The wife and I decided to take a week on the high seas opposed to a week of skiing in Utah. We wanted something quiet, relaxing, and relatively free of children and Holland America Line fit the bill for us. We sailed with HAL 9 years prior on the MS Zaandam out of Port Canaveral. The service was impeccable and we truly enjoyed ourselves! This time we chose the MS Nieuw Amsterdam out of Port Everglades on what they termed a western Caribbean cruise, but it was more of a central route. We drove down from North Florida arriving at the port around 11 a.m. There's a lot of construction going on at the port and some of the signs were confusing, but we managed to locate the correct terminal. I dropped the wife and the luggage at the curb and parked the car ($15/day or $105/week). We handed our luggage to the baggage handlers, tipped them, and went inside.

The embarkation process went very smooth and we were on-board by noon. We were greeted on the gangway by a crew member and told that our cabin was ready, so we headed up to drop off our carryon luggage. They offered to show us to our cabin, but we told them we could manage ourselves. We were assigned cabin 8144, a deluxe verandah, category VA. The cabin was on the port side of the ship on the Navigation Deck, deck 8. The room was very clean, but seemed to be showing its age a bit. Shortly after we arrived at our room, our luggage began showing up! Within 10-15 minutes all of our luggage had arrived and we met our cabin steward Made (pronounced Maa-Day). He was very friendly and helpful all throughout our cruise. We brought a cooler full of sodas and water that Made kept brimmed with ice for the entire trip! We found our cabin had ample storage for all of our clothes, luggage, and gear. At 4 p.m. we were off! On our way out of the channel we were wished bon voyage by the friendly residents of Fort Lauderdale and nearly ran over a sailboat that had drifted into our path. The entire boat shuddered when the screws were thrown into reverse and a quick thinking pilot boat operator tossed the wayward vessel a line and pulled him out of our path! What a way to start our cruise!

That evening we had reservations at the Tamarind restaurant. The wife ordered a seafood medley of some sort and I ordered the beef tenderloin with onion rings. Mine was terrific, but the wife wasn't crazy about her entree. It had a bit too much garlic for either of us, but the rest of the meal was great, especially the fresh sushi. Soon thereafter we retired to our cabin for the evening. We were exhausted from being up at the crack of dawn and driving 250 miles. One thing we didn't realize was that our cabin was located directly under the aft pool deck. Sometimes during the day you could hear the band if they played, people sliding chairs across the floor, or the early morning cleaning crews as they washed down the deck. Fortunately, this wasn't a big issue for us because we weren't in our room during the day too often and it never kept us from sleeping. On Wednesday evening we had reservations at Canaletto's. It's not really a restaurant, just a corner of the Lido deck they change into an Italian restaurant at night. The food was also very good and we both enjoyed our meals that night. Read more