Noordam - March 8 - 19 review

Embarkation: Everything went very smooth. We arrived at the pier earlier than we expected (about 10 a.m.) and dropped the luggage at the front of the terminal. The others went to get our "spot" while I parked the van. After the canine inspection I was into the lot. I took the escalator down to the terminal level and the others were waiting with a "Number 3" in hand. While we were waiting, Carol (cruzerwannabe) and Paul and Debbie (dhoney) and Larry showed up from their incoming flights. We boarded at about 11:30 and waited in the explorers lounge until we could get into our rooms. HAL had juice and cookies set up for us (a nice touch). We got into the rooms at about 2 p.m.

The ship: Our cabin VA 4174 was a nice size with a great aft balcony. Terry (iceguy) and Laurie and DEbbie (dhoney) and Larry were next to us on either side so we could open the partitions for a triple wide balcony. The only complaint that we had about the cabin was the closets. They were cramped and hard to get into. We realized later that this is a unique problem with the larger aft cabins. Carol (Cruzwerwannabe) and Paul had a cabin around the corner (4172) and it had plenty of closet room. Because of all the pre-hype about the magnificent beds I was expecting something fantastic, but found the best just to be the same as we had on Princess, no better no worse. Read more