[ 12-04-2004: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

Comparing the 2 Vista vessels Oosterdam and Westerdam, i feld that the Westerdam have more the HAL feeling thene the Oosterdam. Also the color choises is much better on the latter one. Buth my favorit compare witte the two sisters is the Rotterdam it gave a warm feeling off home. She a Grand Lady compared witte the two Vista ships.

but i would sail both 4 ships iff i have the chanse.

m.s. Oosterdam.

m.s. Westerdam.

Ben.

[ 12-12-2004: Message edited by: Maasdam ]

Now mind you this is all probably simply psychosamatic on my part and they are like as safe as any other class of vessel, it's just that the blocky proportions and open verandas made me feel like she'd take on too much water at any time...

Also, while I actually enjoyed my cruise on her, she's simply too large to my taste. It took too much time to get from one place to the other, subsequently if you had two activities back to back you wanted to do, they'd need to be close to each other or else you'd miss the second one or have to leave the first early just to walk from one location to the other...

It WAS nice to HAVE a veranda and equally nice to not have to pay a fortune for it, but the way the ship is all broken up into many many small lounges with a few meaningless points like the hallways with large windows flanking the main lounge... simply an overdecorated bypass hall to get to the arcade, or the stairs that connects the two main public decks, but is so close to a main stair tower it's moot as to it's usefulness, it DOES however restrict ingress/egress from the lounges both above and below...

or the way you have to go outside to inside and up two decks and back out to get to the better sunning spots, but they are very far from the towel distribution center which you are obliged to use in order to simply lay out on the deck comfortably... Equally annoying is the rear situated dining rooms. if you cabin is anything forward to the atrium, you are looking at a very long walk to the back and relative bottom of the passenger decks to get a meal, plus even with the Azipods, the ride towards the rear of the diing room is pretty rough when at cruising speed... And while I'm carping, the Lido cafeteria, while stocking may interesting dishes at different times, is hopelessly broken up into little rooms making it difficult to find your family or party when you try to meet there...

There's only one (allowable) way in and out of the Disco and it's liek awell with the dance floor on the lower level obscured from view, making it impossible to simply saunter by glance in and decide whether to go in or not. The lobby similarly feels like it's at the bottom of a well instead of an atruim. It seems to always be one deck lower than you have gone and forces you to either walk through a photo gallery or an art collection to get to it...

Somehow the last class of Carnival vessels worked better with their high-up public decks and avenue down one side.

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Originally posted by CGT:
Boy, you sound lazy.

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I'm going to assume you're just trying to be funny... Please post a graemlin to clarify if you're being insulting or not next time please...

I really ENJOY climbing around ships (and have for years) and found the Disney Magic & Wonder (similarly sized to the Vista ships) to be SO much better laid out that attending back to back events or "running" from one end of the ship to the other for a meal or show was no problem... Perhaps I spoke incorrectly saying that the Pride was too large, it's NOT too large, it's too poorly layed out! It's a subtle disctinction, but as someone else pointed out in another thread, you have to really be in the space of a ship's interior to appreciate it... same with it's "traffic flow". On a capacity cruise on the Norwegian Sky I found her to be terribly poorly designed in key areas as well and she's not as large as either the Pride or Magic/Wonder, but suffered from the problem of layout defeciencies. THAT ship has only two stair towers but is clearly long enough to need three. the main restaurant is also low and aft in which you need to decend into a sort of well to get to it, so the traffic pools up on the stairs and around the aft elevators around meal times. Especially when they have a show starting in the lounge above it at almost the same hour! Getting from place to place requires walking all the way aft or ahead to move up or down. Consequently getting from one venue to another "on time" becomes difficult.

Pride has enough stair towers, but perhaps the "jogs" in the halls from the wider and narrower areas of the superstructure adds to the perception of it being further to get from one place to another, especially in the halls of the cabin blocks. I'm sure there are added fire supression and saftey advantages and I understand WHY they exist (balancing the atrium location and lifeboat recesses.) but they are a hinderence to the "flow" of walking around the vessel... If you need to go to your cabin for something "on the way" to an event, it SEEMS like it takes longer to get the cabin than on other ships.

I've sailed Magic and Wonder when they were filled to capacity (and that means LOTS of running kids underfoot too by the way) and never found a crowd anywhere except immediately after a show around the shops, but the Pride seemed crowded in many different locations much of the time... And while some would say it has to do with capicity differences, I feel it's more about how the ship is configured. Disney's ships are more consistant in the width of the throughfares, and various events locations are thoughtfully spaced around the ship in a way that facilitates the movement of the passengers in getting from one to another. Pride has constrictions along her public spaces causing the traffic to "back up" even duing less busy times of the day... And being someone who's driven in Los Angeles much of his life, I can tell you I know a thing or two about traffic and how it occurs!

Sorry, there's no straight faced graemlin.

[ 12-13-2004: Message edited by: CGT ]

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Originally posted by CGT:
No, I wasn't trying to be funny, I was serious.

Sorry, there's no straight faced graemlin.

[ 12-13-2004: Message edited by: CGT ]

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[ 12-13-2004: Message edited by: Ðraikar ]

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Originally posted by Ðraikar:
Sounds like you made a friend Caronia II

[ 12-13-2004: Message edited by: Ðraikar ]

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Originally posted by Caronia II:

Yeah! No kidding! I'd hate to accidently take his pre-saved deck chair!

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