Not usually a part of my blog, but I decided to add a post trip review to reflect on choices we made.
Renting a car to get to Ft Lauderdale was a good choice. Total flexibility, and the most economical.
The Holland America Nieuw Statendam. The food was generally good. Scheduling and reservation system was far below expectations. Not only were reservations mixed up, a kind and nice way of saying screwed up, no attempt was made to either acknowledge mistakes or correct them.
There were a number of post cruise options, but none were listed before the cruise.
Excursion descriptions were fairly accurate.
Music was what I would expect on Carnival. Very loud. Next to zero listening or dancing music.
Entertainment was mediocre. Not as good as Royal, Celebrity, or Cunard. Headliners were repeated.
Seminars were a mixed bag. One series was professionally produced and presented by the cruise director. They were basically good. Another series, which unfortunately included the best topic, AI, was put together and presented by a horrible presenter. So bad in fact, that I could not bear to listen to him despite the AI topic.
Cabin. We lucked out and upgraded to a "family oceanview" designed for 5 guests, there were 2 showers and an extra closet. The standard configuration for most cabins is a shower in the tub. Fine, except no hand holds for safety when getting in or out or showering.
Bathrooms also had about a 5 inch step-up to enter.
Closet doors seemed to be backwards.
Not what I would consider a modern cabin design, but what I experienced on ships designed 40 and 50 years ago.
But being a cabin for 5, there was plenty of space for 2, and the bed was very comfortable.
Service staff and cabin staff were good. Cabins were cleaned twice a day. Two years ago Holland was still providing a chocolate every night. Now they have cut back to 1 every 5 days.
As with most lines, they rely very heavily on their app. It was often inaccessible, and gave incorrect information.
The biggest disappointment was lack of environmental temperature control in public spaces.
Once we left sunny Florida, The buffet, on deck 9 was usually cold because doors at each end opened to the outside decks and a cold blast of outside air would occur for about 2 minutes everytime the door was opened. Considering someone went in or out every minute, it was always cold.
Even worse was decks 1, 2, and 3 when we were in Port.
The gangway was either on deck 1 or 2. The doors open all day. Nothing blocked the cold air from coming in the gangway doors, down the open space and up the stairwells, making most of the public spaces unusable during port time unless you wanted to be in a 55 degree environment. A simple design flaw that should have been addressed during a refurbishment, but so far hasn't.
8 and 10 hour excursions 3 days in a row is tough. I don't like to admit it, but I'm not 50 anymore.
For the most part the hotel in Amsterdam was good. The staff very friendly and helpful, but if I had known that the only way to get in or out of bed was to climb in from the bottom I would not have chosen it.
In general the hotel was nice, but the functionality of the rooms very poor. I would not choose CitizenM brand again.
I will add that the hotel is high tech with everything from lights, room temperature, and automatic blinds controlled from an I Pad.
Totally unrelated they were the only place the entire trip that would not accept my goto credit card. Fortunately I always carry backups.
I am writing this as we fly nonstop from Amsterdam to Tampa. We deliberately booked a bulkhead seat in Comfort Plus section. A very wise choice as there is probably more than 4 feet of legroom!
A delta flight on a Delta Airbus A330, but totally handled In Amsterdam by KLM. Mostly full, probably 95%.
Amsterdam was an interesting city. By far the best public transportation I have ever encountered. Clean and friendly. Bicycles rule the streets, car traffic is light as many inner city streets are blocked to vehicles. Prices are probably comparable to US big cities.
Our plane was probably 95% full. What I did not expect was only 5% of the passengers holding US passports.
About 4 hours after touchdown we arrived in Clermont in our rental car. The end of another "adventure" as my grandkids would say.
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