2014 April 11-22 Maasdam Southern Caribbean Cruise: Barbados; St. Maarten; St. Vincent; St. Kitt's; St. Croix; Martinique; Half Moon Cay

 Hard to believe it was 1 1/2 years since our last cruise.  At that time, we made the $200 on board deposit for a future cruise to get on board credit on the future cruise.  Shortly after we got off that cruise, we got an email from HAL offering additional obc if we booked another cruise right away.  So I hit the web and checked out the itineraries and decided on this 11 night southern Caribbean cruise.  It went to 4 islands we had already been to (St. Maarten, Martinique, Barbados, and Half Moon Cay); plus it went to 3 new ones (St. Kitt's, St. Vincent, and St. Croix).   By booking a verandah suite, we were able to get $200 obc for the future cruise booking and another $200 for the welcome home booking.  Plus we got $100 obc for being a CCL stock holder.  Then in the Fall, HAL ran a promotion, Explore 4, which included 2 - $50 drink cards and 2 free Pinnacle dinners (their upcharge steak restaurant).  After a couple of calls, I was able to get that added to our reservations.  I had hoped that in 1 1/2 years our fare would go down, but it didn't.  We booked a BB guarantee and hoped for another upsell offer like we got the last 2 cruises.  This time we didn't get one.  Maybe because it was a much smaller ship and near the end of the season, but we did get un upgrade to an A suite on the same floor as all the Neptune suites.  At first I was worried about the location---very last room at the back of the ship on the 10th floor with a bar and smoking area next to our room and it was also below part of the Lido deck, so I anticipated lots of chairs being moved around overhead, but it really wasn't bad.  We heard chairs being moved around for 5 or 10 minutes in the morning.  We also liked that we were right by the elevator and stairs and only one floor down from the Lido Restaurant.  We also liked being so close to the Seaview pool.

We had never been on a ship this small and were a bit worried that lines would be long and spaces would be crowded, but it turned out to be really nice----5 minutes to walk anywhere on the ship, ran across people we met at dinner many times throughout the cruise, liked that there were fewer people, and this ship had the best food and entertainment of any ship we had been on before! Instead of 2000 passengers like on the last 3 HAL cruises we took, there were only 1265.   Instead of 86,700 tonnage, it was 55,800.  The only thing missing on this ship was the extra cabins for more people.

2014-4-11  Embarkation day:

 

The Maasdam:

 

2014-4-12  Sea Day:

 

2014-April 13, Sunday---another sea day:

 

2014-April 14, Monday---St. Maarten  (10am-9:30pm):

 

2014-April 15, Tuesday---St. Kitt's (8am-4:30pm):

 

2014-April 16, Wednesday--St. Vincent (10am-6:30pm):

 

2014-April 17, Barbados (8:30-4:30) :

 

2014-April 18, Good Friday-Martinique (7-1:30):

 

2014-April 19, Saturday-St. Croix (8-2:30):

 

2014-April 20-Easter Sunday-sea day:

 

2014-April 21, Monday-Half Moon Cay, Bahamas (8am-2:30pm):

 

2014-April 22, Monday-Debarkation Day :

 

 At least our vacation wasn't over yet---we spent another wonderful week with our daughter and son-in-law.  They even treated us to a gondola ride, dinner at the food trucks in a nearby park, and a couple trips to the beach.  Then they took us to the airport on the 30th for our short flight back to STL.  
What a rude awakening we got back home!  After 3 weeks of beautiful sunny 80 degrees weather, we returned to temps in the low 50s for a high!  At least that only lasted 3 days, then we were back to temps in the 80s.  Good 'ole St. Louis---no Spring or Fall, just Winter and Summer!
  

2012 Nov. HAL 11 night Noordam Southern Caribbean Cruise: Barbados; Dominica; Martinique; St. Lucia; St. Maarten; St. Thomas; Half Moon Cay

11 night Southern Caribbean Cruise

After our last 2 November Caribbean cruises in less then ideal weather conditions, you would think we'ld learn not to cruise the Caribbean in hurricane season!  But we persisted and gave it another try.  This time we did our longest cruise yet---11 nights on the Noordam and had almost perfect weather the whole time!   We actually booked this cruise while we were on the Eurodam last year.

I chose this cruise , (Holland America's Noordam) mainly because it went to St. Lucia.  I've always wanted to see St. Lucia.  The cruise also included stops in St. Maarten, Barbados, Dominica, Martinique, St. Thomas, and Half Moon Cay.  It was very port intensive, which I loved---6 port days in a row, another port later.  Ken's more of a sea day fan, but he held up pretty well.

2012 Noordam ship

2012-11-5,6, and 7  Up to and including our first 3 nights:  Sea days

2012-11-8  St. Maarten 

2012-11-9  St. Lucia

2012-11-10  Barbados

2012-11-11 Martinique

2012-11-12  Dominica

2012-11-13 St. Thomas


After 6 port days in a row, the next day was a welcomed sea day!  Even though I'm not a big fan of sea days, the day of rest was nice.  Althought my plans for sleeping in didn't go so well.  Somewhere in the Caribbean waters I encountered what I assume was sea lice---invisible to the eye, larvae or jellyfish or other stinging ocean critters that attacked me---and I ended up with an extremely itchy rash.  I had this happen before on a couple of our trips to Hawaii (out of about 20 trips to Hawaii), so I wasn't surprised.  Apparently they don't bother everyone---like Ken---but they sure like me.  Took about 5 days for the extreme itching to subside.  At least it happened near the end of our cruise.

2012-11-15 Halfmoon Cay

his was Ken's 4th cruise, my 10th.   Other than my first cruise (when my Dad almost drowned), I haven't had a bad one yet (not counting weather).  I really enjoyed seeing the new places and revisiting the ones we've been to.  We enjoyed it so much we even did the onboard booking for the ship board credit for the next one.  The $200 ship board credit for booking onboard last year and the $100 OBC for having CCL stock came in really handy this year.  After gratuities of $12/day@ , the Canelleto dinner, and a couple other items we bought onboard, we only owed $56 when we debarked.

Now to start dreaming about where to go next!





2005 Feb.---Disney Wonder Cruise (7 nt), Let's try again!--St. Maarten; St. Thomas; Castaway Cay

Feb. 2005- Disney Wonder 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise:

Disney Wonder!

After the disastrous Disney Magic cruise the year before (where Dad attempted drowning, as he called it), I emailed Disney Cruise lines to see if they were aware of what happened on one of their sanctioned excursions. One of the things cruise lines boost about using their excursions is the "safety checks" they make on the providers.  I figured they needed to "check" this group again.  About a month later, I received a coupon in the mail for Buy One, Get One Free on another Disney Cruise. They certainly weren't obliged to do that, but we appreciated it and took them up on their offer to cruise with them again. This time, we elected to go on a 7 night cruise of the Eastern Caribbean and enjoyed an ocean view room.  (To check out that disastrous cruise, click here: Disastrous 1st cruise  )

2-5-2005 embarkation day:
  
2-6,7-2005 Sea Days:

2-8-2005 St. Maarten:

2-9-2005 St. Thomas; St. John USVI

2-10-2005 Sea day:

2-11-2005 Castaway Cay:

 Our week ended too soon and soon we were getting off our cruise.

I wouldn't mind cruising on Disney cruiselines again, but I think the price will probably keep me from doing so. But this was a very good vacation. Thanks, Disney! Thanks, Dad! Thanks, God, for keeping us safe this time!