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LIVE from the Noordam (February 6, 2008) - Merger of several threads

bUU

By bUU,
in Holland America Line

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mamaofami

mamaofami

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Morning all. seas are calm and life is good. can anyone believe that there were two, yes two meet and greets going on in the crow's nest at the same time. we had a sign posted from HAl saying Cruise critic mee and greet, and a great spread but they didn't see it. so we are meting for lunch today after calling those who missed yesterday. seas were so rough we didn't walk to the other side of the nest. rich from kathy and rich got me a present for starting the roll call. that was so nice. these boards on ship are sooo slow. off for a reat day. it's warm enough to be outside. gave in my disembarkation form, but am never getting off.

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bUU

bUU

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Oh okay; that was interesting.

 

The winds yesterday started at Force 8 (Gale force), went up to Force 9 (Strong Gale force), and then on to Force 10 (Storm force) for a while. That song started going through my head ("The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of the fearless crew...."). It went through my stomach too. My wife thought it would be smart to shtup me full of ginger to combat the effects; the only effect that had was that all my upchucking had the sweet (sickly) smell of ginger. One of the good parts of a 10 day cruise over a 7 day cruise is that a day lost to illness is only 10% of the trip, instead of a 14% loss. That 4% makes a big difference to me.

 

This, of course, was the remnants of that horrible, deadly storm, that affected Tennessee and Arkansas earlier in the week. The ship was pretty quiet yesterday, as it seems many passengers, and crew, were affected. Our steward (Sai) said this was his first cruise on Noordam, and apparently he has rarely cruised on a ship that had two-day leg of the cruise across the rough Atlantic; all three of us (he, my wife, and myself) all had doses of Promethazine yesterday. It knocked me out for about five hours, and I did feel a good bit better afterwards, though I’m terribly dehydrated still. (For anyone curious, it’s about $45 per dose, available as a shot or as a suppository.)

 

Despite yesterday being a real icky day, we feel we’ve gotten a feel for the Noordam sufficiently to make develop some initial impressions. So far, Royal Caribbean is looking better.

 

The room aboard Noordam seems smaller than our Serenade of the Seas room. The room was in decent shape, but on opening the drawer under the bed, the drawer front came off. It was fixed in a timely manner though, considering. Given yesterday’s festivities, we did have a chance to evaluate the beds quite a lot; here Noordam has SotS beat. The beds and pillows are wonderful. Our steward has offered us a complementary fruit basket in the room; I’m not sure if that’s standard practice or not, but it is a nice touch. I suppose we could keep it filled ourselves from the Lido (it’s just upstairs) if he doesn’t keep it filled for us.

 

We’ve had a couple of gifts delivered, including one we sent to ourselves. It is a basket of flowers. It’s pretty, and for the price it is okay, but it isn’t what it looked like in the picture. Some of the flowers in the basket are much less exotic.

 

The ship’s interiors are nice, but I feel Serenade of the Seas was prettier without being any gaudier. The art in the stairwells of SotS was much more interesting. The Noordam is, if anything, too understated.

 

Supposedly, the whole ship should be good for wireless, but that’s not the case. I have tried to connect to the wireless from the cabin, but I don’t get a reliable signal. The crew member I spoke to said that the best reception would be lower on the ship (we’re on Deck 8) or in or near the Crow’s Nest. Up in the Crow’s Nest, wireless reception is, of course, perfect, but it took 80 seconds to draw the login page (which presumably is served by a server aboard ship, i.e., requiring no relaying to shore). So be prepared to pay a lot to watch your screen.

 

We also have had an opportunity to compare the dining room, for breakfast. Again Noordam felt a little lacking in that quarter. Robbie ordered sausage gravy and biscuits and received a sausage hash instead; if you’re going to serve hash, then call it hash. “Sausage gravy” is a very specific thing. Besides that, they served her breakfast about 20 minutes after mine. I ordered the smoked salmon plate, and they were quite chintzy with the onions, and I couldn’t believe they only served seven tiny capers with it – like someone counted them out. There was no sense of opulence or luxury in what they served. The china was very nice, though, and they were relatively attentive with refilling coffee cups, but the coffee is indeed not-that-great; I figure a restaurant needs to serve better coffee than I drink at home, and this stuff didn’t come close.

 

The rest of our meals, so far, we’ve taken in the Lido. It is definitely a nice option, but to anyone who has tried to assert that the Lido is any type of suitable replacement for the dining room for dinner, I say poppycock. The first thing that hit me is that the rolls are cold; not just not-hot, but cold, and are actually kind-of hard. There were clearly many entrée choices from the dining room menu available. We both had prime-rib and baked potato on the first night. Good, but not great. I asked for medium-rare, and got medium verging on medium-well; some parts were already drying out. (Robbie made the mistake of asking for “as well-done as possible” and got something close to shoe-leather, but that’s not Holland America’s fault.) The baked potato was yummy but nowhere near hot enough. And the service wasn’t great either: The entrées were brought out very quickly, while Robbie was still working on her appetizer. I like the idea of ordering your entrée and having it brought to you, but having it brought to you five minutes later rather misses the point.

 

The second night we bypassed entrées, opting due to our condition for just soup and bread. The Italian Wedding Soup was good, but the rolls were again disappointing. Robbie opted for the sliced bread, which was very good, and I opted for garlic bread from the pasta station, which was pretty-good, but again, not hot enough. Because we bypassed entrées, we received no table-service whatsoever, had to get our own water, etc.

 

I also found it a bit disconcerting that the Lido is divided between a crew side and passenger side for dinner, and the crew side generally had no queues while the passenger side had much longer queues, especially yesterday, with so many people recovering from sea-sickness, and therefore just looking for a quick bite, choosing Lido over the dining room. I saw a couple of passengers politely escorted back to the passenger side, when they tried to take advantage of the shorter queue on the crew side, and thought instead they should have taken in the situation and opened both sides up to passengers, as a matter of polite service.

 

(We’ll try the dining room for lunch and dinner, today, as well as for breakfast.) We made reservations for dinner tonight, formal night, at about 8AM this morning. Both 5:15PM and 5:45PM were available, as was 8:00PM and 8:30PM (?). I’ll report back how it works out, of course.

 

We canceled our reservation for massages today, because we weren’t sure how we’d be feeling. Do keep in mind that you must cancel 24 hours in advance or a charge will be incurred. We’re going to take it easy today, though we do hope to take in at least one activity, and spend a little time exercising (gently). We have a very active day scheduled tomorrow in Grand Turk, and I hope I’m up to it.

 

Live from the Noordam, 28 deg 55.04 min N, 71 deg 33.99 min W, 9:45 AM, Atlantic Standard Time.

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bUU

bUU

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what category cabin are you in?
VA

 

You're in 8021, aren't you? How's your wireless speed?
Practically non-existent. While we were in port, we got better reception from the Gem, two piers over. Now that we're at sea, I cannot get good enough reception in our room to do anything.

 

Bicker-I see you are from Burlington, MA. My 5 friends are on the Noordam with you. Glad you got off OK today. Hope the weather warms up soon and you have a great cruise.
Thanks to you, and to all, for their well-wishes.
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LAFFNVEGAS "Live from...." Rare

LAFFNVEGAS

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Morning all. seas are calm and life is good. can anyone believe that there were two, yes two meet and greets going on in the crow's nest at the same time. we had a sign posted from HAl saying Cruise critic mee and greet, and a great spread but they didn't see it. so we are meting for lunch today after calling those who missed yesterday. seas were so rough we didn't walk to the other side of the nest. rich from kathy and rich got me a present for starting the roll call. that was so nice. these boards on ship are sooo slow. off for a reat day. it's warm enough to be outside. gave in my disembarkation form, but am never getting off.

Carol, glad to hear things have calmed down. The slowness is not just the slowness of the internet on the ship the CC boards have been really bad and most posts are not going thru so when I do my live report if this starts to happen I just will not post,:(

Hope your enjoying the pretty Noordam:)

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crusinrita

crusinrita

Posted
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Writing to you from Florida...as you pass us, the sky is beautiful blue and the sea looked much calmer this morning!

 

Sorry you are off to a rough start, two years ago Bermuda was our first stop on the cruise we took! A wicket storm blew through as we went through the Bermuda Triangle....fun, fun, not so fun! We were aboard the Costa Magica, Spent the day poolside, drinking gingerale! Everyone had a green hue about them. The crew were seasoned sailors, and did their best to make eveyone comfortable. It was so bad, they had barf bags taped up all over ...the halls, the elevators, etc. After a difficult first day, the weather calmed down and the trip was awesome...hoping yours turns calm and fun!

 

We are taking the Southern Carribean trip aboard the Norrdam in October...sorry to hear you are not pleased with the accomodations, the food is less than exciting and the ship is dissapointing! Our last cruise was abord the Freedom of the Seas December 07...that was awesome, I hope I will not be disapointed in October! I hope once everyone is feeling better, things brighten for everyone on board!

 

Have a great rest of the trip! :(

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Lynne Myrna

Lynne Myrna

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Hi Bicker & Robbie....So sorry to hear that you were so sea sick, believe me.....I know what it is like to feel the strong motion of the ocean...we always take Bonnine with us. Last Dec on the Noordam, we had room 8021, & yes...some of the other ships we cruised on had much bigger cabins..you are higher in that stateroom, so you feel the motion much more than if you were lower mid ship. I also feel that the food was much better on the Noordam last Dec....we had cruised on her in Nov & were somewhat disappointed in that area, although the service was wonderful. I'm hoping that you two start feeling better, so that you can enjoy the beautiful islands. Looking forward to more:)

 

Lynne:)

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innlady1

innlady1

Posted
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Hi everyone!

 

I'm going to chime in on Carol's threads...I think it's easier for you guys to do without yet another Live from the Noordam! And, I'm not Tomc either! ;)

 

First time on the computer this voyage...after four hours sleep Tueday night, getting to bed at midnight and up at 4 to head to the Homeport bus in Boston, then the fact that I couldn't sleep the first night more than 4 hours (I thought I was going to roll out of bed!), I was a little beat!

 

From what I'm hearing about 80% of the ship pax were sick. Room service had a hard time keeping up with all the orders for saltines, green apples and tea! I don't know what is worse...this or Noro :rolleyes:

 

At least seasickness comes to a halt when the seas calm down!

 

Luckily, DH and I were fine...I was a little squeamish...that's all. DH was perfectly fine. Last night I didn't feel so hot so we skipped the show...I think I may have OD'd on ginger!

 

The Meet and Greet was not well attended because I think most everyone was sick...and some of those who were OK went to the other side of the Crow's Nest. We had a black "Cruise Critic" sign at the entrance by the bar but I think people just dove for the nearest seat because it was so rough.

 

And, of course, we chose the Crow's Nest this year for the M & G on Deck 10. Should have done the Piano Bar instead I guess! It was impossible to walk around without hanging onto something for dear life.

 

Carol and I decided that we should have a CC Lunch today in the dining room so we split the list and called everyone. We're meeting at 12:30 in the Vista. I hope we get to see the folks from our Roll Call who were sick and couldn't attend yesterday.

 

More later after our lunch...

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Lynne Myrna

Lynne Myrna

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Carol & Sheila.....hoping that the seas have calmed down, & that you're starting to enjoy the cruise you have waited for....for so long. Looking forward to hearing from you, & wishing you calm seas from now on. Let us know how the food is.....so far Bicker is not a happy camper.

 

Lynne:)

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twinkletoes4445

twinkletoes4445

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the reports! I'm sorry you've been so seasick...we've not experienced that, thank goodness. We're on the Noordam next year, so I appreciate all the information.

 

When we were on the Zuiderdam, we always ate dinner in the dining room, never the Lido (and probably won't after reading what you posted). Interesting that the crew is served on the other side. You'd think that if the passenger lines were long, they'd allow the passengers to also use the other side. I can see sending the passengers back over to the other side to dine, if there was enough seating, but to turn them away completely, is different.

 

Anyway....

 

When we ate at the Lido buffet for lunch (we did this once), we sat on the one side (if you're standing and facing the front of the ship, we would have been on the right side of the ship). Do they also serve the crew at lunch, on the other side? We found the one side to be full, but a table opened and we grabbed it. We never did walk over to the other side and see how crowded it was.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post and let us know how your cruise is going. :)

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enymarsh

enymarsh

Posted
Posted

Thanks for your posting - especially after hearing about the slow connection. Sorry to hear about the rough seas but glad for the heads up... when we come aboard I think I will put that patch on immediately and not wait to feel I need it! Better safe than sorry! We're also in a VA cabin - aft - but after so many Princess cruises I think we'll probably still feel that the cabin is roomy enough. We love Princess but their standard balcony cabins are quite small not even housing a couch - just a desk - but with the aft balcony we end up spending almost all of our time out there instead of inside. We're bringing warm winter wear just to be sure we can be out there in spite of weather too...:D

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Copper10-8 "Live from...." Rare

Copper10-8

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Hey thanks for posting those live threads, the four of you!:) Looking forward to following them. Bicker, you are now an official HAL Mariner and can finally speak from experience, congrats! Here's hoping your quest for soft, not hard, and hot, not cold, bread rolls pays off, dude! I'm pulling for ya!;)

Enjoy your cruise, you four!

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cruz4evr

cruz4evr

Posted
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Thanks for those reports Bicker and lady1. So sorry to hear about your seasickness, hopefully the seas and your stomachs will be calmer as time passes.

 

We were on the Noordam cruise on 1/16/08 and had 18 hours of very rough seas coming back and am wondering what percentage of the passengers and crew were taken ill on that voyage.

 

Have fun at Grand Turk and I'm looking forward to your posting the next adventure.

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Mr Veendam06

Mr Veendam06

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Hi thanks for the report .I'm on the next cruise .Oh that's why the Noordam left late .I saw you go from my deck . Is the wed very slow like on the Zuiderdam ? At lest it was worm the day you left . Have a great time !! To bad the Gem is useing the new pier.Pier 88 will not be used after 90 & 92 are done !!

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mamaofami

mamaofami

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We had a wonderful cruise critic lunch today with 22 of us needing 4 tables. We had such a good time we will be meeting again the last sea day. Everything on board is great. The Noordam is looking good, though I haven't been to the Lido pool or the Lido yet. The large cast shows could stand some improvement, but the piano player ast night was good. Dh went while I took care of my sick tummy which is better today.

I love my aft cabin. How did I ever live without this? we've taken lots of pictures of the Ccers at lunch and will post when we get home. Weather is warm enough to be outside. Tomorrow is Grand Turk and the beach.Yippee!

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hammybee

hammybee

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Bicker,

 

Just so you know, the crew side of the Lido does not serve the same food as the passenger side.

 

SG

 

SG:

Correct me if I am wrong, I thought this area was reserved for officers and staff, not the crew. I am being anal. :)

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