Quebec City…in the Daylight

by | Oct 3, 2023 | Photography

I tossed in that “in the daylight” line because the last time we were in Québec City, we were here overnight, and I was lucky enough to be able to get some incredible shots. This time, I got a chance to actually take the same photo at midday that I took five years ago at 5:00 a.m. It will give me a great photo to show to people when they think I am crazy for getting up so early just to take photos. In fact, while I am mentioning it, here are the two pics, side by side. Five years ago at 5:00 a.m. and yesterday, at around noon. Click on the photos to read my captions.

We had a pretty good day in Québec City. Kathleen and Jocelyn had gotten totally worn out from our three days in Montreal, so I set out with Cathy, Mike, Steve and Jamie to explore the city. As I mentioned above, we were here just about exactly five years ago. It was a lot warmer yesterday than it was five years ago. Our ship was docked just a few hundred yards up the pier from where we had been that time. But both were just a short walk from downtown. We walked through the lower town to the funicular that, for $5CAN, would take you to the upper town. It’s a good thing we were early because when I walked by the lower station later in the day, there was a line the proverbial mile long.

Once up at the top, we found something that amazed me—the Québec Marathon. What were the chances that the two times I would come to Québec City in my lifetime, I would be there for the marathon? Of course, that meant that we would have to see the city and work our way around the city, avoiding the race. We were able to get across the track with the help of race officials, but we still seemed to run into the racers wherever we turned.

We walked around, as Cathy was looking for a kind of embroidery museum that she had seen on her previous land-based visit. It was part of the works of the Ursuline nuns who pretty much-founded education here in Québec City. When she had been here before, she said it had been a cute little shop attached to the convent. Now, they have a complete museum, but it was more about the order’s history than the embroidery. The others decided to take a look and I decided to shoot a couple of photos of the church next door. Mike and Steve were out in almost no time, but Cathy and Jamie really enjoyed it.

I decided at that point to head off on my own to take some more photos and then head back to the ship to have a late lunch with Kathleen and Jocelyn. We ended up trying the Waves Grille. I would tell you all about the lunch and the Grille, but I am saving those thoughts for a big post on the food. That is really what Oceania is all about, and I want to hit it all at once. So here’s my meager number of photos from Québec. The light was just too harsh for me to really get into taking photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

On openness

When I do a live report on a cruise, I also put most of the text and one of the photos on a thread on Cruise Critic (for the non-cruisers, find out about Cruise Critic here). Fellow cruisers will ask me questions on the board, and I got one this morning. I thought I would post the question here as well. The person asking was comparing Viking Ocean to Vista and wanted to know if this was an “open ship.”

Here’s their exact question:

“Does the new Vista have the same openness as a Viking ship? Can one see the sky and water when in common spaces? Or is there drapery hanging from the ceiling, or are there walls of windows?  I am a Viking Cruiser because of the ship design, first and foremost.”

Here’s what I told them:

If it’s sky and water you want, stick with Viking. Thanks for making me think about this. It’s not something I usually would even contemplate, but you really made me realize how little there is below deck 12. When I got up in Québec, I wanted to see the city. I had to climb to Deck 14 and go into the Horizons Lounge to be able to see the Hotel Frontenac. On Viking, I could have done that from at least three lower decks.

I would say, on the whole, this ship is more closed up. I know exactly what you mean. I found the Viking ship we sailed on to be VERY open. Like most cruise ships, some lower decks are public (in the case of Vista, that is, five and six) and some upper decks that are public (12 through 16—there is no 13). You can only see the water from the upper decks or your own verandah. I am typing this sitting on deck six. You can’t see a thing anywhere on this deck except in the dining room, and there, we have been put in a windowless corner every night because of the size of our party. Most of the rest of the dining room is covered with sheer curtains you can see through. Some people sitting by the windows have opened those up.

This also reminds me that on sea days, I exercise by walking on the ship. On Viking, there is a wrap-around promenade deck that I walk on. Here, the only place to do that is a very nice walking/jogging track around the back portion of deck 15. The Viking promenade is 1/4 mile, and the Vista track is 1/10th of a mile. So you see a lot of the same things again and again.

Quebec City is the most European of any city in North America; they speak French all the time. There is a part of the town called Old Quebec, which is really like being in France. The architecture is just gorgeous, food, shopping. I’d say Quebec City is the most beautiful city in North America I’ve seen.  —Sebastian Bach

 

Vista Day 1–Embarkation and Our Stateroom

by | Oct 2, 2023 | Uncategorized

When last I wrote, we had just boarded Vista and been through a beautiful embarkation. When we left the hotel in three separate Ubers, we truly believed we would not be boarding until at least 1:30 or 2:00. But about halfway through our Uber ride (Kathleen, Jocelyn and I), my brother texted that they were letting anyone on and should they go through. We said to hang on; we would be right there. The cruise port was only a 10-minute drive from the hotel. But by the time we got there, the others had gone through and were waiting to board the ship.

We got in line (which was a little longer by then) and were also on board within ten minutes. The port of Montreal is the EXACT opposite of the port of Vancouver, where on our last cruise in May, embarkation had taken three hours and forty-five minutes (you can read about that fiasco here).

When we reached the inside of the ship, we were met by an officer who asked for our key cards (which came to us in a really cool little leatherette folder) so he could see where our muster stations were. We had already watched the video at home when we did our check-in and again a few days later when they sent another reminder (I think we got about five e-mail reminders to watch the video). The officer directed us to our muster station (we were in the main dining room), and we headed there immediately, got our key cards scanned and as far as Oceania was concerned, we were through with them until we sailed the next afternoon. We headed up to the buffet for lunch, where the rest of the gang was holding a table for seven for us, and we started to sample the amazing food that Oceania calls “the best at sea.” Just a note here. I could start going on and on about the food here, but I am going to do a complete post on the culinary glory that is Vista cuisine (at least so far).

Our stateroom–Concierge Verandah 9118

When we boarded, we were told that our suites would be ready by 2:00 p.m. and the rest of the staterooms soon after. But about halfway through lunch (close to 1:00), there was an announcement that suites (not us) were ready. We were in a Concierge verandah, and they announced that those would be available by 2:00 and the rest of the staterooms by 3:00. Lo and behold, at around 1:30, there was an announcement that our staterooms were ready. It was then I realized what had happened with our embarkation time, and what was now true about stateroom readiness was that Oceania was one smart cruise line. They were practicing one of the greatest marketing tools known to business: underpromise and over-deliver. Tell us things will be bad; we grumble a little and then be a hero by getting them done a lot better. It’s impressive to me and something I love to have happen. Should they not have been able to deliver early, they were fine. I had already grumbled.

But getting back to our stateroom, we are in Concierge Verandah 9118, which is aft of amidships on deck nine. We had read that the staterooms were pretty large, and our last stateroom on HAL’s Koningsdam was only 185 square feet, so we thought these would be much bigger at 250 square feet, but honestly, they don’t feel any bigger. Sadly, we have been spoiled by our last three major cruises. In July of 2021, our first cruise back after the pandemic shut down was on Celebrity’s Flora in the Galapagos. Those staterooms are HUGE—almost suite size (330 square feet). Then we were lucky enough to snag a Neptune Suite on HAL’s Nieuw Statendam, and they are even bigger (380 square feet). And last year, we did 21 nights on Viking Ocean in a Penthouse Veranda, and it was smaller than the Neptune but much larger than we are now (338 square feet).

I am only really concerned about the comparison to Viking Ocean because we are VERY loyal cruisers (as evidenced by our 20+ Celebrity cruises), and we are looking for our next cruise line to give our loyalty to, and the stateroom we are in now is just about the same daily price as the much larger one we had on Viking Sky. Not only was it larger and had about 3x the storage space (the worst part of our current stateroom) and about the same size bathroom. The shower is bigger, but not by enough that I noticed it. But where we have a tiny couch and the usual oval miniature coffee table today in 9118, on Viking, we had a full-size couch and coffee table plus plenty of room between the bed and a full-size dresser/desk. Let’s look at some room photos instead of continuing with the comparison. And I apologize for the fact that I took the pics after we had unpacked. I usually get them right away, but because Jocelyn was in a regular verandah stateroom, she came down to ours while Kathleen unpacked, and I walked around the ship taking photos.

BTW: No admonition on looking at these on a cell phone. Feel free. Not my best photography. And if you click the first one, they play as a slideshow. If you can’t read the captions, do the slideshow and if they are still cutoff, click the i in the circle.

A great feature of the stateroom that I almost forgot is the huge (for this size room) television. There are a lot of choices on this Smart-TV. Free movies, TV shows, A great bridge cam, two maps—one interactive, a music library, ship info and of course you can check your ship account as well.

One other thing that is kind of a pain. If you cruise, you know where your big suitcases go when you are done unpacking them—under your bed. You can’t slide large suitcases under these beds. They are too low. We were kind of worried about that until Mike told us that you could ask your stateroom attendant to put them under there for you. They have a special tool that lifts the beds. Sorry, but that’s poor planning on Oceania’s end. I mean, buy a bed that’s a little higher (like every other cruise line).

All in all, we feel like this Concierge Verandah stateroom is a poor value when compared to a similar-priced Penthouse Verandah stateroom on Viking Ocean. Score one for Viking. But that might be the only one. Stay tuned.

I have been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, almost all my life from too intimate contacts with my own furniture.
—Frank Lloyd Wright

 

 

 

Was this cruise really that bad? Yes and no.

by | May 7, 2023 | Uncategorized

I have been posting this review as a day-to-day live blog on the Cruise Critic website and here. They don’t get the photos. I have been taking a lot of heat over there. I have been called entitled, whiny and SPOILED (their emphasis). Sorry, I don’t think that reporting what has happened to us (all eight of us in our group) and others that we spoke to is being whiny. We have been cruising long enough that I think we can give an accurate view of what happened to us on Koningsdam and call HAL out for it. And I write these to make people aware of what is going on.

Kathleen got really upset at one of the posts because they keep saying that they have done this or that and we must be wrong. She rightly pointed out that these are our viewpoints of what happened to us. Others may not have felt the same way. That is their experience. Certainly, some of those people who had a different cruise than we did have commented on that thread, and I would never call them names or impugn their character. I guess it takes all kinds. And sometimes I can’t believe the loyalty some people have to cruise lines that obviously need to improve. We are Elite Plus cruisers on Celebrity, and we are finished with them as well (except for Flora in the Galapagos). But I still hold out hope that they will come around and get back to their roots someday. It could happen.

But all that said, I did want to come back after a day or so to think about it and give you a final report with some good things and some bad things. I also realize that so many people who disagree with me have not read the entire thing. They have commented on my main dining room problem, and that is it.

The Good Stuff

There were good things we really liked about our cruise on Koningsdam. Here they are:

  1. The food and service in the specialty restaurants were both OUTSTANDING! We loved the dinners we had in all of them even though we were forced to eat in two of them because we couldn’t get into the main dining room and didn’t feel like eating in the buffet. On the drive home with my daughter-in-law and her husband, we rated the order of how good they were. My DIL surprised me when she rated them in this order: Rudi’s, Canaletto, Tamarind and Pinnacle Grille. I was surprised because she is a real Asian food fan, but she thought the Italian food was better. At all of them, the service was great as well. I just think Tamarind is the perfect specialty restaurant…great food, great service and the prettiest setting on a ship.
  2. The muster drill. Kudos to HAL for not returning to the old way of doing the muster drill. Being able to watch the video on your stateroom TV and then going to check in at your muster station in your own time frame was great! Keep that one. The best thing in cruising that came out of the pandemic was this improvement.
  3. Our stateroom was kept clean and shiny by our two very overworked stateroom attendants, Faisol and Mafa. They always had our room completely made up while we were at breakfast. Their speed and high standard were impressive.
  4. Just about every single crew member we encountered was doing an awesome job. Special kudos to the Activity Director (I wish I could remember her name), who is from South Africa. She ran some of the best trivia contests we have ever had on a ship. The rest of the crew is so overworked it is sad. And felt so bad for the new people who were on their first contract and just thrown to the wolves (so to speak) without adequate training.
  5. The entertainment was super. The band in BB Kings rocked. The comedian truly made us laugh. I should point out that he made a number of jokes about how bad embarkation was and got a lot of applause for doing it.
  6. Bettianne is an excellent cruise director. We sailed with her on Nieuw Statendam in January 2022, and it was great to touch base with her again.
  7. The HAL Mariner App isn’t bad. With eight people in our group, I wish they had a group chat. It would have been great to be able to send everyone when we were meeting for dinner without having to copy-paste to everyone. I did love that you could see the entire day’s activities and then click to add them to your schedule. Then I would get an alert on my Apple Watch about five minutes before whatever I wanted to do.
  8. Unlike our last cruise on Viking, the beds were great! With my wife’s hip being replaced and both my shoulders surgically repaired a good mattress was essential.
  9. Our stateroom was very nice, if a little small for us. If you are six foot two, the placement of the toilet leaves much to be desired, but the shower is one of the best in a standard stateroom that we have encountered—great water pressure and lots of hot water as well.
  10. Disembarkation was wonderful. They let us off right on time; we were through Canada Place in no time and home and starting laundry in just about three hours flat. Please compare that to the three hours and thirty minutes we stood in line in Canada Place to board the ship.

That about covers it. Of course, for us personally, the fact that we were traveling with our best cruising buddy Bob and his family, as well as taking our kids (both over 40) on their first cruise, really was the best part for us. I think that may have been a big part of our frustration—the fact that we had built up cruising so much with Michelle and her Brian, and then to have them tell us that even though they liked being with us, they didn’t think cruising was for them. And for Bob and Judy, it was their first cruise since the pandemic, and we wanted that one to be great as well. As the travel agent who booked them all (as well as having clients on Koningsdam later this summer), it was a disappointment.

The Bad Stuff

I think you know what these are, but I just want to walk through them quickly for those who have criticized me for only complaining about the Main Dining Room and, sadly, add one more.

  1. Embarkation. It was the worst in 35 cruises, and we cruised right after 9/11. Even in Singapore, when we had to wait three hours due to the crew doing a thorough norovirus cleaning, we were kept abridged of everything that was going on, and Azamara did the best job of getting us on board quickly.
  2. The things we missed out on due to the late embarkation including not being able to make Main Dining Room reservations before 8:15 pm, having lunch (the first time we have ever not had lunch on embarkation day) and getting to take the kids on a tour of the ship. By the time we got on, we only had time to unpack, check in to our muster station and get dressed before making our 5:15 Tamarind reservation.
  3. The long lines everywhere on board. You name it, and there was a line for it. Especially bad were the ones getting into the main dining room, but also horrible were the Dive-In, Guest Services, the Dutch Cafe and many stations in the buffet. They never went away.
  4. The fact that the ship was obviously understaffed. When you see the Dive-In that has always had six people prepping and serving food reduced to three, the gelato bar with one poor guy (on his first contract) or our stateroom attendants who had more than 35 staterooms to deal with, when we started cruising, you never had a stateroom attendant with more than 20.
  5. Staff was not allocated correctly. HAL could have fixed many of the problems with food staffing by assigning long-time crew members to work with new staff. We ran into many crew in the buffet that were on their first contract. Many had joined the ship in Australia or Hawaii within the last few weeks. On the other hand, long-time crew members who were on their sixth, seventh or more contracts and were working alongside other long-time crew in the specialty restaurants. I totally get seniority but put some of the more experienced people in with the novices to mentor them in their new jobs. One of the saddest things we saw was a person manning the buffet waffle station on disembarkation morning who could not understand why the waffles weren’t coming out of the waffle maker. He didn’t know he had to grease the waffle maker before he put the batter in. No one had told him. He had never been taught.
  6. The fraudulent scam that HAL pulled in Prince Rupert by buying out the only tram rides in the town and jacking up the price much higher than it would have been had you have been able to pay cash for a tour. It sounds like the entire Carnival Corp is doing this.
  7. And here’s the new one. Bob pointed out to me that when he met his stateroom attendant, they offered to make up his room whenever he wanted. Once a day, twice a day or not at all. For the five-day cruise—they could do whatever he wanted. This reminded me that ours had said the same thing. And we learned from Brian and Michelle that theirs had said the same thing. We opted for once a day. With all the new cruisers, it is highly possible that many, like Brian and Michelle, said not to bother at all. This seems to be a new thing—offering not to service a stateroom at all. Bob thought (and I agree), what about the $18 per person, per day gratuity we must pay? Now I realize that those gratuities go to a lot of people. For those of you who didn’t cruise in the old day, you used to tip your stateroom guy $6 a day, their assistant $4 a day, your waiter $8 a day, and their assistant $3. And the assistant maître d $2. So, if you don’t get your room cleaned and you don’t get into the dining room, where do your gratuities go? HAL’s pocket?

Things I wish I had known and what I would have done differently

I did come up with some concrete suggestions that I wish we had done ourselves.

  1. If HAL assigns you a time to board, ignore it. Everyone else does. Go as early as you can and get in line. They may make you wait before you can actually board, but getting through the Customs and scanners will get you to where you sit in chairs and for my bride, that would have been a godsend.
  2. Book fixed seating. Do not do Select Dining unless that’s all you can get especially if you need to eat early.
  3. If you can’t get fixed seating, as soon as you get on board, make a beeline to deck three next to the Ocean Bar, where they make dinner reservations. Reserve for the entire cruise. I think this is wrong but if HAL allows people to do it, play that game.
  4. If you want a hot dog, see if you can order it on the HAL app or go late (like 3:45).
  5. A great and empty bar is the one that is part of Tamarind on deck 10 aft.
  6. Book private excursions in every port. Try Tours By Locals or ask your local travel agent.
  7. Use the HAL Mariner app. It really isn’t bad once you figure it out. It helps if you have an iPhone and an Apple Watch to get notifications. Make sure to turn on notifications for the app on your iPhone.

So, was it a bad cruise? Yes. Did we have a terrible time? No. But that was not because of Holland America. Some of my long-time cruising friends think I should ask for a full refund. I understand where HAL and the entire Carnival Corp are at this point. Their stock is down (although coming back), and they are deeply in debt from staying alive during the pandemic. But is not the old HAL I sailed on before. After our Nieuw Statendam cruise, I came into this Koningsdam cruise with the thought that when we wanted to sail on mainstream ships, HAL was the way to go. I no longer feel that way. That makes me sad.

In deep sadness, there is no place for sentimentality.
—William S. Burroughs

Koningsdam Day 4-Prince Rupert

by | May 5, 2023 | Photography

Every time I think that things will get better, they get worse. So many bad things have happened that I can’t remember if I have already written about them or if I still have to. I have to say I have not talked to a single person on this cruise that is happy about it. Not one.

And I feel so bad for the crew. They are working as hard as they can, but they are HUGELY understaffed and HUGELY overworked. Having talked to some crew members, they work 11, 12 and sometimes more hour shifts. Everything to do with food is being manned by fewer people than they would normally have. Here’s how the end of yesterday and today went.

I posted early this morning, but I think I forgot to mention that we had a comedian who performed last night in the BB King venue, and he was pretty funny. The place was packed, and there were lots of people standing around the edges. He did two shows, we were at the first one, and the laughs were quick and numerous. See, there’s something positive.

We did dinner at the buffet, where only one side was open. That meant there were no seats on that side of the room, so we sat on the other and walked back and forth. I ate what I call my “not willing to stand in line” menu. I would get anything that I didn’t have to stand in line behind ten people to get. Not much selection in that lineup. 

I have not mentioned how HAL is handling the buffet. In about 85% of the buffet, you cannot serve yourself. There is a plastic shield preventing you from doing that. In 15%, there are tongs and a space to reach through for a roll or a small sandwich. The only problem is that if you get a roll and want butter, you must get in line to ask for the butter. Or (like I did last night) I grabbed a sandwich and then took the same tongs to reach a little further back for potato chips and was quickly scolded by the person behind the counter that I was not allowed to reach that far and if I wanted chips with my sandwich, I would need to get behind the 11 people in the line. I was welcome to as many sandwiches as I could eat, but not the chips. Go figure.

Breakfast in the Main Dining Room

This morning, against my better judgment, Bob talked us into going down to try to get into the dining room for breakfast. We had not eaten any meal in there as of yet and really wanted to see what it looked like. So we went down expecting a long wait. Lo and behold, we were second in line and ushered to our table at 8:10. Keep track of that number; it’s important ?.

At 8:40, we were still waiting for water and coffee and had not had a waiter stop at our table for anything. Judy was coughing and really needed water, and Bob pointed out that there were water pitchers on a table behind me. So I grabbed one and poured us all some water. Before I could set the pitcher back down, a waiter grabbed it from me. He finished pouring and went and brought us back to carafes of coffee, one with decaf for Bob and the other for the rest of us. Sadly, they were lukewarm and became cold pretty quickly. 

The server came back about five minutes later to take our orders. He told us that it might take a while since they had just had a big group of people come in, and there were a lot of orders coming in. By this time, it was close to 8:55. I really wanted to point out that if he had taken our orders when we came in, we would have had our food by then, but I didn’t. I want to point out that this situation was NOT HIS FAULT! He was covering a lot of other tables, and the food was NOT coming out very quickly. We knew we would be waiting a while for the food to come back because the tables near us had been seated before we were, and they didn’t have food yet, either. 

The food finally showed up at about 9:20. This is where it really gets good. Kathleen had ordered buckwheat pancakes, and they were OK but not hot. Just lukewarm. Judy had ordered banana pancakes, and as you can see from the photo above, they came with exactly THREE slices of banana on them. I asked her if there were any mixed into the batter, and she said, “No, these are just buttermilk pancakes with three slices of banana on top.” 

Bob and I had both ordered the same thing—the ham and cheese scramble with hash browns, and I also ordered an English muffin. Now wouldn’t you think that a “scramble” would have the eggs scrambled into them? You know, scrambled eggs? No, when Bob moved aside the tortilla chips that were, for some reason covering his “scramble,” there were two (kind of) soft-boiled eggs on top. When I moved mine back…there were two hard-boiled eggs on top. That is NOT a scramble. It just isn’t. The ham, cheese, green bell peppers, onions and potatoes looked great, but the entire dish was dry without the scrambled (or poached, soft-boiled or any other kind of egg other than hard-boiled) eggs.

Not being willing to eat hard-boiled eggs, I called another waiter over and asked them to take them back and get me some scrambled eggs in my scramble. He did, and miraculously within about 5-7 minutes. But one small problem. The veggies and ham that were on the bottom were not cooked. Basically raw. The scrambled eggs were on top, and they were almost raw, very runny. And the cheese? Nowhere to be seen. It has probably run off with the hash browns and English muffins because they weren’t there either. So I pushed the veggies and ham aside and ate the wet eggs. Just as I was finishing them, out came two servings of hash browns. One was cooked almost well-done, and the other was close to raw. 

We just gave up at this point as the coffee was cold, and it was obvious that my English muffin had gone to HAL food heaven with Bob’s Dive-In hot dog. I hope they are doing OK together. We left the dining room at 9:50 according to Kathleen’s recollection. 

HAL rips off everyone on the ship…or at least attempts to

So after this wonderful breakfast, we decide to go and check out scenic Prince Rupert. Regular readers of this blog know that I walk a lot. My daily walk is always between four to eight miles. Kathleen, on the other hand, is not a big walker. She has a few things that make it difficult for her to walk long distances, and she can’t keep up with me. When we do go out together in a port, I try to walk slower so we can stay together, but she knows it is driving me crazy…but we make do. This also means that we like to tour by tram or bus. 

So today, we get off the ship, and there is a tram that takes you around Prince Rupert. Super! When we go to buy tickets, we are asked for our sea pass card. Now this is NOT a HAL excursion. Anyone can walk up and take it. But once they knew I was off the ship, they wanted my sea pass and would not take cash. So I gave the woman the card, and she wrote us a receipt. She had told me the trip around town took 90 minutes, and the cost for us would be $59.95. She handed me the receipt to sign, and I was SHOCKED to see it was $59.95 EACH! For a 90-minute tour around a very small town. We decided to skip that. 

Then we started talking to a couple of local people who worked for the tram service, who were only too glad to fill us in on what was going on. It seems that HAL (and all the other Carnival Corp lines who stopped here) were buying out all of the trams for the days they have ships in port. Then they set the price for that day for everyone. Even if you happen to drive to Prince Rupert and want to take the tram, you pay the price set by the cruise line that is in town that day. He said the day before when Princess had been there, the price had been $69.95 per person. I don’t know about you, but this is just WRONG as far as I am concerned! They buy out the entire set of 15 trams (the only ones in town) to be able to charge their own customers more. Shame on them! 

And later on, when I went out walking on my own, I passed one of these trams and saw them stopped in front of a house with the driver pointing at the house. That’s cool. Then as I went past him, he moved up one more house and started talking about that one and the people who had lived there. I walked another 300 yards to the corner where I was going to turn and looked back, and he had pulled up two more houses and was doing the same thing all over again. You see, I think Prince Rupert must not have that many things to show people who are from out of town, so they probably tell the guides/drivers to take as long as you can describing things to stretch this out as long they can. I am fully willing to hear from anyone who took this tour that it was a good value. 

I also want to point out that when we got off the ship, there was not a single vendor selling any kind of tour. No boats, no helicopters, no airplanes, no taxis. Nothing near the port. The collusion between the city and the cruise lines is really evident here in Prince Rupert.

Lunch on board Koningsdam in Prince Rupert—how sweet it ISN’T!

After we had tried to go out (we did walk around for a short time), we came back to the ship; I changed into my walking shorts and a tee shirt and went out to do my four miles. Had a very nice walk as the weather was uncharacteristically (we were told by a local) beautiful and sunny. And then, when I came back, I had to again…stand in a 20-minute line to get back on the ship. We took our grandkids to Walt Disney World in February, and we were told by Disney that it was the most crowded four days in the park’s history. We have stood in more lines to get places on this ship than we did there. And at least at WDW, they give you something interesting to look at while you wait in line. 

Once I was back, we went up and got a sandwich/slice of pizza on deck 10 (above the buffet, next to the indoor/outdoor pool). Got it pretty quick (which was awesome), but then we both felt like something sweet afterward (I had missed my English muffin at breakfast, remember?), so I went down to check out the desserts in the buffet. Above is the list of the desserts they had on offer today. Below is a picture of the actual desserts that were available directly below the sign. This was the only place to get sweets (except for a small ice cream station serving two flavors of ice cream with a line of at least 15 people waiting at all times) on the entire buffet. This is the second day in a row that this has happened. Nothing there for sometime before the meal is set to be over. At the point I took this photo, they still had more than an hour before the time the buffet was scheduled to close. I did walk by a little later and they were putting out a few apricot tarts but as soon as they were out, a swarm of people grabbed them all. Ah, the hoarding of desserts.

They did get me to spend money on gelato again. HAL has been doing really well getting me to spend money on extra stuff. Besides the gelato, I have purchased meals in specialty restaurants (which have been really great so far) on four of the five nights of this cruise. We are eating in Canaletto (the family-style Italian place) tonight and Rudi’s (Fish house) tomorrow night, the last night of the cruise. 

For your viewing enjoyment here’s my selection of my favorite Prince Rupert photos from early morning and my walk around town. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

It’s after dinner as I am finishing up this post; we are back in our stateroom. I have succumbed to the lure of a reduced-cost WiFi package and picked up the last three days of the cruise for around $25 US. Worth it to be able to check some things going on with Kathleen’s estate stuff and a medical appointment I have coming up, plus I get to post the rest of the way.

We had a very nice dinner at Canaletto, and we all ate way too much. When we had been on Nieuw Statendam with my brother and his bride, we had thought the food was kind of weak in Canaletto, but it is much improved here on Koningsdam. So far, we have eaten in three of the four specialty restaurants and we have had great food, efficient and friendly service and wonderful experiences. I just said to Kathleen, “this is where HAL is putting their experienced waiters and cooks—the specialty restaurants. Where they make money.” Again, that’s pretty sad, but I believe it’s true.

I’m scammed almost every day. Or, if not scammed, at the very least someone tries to scam me. Usually more than once a day.                     —James Altucher

Koningsdam Day 3–Ketchikan

by | May 4, 2023 | Food Experiences, Photography

Yesterday when I signed off, I mentioned that I was sitting and waiting to try and get a reservation for the main dining room for dinner. At 11:30, the crew member showed up and started taking reservations. I was thrilled that I was second in line until she told the couple that was first in line that there were no reservations available for Select Dining before 8:30 pm for the balance of the cruise. It seems that on the first day of the cruise (while we were getting on), they allowed folks to reserve dining times for the entire week. So today, there was nothing available to reserve until late. And tonight there are two shows members of our group want to see. If we did dinner at 8:30, we could see neither of them. The same is true for tomorrow night. We didn’t even ask about the last night of the cruise as we have booked Rudi Sel de Mer specialty restaurant.

The lady making reservations said we could wait in line starting at 5:30, and they would take walk-ins as they came up. The couple in front of me said they had gotten in line the night before at 5:00 and finally reached the podium at 6:00, where the head waiter handed them a buzzer and said they could wait in the bar until it buzzed. They waited until 7:30 and then went to the buffet. It never buzzed. We aren’t getting into that mess. So it seems we are destined never to eat in the main dining room. We will do dinner in the buffet tonight, and then I am buying everyone dinner at the Italian specialty restaurant Cannoletto tomorrow night. Since I am the travel agent for everyone, I feel like I have misled them.

After that fiasco, I wanted to speak to someone in Guest Relations about it, but when I went up, there was a line of 20 people ahead of me, and I gave up. I am done. I thought we will just go with the flow. But at lunch, it got worse.

Mind you; this was a port day. Experienced cruisers know that if you stay on the ship on a port day, it is usually pretty empty. Not yesterday. The ship was packed. After we had tried to get the reservation, we figured we should go get lunch…in the buffet. Three of us wanted to go to the Dive-In, HAL’s hot dog and hamburger restaurant. What a mistake. When we got there, there wasn’t a big line, maybe 10 people. Kathleen grabbed a table while I ordered. They gave me a flasher and said it would go off when my food was ready. There were four people working in the Dive-In. On previous voyages, there have been seven or eight.

Our buddy Bob had gone off to help Judy find what she wanted in the buffet before he came and ordered his hot dog and fries right about 10 minutes after I had. About 20 minutes after I had ordered, I went over to see why it was taking so long. They were deep in the weeds and weren’t putting out a whole lot of anything. Finally, at about the 25-minute mark, my buzzer dinged. I couldn’t see anything that looked like my order, but when the frazzled lady shoved a tray my way, I had to tell her what was missing, which she supplied a few minutes later. At this point, we were 30 minutes from my order and 20 minutes from when Bob ordered his. Bob waited ten more minutes and then wandered over to see what was happening. In the meantime, I finished mine, got some gelato for dessert (that’s another story—keep reading) and told Kathleen and Judy I was going off to walk in Ketchikan. I passed Bob on the way out, still waiting for his hot dog. At this point, it had been about 40 minutes since he placed his order. When I returned from my walk, Kathleen told me Bob had waited another 30 minutes (a total of more than an hour), and he, like many others, just walked away. This is just wrong.

And I promised the “other story” about dessert. When I went back into the buffet, Judy came with me. We were just looking for something sweet to finish our meal. There are two entire dessert areas. On top of them was a list of today’s desserts. There were seven different items listed, including a chocolate cupcake, two types of fruit tart, a chocolate pudding-like mousse, a lemon bar and some other fruit cups. All were listed as desserts today. How many were under that sign? Just one. No, not one type of dessert, just one lonely chocolate cupcake. Not a single other dessert. When I asked, I was told they had run out.

When I am writing this, we have just finished eating dinner in the buffet. The food was mediocre at best. The funniest thing we saw was a huge, paella-sized pan filled with something—I wasn’t sure what. I asked the young lady who was serving it what it was. She said, “The people who baked it said it is apple pie. I think it’s apple soup with a crust. I had nothing to do with making it.” Cracked us up. At least she knew that what she was supposed to be serving was crap. So funny, but funny in a sad way.

Speaking of funny, yesterday morning at the buffet, Judy came back to the table with a pastry. She said she had seen another one she liked the looks of but wasn’t sure what the little things on top of it were. So she asked the person serving, and they said it was “beans.” Yup, beans. Now, I realize that you can make a great sweet topping for rolls out of some black Asian beans, but that isn’t what this was. I was intrigued, so I went over and got one. Those weren’t beans. They were tiny chopped pecans. The pastry was delicious. Now this is funny…but it is also dangerous. I asked her myself what those were, and the server told me, “Those are beans.” What if I had been allergic to nuts? Can you imagine someone at the buffet going into anaphylactic shock? That’s not sad; it’s scary. We did make a point to tell one of the managers, and he assured us there would be some education going on soon. He said he was sorry, but they had a lot of new people that were still in training.

I want to get this posted, and I promise to do my best to find something good about this cruise sometime before I get off on Saturday. In the meantime, here are some shots I took early in the morning from the ship and while off the ship in Ketchikan. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

As I am posting this, we have just arrived in Prince Rupert—more tomorrow.

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.        — John Muir