Hello! This is my second extensive review here on Cruise Critic. I just wrapped up my 21st cruise, and my first with Holland America, on board the Zuiderdam from September 24 to October 1, 2005. Now, some HAL faithful may want to interject at this point that the Zuiderdam does not completely represent HAL, being one of the larger mega-class ships, and borrowing a Carnival hull. OK...well, this is a review of the Zuiderdam and my initial impressions of Holland America through this vessel, for whatever amount of the Holland America spirit and feel it delivers compared to their smaller vessels.

A small note about my review...there are plenty of reviews out there about virtually all cruise ships, and certainly plenty about the Zuiderdam. Most of those reviews concentrate on the basics of the ship and cruise experience...food, cabin, shows, space, people, ports, etc. And I will certainly include some details and comments on those points as well. However, I will occasionally attempt to include comments, reviews, and observations about things often not written about whenever possible...things that I know I wish I could find in reviews when I read them, and that some people out there hopefully will find useful too. So you may find observations about handicapped accommodations, heavy person accommodations, tall person accommodations, smoker accommodations, picky eater accommodations, and anything else I can think of. So off we go!

Embarkation - My experience here may differ from many, since the morning of my cruise departure I wake up, pack, drive 20 minutes, and walk inside. From there, my experience is much the same as everyone elses'. Arriving at 12:00pm at the ticketing line, I waited less than 5 minutes to get a free ticketing agent. A short 5 minutes later, the friendly agent had completed ticketing, run the credit card for onboard spending, and took the picture for the ship key card. And up the escalator we go! This was an incredibly easy embarkation...though I know much of this had to do with the luck of arriving when no airport or tour busses had just dropped off a load of passengers. Once onboard, we were greeted by a porter, who informed us that the rooms wouldn't be available until 12:30pm...about 10 minutes. He offered to take us to the LIdo to start eating (something I was to learn was practically a job description of many passengers!)...but I decided to stop at the sports bar by the casino on Promenade deck since it was open and serving drinks. Good decision, as 5 minutes later, the announcement came over the P.A. that the rooms were open for access. We took the midship elevator to Navigation deck 8, and two rooms aft on the port side to cabin SS8070. Read more