Many of you know that we are long-time cruisers with more than 30+ cruises in our past. And of those, 20+ have been on Celebrity Cruise line ships. While we have sailed on Holland America before (this is our fifth time), I thought their ships were “fine.” Like in, “that place is just fine.” We always liked Celebrity ships better. Until two things happened. First, Celebrity put all their money into the new Edge class of ship and stocked it full of their “revolutionary” infinite verandah staterooms. (To be honest, this is just an outside stateroom with a window that opens and closes…and not always at your discretion). They also made it so that a great deal of the people on the ship had certain areas they could not get into. For instance, the only forward looking spot (to see what’s in front of the ship) on an Edge class vessel if you are not in a suite is…the gym. That’s just wrong. Sailing into Stockholm or through the Panama Canal I can’t even imagine not being able to take pics from around the entire ship.

As I said in the headline, I may now have a new favorite “big” ship. I put those quotes around it because to be honest, this ship is not that big. In October 2019 we sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas which is TWICE as big as the Nieuw Statendam. But let’s talk about why I am loving this ship. BTW: Celebrity Flora in the Galapagos will always be our favorite small ship.

First, the design is better than any I have seen on a HAL ship before. Everything is  just beautiful, without a hint of gaudy. The crew and the service have been amazing. Easily an equal to any Celebrity cruise we have taken before. Of course that may be because of our reduced passenger load but as of now, just about every waiter/server/manager/etc. that I have come in contact with more than once…knows my name. Seriously. (BTW: Correction needed. We had been told that there were only 750 or so passengers on board but we found out that there were actually 900. 750 of us departed Fort Lauderdale on Sunday while the other 150 or so were already on board from a previous cruise.)

I have loved all the public rooms we have been in and since I showed you our stateroom yesterday, here’s my shots from around the ship. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Starting on Deck 2, this is the theater. It is HUGE and in the round with complete wrap-around screen for the big shows.

The Main Dining Room which kind of looks like whale bones.

This venue has two purposes. In the afternoon and the early evening it is the home of the Lincoln Center classical performances…

And in the evenings it is the home of the B.B. King Blues Club. Our favorite!

This area is called Billboard Onboard. Dueling pianos, which is a great way to spend time in a very cool bar.

Same place looking the other way.

This is Notes, a whiskey, whisky, bourbon and rye tasting bar.

This is their priciest bottle…that’s per shot! Yikes!

The full Notes shot

This is the Pinnacle Grille, HAL’s specialty steakhouse. We are eating there tonight.

On these plates

This is Rudy’s Sel de Mer, the ship’s seafood restaurant. We ate there two nights ago and it was AMAZING!

Love the place settings.

You can buy them as a set or individually…you can bet one is coming home with us.

The Ocean Bar, our pre-dinner watering hole

Club Orange is reserved for suite guests only or you can buy a membership for $50 per person per day. We eat all our breakfasts here and dinner when we are not in a specialty restaurant.

Club Orange from the outside.

The main dining room from deck 3.

They did not have deck 3 open for this cruise since there are so few people on board.

The Dutch Cafe. They make great food here.

The main atrium. Only three decks high but quite nice.

Back to the stage at BB King’s from the deck 3 balcony.

Up in the gym on deck 9

The main pool, also on deck 9. It has a sliding roof that can be opened or closed.

Looking into Canaletto, the Italian specialty restaurant carved out of the buffet

We are eating here tomorrow night.

The out door pool on the aft end of the ship.

This is Tamarind, the ship’s Asian restaurant and sushi bar. Our buddy Seth took us there last night and it was amazing.

This is the bar outside of Tamarind located at the very top of the ship in the very aft.

Yesterday we were in Grand Turk where I took some pictures that were so good they really surprised me. I did not think there would be anything that great to shoot in Grand Turk—but there was! And today we spent most of the day in the company of our buddy Seth and some of his Sail With Seth group touring Amber Cove and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. More about that and our visit to Grand Turk tomorrow, because thankfully—we have a SEA DAY and I can get some more photos processed and some more writing done.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.    —Steve Jobs