Caribbean Snorkeling Cruise 2021

Overnight the Rotterdam sailed at over 20 knots in order to make up for the 2 hour and 10 minute delay in our departure yesterday.    The Captain said we passed the Nieuw Statendam which would arrive a couple hours later than us.    It actually arrived about an hour later but we still got first pick of the beaches.   We took one of the large island tenders to shore, did a little shopping, and then walked about 45 minutes north to the snorkeling location we discovered a month ago when we were here.     The snorkeling was okay with fish sightings about the same as last time.     Afterwards, we hiked back to the island barbecue and enjoyed a nice lunch.   Sister ships with Rotterdam on the left and the Nieuw Statendam on the right.     They are the same size despite the photography.   We were back on the ship around 2pm and after a quick salt removing shower, I went up to the ...

Finally embarkation day arrived.    I slept poorly last night waking up every few hours.    The checkout process went well and I figured out why we likely encountered the difficulties yesterday.    The clerk who checked us in assumed we were with the other two ladies and didn't properly pre register us. I also learned that they didn't put us on the 11am shuttle because it was full.    So we were on the 12 noon shuttle and that worked out fine.    Check in was very smooth and it took no longer that 15 minutes and we were on the ship by 1:15pm.   Upon boarding the Rotterdam, we were struck by the new ship smell.     It was a smell we hadn't smelled since we sailed the inaugural voyages of the Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam.     This cruise is the 4th since the ship was put into service.     We made our way to our stateroom 7173 and collected our keycards and got our fir...

  After taking the wonderful 21 day Seattle to Florida cruise in October on the Nieuw Amsterdam, we returned to the damp and cold Pacific Northwest.  And our thoughts immediately began to drift to where we might travel to next that would be sunny and warm.  I did a little exploring of cruise options that wouldn't keep us away from home at Christmas this year, and I found a nice 10 day cruise on the brand new Holland America Line ship  Rotterdam.  We previously were able to sail on the inaugural cruises of the Rotterdam's sister ships (Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam), but we weren't able to do something similar for the Rotterdam.  So this cruise will have to substitute for it.  Plus it's just the 4th or 5th cruise for the Rotterdam after beginning sailing. Following an hour long hold on the telephone, I contacted our travel agent (Costco Travel) and I booked the cruise.  We're in our customary inside stateroom (7173 for this cruise).  I booked...