Oosterdam to homeport in San Diego

I have it from a highly-placed source at Holland America Line that Oosterdam
will call San Diego her "homeport" beginning in January 2005.

Hopefully, details will be forthcoming

Linda
-----
CruiseDiva.com
http://cruisediva.com

I hope those forthcoming details will include "interesting" cruises, i.e.
something more than the 7-day weekend to weekend round-trips that so many of
the larger ships do, and that we usually tend to avoid. On the other hand,
we're not ready for the significantly longer cruises yet.

I was just on the phone with HAL and the upcoming Hawaii cruises did not
include mention of the Oosterdam, but that might be "interesting". ;-)


Subject: Oosterdam to homeport in San Diego
From: "Linda Coffman"
Date: Mon, May 3, 2004 12:05 PM
Message-id:

I have it from a highly-placed source at Holland America Line that Oosterdam
will call San Diego her "homeport" beginning in January 2005.

Hopefully, details will be forthcoming

Linda
-----
CruiseDiva.com
http://cruisediva.com

RTCReferee wrote:
I hope those forthcoming details will include "interesting" cruises, i.e.
something more than the 7-day weekend to weekend round-trips that so many of
the larger ships do, and that we usually tend to avoid. On the other hand,
we're not ready for the significantly longer cruises yet.

I was just on the phone with HAL and the upcoming Hawaii cruises did not
include mention of the Oosterdam, but that might be "interesting". ;-)

HAL's round-trip to Hawaii from San Diego was truly wonderful for Eileen
and I, because we don't enjoy long flights, love sea days, and dreaded
the idea for cruising out of Ensenada. Although we really liked the
Statendam, it would be nice to have a choice of ships doing this
itinerary.

Howie

Howie wrote:

RTCReferee wrote:
I hope those forthcoming details will include "interesting" cruises, i.e.
something more than the 7-day weekend to weekend round-trips that so many
of
the larger ships do, and that we usually tend to avoid. On the other
hand,
we're not ready for the significantly longer cruises yet.

I was just on the phone with HAL and the upcoming Hawaii cruises did not
include mention of the Oosterdam, but that might be "interesting". ;-)

HAL's round-trip to Hawaii from San Diego was truly wonderful for Eileen

and I, because we don't enjoy long flights, love sea days, and dreaded
the idea for cruising out of Ensenada. Although we really liked the
Statendam, it would be nice to have a choice of ships doing this
itinerary.

Since you have been on both the Statendam and a sister ship to the Oosterdam,
could you comment on which of those two you might prefer for a round-trip to
Hawaii, if itinerary is equal?

And to make it interesting, would you include the Infinity or a sister ship
into the mix, keeping in mind a round-trip West Coast to Hawaii?

RTCReferee wrote:

Howie wrote:


RTCReferee wrote:

I hope those forthcoming details will include "interesting" cruises, i.e.
something more than the 7-day weekend to weekend round-trips that so many

of

the larger ships do, and that we usually tend to avoid. On the other

hand,

we're not ready for the significantly longer cruises yet.

I was just on the phone with HAL and the upcoming Hawaii cruises did not
include mention of the Oosterdam, but that might be "interesting". ;-)

HAL's round-trip to Hawaii from San Diego was truly wonderful for Eileen

and I, because we don't enjoy long flights, love sea days, and dreaded
the idea for cruising out of Ensenada. Although we really liked the
Statendam, it would be nice to have a choice of ships doing this
itinerary.


Since you have been on both the Statendam and a sister ship to the Oosterdam,
could you comment on which of those two you might prefer for a round-trip to
Hawaii, if itinerary is equal?

I'll give it a try. The Zuiderdam/Oosterdam is better equipped for night
life; but since there was just about none on my HAL r/t Hawaii cruise
(even though we had 10 sea days), this is really no advantage. The
Statendam was an incredibly well run ship, perfectly maintained, with
excellent food and service. The same cannot be said for the Zuiderdam.
Both ships, IMO, were lacking in adequate weight and cardio equipment,
so it's a draw, in that regard. Funny, the only HAL ship I've been on
with a good gym was the Zandam, and that was a great gym (fyi, I have
been on the Zuiderdam twice, Veendam, Zandam, Rotterdam, & Statendam).
Finally, I'm a big steam room/sauna user; and the Statendam trumps the
Zuiderdam in this area. In sum, if given a choice, I would choose the
Statendam (even though I have a general preference for newer ships).


And to make it interesting, would you include the Infinity or a sister ship
into the mix, keeping in mind a round-trip West Coast to Hawaii?

Throwing the Infinity (I've cruised on the Milli) into the mix,
complicates things further. The fact that there were 10 sea days on my
r/t Hawaii would be enough for me to go with the Infinity, in the hope
that I would find a somewhat younger crowd to hand out with at night.
Don't get me wrong, I like older folks (like myself), but few of them
seem to want to boogie at 2:00 AM, or at midnight, for that matter. As
I recall, the Milli had a much better gym than the two HAL ships in
question (although still not as good as the Zandam). I also really
liked the sauna on the Milli, which had ocean views like that on Destiny
class carnival ships, and a waterfall type shower area for cooling down.
I'm not cruise ship foodie, but I would definitely give the Statendam
a clear edge over the Milli in this department. Thus, if I could go
round-trip to Hawaii from the West Coast, and I had a choice between the
Statendam, Zuiderdam, and Infinity (itineraty and price equal), my
choice would be the Infinity-Statendam-Zuiderdam, in that order.

I apologize to all for this long post; but I teach decision making at
the University, so I thought I would provide a more thorough look at my
own decision making process in answering ref's question.

Howie

Howie, when asked to rate/rank several ships for a Hawaii route, wrote:

Throwing the Infinity (I've cruised on the Milli) into the mix,
complicates things further. The fact that there were 10 sea days on my

r/t Hawaii would be enough for me to go with the Infinity, in the hope
that I would find a somewhat younger crowd to hand out with at night.
Don't get me wrong, I like older folks (like myself), but few of them
seem to want to boogie at 2:00 AM, or at midnight, for that matter. As

I recall, the Milli had a much better gym than the two HAL ships in
question (although still not as good as the Zandam). I also really
liked the sauna on the Milli, which had ocean views like that on Destiny
class carnival ships, and a waterfall type shower area for cooling down.
I'm not cruise ship foodie, but I would definitely give the Statendam
a clear edge over the Milli in this department. Thus, if I could go
round-trip to Hawaii from the West Coast, and I had a choice between the
Statendam, Zuiderdam, and Infinity (itineraty and price equal), my
choice would be the Infinity-Statendam-Zuiderdam, in that order.

I apologize to all for this long post; but I teach decision making at
the University, so I thought I would provide a more thorough look at my
own decision making process in answering ref's question.

Thanks very much, Howie. I appreciate your detailed comments, which I have
saved to my "Destination Hawaii" folder. I've toured three of the Hawaiian
Islands by land before, but not done the cruise there. From your comments, the
Infinity might be a better match for us, and maybe we should try a shorter
Millie-class cruise first to see which ship we'd like to take for two full
weeks. I'd also like to be sure those pods aren't problematic while
propulsing us towards Pele on the peaceful Pacific. :-)

There was an article in today's paper about the Oosterdam and more cruises
from San Diego:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...1b4cruise.html

Just checked the HAL web site and it looks like the Oosterdam will be doing
7 day round trips Mexican Riviera & Sea of Cortez starting January 2005.

There are a few other interesting HAL cruises for Hawaii: May 5 the
Amsterdam will do a 17 round trip Seattle to Hawaii. Sep. 16 the Statendam
will do a 17 day Vancouver to San Diego Hawaii. And the in Dec 2005 the
Amsterdam will do two round trip San Diego Hawaii cruises.

--
Thanks,
Ken Reisig

San Diego Ambassador volunteer
http://www.sdambassador.com

"carry me on the waves to the lands I've never been,"
"carry me on the waves to the lands I've never seen."
"sail away, sail away, sail away "
from "Orinoco Flow" by Enya


"Linda Coffman" wrote in message
...
I have it from a highly-placed source at Holland America Line that
Oosterdam
will call San Diego her "homeport" beginning in January 2005.

Hopefully, details will be forthcoming

Linda
-----
CruiseDiva.com
http://cruisediva.com

I have some more details now with date ranges and itineraries... at
http://cruisediva.com/news_week_051504.htm

Linda
-----
CruiseDiva.com
http://cruisediva.com