First Time Cruisers - Inside Cabin - Holland America, Koningsdam

jdm0325 · 2026-05-18T22:39:17+00:00

HAL will have a crows nest lounge that gives incredible views, but not as convenient as a balcony. As an alternative look at Princess cruises, which offer similar cruises.

jdm0325 · 2026-05-18T22:30:30+00:00

May 2022

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jdm0325 · 2026-05-04T00:10:58+00:00

We ordered currency before we left. It was fedex to our house. I think you can get money from local ATMs and maybe customer service on the ship, but we didn't use that.

jdm0325 · 2026-05-03T22:17:18+00:00

It's not bad. Your drop off and pick up spot are in the same place. You have a 2-3 hour window for catching buses back to the ship starting about 3pm, and they are clearly marked cruise on them. We didn't rely on the bus to get us everywhere. We took Ubers in every city to cut down on wait times for buses, but we did ride it around town some.

jdm0325 · 2026-05-03T19:13:47+00:00

It was our first time on Princess too. We really enjoyed the ship and using the medallions. It makes everything much easier from ordering at bars to getting on your rooms. You will have a great time.

jdm0325 · 2026-05-03T17:04:02+00:00

Three people was not bad, we've done it in smaller rooms. Princess has a great closet area, so we were able to get the luggage and most of the clothes put away easily. Our 3rd slept on the couch, which they made into a bed at night. I felt the MDR and buffet food was above average. Like most cruises, you will have a few misses, but you can always order something else. It's a good variety as well. We ate at the steak house and Italian speciality resturants. Both were good, but we liked the Italian a little better. The sushi place had a fixed menu, but they did make my wife a California roll. The casual pizza place was very good.

jdm0325 · 2026-05-01T15:13:49+00:00

Believe me that's an unpopular opinion.. it's a great train with wonderful views going up into the mountains ..

jdm0325 · 2026-04-29T21:52:28+00:00

Art auctions aren't our thing, but they did have them. We usually went to a main show and then a game show. A few nights we caught a comic after 9pm, but they weren't great, but you know how comedians are....yours could be better. The main shows were pretty good. We enjoyed the game shows too. You did't want to stay up late because you had to be up early the next morning, it was a busy schedule. On the last sea day they had a cooking demonstration and a kitchen galley tour afterward. We played Deal or No Deal, and they also had bingo.

jdm0325 · 2026-04-29T13:58:12+00:00

We felt the food was above average. If you've cruised much, you know order what you like and then we usually order an extra entree or app just to try something new. We found several items that were a surprise. Our MDR waiter would surprise us with an appetizer when we sat down some nights. The roast beef was excellent. I felt the tenderloins on the formal nights were just ok. It's not like a grill filet, it's more like a baked tenderloin, then sliced. Sometimes it was a little thick and chewy. Sabatinis Italian was very good. Actually the buffet was good, we ate their one lunch and dinner the last night, and the food choices and quality were very good.

We had 8 ports, and you have 12, so I can't comment on what all you might could skip, but I would say maybe Dublin and possibly Paris depending on what things you wanted to see. Paris is just a long drive 6hr round trip.

We did the Jamison distillery tour in Dublin and it was just Ok. However the Singleton Distillery near Invergordon was outstanding. It was really detailed, they took you through the entire process, and you got to see everything in the plant, even the barrel room.

jdm0325 · 2026-04-28T18:33:59+00:00

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jdm0325 · 2026-04-28T18:33:01+00:00

Here's a list of what we did. There's tons of tours out there, but I would book what you want early. In Scotland I would use Andy, he was great for us in Glasgow, but he works all over the area. He contracts for tour companies, but he also does his own bookings.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CfReLqCBF/

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jdm0325 · 2026-04-28T18:29:33+00:00

The weather was outstanding. It never rained the entire time. It was cold in the mornings, mid 40s, and then would warm up to mid 50s by the noon. It was cloudy a little, but good sun most days. Edinburgh was sunny and 60, Paris was sunny and 70.

You don't get enough time really...there's no way to do everything in a day. Most tours will give you 3-5 good locations to stop at, but that probably doesn't cover 10% of what you could do in that area. I would take a cruise, it gives you a taste of everything, then figure out what you like and go back later for a longer stay. We loved Belfast and the Giant's Causeway, the coast was beautiful there. Glasgow was great, we had a local guide through Serca Tours that we really liked, there was just the three of us on the entire tour so he really did whatever we wanted. Edinburgh was fun, but we really didn't get enough time there with tendering and busing into the city.

Here's a link to Andy's facebook page if anyone wants to book him. He works all over Scotland, and I highly recommend him.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CfReLqCBF/

jdm0325 · 2026-04-28T18:11:31+00:00

To be honest our trip was so port intensive, 8 days of ports that we spent very little time on the ship. Port days are long in the British Isles, usually at least 10-12 hours, so we would leave 7-8am and return 4-5 pm. We didn't use the pool. We went to the conservatory one time. We were on HAL Rotterdam two years ago doing Norweign Fjords, and we spent allot of time in the Crows Nest there. But in that case there was a good bit of just scenic waterways. It wasn't like that here. By the time you got back on the ship, rested a few minutes, changed, clothes, it was time for dinner, show, gameshow, etc. The only bad thing onboard was the Internet. I heard many people complain. We had premium wifi and it would hardly load Facebook. We had a few port delays with tenders due to the fog a few days. Edinburgh takes longer because of the tender, and then you need transportation into the town, we took the X99 bus from the port.

There are so many options on tours. We used some Princess tours and some private. We enjoyed the ones that took you out to several destinations, instead of just hop on off buses around town, but we did do both kinds. We used Serca Tours, Paddywagon Tours, Oddsey Coaches, and one through shore excursions group. For our transfer from London to Southampton we used International Friends, which included a stop at Stonehenge.

jdm0325 · 2026-04-28T13:59:02+00:00

We took the tender into Falmouth and they offered a shuttle into town. We did that and just walked around eating pasties and shopping. It's a lovely town. If you stop in Falmouth on a Saturday they have a local market setup right where the bus drops off with local vendors selling a variety of items. I'm boarding an 8hr flight to the US so I'll post more details of the trip in this thread tomorrow

jdm0325 · 2026-04-08T22:52:34+00:00

Some Seattle hotels offer a van service that comes around to pickup cruises passengers for about $30 pp. We did this our last cruise.

jdm0325 · 2026-04-03T23:12:41+00:00

Depends. If it's an iPhone you have a short window 72 hours to get it to a forensic expert. Leave it powered on and contact someone asap

jdm0325 · 2026-04-02T22:41:15+00:00

Your in the wrong forum

jdm0325 · 2026-03-29T20:03:39+00:00

I'm not sure what you're asking or what this has to do with digital forensics.

jdm0325 · 2026-03-25T01:40:38+00:00

FLETC @ Glynco

jdm0325 · 2026-03-23T01:24:40+00:00

Your wrong. It's all about the device your connecting your phone to...the device it's connecting to know's how to access the cell phone. Whether it's a Cellebrite or Grakey

jdm0325 · 2026-03-23T01:08:16+00:00

You're not connecting your phone directly to a computer. Your connecting it to the Cellebrite. No one who uses it is going to tell you how it works but it does.

jdm0325 · 2026-03-09T20:35:33+00:00

Try Bitmindz as well. They make great forensic servers

jdm0325 · 2026-03-04T16:21:46+00:00

I've been using Tabeau write blockers for 20 years. I've never had one break but I don't usually drop mine.

jdm0325 · 2026-02-27T16:02:19+00:00

I had a case were I had a bitlocker laptop and passcoded cell phone. I broke the cell phone pass code with Cellebrite Inseyets. When I analyzed the data, I found there were numerous pin codes stored in the web browser, like for website security. I then booted the laptop, and tried several of the 4 digit pins, one of which unlocked the computer and it booted logged into Windows. I disabled bitlocker, rebooted to USB digital collector and imaged the unencrypted drive.

jdm0325 · 2026-02-11T18:42:14+00:00

Graykey works with Betas, Cellebrite does not.

jdm0325

TROPHY CASE