Nieuw Amsterdam Review
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Additional details
The lyrics of the classic Queen hit lends themselves to our reviews of bucket list trips, but we’ll need to find another muse soon. This trip was actually our first BOOKING with Holland America Line (HAL) but our second SAILING on the Nieuw Amsterdam (for our impressions of the ship, see our review of the Panama Canal trip).
EMBARKATION
Embarkation at Vancouver was very smooth given the inevitable line-ups, but it was very well co-ordinated. As other reviewers have mentioned, the process involves much walking between different locations in the Cruise Terminal, but there are plenty of helpful, friendly guides to steer you in the right direction. We arrived at the Cruise Terminal around 10:45 a.m. and we were enjoying lunch on board at mid-day!
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean-View Verandah Stateroom
CABIN LOCATION
We booked this cruise in October 2015, BEFORE we had any first-hand experience of the Nieuw Amsterdam, and for our Alaska trip we decided to book a cabin with a verandah. We booked cabin 8157 which is located on the starboard side aft. With hindsight we should have booked a cabin on the port side, because our cabin was located immediately below the open-air smoking area set aside for nicotine addicts on deck 9. The weather in Alaska was cool and often wet, so that kept many people away from the smoking zone, but we were still subjected to fumes.
TIP: the ceilings of cabins in the aft part of deck 8 are suspended from deck 9 itself, so we would occasionally hear heavy footfalls or some crew activity as they moved deck furniture around. We imagine this would be much more noticeable in a warmer climate (the Caribbean or the Mediterranean) at all times of day because there will be more people on deck. Consequently, if we decided to book a verandah cabin for a future trip we would select one on the port side and on a lower deck.
CABIN LAYOUT
This is perhaps best described as awkward. We are not seniors with mobility difficulties, and we are of normal size, but the layout of the cabin entry way left much to be desired and we actually preferred the layout of our inside cabin during our Panama Canal trip. These are some of our observations: the cabin door opens inwards onto a narrow entry way, while the bathroom door (located immediately inside the cabin on the right hand side) opens outwards into the same narrow area, so there is a potential for collision here if someone enters the cabin at the same time another person is emerging from the bathroom. We were surprised at this design, because it seems to be created to encourage injuries rather than prevent them.
The main storage spaces (wardrobe and clothes closets, and the small safe) are located on the left hand side of this narrow entry way opposite the bathroom (Note: left/right may be reversed in the port side cabins) and again, when opened these doors can interfere with the bathroom door and the main cabin door. We discovered that it was really impossible for two adults to occupy the narrow entry way simultaneously, even when entering or leaving the cabin. Illumination in this area is poor. TIP: check the deck plans and cabin layouts CAREFULLY, before you commit to booking.
Port Reviews
Glacier Bay
GLACIER BAY (on board)
This isn’t an excursion as such, because we didn’t dock anywhere and (apart from the Ranger Guides) nobody embarked or disembarked, but for us this really was the highlight of the trip. Captain van Zanne navigated the Nieuw Amsterdam expertly into Glacier Bay and allowed access to the forward public areas of decks 5 and 6 to give everyone excellent opportunities to take photographs. We spent about an hour in Tarr Inlet watching small bergs calving off the snout of the Margerie Glacier, an amazing experience
Ketchikan
KETCHIKAN (wandering)
Fellow cruisers on our Panama trip had warned us off Ketchikan, but we found no reason to dislike this interesting little town. It is similar to Skagway in the number of jewellery stores present, each of which displays very similar merchandise. The former Red Light district on Creek Street is interesting and includes Dolly’s Bordello Museum ($10.00 for a good time – well an unguided tour anyway!).
Vancouver
We flew to Vancouver on Sept 2nd just to make sure we would NOT miss our trip owing to airline delays, weather, etc.
The Cruise Terminal is quite well organised, but checking in does require a great deal of walking - worth bearing in mind if you're not as mobile as you used to be!