parking lines suggested otherwise. Who knew. LOL We then had a bit of confusion trying to enter the terminal building. We still had our luggage that needed to be checked and no one had noticed or directed us prior to our trying to get in with it. We were turned away at the "C" door and told to go to door "B." We walked over to door "B" and told that we have to check our luggage at door "C". But we just came from "C" and we were told to come here. :confused: My Mom told him she was not going to keep rolling her luggage from door to door and he had better find out where we supposed to go. Mom is not shy about speaking up. :rolleyes: He did double check and then sent us to "D" door. On the way to "D" door we were meet by a luggage handler who took our bags before we got there. I can't really say if this was HAL's problem or not as it was the State Police who seemed to be running the show. It could also have been due to this being the 2nd cruise of the season. I would guess if we had arrived on a HAL transfer bus this wouldn't be an issue.

 

Once inside we were given health forms to fill out and then proceeded to make our way to check-in. Standard questions like, "Have you been sick in the past week" and so on. On the way to check-in they were having us stop to take embarkation photos. Call us crazy but Mom and I like to get photos from the ship. Not all of them mind you, but 1 or 2 of us together to remember the trip. HAL was taking the embarkation photos in the terminal AKA the warehouse with no background. I noticed it at the time but thought they would do something with it. You can do all sorts of things with photo shop these days. But no, not HAL. Good picture of us standing in a warehouse. :confused: Oh well it saved me money. We then joined the line to check-in. The line moved very fast and they were directing people who had express boarding passes vs the ones who did not. They kept stating while we were in line "Your express boarding pass is 2 pages." Thanks again to this site for that little tidbit. We I had originally printed them a month before our trip there was only 1 page. Thanks to messages posted here I learned there should 2 pages and went back and reprinted them. We presented our creditcards and all our paperwork and within minutes we were boarding the ship. We were greeted at the gangway with a welcome back and escorted to our room by a white gloved steward.

 

The Cabin: We had cabin 375 Category HH, a fully obstructed ocean view on the lower promenade deck. At the time we booked in December it was the least expensive cabin on the ship so I wasn't expecting too much. We had paid $1149 per person during HAL's "View and Veranda" promotion. The cabin was sort of aft of midship and looked to be under the kitchen area. We really don't spend much time in the room so I didn't see the point of spending money that we could use for shore excursions. We were quite pleased with the room and the view. If you looked directly out the window across the lower promenade deck you would see a white solid wall/bulkhead with a red fire box. But if you turned your head just a tad to the left there was a beautiful sea view. In fact when I sat on my bed, with my back against the wall I had a great sea view. I took a photo of both "views" and if anyone is interested I could email you the pics. We were not bothered at all by people walking by "looking in". In fact we tried to look in ourselves but you had to pretty much put your face against the window to see in during the day. Of course in the evening it was a different matter. Remember to close your curtains unless you enjoy putting on a show. If you are interested in an HH cabin on the Maasdam try to stick to the ones more midship-ish as they seem to have the best "views." The HH cabins way forward and aft have a solid bulkhead railing along the bottom. The midship-ish ones have a open railing that is much easier to see through. Our room steward was Scooby, like the cartoon dog he told us. He came to our cabin within minutes of our arrival and learned our names immediately and used them every time we saw him which was quite often. We had a towel animal every night and loved them all. We took a photo of each one and then dismantled them and tried to make them again ourselves. Usually not too successfully. LOL One morning at about 9am our toilet would not flush. It was working just fine earlier as we had been up since 6am. I got worried that I had done something wrong and broke it. The night before I flushed some ice cream I had gotten from the Lido but didn't finish. I wouldn't have thought that ice cream would have clogged up the system but maybe it did. I found Scooby and told him our toilet was broke and I confessed flushing ice cream the night before. He just laughed at me and told me it was the whole starboard side of the ship and they were doing maintenance. I didn't do anything wrong. Thank goodness!!!! All was fine again by 12noon and we had no other problems with the room. The shower was spotless, not a speck of mildew. The beds were super comfy. The new phones even have the time on them so there is no real need to bring a clock anymore. We had plenty of room for our clothes as there were 4 closets and 3 drawers. Our empty suitcases fit under the beds nicely. Other than taking the elevator to the Lido we used the stairs most of the time. The cabin location was convenient to everything. Late one night, after the dessert extravaganza, we did hear a little noise from the kitchen area overhead. Not real loud and just for a few minutes. Other than that one time we never heard a thing from above.We also loved how they have added "slots" behind the cabin number in the hallway. We found all our "mail" there everday and we liked it much better than finding it on the floor as we did on our previous cruise. I'm sure it is also much easier on the room steward not having to bend over and shove stuff under the doors. We would book this room category again in a heart beat.

 

[coloradowahine]

CcarolAnn- thank you for your review so far. I am assuming you will be writing more. We are taking the same cruise in a few weeks. I can't wait and I have been waiting for reviews! I would love to hear about your shore excursions and of course any tips you can give about Maasdam. Thanks!

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for posting.

 

Can't wait for more to come.

[CCaroleAnn]

Thanks for the thanks. :D I'll be posting the rest in pieces. Don't worry Coloradowahine I'll get to the shore excursions next.

 

CC

 

 

The Food: We asked for and received Main Seating (8pm) Upper Level. We requested a table for 8 and we were pleasantly surprised to get a table for 10. Table 64 If I remember correctly. On our last cruise we ended up sitting alone and Mom and I got quite bored with each other. Not so this time. Our last cruise we had the early seating but we both felt too rushed as sometimes we were just getting back to the ship after an excursion and then had to be at dinner within a hour. Not so this time. We had a lovely table of all single people, even a Mother and son to match our Mother and Daughter. :p There were only 3 of us that still worked for a living and everyone else was retired. That might give you an idea of the age ranges. Everyone attended dinner most nights and when they didn't they were sure to tell us and our waiters they would not be there. We each ended up buying or bringing a bottle or 2 of wine at dinner and sharing it with the table. It worked out quite well. Almost as if we had planned it that way. ;) Our waiter was Dana and his assistant was Heartone. We tried to eat most of our meals in the dining room and had Dana serve us at most every meal. He was very efficient and grew to know my Mom's habits. Which was a ice cream sundae for dessert at every meal other than breakfast. It became some what of a joke after a few days. He really went out of his way to cater to my Mom. He even cut her meat for her and believe me she can do it herself. :o I enjoyed all the food and I consider myself somewhat of a foodie. No Olive Garden in my world. All the appetizers were fabulous. I never had one I did not care for or one that I did not want more of. LOL The soups were a hit or miss. The French Onion soup was the worst I've ever had. The salads were just okay other than the Greek Salad which was great. The main courses were all quite good. The beef dishes seemed to be the best. The desserts were all good. I especially enjoyed the flambe selection of the night quite a few nights. It was not done tableside but in the front of the dinning room and they were all delicious. I will say I think they should have more chocolate desserts. You can never have enough chocolate. :) One evening early into the cruise I couldn't make up my mind between two different entrees, I liked the meat in one and the vegetables in the other. Dana overheard my dilemma and told me no problem. He was able to give me exactly what I wanted. After I learned I could do that with no trouble I did it quite a few times. Dana was always pleasant and accommodating. Our meals were paced well and everything was always hot. We normally got out of the dinning room between 945 to 10pm. On the 2nd formal night Mom wanted Surf & Turf and Dana didn't even blink. They served the biggest Maine Lobster tails I've ever seen that night. There was no need to ask for 2 as we were all served 2 to begin with. They were so big it was hard to finish them both. Formal nights were our 2nd night in Bar Harbor and on our 1 and only sea day. On the 2nd formal night we did see a woman come to the dinning room 1/2 way through dinner wearing the famous HAL bathrobe. Seemed she only wanted to take pictures of the Baked Alaska parade and they let her. LOL Very strange. There were quite a few tuxes and I would think 99% of the people dressed appropriately for formal nights. On casual nights there were quite a few people wearing jeans, but everyone was looked neat and clean. To each his own. It did not affect our cruise experience.

 

We ate breakfast a few times in the Lido, only when we were outside of the dining room hours. We just don't care for the Lido. I can't really say why. Maybe because I can't seem to get my act together. I was always getting up because I forgot something and my food ended up being cold. I liked the look of the "stations" but it took way to long to work you way through everything. There was something wrong with the Ice Tea "tap". I did see it being worked on but it never seemed to be fixed. Hence there was hardly ever Ice Tea. When the drink station was manned and I would ask for Ice Tea they would reach around the back and pour some concentrate out of a industrial size container. A little in the glass and then they would add water. It never tasted right and it just looked nasty the way it was served. They also seemed to use lime wedges for the tea where I normally use lemon. Mom had a problem with the coffee from the Lido. She never complains about anything and I think she would drink mud. But for some reason she could never drink the coffee from the Lido. We never had a problem with either in the dining room or from room service. Who knows??? We also had issues with the ice cream stations. The flavors that were posted on the signs were sometimes not offered or had run out. It can't be that hard to change a sign, but they were never changed. They also seemed to run out of the fancy waffle cones just before it was my turn. LOL They had a lot of different out of the ordinary flavors. Rum Raisin, Coconut and so on. Vanilla and Chocolate were noticeably missing. We did enjoy the hamburgers and pizza from the Grill. The Grill and that great pizza came in quite handy after shore excursions to tide us over until our late dinner.

 

I guess since this was such a port intensive trip they planned a lot for our 1 and only sea day. We had the Royal Dutch Tea, Formal night and the dessert extravaganza all in that one day. The Royal Dutch Tea was wonderful but did not seem to have a good attendance. The dessert extravaganza was certainly a extravaganza, but it was hard to eat much after our formal night feast just 1 hour prior. LOL But don't worry we managed.

 

Room service breakfast was always on time, sometimes early. Always correct and hot. I gave the boy a $2 tip each time. The day of disembarkation I had heard on CNN about the earthquake in Indonesia. I asked the server if he had heard from his family and was everything all right. He seemed quite shocked that I had even heard about it and thanked me for my concern. He stated his family was fine but some of the other crew members were not so lucky. They are such a nice people and their country seems to have so many natural disasters. It makes me sad.

[crusingici]

Thank you, CCarolAnne, for this detailed wonderful review!!! We are thinking of booking this cruise next May only in reverse - I am hanging onto each word and am sure to have questions for you later.

 

Looking forward to more!!!

[CCaroleAnn]

More on the shore excursions later. Goodness this is getting way long.:p Thanks for sticking with me.

 

Shore Excursions: We did 3 excursions through HAL. I tried to book the 2nd tour of the day so we could take our time getting dressed, not have to worry about having breakfast and getting where we needed to be on time. With the tours later in the day we also had some time to look around the cities some what. We did not book any full day tours, but we had very full days for sure.

 

Bar Harbor: Bar Harbor was a tender port. I was deathly afraid of the tender as I had never been on one and have read stories of how you have to jump in and out with action of the waves. I just knew I would be the one person to die getting on the tender. :( Well, I guess I was lucky or the sea was calm that day because it was a piece of cake. We had a bit of confusion leaving the ship as they were making announcements all morning that you had to have a tender ticket or you would not be boarded. We were being told that we had to go to the showroom for a number and wait there until our number was called. We made our way to the showroom and were told that we don't need a tender number. Oh well. The funny thing was as we were making our way to the tender deck we heard the same announcement. We were wondering what would happen when we tried to board. Would they want a number? Would they allow us to board? Would we have to go back to the showroom? :confused: While waiting for the next tender we saw quite a few people with numbers. Thank goodness when it was time to board we indeed no longer needed a number. All that worry for nothing. We left the ship earlier than our tour so we would have a chance to look around. It was a cute little town and with plenty of stores to browse in. We walked around the residential section and looked at the houses and all the spring blooming plants and shrubs. In Philadelphia our spring has been long over. In most of NE it was just peaking. There were beautiful tulips and lilac's blooming everywhere. It was a nice day and everyone told us how lucky we were to be enjoying the first good weather of the season. Then we walked back to the dock to meet our tour. Let me tell you HAL tours run on-time. They say be there 15 minutes prior but it seemed when we arrived 15 minutes prior we were the last people on the bus. At least they didn't leave without us. We did a HAL tour called "The Best of Both Worlds." It took us on a short city tour on our way to Acadia National Park. We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain. What a view. It was so pretty. We made a stop in the park at Thunder Hole which was very impressive even though it was low tide. We stopped and toured a home that they called a Summer Cottage which was now a B&B. But the best part of the tour was when we went to a Lobster Museum. It still sounds so funny to say. Who ever heard of a Lobster Museum? But is was cool. We sat in a shed like building and this nice man told us all about lobsters. He showed us the different types of traps and even a huge live lobster. He was what my Mom called an "Old Salt". It was really fun and very educational too. I would do that tour again. I don't remember the price but I think it was around $49.

Halifax: We got off the ship around 900am. We had a tour to Peggy's Cove at 1230pm. It was quite a walk down the Halifax boardwalk to the Maritime Museum. But don't worry if you can't walk too far, they have cute young guys :D who pull you in a Rickshaw down the boardwalk. We did not partake of their services but saw many other who did. I'm not sure what the prices were, but if you can't walk I'm sure it was worth it. We really enjoyed the Maritime Museum and found plenty to look at. They have a large Titanic Exhibit but we found the story of the Halifax Explosion the most interesting. Before we knew it we had been in the Museum over 3 hours and had to hustle to make our tour. I highly recommend the Maritime Museum. It was 15CAD for the 2 of us. Quite a bargain I thought. Again we were one of the last few people to board the bus to what HAL called "Peggy's Cove Lighthouse Route". If you go sit on the left hand side of the bus for what we considered the best view. On the return trip back the bus took the main Highway, so it's not like some tours where you see what you missed on the way back. The left side was the salt water side and the right side was the fresh water side. It was a nice drive with lots to look at on the way. Peggy's Cove is a tiny place with just a few shops and the famous Lighthouse. The only problem was by the time we got there it was raining and really windy. Brrrrrr even for us Philly girls. But as they say in NE, "If you don't like the weather wait 10 minutes and it will change." and change it did. By the time we left 1 hour later the sun was out. There was lots of time to look around and play on the rocks. Too much time in fact due to the nasty weather. To get our of the weather we went into the main shop ( I can't remember the name, but you can't miss it) where they had a nice little restaurant and we had the most delicious gingerbread cake with ice cream. Again a very nice tour that I would do again. I remember it being very reasonability priced. So much so that I cancelled a car rental as it was cheaper to take the tour.

[doverite]

Thanks so much - enjoyed each section:)

[cavcmy]

Your review is terrific! We are taking the same cruise later this month and I have question about the Acadia National Park bus tour. Did you notice if one side of the bus or the other was better for best views?

[coloradowahine]

Thank you for all the details. Your review is just what I was looking for. I am looking forward to more.

[CCaroleAnn]

Sorry for my absence. It always seems something comes up after I've been away. :( I'll try to finish my review this week.

 

Hi cavcmy: I would think the best side for the Acadia Tour would be the right side. You will have a great view going up Cadillic Mountian.

 

Ports: Sydney - We did not take any tours in Sydney. I had thought about renting a car but later changed my mind. I really wanted to drive the Cabot Trail but was afraid we would have time issues. Instead we just walked around the town, shopped some of the stores and went to the casino. It wasn't too far from the ship, maybe 10 blocks or so. It was a nice casino. All new machines. Ticket-in Ticket-out. We like that. We played for a few hours and I even came out a little ahead. :D Mom wasn't as lucky. But we had a good time. On our way back to the ship we saw a young boy maybe 10 years old playing the bagpipe. He was so cute. I guess that's how he makes extra money during the cruise season, playing for tourist. He had quite a crowd around him. There was a building right next to where we docked that had maybe 40-50 vendors selling local handmade crafts. We spent about an hour there just looking around. They a lot of really nice things there. The prices seemed reasonable. You could also access the internet from there for only a donation. 2 of the people we had dinner with did rent a car and went out to Baddeck and the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. They talked of taking a car ferry and being worried about making it back in time. They really did seem to enjoy the Museum. No one else out of our table for 10 took any HAL sponsored tours in Sydney. It was a nice little town. The dock was close to the town, so you don't have to walk too far. Oh one other thing, I did notice when we got off the ship there was a sign stating "Shuttle this way", When we walked that way all we saw were taxis. But later in the day we saw a school bus with some people from the ship we knew. I'm not sure if that was the shuttle or if it was part of a tour. It did seem to be making a loop through the town to the ship. We saw it a few times on our walk home. Maybe it was a crew shuttle?

 

Charlottetown: We did not take any tours in Charlottetown. The ship wasn't scheduled to be there very long only 5 hours. I wasn't even sure I wanted to get off the ship at this port since this is one of the places in Canada that still holds seal hunts every year. I just didn't want to patronize a city that still clubs baby seals. :mad: In the end Mom talked me into walking around. I was glad I did. Everyone we talked to were taking the "Anne of Green Gables" tour and were very excited about it. We had never even heard of "Anne". I did find out it was a book was written in 1908 or something so I may have been too young to have read it. I was a "Nancy Drew" girl myself. I'm not sure what Mom's excuse was for never reading it, other than "We were too poor to buy books." :rolleyes: We found out from people at dinner that HAL had been showing the PBS mini series "Anne of Green Gables" on one of the TV channels on the ship. We did catch parts of it here and there and it was interesting. We walked to the town center. It was quite a ways from the ship. Again another cute little town with interesting shops. We made our way to the Confederate Mall. It was a hoot. Here we are in this little Victorian town, all old buildings and small streets. Then you go into the mall entrance, a very unassuming door and it opens up into a HUGE mall. I think it was 4 levels and there was even a food court. Mostly all stores for people who lived in town mind you but it was so funny. You never would have expected something that large and modern from the store front. I did catch a good sale at one of the women's clothing stores, but I wouldn't say it's a "don't miss" attraction. They also have an ice cream store called "Cows" in Charlottetown. They seemed to be doing quite a business selling "Cow" memorabilia. It was still very early when we were there and it was just too early for me to be eating ice cream. We were told it was very good. There was also a "Anne" store and chocolate store. I couldn't believe it but the place was packed. I guess all folks from the ship? That "Anne" is one popular girl. :o The chocolate store gave free samples and it was just okay. Nothing special and way too expensive. IMO In the end I think the ship could have stayed in Charlottetown a little longer, it was an enjoyable couple of hours.

 

More later.......

 

CC