We were looking for a family vacation for the kids spring break where neither my wife nor I had to cook, clean or basically do anything other than have a good time with our kids. We chose the Eurodam because the itinerary fit our schedule and had heard from friends that Holland America has a good product. The net of it is that the vacation, ship and service in general far exceeded our expectations.

General: Ship is a good size and very well laid out. Not too big and never felt crowded. Very safety conscious. Holland America takes the safety drill very seriously, which is a good thing. They insist that every passenger attend the drill and announces the names of the passengers that are not present to make sure that they know they have to show up. The entire thing took 30 minutes. We felt very comfortable that we would know where to go, and the crew was properly trained, in the event of an emergency.

Room/Suite: We booked suite 8162 which is the suite in the aft of the ship on the port side. It has a king size bed, sitting area and a wrap around balcony. My wife was initially worried that she might get sea sick because of the rocking of the boat - I was a little worried about the "vibrations" I had read about in some of the postings on cruise critic. The room was fantastic. It was great to wake up in the morning, open the curtains and have an unobstructed panoramic view out of the back of the ship. It was also nice to be able to walk around the balcony and get an unobstructed view to the aft and port side of the ship. One note about the balcony - since we were on the port side of the ship and the most of the voyage was southeast and, most importantly, the wind blows from east to west, the balcony was unusable during the eastbound part of the trip. Going northwest bound on the latter part of the trip, there was very little wind on our part of the ship since the wind was basically blowing onto the stern/starboard part of the ship. The bed was very comfortable, there was a lot of closet space and one gets three choices of pillows (firm, medium and soft) - ie there are 6 pillows on the bed. I think the complaints I have read about the vibrations are completely overblown. We could feel a slight vibration in the floor while in port and there was as sort of slight shuddering sensation as the ship moved through the swells. Note that this is a ship and you will feel the swells if the seas are 6+ feet. Neither the vibration nor the movement were noticeable after the first afternoon. I am quite surprised as to the number of people that have complained about this. As a side note, our kids were in a large inside cabin. There was a lot of room in that category of cabin (compared to the inside rooms on Celebrity) for them and their beds were comfortable as well. Read more