We are just back from the post-dry dock cruise on the Zuiderdam. While I agree with some of the negative remarks posted by other reviewers, I think the crew of this ship did a great job recovering from a very boor beginning.

The bad news: Embarkation and the first 3 days of the cruise were abysmal. I can imagine no excuse and got no explanation why the ship was late arriving in Fort Lauderdale after 10 days in dry dock. Equally puzzling what why passengers were forced to wait in line for over 90 minutes before the boarding process even began. This was particularly difficult for some of the older passengers who had no place to sit during the long, unexplained wait.

It became clear that the ship was still recovering from the time in dry dock. We saw rolls of carpet piled on the forward part of the promenade deck. Our verandah furniture was a mess and one table was missing. The explanation was that due to problems with the water supply, they had been unable to clean some of the outside areas of the ship. The air conditioning in our suite had significant issues which were explained as a part of an "ongoing maintenance problem." While the air conditioning improved, it was never quite good enough. Read more