My husband, mother, sister and I just completed an Alaskan voyage on the Amsterdam Aug. 17-Aug. 24. I had cruised Holland America many years before and had most recently been on two RCL cruises. We arrived at the Seattle port for embarkation about 1:30 p.m. - not the easiest place to get around so watch for signage. It was a very quick embarkation process, helped in part I am sure because we had done on-line registration and were able to turn in our signed form. My husband and I had a lovely verandah cabin (very similar in size, look and layout to the verandah cabin we had on the RCL Rhapsody of the Seas) and my sister and mom shared a handicapped cabin also on the verandah deck - it had no verandah and the window was partially blocked by a lifeboat but the room was quite large. We proceeded to eat in the Lido for our first meal on board, which became our official breakfast and lunch spot on a daily basis, and settled in for departure.

Overall ship This ship is smaller than many others, with room for 1,380 passengers - the crew numbered about half that and the service levels showed it, as it was excellent. The smaller nature of this ship was what was attractive to us. Public rooms were very nicely appointed, except for the Queen's Room Lounge, which felt a bit claustrophobic and overdone. Nice artwork spread throughout ship. Crow's Nest was excellent for whale watching and sightseeing as we cruised along. Our verandah was as always wonderful, with a full size lounge chair and regular chair. I still spent quite a bit of time out there despite the cooler temps, as flannel blankets were available on deck three. Lots of families on board - overall age of passenger was older than on RCL. Staff were very accommodating at all levels.

Ship Activities and Entertainment This ship did not have as many activities as other ships I have been on, and this is due in part to it only having so many public rooms and thus only so much space - this was fine with us as we find many shipboard activities to be of no interest. The gym was great - yoga and Pilates were an extra cost. They had four behind the scenes events that we enjoyed - a tour of the kitchen, a tour of the backstage area in the Queen's Lounge, a Q & A with the cruise director (Eric Holland, who was excellent) and a Q & A with the headliners for that cruise. The stage variety shows with singers and dancers were okay - first one better than the second, which was pretty lame - hardworking young folks though. Not their fault the material in the second show was a bit off. We also attended a movie. We also attended the naturalist's presentations, which were all good. That's all we attended but there were also kitchen demo/cooking presentations (for a cost), art sales, the typical fitness activities like shuffleboard, and other things. Starfire, a two piece group, which played in the Ocean Bar was excellent and was very pleasing to an age range of 40-80. Read more