We traveled from Seattle to Vancouver by chartered bus that was arranged thru our travel agency.AAA in Seattle (Tina & group) does a wonderful job of taking care of everything. Boarding in Vancouver was easy & cabin was ready when we arrived. 8147 is a very nice cabin located starboard side aft Our cabin stewards were fantastic (Topic & Trish). Room was always clean, seemed like these two never ...
This was our second HAL cruise, first time on the Oosterdam. Embarkation was very fast and really well organized. HAL has its act together. Our obstructed oceanview cabin on Deck 4 amidships left ample space above the lifeboat. The safety drill was held an hour before sailaway. Names and cabin numbers were called and marked off lists. Almost everybody paid attention to instructions.
We found ...
Hi, I'm Traveling Dot and this is my fourth cruise on Hal. We have done Canada/Maasdam (round trip Boston to Boston), Alaska/Statendam (Fairbanks to Vancouver) and the Panama Canal/Rotterdam (from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale).
We flew from Boston to San Diego on Jet Blue the day before we were scheduled to sail. Would recommend Jet Blue for the extra leg room they provide at coach prices. We ...
OUR TRIP ON THE OOSTERDAM TO HAWAII
Before deciding on the Oosterdam, San Diego to Hawaii cruise, we looked at various tours of the islands but they all required that we fly to Honolulu and back. I hate flying today. And really, what's wrong with ten days back and forth on the Pacific? We had done two East to West TransAtlantics in years past and enjoyed them immensely. We had also done one ...
My wife and I are in our early sixties and consider ourselves as being quite active. We have done 10+ cruises in the Caribbean, Panama Canal and Mexican Riviera. Our cruise line of choice has been Royal Caribbean.
We boarded the Oosterdam shortly after 1:00 PM and went directly to our stateroom on the stern starboard of deck seven. We were promptly greeted by our cabin stewards Bari and ...
Just off the Oosterdam (opronounced 'Oh'sterdam) (Jan 28-Feb 18). Visited Mexico and Hawaii.
As veteran HAL cruisers we love HAL. Here are our 'likes': typical HAL experience. Food was GREAT! Service, ditto. Staff ditto. Ship, excellent shape. Ships's personnel continually cleaning and polishing. We very much appreciate HAL offering religious services on board...thanks HAL. BIG SURPRISE: ...
Background Info:
We were a party of "3 girls", me (47), my mom (82) and my cousin (51). We have all sailed HAL before, and had all been on the Oosterdam at least once. We had sailed 7-10 days in the past, and were looking for a longer trip with more sea days. This was a logical choice as we all live on the West coast.
Travel to San Diego and Embarkation:
We flew into San Diego the morning ...
All the usual stuff about embarking and disembarking, the food, the entertainment and programs on the ship are basically the same as stated by others.
This review is meant to give helpful hints.
The room: SY has three large closets. Hangers are provided. There are fold down shelves in each closet. There is also a safe in one of the closets.
There is one full size drawers under the foot of ...
My spouse and I had originally booked this cruise as a late celebration of our 40th anniversary. As it turned out, we celebrated it in Sep/11 with a cruise to Alaska on board the Diamond Princess. But, no matter, as we knew we wanted to get away from the typically cold Canadian weather in January and this cruise was a good mid-winter break.
Getting There
We flew from our home gateway of ...
Last time on Oosterdam was on a Mexico cruise. We had been on other HAL ships, but there was something about the Oosterdam...it felt like coming home. I wondered this time -- before we boarded on January 14, 2012 -- "Would it feel again, like 'home'?" particularly, since we were cruising in an interior stateroom for the first time ever; previous cruises had all been done in veranda ...