We have near 30 cruises so far, split almost evenly across the 5 major cruise lines. Our best tops are HAL and Celebrity. This is our first cruise on the NS and our 4th cruise on HAL. We loved the sisterships Rotterdam and Koningsdam for the food, the music and the beauty of the ship. This T/A cruise on the Nieuw Statendam is no exception, though I have to admit, the Rotterdam has a little edge on ...
We booked this cruise pre-covid intending to visit the D-day beaches, Paris and Amsterdam. The Pandemic caused changes no one could predict. We ended up booked on this cruise, completely different than the one we booked.
We have sailed over 30 times on many Cruise Lines and were looking forward to sailing with Holland America on Rotterdam, their newest ship. Embarkation in Port Everglades ...
HAL is always our go to cruise line so when we decided to try a transatlantic cruise we booked with HAL. First off, the cabin we were first given (which we picked out) had a toilet that was not flushing properly. After 7 or 8 calls with guest services and 2 plumber visits they finally moved us to a different cabin (after 4 nights of crossing our fingers that it would flush). When Patrick from ...
Wanted to celebrate a special birthday the Holland America way. There was no celebration! No song. No cake No card. Service was mostly adequate, but slow. There was a decided lack of vegetables available, and I really tried to order extra veggies at dinner but they never came. Mariner ceremony was a big, flat nothing. We used to go to the dining room for a special lunch after. This ...
Setting off for New York from Rotterdam on the new Rotterdam ship was exciting as we were accompanied by other boats and ferries and ships horns. But I don’t think this happens on every cruise. There were several passengers with Covid who had disembarked from the previous cruise, which meant that boarding had been delayed due to an extensive cleaning on arrival in Rotterdam. Assigned boarding was ...
We had the most beautiful sail away from Rotterdam Netherlands. Absolutely fantastic and one of my top ones! We had a beautiful balcony cabin on Navigation deck for the views. The ship is absolutely beautiful and the right size for us. We really enjoyed the food in MDR. Cocktails in most bars were again top notch except for Oceanview Bar which were many times hit or miss. We went to Pinnacle Grill ...
We choose this cruise due to the ports and sites it covered. We were not disappointed! Although a couple of the ports we wanted to sail to were exchanged, we were not unhappy with the changes. The boarding and disembarkation were perfect. We learnt a lot from excellent conferences. The food and entertainment were par for what we xpected from this great cruise line. Our cabin stewards cabin 2572 ...
I booked this cruise (along with the preceding 10 day cruise to Scandinavia and Germany) one month before boarding. It was a fabulous price so we decided to go for it even though we had to fly to Copenhagen from Hawaii, and had to take the Covid 19 test in Copenhagen a couple of days before boarding. We are 4 star Mariners and this was our 10th cruise on HAL, our first in 4 years.
Overall, I ...
We have been loyal to Holland America for their great service and food. The Rotterdam is a beautiful ship, but doesn’t have the coziness of the smaller ships. The Ocean Bar is bigger in size, with a horrible wall in between the 2 sections, extremely uncomfortable sitting, with sofas that you will never hear a decent conversation because the distance between the sofa and the chairs.
Other than ...
Our ports were the Azores (actually really liked these two ports, had zero expectations for them and they turned out so well, took Viator tours) Cherbourg, Brugges, and Amsterdam. All were excellent, many different excursions available and we were able to see the Keukenhoff at the peak of tulip season so this was amazing timing. We took a ship, HA, tour to Ypres, WW I cemeteries and an excellent ...