AT SEA ON THE ZUIDERDAM BETWEEN CURACAO AND CARTEGNA, COLUMBIA-- Saturday, November 23, 2013

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AT SEA ON THE ZUIDERDAM BETWEEN CURACAO AND CARTEGNA, COLUMBIA--Saturday, November 23, 2013

Happy Birthday Alex!

We spent the day at sea heading northwest toward Cartagena, Columbia.



We did what we usually do when we don’t leave the ship. We read, slept, worked on the blog, and read and slept some more. And oh, we eat too much. I thought I would use this day’s space to talk about this ship, The Holland American Lines’ Zuiderdam, and to do some comparison with the Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas. This was the ship we took on our last cruise from Singapore to Rome.

The general ambiance of this ship is classier with a somehow more posh feel. I don’t think I can tell you what makes it that way, as both ships are still at heart, 10-11 story floating hotels. I think it is just in the general décor—gold/silver metal fronts on the elevators, better flow of the office and shopping spaces, deep relaxing chairs in the movie theater, bronze statues in every niche, some spectacular large glass marine art in common areas, fresh flowers throughout the ship and large pictures of tulips in every stateroom.

The library is certainly larger and better stocked. Also the library has a good number of computers available there. One thing I had a hard time finding on the Legend of the Seas was a quiet, inside-in-the-air-conditioning place, to sit and read, so I spent a lot of time in our cabin. That is not the case here, as there are nooks and crannies filled with comfortable chairs.

The food service in both main dining rooms are basically the same between the two ships. You spend 2-3 hours over a 4 course meal. The big difference comes in the non-dining room serving of food. On the Legend you served yourself from large pans of food like an all you can eat buffet. Here you serve yourself only on certain items like the salad bar, breads, desserts set out in individual servings, and drinks. Entrees are served to you by behind-the-counter servers so they are better at portion control, but will give you more of an item if you ask.

In general the food on this ship is more up-scale with lots of shrimp cocktails, sea scallops, smoked salmon, sliced duck, pates, lamb, etc. The fish is salmon, sea bass, mahi mahi, instead of whiting or tilapia. Both lacked much variety in cooked veggies. The deserts are better quality on this ship also--more cheesecakes, always open ice cream bar with 4 flavors, always two kinds of bread pudding, 3 kinds of cookies were also always available. Legend had more pudding/jello-based kinds of deserts.

We think portion control also is instrumental in not having trays to carry your meal on on this voyage--so you get your appetizer, then walk to get salad, then walk to get main entrée, then your dessert and drinks, stopping to eat one course at a time. You also have to stand in line at each “station” which you didn’t on the Legend.

I don’t see a significant difference between the cabins, but I think the beds are better quality on this ship, and when asked, they provided Valerie foam layers to make her bed softer. Both cruise lines have “towel” art animals left somewhere in your cabin when the steward comes in to turn down your bed at night. On this cruise, we had something really cute every night along with chocolates left on the bed with the next day’s program.

The entertainment is certainly the same. Some acts are good and some not so. There does seem to be more interesting (to us) free classes on this ship—cooking demos, computer classes in windows 8, etc., but in general much are the same--dancing lessons, trivia contests, all kinds of fitness stuff, and many card games, and tournaments. Valerie has been very unhappy with the casino as they have only one machine that plays for a penny so, she has only been up gambling a couple of times.

This evening, Paul, Christina and I went to see a comedian who used a dummy in his act. He was a very good ventriloquist and quite funny. Valerie decided to watch a movie in the movie theater.

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