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"I was in a unique situation where I had not seen the predecessor Zuiderdam this past year. I took an immediate liking to this ship. She retains all of the wonderful qualities of Holland America Line tradition and introduce state of the art cruising. From what the rest have said, this ship is dramatically toned down from the look of the Zuiderdam. She uses a lot of soft colors, warm woods, and fantastic artwork. Nearly every "glitch" that had been reported from the Zuiderdam has apparently been rectified here."
He took over 100 pictures yesterday - can't wait to see them.
I imagine many glitches will NOT have been fixed though. For instance the cabins are likely to be the same, and they are not very well-designed or furnished. The Queens Lounge will probably still exist, and I think the only way to fix it would be to throw the thing overboard. And the deck plans do not indicate that she will have self-service laundries either.
The thing that I'm sure will be "fixed" is the decor, and honestly I don't think it was "broken" to begin with, except maybe in the main lounge, the dining room, that awful Queens Lounge and the cabins. MOST of the decor was actually very attractive IMO and most people who have been on her seen to agree.
I'm still amazed at you cruiseny...in fact I'd love to chat with you on the phone sometime...if you're up for that, leave your phone number in my private message section.
Sure we can pack for a week-long cruise without a laundry. In fact I don't think we've ever used a laundry on a week-long cruise! That's beside the point - HAL's other ships have them and they seemingly "forgot" them on the new Vistas. HAL's excuse is that self-service laundries are "un-premium". What BS - their more upscale corporate cousin Cunard has them! So does Crystal and plenty of other cruise lines that are more expensive than HAL.
quote:Barryboat said: The reason the older HAL ships had laundry was because they were designed for longer world cruises...these new HAL ships are designed for Caribbean and Alaska...not world cruises.
quote:Originally posted by Keitaro:wouldn't these "Z-class" ships replace the older generations on the world cruises and/or longer cruises?
Some longer cruises, perhaps, but these ships would be sheer disaster on a world cruise. They're just not suited for it!
The two-week Europe cruises, the longer Caribbean cruises, and the like they can handle, but the REAL long cruises simply aren't what these ships are made for.
They're too big, and they're just not designed for it.
On the other hand QUEEN VICTORIA will probably take over from QE2 eventually. We'll see how that works out - I'm not optimistic.
Photos of OOSTERDAM (2)
and new:
Photos of OOSTERDAM (3)
[ 07-29-2003: Message edited by: Karsten ]
Great shot of the Rotterdam and Oosterdam, nose to nose.
I can't wait until Steve (ShipCafe) returns home next week with his 1000 or so pictures.
Photos of OOSTERDAM (and ROTTERDAM) - 4. part
Tks for posting.
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