Amsterdam final 2008 Alaska Cruise

[NapTown Jim]

Well....I'm back to work :( and here I sit during my lunch break reflecting on the great time we had on the Amsterdam last week. I'll post a more detailed review later, but here's a few quick notes.

 

Embarkation/Disembarkation

If this could be any easier and quicker I sure don't know how. This is the easiest time we've had in my 3 cruises and my DW's 5 cruises. Mega kudos to HAL and the port of Seattle here!

 

Food

Loved every bit of it! I was never disapointed.

 

Ship

What can I say? She's a classic. 7 days is not enough to savor this fine vessel.

 

Crew/Service

In a word...Incredible. Service met or exceeded our experiences on the Maasdam a couple years ago.

 

Fellow Pax

There were alot more folks our age than on our Maasdam trip a couple years ago. Not that I mind sailing with older folks, but since this is a common question here it merits a mention. One thing I must note is a comment an old lady told us during the Mariner lunch. The first thing out of her mouth to DW & I were 'you really should cruise Royal Carribean. They are better for people your age'. Give me a friggin' break. :rolleyes: That's something I could do without is some rich snob telling me I don't belong or we're not good enough for HAL.

 

 

Shore Excursions

Apart from a small problem in Ketchikan (I'll explain in detail later) we loved all of our excursions....the Whale Watching in Juneau, The Sea Otter Quest in Sitka & Saxman Village in Ketchikan were all great.

 

Port Shopping

We bought more than we expected, but we also saved a bunch of money on 'end of season' sales in all ports. The last cruise of the season is definately the time to go to load up on Alaskan stuff. We almost didn't have enough room in our luggage for all our loot.

 

Brief summary...

The days all seemed to run together. We had such a great time we definately want to go back soon! Last night my DW asked if we still had our Shore Ex. brochure so she could look at what we could do next time we go. We'd love to sail the Amsterdam again, but if we sail another 'dam ship on this itenerary it will only be to add different ship to our cruise experiences.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Welcome Home.

 

Glad you had a wonderful Alaskan cruise on one of our favorite ships.

 

Next time you go, you may want to consider a slightly different itineary.

[darleen1421]

NaptownJim I couldn't agree with you more. My friend and I were on the cruise with you and it was wonderful. I posted a short review and said I would do a longer one later. I was asked if I would do it here instead of on the review board, which I will. I think more people read them here. Thanks for your opinion. I will be looking forward to reading your longer review. I am working on mine and will try to get it done in a few days.:p

[NapTown Jim]

I wrote my full review this morning. When it gets published I'll copy it here. Also tonight I'll post a couple pictures. The pics from Glacier bay turned out great. That pretty shade of blue the glaciers have came out very well.

[jjb415]

I wrote my full review this morning. When it gets published I'll copy it here. Also tonight I'll post a couple pictures. The pics from Glacier bay turned out great. That pretty shade of blue the glaciers have came out very well.

 

I'm looking forward to reading your review. As far as the comment from the old lady goes, well, I guess that is one of those situations that we just have to ignore, although not easy to do.

 

Can't wait to see you pictures.:)

[NapTown Jim]

As promised, here are a few samples from my photo gallery....

 

Here are Nemo and ???? who performed the fruit carving demonstration

 

 

DW & I in sunny Juneau

 

The Ship's Bell

 

The colors of Marjorie Glacier turned out great!

 

Our first towel animal in Alaska was a stingray

 

 

If you want to see more, you may check out my complete album here....

http://jkdumond.smugmug.com/gallery/6066400_E2PiX#P-1-15

 

It will also include shots in Seattle in the Pike Place Market, The Sci-Fi Hall of Fame and Boeing Museum of Flight

[Himself]

NapTownJim:

Diddos on everything you said about the AMSTERDAM. I was on this same ship to Alaska three months ago and I still miss her. Holland America has a lot of wonderful ships in the fleet but this one is by far the best.

I am glad you had a great cruise.

[NapTown Jim]

As promised, here's my long-overdue review...

 

Background

DW & I are in our late 30s/early 40s. This was my 3rd cruise and DWs 5th. This was also the second cruise with HAL for both of us. We decided to book this cruise because our TA told us that HAL and Princess do Alaska the best and we chose HAL because we had such a great experience with them for our honeymoon.

 

 

Pre-Cruise

We flew into Seattle the day before on Continental. Apart from being crammed into the plane like sardines they were decent enough. We were connecting through Houston from Indianapolis and were fortunate to miss Hurricane Ike by one day. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn at Sea-Tac. Great room and decent breakfast. We were traveling with a college buddy of mine and his dad and we all shared the cost of a SUV using United Town Car Service. They were very prompt and were able to transport the four of us and our 8 pieces of luggage comfortably.

Ship

The Amsterdam was in tip-top shape. I loved the artwork throughout the ship. In particular the Astrolabe in the ship's atrium was of keen interest to me.

 

Dining & Service

I was never disappointed with anything I ordered. The food was great! The salmon, roast beef, chicken etc. were all cooked perfectly. The variety & quality of desserts were also fantastic. In fact, that was the hardest part of dinner....deciding what to have for dessert. We returned late from our excursion & shopping in Juneau so we had dinner that night in the Lido. Just as in the main dining room, the service and food there was really good. Our waiter, Hendrick was very professional & wine steward Ezebb (?) entertained us with his origami tricks. Also our cabin steward Manto always had our cabin in good order and we often saw him in the corridor, greeting us with a smile and a 'how was your day?' or 'how was dinner?'. Outstanding service all around.

 

Entertainment

The shows were pretty good. We enjoyed them very much. Some of the songs selected in a couple shows were not necessarily to my taste, but hey you can't be all things to all people, right?

 

Shore Excursions

We booked all our excursions thru HAL. In Juneau, we did the Whale Watching & Wildlife quest. That was great. This was the only time during this week we saw any Orca. We were also treated to sight of a playful juvenile hump-back whale. In Sitka, we did the Sea Otter & Wildlife quest. We did see lots of Sea Otters an Eagles. When we headed out to deeper water we probably saw more whales than when we took that whale watching excursion in Juneau. Very exciting stuff! Anyway, in Ketchikan we booked the Saxman Village & Lumberjack Show. Saxman village was very informative on the local natives as well as some of the totem symbology. When we returned to Ketchikan we were dropped off a short distance from the Lumberjack Show. We were told the show would be at 10:45. When we got there they told us the next show was at 11:15. Well...this bit of confusion would have been fine if we were not leaving at 1pm. Since we did not want to be rushed back to the ship, and we wanted to have some decent time for shopping here we decided to skip the Lumberjack Show. I wish we could have stayed longer in Ketchikan.

 

This was a great cruise. The days all seemed to run together and we were plenty busy with ship's activities. We went to two presentations at the Culinary Arts Center (fruit carving & coffee cocktails), saw the movie "21" in the Wajang Theater, walked the promenade in the mornings and participated in "On Deck for the Cure". Next time I think I'll bring some tools so I can make an entry to their ship building contest. I conjured up ideas of a simple raft named "Kon-Tiki-Dam" to the more complex "Hamsterdam" using a hamsterball to drive a working propeller. I could make something like that work with straws, wooden disks and rubber bands.

 

Disembarkation was a breeze. If it could have been any easier I sure don't know how. They have 'silent' disembarkation and you're given a time to disembark and you can relax in any of the lounges or outdoor decks you want until its your turn to leave.