Western Caribbean Cruise on the Holland America Nieuw Statendam

11/5/22 to 11/12/22

Click on the above link buttons that will take you directly to a particular page or area of the review; or you can just click through to the next page at the bottom of each page.
Page 1 – Embarkation, Ship
Page 2 – Ship Continued, Cabin
Page 3 - Activities, Entertainment, Ports of Call: Half Moon Cay, Bahamas; Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Page 4 - Ports of Call: Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Bimini, Bahamas

Entertainment

Cruise Director Kimberly Wells did an awesome job in the many functions she was involved in. Having been on 58 cruises, I can say that she was one of the best. With reductions in most cruise line entertainment staffs, she has a lot of jobs to fill, and she did them with class, gusto and just a super friendly happy personality.

With the ship having four entertainment venues in addition to the main theater, there were lots of performers to enjoy. Since we didn’t go to the Lincoln Center Stage shows, I don’t have photos of those performers.

Performers –

BB Kings Blues Club - This was the entertainment venue we spent the most time in. We enjoyed the music and musicians. The female singer, Indigo Jones, was just outstanding. Unforturnately, the male singer was pretty weak. He had a real problem keeping on key. It was a shame becuase he had a great personality.

The six instrumentalists did a great job. The lead guitarist was quite a standout. We were always thrilled when he had a solo segment

Rolling Stone Rock and Roll - This group did a good job and the audience loved them. We didn't get to see them as much as we would have like to do to scheduling and our preference for the BB King's music. We enjoyed the female singer most of the vocalists in the group.

Bilboard Onboard - Their show was very popular. Seats around the pianos filled up well before the shows started. They played a nice mix of music.

World Stage Shows –

Origin Story – This was a presentation performed by CD Kimberly. It was listed as a multimedia journey through maritime history. We didn’t attend it, but I am assuming that it was the same type of presentation as the enrichment lectures she did during the cruise.

Warren B. Hall – He is an outstanding comedian who performed two shows for us. He has some excellent material and does some great spontaneous stuff with the audience. He has a warm friendly personality that endears him to the audience. His expressions during his routine worked very well.

Humanity - This is a show performed by the Step One Dance Company. It was described as “Technology and dance come together to awaken the human spirit”. That is a pretty big claim, but I will say it was a great show. Since there are so many singers in the other venues, the production shows were dance focused. The six dancers were incredibly talented. The prerecorded music was very good, but the graphics projected onto the walls of the theater made for a dramatic and gorgeous show. They have incorporated some of the cute graphics that interact with the performers as we have seen on TV shows like Americas Got Talent. By doing this type of show rather than the traditional ones with four vocalists and eight dancers, the cruise line saves a lot of money. But I enjoyed this show as much or more than most of the others I have seen.

BBC Planet Earth ll in Concert – For this show scenes from the wonderful Planet Earth show are projected on to the theater’s walls while the musicians that normally play on the Lincoln Center Stage perform along with it. We didn’t attend this show, but I do know that it is a most enjoyable experience, since I have seen one in the past.

Musicology – This was another dance show performed by the same group. The combination of the great music with the dancers interacting with the graphics was superb. They highlighted different musical instruments and danced to its music. It was another great show that we both thoroughly enjoyed.

Off the Charts – As with the Planet Earth show, they utilized performers from the other venues. For this show, they had two platforms made to look like pianos for the Billboard Onboard musicians to use. While they sang and played their keyboards, the dancers moved all around the stage and on the platforms doing their thing. Having only passed by these musicians on occasion, we hadn’t realized how good their voices were. They were very talented. We were sorry we didn’t see more of them since this show was on the last night.

For one of the songs, BB King’s Blues Club singer Indigo Jones stepped up on the platform to sing. We already thought she was the best vocalist on the ship, but she just blew everyone away when she sang Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing. A truly amazing singer!

Activities

EXC Talks –
Most of these activities are those that I would classify as enrichment lectures. I was very disappointed when I saw that Kimberly would be doing enrichment lectures. Why didn’t we have the real expert speakers with whom we could ask questions? I am sure that they are saving a lot of money by not having to pay them, fly them to the ship and use up cabin space for them, so I hoped that they wouldn’t be too disappointing. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. Kimberly had a script to follow on prompters, but she is such a professional, you wouldn’t know they were there. She was also so enthusiastic about the subjects that you thought she wrote the material. What helped also was that while video info was being presented in the background on the walls, there would be segments with professionals discussing the subjects. The only missing piece was that Kimberly couldn’t have a Q&A session. I would still prefer a real professional lecturer, but then again, some of them could be pretty dry.

Deep Blue - This was about life below the waters edge. It was an interesting presentation about sea life and how some have survived for millions of years and obviously how it is getting more difficult with the pollution and climate change.

Caribbean Spirits – This was the story of rum. It discussed the history of rum, how it is made and how it is changing. It was more interesting and informative than I expected.

Ask the Captain – Our Captain was Noel O’Driscoll from Ireland. He always sounded like a nice pleasant guy during his announcements. During our question-and-answer session, he showed again that he certainly is. He would throw in lots of jokes during his presentation making it most enjoyable as well as informative. He is a relatively young man to be a captain. His wife and two young children were on board with him for the cruise.

He also did a virtual behind the scenes tour of the bridge and engine room. Since these aren’t being done in person anymore, it is good that the passengers can see what goes on.

Wizard of Wireless – It was the story of communications on and off the ship. They showed how Gugliemlo Marconi developed wireless telegraphy and radio. It was quite a story how he was able not only to develop the technology, but to be able to be a showman to sell it companies to make it available to the world.

Meet the Artists – Kimberly sat with comedian Warren B. Hall in the Explorations Central meeting room. She had a very enjoyable question and answer session with him. It made me like him even more than I already did.

Ports of Call

I have been to the ports previously, but Cathy hadn’t, so I knew she would enjoy seeing the new places. We were originally supposed to go to Key West, FL as the last port; but it was changed to Bimini, Bahamas when Key West decided that they didn’t want a bunch of cruise ships in port anymore. I am sure that the local vendors weren’t pleased with this move.

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

This is one of Carnival Cruise Line’s, HAL’s owner, private islands. It is a very enjoyable place for those that want to lay on the beach or participate in other water activities. We had planned on getting in the water and I was looking forward to the stop, since it is a very nice place.

As we approached the island, we could see the lovely blue water and beaches. We could also see how narrow the island is. It wouldn’t be a good place to ride out a hurricane.

This would be the first of two tender ports on our itinerary. They use very nice two deck tenders with a ramp that drops down to the tender dock to allow the passengers to walk off the tender quickly.

The tender goes through a protected channel to where it docks. This keeps the tender stable while at the dock.

We were quickly on the island and walking along the beach. It is a lovely one. We were lucky that we were the only ship there that day. The beach was crowded in places, but it could have been much worse. The ship looked lovely and was close to the beach.

The area where we stopped had a lot of large rock formations, which was not that desirable. We moved away from it, and I went in the water for a short time but decided to not stay there. The sun was very hot, and we don’t like to lay out in the sun for long. We continued walking down the beach to explore the island. There were lots of cabanas and villas, that passengers had rented for the day.

We decided to stop at Captain Morgan’s Bar, which is in a building that looks like a pirate ship. I had been there before and enjoyed the atmosphere.

We had a couple drinks so we could chill out of the sun for a while. Drinks on the island are not included in the beverage packages. It does make the island a good revenue source for the cruise lines.

We left the bar and continued walking down the beach, but there wasn’t much else to see other than more villas and cabanas. We decided to head back toward the dock, but to go see the beach barbecue area. We looked at the food offerings and decided to just eat back at the ship. Rather than what I think of as barbecue, it was mostly hamburgers and hot dogs. The ones at the Dive-In restaurant looked a lot better and there were more options at the buffet.

We headed back to the commercial area near the dock. It is a very nice area with lots of shops. At this point in my life, I don’t need any more souvenirs and I don’t want to hang out at a hot beach, so even though it is a great island stop, I don’t appreciate it as much as I used to.

We walked onto the tender for our short trip back to the ship, where we had a nice lunch on a fairly empty ship. The next day would be a sea day before stopping at Ocho Rios. We had been watching the storm forecast on my iPhone, since it looked like Hurricane Nicole was heading right for Palm Beach County, where we live. It was fortunately not expected to be a strong hurricane; but even the best forecasts can quickly change. We were also concerned about how it might affect the seas for our cruise and our ability to return to Port Everglades on Saturday. The forecast and the Captain told us that we should be fine, so we kept our fingers crossed.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

I have been to Ocho Rios many times on tours and land vacations. Since it was Cathy’s first time, I thought that it would be nice to take a tour that would show her the island. The ship tour we booked was called Highlights of Ocho Rios and Konoko Gardens. The original tour we booked, Raggae, Rum and Jerk: In partnership with Food and Wine Magazine, was cancelled. We got off the ship early for our 8:15 AM meeting time for the 8:30 AM tour. Where we were meeting was a small congested area where busses would have to squeeze in to pick up the passengers. There were tour organizers walking around with signs to keep the groups together, but there were very few people actually getting on busses. When a bus did arrive it was a very slow process to board, since everyone was supposed to use their Navigator app with the electronic tour ticket. It seemed like it would be an easy process, but not so. Some people waited until they got to the bus door to try to find their tickets. This took even longer, since some people didn’t know how to use the app. As much as I like everything possible to be in a digital format, the old paper tickets were much faster. Our bus finally did arrive, but the tour started at almost 9:00 AM, a half hour late.

We did have a good tour guide, Symone. She was a character, as her photo shows.

Unfortunately, we found out early on that Ocho Rios doesn’t have a lot of highlights to showcase. We drove up a road with Symone telling us about the area while pointing out different buildings. After driving for a while, she pointed out a school. We turned around and drove back down the same road we had just driven on. So, we were seeing the same not so exciting buildings a second time. Thank goodness Symone was keeping us entertained with her commentary.

Our next point of interest was to drive through Fern Gully Gorge. It is the site of what was a riverbed. The narrow 3-mile long gorge rises up 500 feet. It is a very lush area with lots of foliage with little light coming into the gorge, so it was very dark. Additionally, the bus had dark window, so it very much like riding in a tunnel at times. I was finally able to take a photo through the front window of the bus when we were getting close to the end and more light was coming through.

We then turned around and went back through the gorge the other way. Still not seeing too much in the dark. We had spent an hour of the 3.5-hour tour driving back and forth on two roads not seeing many highlights.

The next part of the tour was to go to the Konoko Falls and River Garden Museum. On the drive there I was glad to see that we were seeing more of the island’s beauty as we climbed into the mountains. Unlike many of the Caribbean islands, Jamaica is quite mountainous.

When we arrived at the facility, we met our guide, Naldi. He was a wealth of knowledge about the different plant and animal life in the area.

He also kept us organized and moving through the gardens. They were quite pretty. It is always a pleasure to see lovely gardens, even when most of the plant life is the same as what grows in our part of south Florida. The small ponds and creek added to the beauty.

We walked through an area with large cages containing some of the wildlife of the area.

We were then given a chance to have our photos taken with either a parrot or a boa constrictor. Cathy chose the parrot and I got to wrap the snake around my throat. The handler did assure me that the snake was very mild mannered. It certainly was.

We then walked up to a scenic viewing area where we could take photos looking down to the ocean far away.

We were also able to get views of the Konoko Falls. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was a lovely area. In looking at some of their marketing material, there is an area where visitors can climb the falls as well as a pool and actual small water fall near the bottom.

Naldi took us to a bridge where we could look up and down the falls.

We then went to a scenic overlook area where we could look down the mountain to Ocho Rios. It was a good view.

We could see the Carnival Horizon at one end of the dock and just small view of the Nieuw Statendam at the other end.

We also had a different view of the falls.

After returning to the ship, I took some photos of Ocho Rios. It is a small town.

The view from the other side of the ship was an industrial area.

After leaving port, the captain updated us on Hurricane Nicole. It was projected to make landfall about 50 miles north of our home late the next day, Wednesday, and be long gone when we returned on Saturday. With the storm not growing much stronger, we quit worrying about it for the rest of the cruise.