It has taken me nearly a month after our cruise to write this, but the holidays took precedence. We sailed the Amsterdam on Dec. 1-17 from Rio de Janiero to Valpariso. One of the things that made the trip special was it's length, 17 days gives you many opportunities to make onboard friendships with other pax and the staff as well. Overall, I would give the Amsterdam an A for the entire trip! Despite the fact many received greatly reduced fares, I did not notice anything that would suggest that the staff was doing anything to cut costs on the trip. The ship had been booked for this cruise since the middle of the summer, and a group of us through Cruise Critic had been exchanging posts and information in anticipation for the cruise.
We arrived the day of embarkation into Rio to find a pervasive warm rain falling. The views were obscured by the rain and generally foggy conditions it caused. Embarkation was clearly the worst part of the entire trip. For this, HAL gets an F! We arrived at a dark reception building that contained only a few working fluorescent bulbs and were told that prior to embarkation we had to fill out immigration questionnaires for Argentina or Chile. We all tried to fill the forms out, but due to the non-existent lighting in the terminal and the color of the print on the paper it made it impossible! People were angry and upset, and I worried that the process might be indicative of our time to come.
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This was a Honeymoon cruise for my husband and I and we were fortunate to be able to book a Suite (7006). This was a first for us, and the extra room and perks were wonderful!!! Our room steward Pete was the best we have had too. He always had a smile and immediately introduced himself having already memorized our names upon embarkation. As soon as he met us he went down for our bags, and we were unpacked fully into our new Suite well before dinner.
The Suite itself is so spacious as well as the drawer space on the Amsterdam. The bath in the suite was a full length albeit narrow jacuzzi bathtub. I found that with the cooler weather we experienced with this itinerary I used it faithfully! The balcony was my favorite part as is often the case with me. Up until now, I have always stayed in a veranda mini-suite and this balcony was 2X+ anything we'd ever experienced! We ate breakfast out there many mornings, and one afternoon enjoyed a full afternoon tea, silver tea service out on the Veranda!
We choose the early seating and were put as requested at a table of 8. Our table mates were 3 couples, one from California, one from Long Island, NY and one in Maryland. One thing was apparent through out the cruise, most of our fellow cruisers were very well traveled. We found that we enjoyed hearing of their experiences and recommendations and each and every dinner was a lovely experience. On a longer itinerary, I think your table mates can really enhance the experience.
We enjoyed breakfast and lunch in the Main Dining Room many times during sea days and in the Queen's Dining Room once (where Suite Passengers were invited to eat). All of our meals were warm and as requested, and we enjoyed meeting other cruisers during meals. That is except for the couple we were to be seated with at breakfast in the Main Dining Room by a window at a table for 6. She started screaming that they didn't want to sit with anyone at the meal!! I assured her, we had no desire to sit there either and shook it off as there is always one in a crowd.
I could go on and on about the itinerary on this cruise. I will keep my comments succinct though, as most are reading this to hear about the ship. Our favorites I think were Colonia (a UNESCO World Heritage site outside of Montevideo), Buenos Aires ( so European!), Falklands ( the penguins at Bluff cove were the best) and Ushuaia ( the Tierra del Fuego is surreal in it's beauty!). It was all spectacular, but those places in retrospect stick out in my mind!
This was a 17 day cruise, yet I didn't see one menu that repeated throughout the cruise! The nice thing about a longer cruise is that you get to meet more passengers, especially with the amount of sea days we had. We didn't attend many of the evening performances, but the ones we did attend were quite good as they were local troupes that came aboard to entertain with their traditional dances. We also enjoyed the various lecturers on board.
We did expect to see more sea life than we did. We saw one whale next to the ship one lunch and some wonderful seabirds, but Alaska seems to have much more sea life than we experienced in SA.
Harry, the bar manager, and Veronica, the concierge, assisted me in putting together a Cruise website get together on board. They even printed and delivered invitations to the Cabins of the 34+ cruisers who had been sharing posts in preparation for the cruise. We had a lunchtime reception in the Crows Nest where HAL served hot appetizers and the ate in the bottom part of the main dining room that was reserved for just our group. All of this was done willingly and gratis by the HAL staff. The friendships we made out of that group will not be forgotten!
I would highly recommend the Amsterdam and her crew. She is, bar none, the nicest Ship I have had the privilege in cruising on. Thanks to them, my husband and I have wonderful and treasured memories of a very special honeymoon adventure!
