Zuiderdam Review

Zuiderdam - Eastern Caribbean

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Zuiderdam

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Sail Date: Dec 2004

TO START: It's Sunday night and I just returned from the Zuiderdam yesterday. The room is still rolling a little but I want to collect and write my thoughts about the cruise now while it's still fresh in my mind. After all, you know how forgetful we HAL'ers can be, considering our age...More about that at the end. I'm 55. Here goes...

IN THE BEGINNING: Until last year, my last cruise, except for an ill-fated last minute fill-in as a chaperone on a Senior class cruise in 1990 (on an Admiral ship?) was an Alaska cruise-tour on the then relatively new Noordam in 1986. My experiences before that were transatlantic trips on the QEII and SS France as a college student (paid $225.00 student fare each way) and Costa's Carla C after college graduation in 1977. The new ships looked so appealing, and memories of that 1990 experience having subsided, I contacted an agent, followed her advice and booked a W. Carib. cruise on the Grand Princess in August, 2003. It was such a great experience that I booked an E. Carib. cruise three months later on the Golden Princess. Having heard about HAL and wanting to experience a new cruise line, though I have only good things to say about my Princess trips, I searched for two months before booking the Zuiderdam with an internet agency for the week beginning December 11.

EMBARKATION: FLL airport was crowded and the wait for luggage was probably about 20 minutes. Taxis were readily available to the port for about $12.00 including tip. I learned before not to book the cruise bus or van--it takes longer and costs more. Porters took the luggage at the HAL dock and there were two check in lines inside: the first for those who had completed their documents online; the second for those who had not. Actually, there is another check in line for suite passengers. There was no one in the suite line and the others were about equal in number. The wait was only about 15 minutes so we were on the ship in no time. Arrived at FLL airport 12:15, in taxi to port by 12:45 and on ship by 1:05 p.m.

Cabin Review

Cabin B
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