Amsterdam Alaska Cruise - 13-27 May - second part - Food

To repeat

I had a good time. Glad I went. Like HAL

We had to eat in the Lido on embarkation, and it is not possible to
eat in the Lido when you are using a scooter. There are no longer
trays and the scooter basket is not equipped for food. This was
exacerbated by the fact that they were having people serve you
everything instead of allowing you to take it. They told us the
reason for that was for two days in case people got on with colds or
other illness to keep them from passing it around. That seemed to be
a good idea, but it did make things slow with long lines to be served
as people did not understand that they could go to the next station.
Bob went and got us something - he came back with spaghetti which was
the only place that had no line.

I never found a good way to eat in the Lido with either my cane or the
scooter. There were no helpful people to carry your food. The
service was really slow which made it was painful for me stand and
wait for other people to be served. We only ate in the Lido if
forced. We never ate in the Italian restaurant - I wasn't sure if it
was extra price or not and you had to make a reservation.

The food was reasonably good in the main dining room, but due to the
fact that almost all the crew were new, the service was VERY VERY slow
at first and we did not always get what we ordered. Bob ordered sugar
free ice cream for dessert and got a sundae (which is what he really
wanted anyway). Once he did not get a second soup (he will have three
soups and no entree sometimes), and once a lady and I got each other's
omelets and didn't realize it until she got to the goat cheese in the
middle of mine.

After the first couple of days, many people defaulted to the Lido and
ironically the service also improved. Some people complained that
they did not like the coffee, but we don't drink coffee so don't care
about the coffee. The same person said her hot soups were not hot
enough, but I found them perfectly fine. They no longer have
breakfast specials, but the menu is expanded (they now have Eggs
Florentine and not just Eggs Benedict), and I could always get
cranberry juice.

The choices were particularly good on the four formal nights. When
they gave you lobster there was a container of melted butter to go
with it instead of the steward drizzling some over it. They also no
longer take your lobster tail out of the shell for you. I had trouble
deciding on formal nights, but even on regular nights, I always had
something I liked to eat. Bob lost some weight - he said when he got
back that he was down to his target weight. I didn't lose, but I
didn't gain either.

The ship was noisy and had some vibration and creaking all the time
even though I did not consider that there was particularly bad or
rough weather. Sometimes some loud starling banging.

Most of the time if there was rain it was at night. We did have rain
one day in Kodiak for part of the day, but all the other days were at
worst overcast. Spectacularly good weather for Alaska with blue
skies.

The people were nice - some of them had been on as many as 14 Alaska
cruises and had a lot of information and anecdotes. We had a Cruise
Critics meeting on the second morning.

The tides are pretty steep in that area of the world so the ramps were
also steep and some of them had steps, so I could not take the scooter
off the ship. Some of the tours were on regular buses where
wheelchairs could be stowed, but some were in school buses with no
luggage capability. The tour tickets were not always informatory
about this.

The port maps were EXCELLENT and had a lot of information about the
ports - more than just shopping things. I do not see why cruisers
need to have tanzanite and Diamonds International in all the ports
anyway. It is stupid. And my opinion of people who shop in those
places in Alaska is not complimentary.

Bob went to some of the shows and enjoyed them, but of course the
theatre is the usual HAL theatre where you can't see on the ground
floor unless you are in the front row. The theatre was right under us
so he usually went down one flight of stairs and sat in the balcony
where you could see. I was too busy editing photos to go.

We went to trivia once but for some reason it was just not fun the way
they did it. I don't know why - we've always really enjoyed trivia. I
went to a HAL ports trivia on the last day, not realizing that they
meant just Alaskan ports, and sat with a man who knew all the answers
and we won some coasters.

I was completely unable to use my own computer to do emails because it
would not allow me to use a shifting IP address or something like
that. The computer lady and I tried everything and nothing worked. I
got emails sent once, but other than that I had no success. So she
lent me a laptop. That worked fine and I could use the internet while
sitting in my own cabin. Bob walked out to the business center in
Ketchikan and bought a thumb drive for me (and he also got some fudge
for himself at the candy store) and I just transferred my Favorites
and photos to the other laptop and did the internet that way.

One thing I could not do on either computer though was Facebook. The
page would load and then I would get a message that the page couldn't
be loaded and it would vanish. I only managed it at the end for a
little bit.

Dis-embarkation was semi-bad. I had thought we would take a taxi to
the airport, but when Bob turned the form in he paid for bus tickets.
DO NOT take the bus unless you are flying Delta or American. Those
are the only airlines where you can check the bags at the location
where the bus delivers you. Also you stand in a long line to get on
the bus after you get through immigration.

They did not give us any information at all about what places were
open for breakfast or the hours, so we got room service. They gave us
Black 1 as our disembarkation color and said it would be 8-8:15, but
there was no information about what the sequence would be.

When we got to the airport, I could not get a wheelchair as Southwest
had no presence at the bus dock, so we had to drag ourselves and our
luggage all the way through the airport and up an escalator (there was
a LONG line for the elevator) to get to the Southwest counter

I think that's about all except for the ports.