Veendam Review

4.0 / 5.0
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Spectacular South America

Review for South America Cruise on Veendam
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madera1
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Feb 2013
Cabin: Verandah Suite

We began planning this cruise in May 2012 and found some friends who also booked the trip. We were fortunate to be able to select a corner cabin on the Navigation deck as we had a larger deck. After booking the trip we had a tougher time trying to book flights that were reasonable. Not wanting to risk missing our embarkation and wanting to take advantage of visiting Santiago, Chile we left California on Feb.17th and arrived in Santiago early on the 18th. I had arranged a private 3 day tour that included touring Santiago,overnight stays in both Santiago and Valparaiso as well as wine tasting and transportation for our entire stay pre-cruise. We had a great experience with the tour company.

Prior to boarding the ship we had a tour of Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar and arrived at the port a little after 1PM. Embarkation went smoothly. We had purchased a case of wine while wine tasting and were able to bring it on board with no problems. I was concerned as just after having our photo taken and going through security there were vendors selling wine packages and bottles of sparkling wine and the person was saying you could bring in 3 bottles. I believe this was just a sales pitch. After boarding we went to our room and were greeted by one of our room stewards, Harrison. He gave us a card and we found him to be quite helpful the entire cruise. We soon had our bags in our room and unpacked. We explored the ship prior to the safety drill. Our friends joined us on our balcony for sail away.

We had late seating and were given a table for 4 next to the window. We had great service the entire cruise and our waiters were very fast. We all enjoyed the variety of food served in the MDR. The only issue we had is that they really could use more wine stewards. We would bring our wine and pay the corkage fee but felt that the service in this area has deteriorated over the years. We ate dinner on two nights at the Pinnacle Grill and the food and service were wonderful. The steaks were tender and cooked to perfection. We had room service a few mornings when we were going to get off the ship early but otherwise ate in the Lido. We found the food well prepared and the service good. I noticed that the food was not as salty as what I experienced on the Statendam last year. We were always able to get a table. About half through the cruise we discovered the grill near the pool and liked the empanadas,tortillas, beans and salads. We went to the Chocolate extravaganza near the end of the cruise but did not eat anything. There seemed to be less items than on earlier

Cabin Review

Verandah Suite

Cabin A

Our cabin was a perfect location. Enjoyed our stateroom and the wrap balcony. We did not experience any noise from the deck above. We had an exit door next to our cabin that we could take to get us up to Deck 11. It was very convenient!!

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