9 Nights Southern Caribbean: ABC Islands Cruise

Wonderful ABC Islands with HAL

HAL is a wonderful cruise line and Rotterdam is a great ship. This was a nine day ABC island plus Half-Moon Cay cruise. HAL excels in all aspects of cruising, food, bars, nightclub entertainment, the have it all package and cabins are all better than Carnival and RCL and are on par with Disney. The only place that HAL is lacking is the main stage entertainment where Carnival and RCL are slightly better and Disney is amazing. The comedians were good on this trip and the Island Magic Steel Band was awesome but the standard entertainment on the big stage was not as good as the other lines. The food was amazing and the HAL Lido buffet is exceptional, so much that we skipped the MDR all nights but one with two nights in amazing speciality restaurants and the other six nights at the Lido buffet. HAL is more of a laid back vibe and takes dressy nights seriously staying dressed the whole night. This was an exceptional cruise second only to our HAL Alaska cruise tour last year.

Rotterdam Caribbean Great Experience

3rd cruise ever for wife and I and we thoroughly enjoyed this experience. We're active 70 some year olds and the oldest at the Orange Night Bar Hop event, so we can kick up our heels. Earlier that day we enjoyed the full experience at the Ocho Rios, Jamaica Blue Hole / Island Gully Falls, getting lots of photos and videos of us climbing up the river and leaping into blue water holes on the way down. Two artificial knees and one hip aren't slowing me down. Aruba, Cartagena, and Ocho Rios were our favorite ports. It was double fun in Cartagena, Columbia as we explored the town all day and in the evening watched "Romancing the Stone" with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner on our stateroom's TV. So nice that film was a selection among the many movies they offer for free. Anyway, the ship and crew were delightful and we enjoyed everything about the experience. Lots to keep us interested. However the Rotterdam didn't care much for cleaning the elevator carpets and that was somewhat shocking. On the Oosterdam in the Eastern Med last year those carpets were eye poppingly clean each new day.

Bucket List 21 Day Panama-long,and missing stuff

This is long, sorry! AWESOME Trip and planning again! Trip goal - Bucket list to celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary and see the Panama Canal! I'm 69, he's 71. We are quite active still crazy kids for our age.....30-40% of the HAL crowd is much, much older than us and thins our quickly in evening, remainder stayed til they shut it down... there were less than 8 children onboard that we saw. Last HAL cruise was 2007. We boarded Rotterdam as 2 star Mariners, left as 3 star mariners. Totebags no longer canvas, we did get our ship tiles. Tips: bring towel bands or clips, it was breezy. We brought insulated steel 20 oz mugs and 32 oz plastic insulated jugs. Cut up a sponge to a few small rectangles, add lots of soap, let dry and put in a zipped snack bag. These will work great to keep your mugs sparkling, take no room & weight nothing, toss at end of cruise. 30 lb cruise magnets work great to hang your hats, bags, etc. magnetic clip held our daily program. I had a hanging toliety bag, husband used shelf under sink for his toiletries. There are cozy robes & fleece throws for your use in cabin, an umbrella & beach use towels too. Bring some Orange Stuff for Orange Party! Embarkation - excellent - make sure you do the Preboard on Line check in way before cruise & print your luggage tags! Bring your Passport! Luggage handling - excellent & quick! On board early. Our Aftview Gershwin Deck Cabin was oustanding & exactly what we booked. Ahmad & Gede took excellent care of us with nightly Turndown Service, Fresh ice all day long, etc. Bathroom worked well for a couple. Shower was very roomy, excellent water pressure, always hot. Strong hair dryer at desk/vanity, small make up mirror, perfect! Food Quality was very good to excellent. Navigator App was excellent & very efficient! Love that excursion tickets are right on the app-they either scan your shipboard card (bring a lanyard for easy use!) or the Navigator barcode. Wifi onboard was excellent for both of us. Food: Lido had many many choices. Bread / bakery assortment varied with many great choices. Never a long wait at Omelet, Eggs Benedict or French Toast stations - always fresh & delicious, served with a smile, and I loved my daily fresh fruits. Servers poured coffees & teas, juices and water. Coffee was good. Main Dining Room was always excellent! 1st 9 days we had large table, late sitting (7:30) Great group and we enjoyed-we were always last or next to last to leave MDR as they cleaned up behind us, LOL. Food choices were very good, presentation & quality excellent. Wines/cocktails very attentive! Some had dietary issues/allergies and were well taken care of by chefs, etc. No issues. We celebrated some milestone birthdays at our table, and they surprised us on our 50th anniversary! It was lots of fun with all the singing & celebrating. 7:30-9:30 was a bit late for digestion, we found, so the next 12 days we requested early sitting (5:00 pm) at large table. Time was better, our large table of cruisers turned into just the 2 of us - the rest of the group never showed up and probably ate at Lido or anytime dining (you do have choices). We prefered to dress for dinner & dress up on 'dressy nights'. Kudos to the parents with 2 young boys sitting a few tables away? Well Behaved , dressed so nice and you can tell they've done this before! Specialty Dining was outstanding, we enjoyed Tamarind, Pinnacle & Caneletto, all as the sunset while dining- just so special! The Dutch Cafe was one of our favorites for an afternoon snack and Irish or Baileys Coffee with Fresh Whipped Cream! They close at 10 PM and do offer 'to-go' cups. They also pour great craft beers, but my specialty coffees won out at this place. Although we limited our alcohol consumption due to all those extra calories we were eating - we did use 5-7 drinks a day on our HIA package. It was a nice to have! Dive in Burgers was a very good casual option too - enjoyed it while enjoying our cabin with the ship wake view & as we sailed thru the Panama Canal. Yes, we ventured to the ship bow (also on Gershwin Deck 5) 5 o'clock on the morning of canal - they serve mimosas, juices, hot coffee & the famous Panama rolls during the approach. Panama Rolls=think Polish Ponchki. It was crowded but awesome (you can also view on Sun deck, Crows Nest, etc.) Once we got into 1st lock we moved ourselves out of the mist (the ONLY day of 21 that it was a bit misty) we watched the rest of canal from our balcony - have I told you how great our AFTVIEW balcony was? We chose NO excursions here as we wanted to experience the transit in & out of the canal and the Gatun Lake sailing. In Panama we left ship after dinner in MDR for some brief shopping & got right back on. Entertainment on ship was very good at BB Kings, enjoyable at Dueling Pianos in Billboard onboard, the bar here was one of our faves and Villy and Ricardo were very entertaining , attentive and great bartenders, clucking chicken, and it was just ok at Rolling Stone Rockroom. Showroom - Island Magic Steel Pans was Outstanding!!!! Don't miss it. Good Magician and Comedians too. Daytime City at Sea was great, so were some of the talks. Library was best I've seen on a ship - a very calm, well stocked and inviting place to visit, I read 3 or 4 books.... and dropped off a few at the exchange rack. Guest Services desk was always quickly available & every question tackled with a smile & quick resolution. Future Cruise desk is right next store and we took advantage of that too - deposit for a future cruise done! Port shopping is nearby too. Sim & Preet took care of us. Have it All was really nice to have, we enjoyed the drink package (15 daily up to $11 each), Beach days we filled our quart jugs with cocktails before disembarking! We enjoyed the specialty dining options, free wifi & excursion credits. Ports were good - disappointed not to stop at Costa RIca (weather/wind related) and to have both our Curacao stops changed months before sailing. An overnight in Aruba was one substitute (Awesome) and Ocho Rios the other. Cartagena we did the city tour, but really enjoyed the zoo at the port best. We had 10 Sea Days! LOVED that. That was why I booked it. Photographers were great, no pressure & they captured special moments - our favorite was Hera, she captured us perfectly and we have some nice memories. Shopping on board was very good, but be prepared to spend $30+ for sunscreen if you didn't bring it, $25 for 6 dramamine. We made sure to bring everything we thought we'd need, including emergency first aid products) & a quick stop at Publix in FLL the day before the cruise provided the extras we purposely didn't pack. You cannot bring plastic water bottles or soda bottles on board - cans only! Disembarkation is very efficient and if you stay current with Navigator app and room flyers you will see that your time off the ship is really UP to You. Luggage tags are available by Guest Services 5-6 days before leaving and you can pick color/time. We had a late flight so we left ship around 9:15 (9:30 am was latest) Luggage was easy to find in terminal and we had a great porter who took us right thru Customs and to the curb to wait for transportation pick up. We pre-arranged with Ft Lauderdale Hospitality & they were waiting for us on return. $14 pp to airport. LACKING: 1. Casino, we really couldn't enjoy it - very smoky and the smoke permeated areas outside casino to 3rd deck shopping area. And people just sat at same machines all day/all evening..... this is because they cruise for free if they gamble - Ruins experience for paying cruisers. 2. Excursions, although there were many choices, the quality just wasn't there for the price. Example- Eagle Beach Express Aruba - basically a bus to Eagle beach for 3 hours. $40 per person, no chairs or umbrellas or water - very limited availabilty to rent at beach for $60. Take a regulated cab from port for $15 per cab load to & from beach. $16 to Palm Beach which we think is much nicer and chairs/umbrellas more plentiful & cheaper. 3. Lido Pool/Aft View Pool - way too many 'chair hogs' leaving towels on chairs and not showing up for hours...crew should enforce the 30 minute rule, if you aren't there - towels should be removed so other guests have access to chairs! 4. Hygiene - way too many people not sanitizing or washing their hands before entering food venues. Even with crew encouraging it. We also saw a young mother changing a dirty diaper on a chair outside the Orange Club not 4 feet from the ladies room. It was not a pleasant site.