Veendam Review

4.0 / 5.0
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18 Day Round Trip from San Diego to Hawaii and Back

Review for Hawaii Cruise on Veendam
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Alstromeria
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jan 2014

We were on the Veendam cruise to Hawaii from San Diego that returned on Feb. 8, 2014. This is our 14th cruise (mostly Holland America and Celebrity, plus 1 Crystal - also 2 Royal Caribbean and a few Princess from our earliest cruises). The last cruise we took was 7 years ago, also on the Veendam (26 days Mediterranean/Baltic), so this review will include the changes I’ve observed since then.

If you are considering this cruise, please note: our cruise ended up having just 4 ports of call, instead of 6 in Hawaii, plus a day in Ensenada. That meant 7 days at sea, 4 port days in Hawaii, followed by 6 days at sea and a day in Ensenada (and since we live in San Diego, we are not too impressed with Ensenada.) We would definitely not have booked this cruise if we knew this was going to happen. Here’s why we just 4 ports in Hawaii: After a day at sea, someone fell down and was injured bad enough that we had to turn around and cruise back to San Diego for 12 hours, until the ship was close enough to land for the coast guard to use a helicopter to take her to a hospital. That put us one day behind, so they had to cancel the 2nd day in Honolulu and rearrange all ports of call. Then, at our last port of call, Maui, the sea was too rough to tender in, so we had to just leave and head back to San Diego. I was glad that the captain wanted to consider the safety of all cruisers first, but was disappointed with only 4 days in Hawaii. HAL did offer all cruisers a 15% credit toward another cruise.

Here is my review of this cruise:

Cabin Review

The cabin we booked was right in the middle of the ship, on the Main Deck (Deck 5), so we didn't experience any rocking there. Also, our room was very quiet - no noise from other rooms - and the heating/airconditioning system was very quiet. That is very important to me. Our room was always comfortable. If you haven't cruise on this class of ship before, there is plenty of room to store anything you want to bring - lots of closet space and drawers. The window was large, and cleaned from the outside each day, so it was always clear for looking out. I think their rooms are a bit plain, though, but well designed, with space for a desk and love seat with a little table. A brighter colored picture on the wall might have helped. Our room attendant was very good, and we could easily find him during the hours he was cleaning rooms, if we needed him. All we had to do is walk down the hall and locate him. During other house, we just had to phone the front office.

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