[Veen]dam fine vacation!

We just returned from a week upon HAL's Veendam. Which is aging pretty graciously, though you can tell she's due for a major drydock (in April, as a matter of fact).

LSH is enamoured of HAL's overall understated elegance and superior service; I agree (though did miss the adults-only Solarium pool that's on the Radiance Class of Royal Caribbean -- more on that later).

Even when challenged with a 'Code Red' -- the cruise before us had an outbreak of Norovirus that held embarkation until 2:00 pm and prevented self-service in the Lido until three days into our trip -- the service never faltered. Granted, some mornings found performers helping to serve up food on the line, and we were practically attacked by Purell-toting staff every time we re-entered the ship, but everyone still smiled and greeted you as you passed in the hallways. If only some of our fellow passengers were as friendly or patient. Seriously -- how cranky do you need to be if your english muffin takes a couple more minutes to get to you?

I'll talk about some of the ports we visited later on. But suffice to say that the only thing that made it easier to leave the ship on Sunday was that we've already lined up our next cheapo cruise -- in May for our first Alaska cruise on Royal Caribbean. :-)