Maasdam, 11/20 Day 2 at Sea

[sk8teacher]

Just a quick note about day 2 and our first day at the Thermal Suite!

 

Enjoy!

 

11/20/06, At Sea

 

Today the Maasdam is at sea, making her way south towards the Bahamas, and Half Moon Cay. We availed ourselves to room service, and had coffee, tea, bagel, and toast delivered to our room. After finishing that, we went out and walked a mile around the lower promenade deck.

 

Shortly after 8am, we decided it was time to take advantage of the Thermal Suite, so up we went to the Lido deck and the Greenhouse Spa.

 

We spent a little over an hour there, went back to our room to change and went back up for breakfast.

 

Our thoughts on the Thermal Spa.

 

The first thing we did was climb into the thermal pool. The water was either at or slightly above body temperature, and was circulated gently by low pressure jets. As you climb the ladder to enter to pool, just to the right side of the right handrail, down on the enclosure is a silver button. That must be pushed to start the jets. The jets run for approximately 10 minutes and automatically shut off (they can be restarted if you wish).

 

From there, we went over to the ceramic lounge chairs. There are five chairs, lined up on the starboard side, looking out over the bow of the ship. Each is heated (not sure of the temperature, perhaps similar to the low setting on a heating pad), and believe it or not, were extremely comfortable.

 

After 20 minutes or so there, we got up and entered the “wet” steam room. Moist, hot, and with a subtle smell of eucalyptus, we stayed for about 10 minutes and went over the to the dry steam room. Spent another 10 minutes there and entered the rain showers. Hugh shower heads provided a gentle light shower, and pushing a silver button on the wall provided a cold mist with a lavender smell for a short period.

 

If you sail on Holland America, do try the Thermal Spa at least once. We purchased a pass for the whole cruise ($250 for both of us) but you can purchase a daily pass for $20 per person. We highly recommend it!

 

Dinner was formal, and a typical HAL dinner. Very good, and the service was excellent. We attempted to see the show afterwards, but simply found ourselves too tired so we retired to our room for the evening.

 

 

Cheers,

[mick70]

Thanks for the review of the thermal suite we will be on the Maasdam 4 Jan and plan use it for the whole cruise also. We did it on the Oosterdam 2 years ago and it was just great!!

 

 

PS (I am USN ETC Ret)

[sail7seas]

Sounds wonderful. Sure makes me wish I were aboard that pretty ship.

 

Continue to enjoy!! Thanks for sharing with us during your vacation.

 

 

[airlink diva]

Great info!! You stated that the daily rate was $20. Do you purchase this at the Spa? I wanted to try this on the Westerdam, but it was closed :( !

Was it open on the very first day? I think that this is the way to start a cruise!

[sk8teacher]

Don't think the Thermal Suite was open on sailaway, we didn' even try. Our luggage didn't arrive in our cabin until 4:30 so by the time we had dinner and unpacked, it was past our bed time:p.

 

As I understand it, you can walk up to the spa desk and pay as you go. You do save some money however if you plan on using it more than 6 times over an eleven day cruise.

 

Cheers!

[Hoyaheel]

We toured the thermal suite on our tour of the spa on embarkation day - it's not open to be used, but is open for the spa tours--and you could purchase your pass for the suite, or schedule spa appts, or purchase an unlimited gym class card too. The daily schedule that will be in your room when you get there will have the hours the spa is open for tours.