Veendam Review

4.0 / 5.0
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Nice clean ship, poor service, mostly due to overworked crew

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Veendam
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exon111
6-10 Cruises • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Mar 2015
Cabin: Large Ocean-View Stateroom

3 stars out of 5 overall. It is an older ship, but very well maintained and very clean. I liked the more "ocean liner" feel of the ship. It was updated nicely and did not feel dated. As a germaphobe, I greatly appreciated the extreme level of detailed given to keeping germ spread to a minimum. They wiped down all handrails and button in the elevators on nearly an hourly basis..

What we did not like was poor english skills of most staff. Most restaurant and customer service staff barely spoke English, just enough to get by. It felt like being in a foreign country where you can't converse with anyone beyond the most basic level. This applied to almost all the restaurant staff we interacted with. There was a small number of exceptions, but very poor English was the general rule. This is my 7th cruise and I've never had an experience like this. It got very old quickly.

Also, the crew on this ship seemed very overworked. Our cabin stewards did an amazing job, but it was apparent that they worked their butts off and it was sad to see. A team of 2 stewards is expected to take care of 31 ocean view cabins (15.5 rooms per steward). On Celebrity, 2 stewards only had to do 20 cabins (10 rooms per steward). That's a huge difference. I saw these poor guys working from when I woke up until well past when we went to sleep.

Cabin Review

Large Ocean-View Stateroom

Nice clean cabin. Decent size. Only grip about the cabin was that one day the water turned completely brown when I was taking a shower and scalded me. It took an hour until the water turned clear again and it heavily stained the bathtub. I hope it was just rust and nothing toxic.

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