Emails from the Noordam Panama Canal Cruise to the Folks Back Home

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Thanks again:) for sharing with us your emails from the Noordam. I enjoyed watching you and your fellow pax go thru the canal and it has just brought my level of antisipation up for our upcoming Noordam cruise on 17 June. I too am looking forward to the Captain Scott sightings;)

BTW, if you do see the Black and White (Torrence Police car) our very own Copper10-8 do go up and say "Hi" to him today.

[fcorey]

Victor, thank you for the detailed reports. I hope to be able to do a trans-canal one of these years :) sounds like you're having a great trip.

[gizmo]

Thanks for all the great emails. I really enjoyed reading them.:)

[Copper10-8]

Well Noordam is looking pretty darn good today in Long Beach, tied up at the former Spruce Goose dome/LB Cruise Terminal behind the good old Queen Mary. Looked for but did not see Victor (probably out and about). Great weather today. Actually got to go inside Noordam at the Main Deck gangway while waiting for Security Officer Stewart Daw. Nice guy, British, with 14 years on as a S/O. Captain Scott was of his ship on shore somewhere away from the terminal taking care of bus. Left him some "stuff" with Stewart. Always nice to be onboard a HAL ship, even for only ten minutes!:) Enjoy the rest of your cruise up north, Victor!

[Love Cruises]

Thank you John (Copper10-8) for the nice picture of your police car with the ship in the background. When we are on this reverse cruise in the fall we hope you can do this again so we can see you. Always enjoy your messages --- especially your updates on the HAL staff. I have kept all these writeups in hopes of someday meeting the actual employee.

[Copper10-8]

Thank you John (Copper10-8) for the nice picture of your police car with the ship in the background. When we are on this reverse cruise in the fall we hope you can do this again so we can see you. Always enjoy your messages --- especially your updates on the HAL staff. I have kept all these writeups in hopes of someday meeting the actual employee.

 

Done deal, Love Cruises, just give me a heads up when it gets a little closer Made that same deal with the security officer

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Well Noordam is looking pretty darn good today in Long Beach, tied up at the former Spruce Goose dome/LB Cruise Terminal behind the good old Queen Mary. Looked for but did not see Victor (probably out and about). Great weather today. Actually got to go inside Noordam at the Main Deck gangway while waiting for Security Officer Stewart Daw. Nice guy, British, with 14 years on as a S/O. Captain Scott was of his ship on shore somewhere away from the terminal taking care of bus. Left him some "stuff" with Stewart. Always nice to be onboard a HAL ship, even for only ten minutes!:) Enjoy the rest of your cruise up north, Victor!

 

John, that pictures is great:) It really is too bad that Captain Scott was not on board. But definitely worth the try. Like you said it was still nice to be on baord a HAL ship if only for 10 minutes. Tom said too bad you could not have gone up to the Lido for a bite to eat. ;)

[cruiservictor]

Sorry I did not read these postings before getting off the ship today. I would have stopped by.

 

It was a beautiful day. Woke up to the dome and the Queen Mary glistening in the sun right outside our balcony.

 

Back at sea now, heading north, getting chillier.

 

Picked up about 800 new passengers. They appear to be a younger group than we have had so far.

 

My shirt is still missing.......

[e-CJ]

Hi Victor,

 

I have enjoyed reading your, already familiar, reports of the activities of our cruise. You will be flying home today, I hope your stay in Seattle was nice. We did get some pleasant weather for your short time here.

 

Thanks for the reports, I promised myself I'd write each day so I could remember details of the cruise, then didn't. Your words are a very nice memory refresher.

 

Hugs to you and Nancy, we sure enjoyed your part in all of the entertaining dinners we had together.

 

Smiles, CJ

[cruiservictor]

Hi CJ -thanks for the kind words. We enjoyed eating with you and Scott.

 

As promised, here is the last email from the Noordam to the folks back home. Actually it was from my home in New York to the folks back home, but you get the idea.... Thanks to all who read these postings and took time to send comments on them.

 

 

 

 

Well, we are almost back to reality. I am starting this email on Sunday night from the Sheraton Seattle Hotel (watching one of my favorite movies, The Godfather, Part 2). In just a few short hours, we will be getting up to get to the SEATAC airport for our flight home. It was just a few short hours ago that we disembarked the Noordam after 22 days. I’ll write as much as I can tonight, then probably resume at the airport and on the plane and send it out when we get home tomorrow (Monday) night.

 

Wednesday morning began with a nice sight right outside our balcony in Long Beach – the Queen Mary, now a floating hotel after many years of crossing the Atlantic. Right next to it was the dome that used to house Howard Hughes’s plane, the Spruce Goose. Now it is the Long Beach Cruise Terminal. Wednesday morning was disembarkation day for something like 800 or 900 people. For several hours, they did the usual disembarkation announcements (“Those holding red #2 luggage tags may now disembark the ship. Please make sure you have your cruise card, passport and customs declaration with you. We hope you arrive home safely.”), but we could ignore them, since we were what is called “in transit”, continuing on to the next port.

 

For the LA area, we had planned a tour of the city, including a stop in Beverly Hills. The tour did not start off well and went downhill from there. There was some kind of screwup for non-American citizens (filling out forms that were not necessary, not filling our forms that were) and the line waiting to get from the ship was several hundred people long. We got right through but had to sit on the bus waiting for our Canadian friends. We finally left at about 10:50AM, about an hour later than planned. Then, it turns out, of the 40 people on the bus, 2 were flying home and had to be taken to the airport. Why they were on a bus with everyone else who was going back to the ship was never explained. What it meant, though, was that the tour had to be rearranged so that we could get these 2 people to LAX and then still have time to get the rest of us back to the ship. We skipped several stops, rushed through some others and spent less than an hour in Beverly Hills with no reasonable places to eat. (We ended up in a Starbucks.) Then we had the detour to LAX and finally got back to the ship at about 4:15PM, just in time for the lifeboat drill, which was mandatory for all passengers, both those boarding today for the first time, and those of us who had been “in transit”. (There had been some conjecture at the beginning of the trip as to how many lifeboat drills we would have – there were 2, the one the first day in NYC and now today.) The one good thing to come out of the tour was that we ended up not having to pay for it. Nancy detailed all the problems on a comment form for the Shore Excursion Desk, and they ended up sending us a nice letter saying our comments were appreciated and had been forwarded to the main Holland America office in Seattle and to the tour operator, and that as a gesture of good will, we would be getting a refund. That was nice of them – they did not have to do that.

 

We left the LA area with a lot of new faces, and some familiar ones, too. It was a much younger crowd, too, with lots of families on for the few days to Vancouver and Seattle.

 

Thursday and Friday were sea days as we sailed northward up the California, Oregon and Washington coasts. The days were cloudy and cool with temperatures in the 50s. The seas got somewhat rougher each day, but never so bad that the seasick bags were put out near the elevators and dining rooms, an indication on cruises that rough seas have been or will soon be experienced.

 

I noticed on Thursday that they started making separate public address announcements just for bingo. Holland America prides themselves on keeping “disruptive” PA announcements to a minimum, and here they are making one before every bingo session. Maybe they have a rule that if the bingo revenue gets below a certain level, they have to make these announcements. By the last session of bingo on Friday, the snowball jackpot had risen to $2800. (This was actually the second snowball jackpot of the cruise, as one person won $5000 the day before we got to LA.) We ended up with the 5 bingo wins overall (2 for Nancy, 3 for me), more than most people and we did have fun, which is the main thing anyway.

 

I happened to see a mention of a 70’s disco name-that-tune trivia contest on Thursday. My knowledge of 70s music is pretty good so I decided to give it a shot. I teamed up with 2 other passengers. The DJ played a few seconds of about 25 disco songs from the 70s and we had to identify them. Some of them were “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”, “That’s the Way I Like It” and “More More More”. (Come on, you’re humming them right now.) My team clobbered the competition, thanks, in part, to my contributions. We each won a Holland America sweatshirt. (After the contest, when the DJ asked what size I was, I said after nearly 3 weeks on board, the answer was the largest you have.) (One of the songs we missed was one that the DJ said was popular in the clubs but not on the radio. I spent the 70s listening to the radio, not hanging out in the clubs.)

 

Right after the song contest on Thursday afternoon, they had a special daytime concert by Kory, the musician who entertains in the Piano Bar every night. He is very talented and everyone enjoyed singing along to such songs as “Roll Out the Barrel”.

 

My missing shirt was never found. I ended up signing a form agreeing to a credit of $45 dollars (10 times the regular cleaning charge of $4.50). It was not a new shirt and now I can get a nice new one, so it was not a great loss. I guess we should be thankful that this does not happen more often, what with the thousands of items of passenger clothing they launder every day.

 

There is a staircase that is part of the midships atrium that goes from deck 1 to deck 3. I realized late in the cruise that it is roped off whenever the ship is at sea, and open only when we are docked. I thought this was a safety measure. Someone told me that someone on this cruise had slipped on the stairs and threatened a lawsuit unless immediate measures were taken. I guess they were.

 

There was a very noticeable change in the attire worn by the senior staff on these last couple of days. Up until now, they had worn white and now they had switched to dark blue or black. We asked and they explained that this was their “cold weather” attire and they would be wearing them until the end of the Alaska season. When the Noordam makes the reverse cruise of this one in the fall (from Seattle to NYC) they will switch back to the whites when they get to the warmer weather. (One staff member said his darker uniform did not fit as well. We surmised that it was because he had put on a few pounds since he last wore it.)

 

On Friday afternoon, the 4 lead singers did an informal concert in the main show lounge, in which they sang Broadway classics in a more intimate setting. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, including the performers. This was followed by the final bingo and then a separate disembarkation talk and crew farewell for the passengers who had boarded in LA and were getting off the next day in Vancouver. (We did not attend this one as we had gone to the one a few days earlier, the day before LA.)

 

We said goodbye Friday night at dinner to our Canadian dinner tablemates. Jim and Bea, and Dave and Dorothy were going home the next day in Vancouver. Dave and Dorothy are now recipients of these emails. Hope they enjoy them. (Somewhat fittingly, their 4 seats remained empty at dinner on Saturday night. No one new sat with us. We knew they could not be replaced.)

 

The somewhat rough seas ended very noticeably Friday evening when the ship made its right turn and headed into the Juan de Fuca Strait, separating Washington State from British Columbia. We were just a few hours from Vancouver.

 

Going to take a break now and get some sleep. Will resume from SEATAC airport in the morning.

 

 

OK, back again. Did not get a chance to write from the airport. So, now we are at 37,000 feet over the middle of the country somewhere, on American Airlines flight 268, heading for JFK airport in NYC. This is an older Boeing 757 without a lot of bells and whistles, even for those of us in first class (I cashed in 90,000 frequent flyer miles, almost all of which came from the tie-in between American Airlines and my Master Card). Among the things this jet does not have is plugs at each seat for laptops, so I am only as good as my battery for now. It says it has 3 hours and 46 minutes left and our flight has less than 3 hours to go, so I should be able to type for the rest of the trip.

 

 

Saturday was our last full day on board the Noordam and we found ourselves in Vancouver, British Columbia. We were docked at the Canada Place cruise terminal, with our sister Holland America ship the Zuiderdam in front of us and the huge Diamond Princess docked across from us. Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas was also in Vancouver, docked a couple of miles to the east at the older Ballantyne Pier. (On the first Alaska cruise Nancy and I did, on the Sky Princess in 1991, we docked at that pier. I remember taking a shuttle bus into town and looking at the 3 or 4 ships that were tied up at Canada Place.) It was disembarkation day for about 1350 passengers, with the same number waiting to board for what was advertised as a one night cruise to Seattle for Mother’s Day. Some also called it a booze cruise. Once again we were able to ignore all the disembarkation announcements, as we waited for our noon tour departure. We did get off the ship at about 11, since we had received several conflicting pieces of info as to what the procedure would be regarding immigration and customs officials. Actually all we had to deal with before the tour was a long walk from the ship’s gangway to the tour departure point. No legal formalities of any kind.

 

Our tour included a gondola ride to the top of Grouse Mountain, with a very nice view of Vancouver, the Lion’s Gate Bridge and the 2 cruise terminals. Nancy also went on a half hour walk with the rest of the group, and some of it took them through the remnants of the 18 feet of snow the top of the mountain had received this winter. Some of the trails were still closed. I took a picture that included the snow and a sign that said “Road Closed” in the foreground, and our ship at Canada Place several thousand feet below, in the background. We had a quick bite of lunch and took the gondola ride back down. If any of you have ever taken the Mount Roberts Tram ride in Juneau, Alaska (and I know at least a couple of recipients of this email have), this ride was very similar.

 

Our other stop on the tour was in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. It is named after the same person whose name is on the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup, Lord Stanley. It is a very pretty park and it was a very nice day. We made a stop at an area with totem poles and this spot also had a nice, close-up view of the 2 Holland America ships at Canada Place. We could clearly see what our captain, John Scott, had mentioned at the Meet the Captain talk earlier. The Noordam and the Zuiderdam are virtually identical, except several dozen more cabins had been added at the aft end of the top 4 or 5 decks of our ship. You could see the slope of the back decks of the Zuiderdam was maybe 45 degrees, while the slope of our back decks was maybe 10 degrees. (These are rough figures, of course, but it was very noticeable.)

 

The one problem with the tour was that it did not make a stop at one of the advertised attractions, a 200-some foot suspension bridge that we were supposed to walk across (or in my case, at least take pictures of). I showed the driver the tour description I had and he was very concerned. He must have made at half dozen cell phone calls to try to get to the bottom of the discrepancy, including, Nancy said, one while they were walking through the snow at the top of Grouse Mountain. The bottom line is that this tour does not and never has included a stop at that suspension bridge. The description was wrong and they asked us to take it up with the cruise line. (At that point the lady in front of us said something like “Oh, that’s OK – we’re happy”, to which I replied “speak for yourself”.) This was the last full day we were on board and with the problems we had with tours in Cartagena and LA, we had grown weary with dealing with the Shore Excursion people. I know it is not an easy job running these tours, but it really bothers me when the tour content does not match the description. What if I had bought the tour specifically for the suspension bridge?

 

We got back to the ship on time at 4PM, and we were skillfully steered through the hundreds and hundreds who were still waiting to board the ship at that late hour, and quickly went through US immigration and were back on board by 4:15. (You may wonder why we were going through US immigration when we were in Canada. I don’t know for sure, but it appears the whole ship was cleared back into the US while still in Vancouver and it made for a much easier disembarkation for all 1900+ passengers the next morning in Seattle, when we just went through US Customs.)

 

Back onboard for the final night, the whole tenor, the whole mood of the ship had changed. This was now a one-night party cruise. Loud conversations, doors slamming, big groups of people hanging out, more people in the casino than we had seen the whole cruise. Even the mood in the “exclusive” Neptune Lounge had changed. I spoke to the 2 concierge ladies and said we have a saying in America that I was not sure translated to their native language (Filipino) and that saying was “There Goes the Neighborhood”. They both smiled, indicating they knew where I was coming from. I told them I could say it but they could not. They could think it, maybe, but could not say it.

 

I did a bit of financial housekeeping just before going to our last supper. As you may know, when you come on board a cruise ship you give them a credit card number and they establish for you a shipboard account, to which you charge all your onboard purchases, like drinks (including sodas), shore excursions, shop purchases, internet usage, bingo, etc. The $10 per person per day “service charge” is also posted here. Very often at the end of a cruise, we have cash left over. (We always tend to take a lot more than we will ever need, “just in case”. There are also bingo winnings and casino winnings). What we try to do with some of that cash is pay off part of our shipboard account, in order to reduce the shock of the final shipboard account bill. Even with paying off $1000, our final bill was something like $1400. Imagine if I drank. (My vices on a cruise are bingo and the internet.) Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the upfront cruise fare is all-inclusive. It is, but only to a point.

 

After we left Vancouver and sailed out under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, we had our 22nd and final dinner with our tablemates Scott and Carole from Seattle. As I said earlier, no one else joined us in the now-empty other 4 seats. All I can say that it is time for me to go home when I can’t finish a strawberry sundae, which is what happened to me that last night.

 

Right after we sailed under the bridge, the Captain announced that we would be pulling into a bay and doing 360 degree turns for about an hour, in order to do some kind of calibration of the ship’s magnetic compass. It was eerie as the world spun around outside the dining room windows. We saw the other 3 cruise ships had been in Vancouver that day sail by. They must have wondered what they heck was going on with the Noordam. We wondered if Jim and Bea, our tablemates who disembarked today, were watching us from their home in Vancouver and wondering that, too.

 

After dinner we said farewell to our dining room steward Vincent, his assistant Anggi, head waiter Sepa and wine steward Alex, and made our way back to our cabin to pack. Packing to go home should be relatively easy, in that you don’t have to decide what to take and what not to take (you’re taking everything) and you don’t have to pack too neatly (you’re going home and everything is going to be washed and ironed, anyway). However, it did take us about 2 hours to get everything in suitcases, which we would then leave outside the door, to be transferred to the pier the next morning by the ship’s crew. (The running gag is to make sure you do not pack ALL your clothes, or else you will have nothing to wear on disembarkation morning.) After packing, we went to the Lido Restaurant for our last hot chocolate (Nancy) and ice cream (me). It was a moment of mixed emotions. We were very happy the packing was done, but sad to realize we would be off the ship in about 12 hours.

 

Sunday found us in Seattle and getting ready to disembark what had been our home for 22 days. Just ahead of us to the right was Safeco Field (the home of the baseball Seattle Mariners) and next to it was Qwest Field (the home of football’s Seattle Seahawks). They both have retractable roofs, because Seattle does get its share of rain. Coincidentally, the Mariners were playing the afternoon we were there against….. the New York Yankees. (and ended up beating the Yanks 2-1).

 

We went to the Lido Restaurant for breakfast and it was a zoo. It appeared most of the 1900+ on board had come up for breakfast at the same time. Lines everywhere, inconsiderate people reserving tables of 6, people who had long ago finished breakfast still sitting there hogging tables while we marched around with our food getting cold, looking for a place to sit. We got out of there and returned to the quiet of our cabin, where Holland America allows you to wait until you are called to disembark. Most other cruise lines want you to vacate your cabin early (so it can be readied for its next inhabitants.) Since we were not rushing to an airport, we were among the last go get off the ship. We were called at about 10:15AM.

 

On our way down the gangway, we noticed the Sun Princess was docked right in front of us, bow to bow. We were on the Sun Princess in 1997 on our 2nd Alaska cruise. It was, when it first came out, the largest ship in the world. It is now dwarfred by many ships, including ours.

 

We learned that we and the Sun Princess were both docked at the Pier 30 Cruise Terminal, a commercial dock way on the outskirts of town. We would see later in the day that the Norwegian Pearl of Norwegian Cruise Lines was also in Vancouver, but it was tied up at the Pier 60 terminal, which is right downtown and appeared to be a much better location for passengers to see Seattle. Of course, if the cruise is beginning and/or ending in Seattle, most people will be coming to or from an airport and won’t get a chance to see much of the city itself. If Seattle is just a port of call for the cruise, it would seem better for the ship to tie up downtown for them to see more of the city more easily.

 

We and about 20 others were taken to the Seattle Sheraton hotel and were in our room by 11AM. I had asked for a view of the harbor, perhaps to see the ships depart that night, but there is a big (50+ story) office building right across the street from the hotel, which blocks much of the water view. However, we could make out a little bit of the water from our room and were able to clearly see the Norwegian Pearl. In the afternoon, we did a bunch of touristy stuff. We took a Gray Line hop-on hop-off tour of the city, ate lunch at McDonalds, went to the top of the Space Needle (about 520 feet up) for a nice view of the whole are and the surrounding mountains, and made a stop at the Pike Place Market. While Nancy wandered around, I found a spot to sit with a nice view of the harbor. It was right next to the Norwegian Pearl and I was close enough to see its passengers have their lifeboat drill at 3:15 and then watch it sail at 4.

 

We went back to the hotel and just after 5 were able to see our home for the previous 3 weeks, the MS Noordam, sail by on its way to Alaska. Godspeed, good friend. (What, too sappy?)

 

Not wanting to venture too far, we had dinner in the hotel restaurant and I started this email while watching the Godfather Part 2.

 

We got a very early start Monday morning. The alarm was set for 4:15 (almost like going to work) because we had to rearrange everything in our suitcases to get through airport security, and be downstairs in the lobby by 6AM for the 6:13 bus to the airport. It came right on time and we were at the airport by 7. We managed to get a luggage cart on which we piled all our bags and went to the first class check in line. (A brief side note – ahead of us on the regular coach check in line was WFAN radio’s Yankee beat reporter Sweeny Murti. Some of you may know of him. He is also on the YES Network at times. He was here in Seattle with the Yankees for the weekend and was boarding a flight to Chicago for the Yanks’ next series. You never know who you will meet at an airport.) We checked in without delay, even though for some reason our seats had been changed from 2A and 2B to 4E and 4F. Don’t quite understand that but it worked out OK – we still were in first class with a window and an aisle.

 

As I said earlier, this is an older plane and does not have a lot of fancy contraptions like some newer planes, even in first class. For example no phones, no video screens, no wide selection of audio channels. There is considerably more legroom and more room for each seat and between seats. After all there are 2 seats in a space that has 3 back in coach. The food service has been very nice, too, with real silverware and china, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, hot towels and it’s all complimentary. The folks back in steerage (coach) have to pay for anything they want to eat. That’s the way it is nowadays…..

 

Well, we still have about an hour to go to JFK and my laptop battery says it still has an hour and 57 minutes left so we are in good shape.

 

I have a lot of pictures to get developed (yes we are still in the stone age and use a film camera), 31 rolls in all. (While I was out sick earlier this year I managed to finally get the pictures from our 2004 Grand Princess cruise into albums. The pictures from this cruise will have to wait until I retire. Or, maybe I can get it done when I am out getting my hip replacement taken care of. Although there are pictures from 2 other cruises ahead of it.)

 

At this point we have no idea when or to where our next cruise will be. We are in agreement that we should get my hip replacement over with and my recovery complete before planning another vacation. We will be in touch again then, whenever that is.

 

Thanks for coming along for the ride. And a big thanks to the good Lord above for allowing us to go on this trip and enjoy it as much as we did. As recently as a month ago, we were not at all certain we would be able to make it.

 

 

Victor and Nancy

[washaw]

Victor and Nancy,

We were with you during most of the trip (NY to LA). I just finished reading your posts and had the pleasure of the cruise all over again. Thanks for sharing your time and writing skills with us all. When my friends and family ask for details I can have them read this thread for a good summary.

 

Walker and Dona

[RustaRoo]

Victor and Nancy,

Thank you so much for posting your thorough and informative "letters to home"; I thoroughly enjoyed reading them and re-living the experiences all over again!

Cheers!

[luvcruisn']

Victor and Nancy:

Thank you so much for posting all your experiences from this trip. My mom and I are considering a Panama canal transit, and the information you gave about the ports and your tours was very helpful.

[cruiservictor]

Walker/Dona and Richard/Heather - it was a pleasure meeting you onboard. We'll have to do it again sometime.......

[St. Louis Sal]

Victor, I just got my first chance to read your emails from the cruise. You did a fantastic job-it was just like reliving the whole cruise. I so enjoyed getting to meet you and Nancy as well as the other CC people.

 

Frank and I stayed in Seattle at the Hampton Inn by Seattle Center through Wednesday. It was a great location; we walked to the Space Needle on Tuesday and also rode the monorail. On Monday we used our rental car to drive around the area; we were thrilled to have such beautiful weather.

 

I'm getting over the cold that I caught on board but I did give it to Frank :( . I hope to maybe post a few comments about the cruise but I need to get some rest and some laundry done!

 

St. Louis Sal