Beware this is is my long day by day review of our Christmas cruise on the Oosterdam from Sydney -- New Zealand. We're a family of 5 from Australia, son aged 17 and daughters 15 & 12 years. This was our 3rd family cruise, have previously done the Caribbean with Carnival and the Mediterranean with Costa. We were in interior connecting cabins 1059 & 1063. Was a wonderful cruise, especially being onboard for New Year's Eve.
Days 1/2/3 Wednesday 19 -- Friday 21 December
Boarding was smooth and easy, we were onboard by lunchtime and soon enjoying the first of MANY meals courtesy of Holland America. Only snag was one of our 5 bags not making it to the stateroom. Eventually we found out that it had been quarantined as we were carrying "contraband" -- ie a travel iron. There were dozens of bags lined up for a similar offense. We had to leave the iron with them, and were able to collect it on the last day. I was very happy though that we were able to bring bottles of wine onboard in our luggage, was nice to be able to have a glass in our room. The Oosterdam is a smaller ship than we've travelled on before with a capacity of 1900 passengers. On this sailing over 1400 are Aussies, which is also a very different experience. There's 300 Americans/Canadians and the rest a cross section of nationalities.
1059 - Really liked the location, quiet but very close to the front desk and disembarkation points