More than 12 months after we booked our cruise, April 19, 2017 finally arrived. We picked up our one way rental from Hertz at Naples Municipal Airport, loaded up our bags, and headed across the Florida peninsula with Uncle Jack and Aunt Sarah to Port Everglades.
Zuiderdam was docked at Pier 26, towards the south end of the Port Everglades complex. Nice big arrival area (much larger than the arrival areas on the northern end of the complex) so traffic flow was easy to maneuver for dropping off people and bags.
Embarkation was surprisingly chaotic considering our last cruise aboard RCL’s Allure of the Seas which is, passenger-wise, about three time bigger than Zuiderdam. Even room numbers lined up to the right, Odd room numbers lined up to the right. Security was straight forward as was handling of the wine we brought aboard ($18 corkage for each bottle over two) — having paid this corkage (and retaining our receipt) we can enjoy our wine in our room or in one of the on-board restaurants. While waiting in the “Even” line (cabin 6076 - category “SS”), we received boarding cards with boarding group numbers so had to cool our heels for about 20 minutes until our number was called.
All told from curb, through security, check-in and boarding took about 40 minutes. Reasonable but certainly not the quickest process we’ve experienced. On the other hand, having carried our bags on board, our cabins were ready upon boarding so we were able to get our bags unpacked before heading up for lunch. So the trade off of a slower boarding process but knowing our cabin was ready when we boarded was a good tradeoff.
Lido Buffet lunch was quite good - good traffic flow and good food - the only issue was finding a place to sit with the rest of the 2000 or so other passengers.
Lunch was followed by our mandatory Boat Drill. HAL’s version was very civilized. We didn’t have to carry our lifejackets with us (nor demonstrate putting them on) and weren’t subjected to the windy histrionics (from the cruise director and captain) we are usually regaled with as a captive audience.
Traveling with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jack, we had chosen Early Dining. A very nice feature of early dining aboard Zuiderdam is that our seating is a 30 minute window - 5:30-6:00. Dinner was really quite good - Pork Buco with risotto for main course; banana crisp was a “Do Not Miss” dessert. Minus points for screw up on our table - put our Aunt and Uncle at a separate table? But by getting there right on time, we were seated at our table.
Overall condition of the ship is very good, carpets and fittings in the public areas and in our cabin show minimal wear and tear.
We like our cabin (6076) - the next size up from a Verandah (Balcony) - is the perfect size for a 16 day Trans-Atlantic crossing - two sinks in a bathroom that includes a separate bathtub (with jacuzzi jets) and shower - a private balcony (about 15’ x 8’) two desk/vanities (his and hers :) and enough room in our cabin to move around without bumping into chairs or the bed.
We caught the 8:45pm show in the BB King Club — great entertainers playing Motown hits - horn and vocal performers were right up there. But don’t plan on ordering a “Fireball” as an apertif in BB King’s - perhaps the older demographic hasn’t discovered Fireball yet.
Bed in our cabin was very nice with a great selection of pillows for our night time slumber. The only issue overnight was a pretty consistent “creaking” as the ship slowly rocked from side to side.
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