My wife and I enjoy cruising very much; however we always cringe when the cruise embarks away from our home, which is in Amityville, NY. To us the present state of air travel today adds a negative aspect of cruising. We are both 70 years old, and have a tough time lugging a weeks worth of gear through airports. That's why we were pleased to see that Holland America was offering a New York to New York cruise to the Caribbean. The cruise left the pier in Manhattan at 55th street and 12th avenue at 4:45 PM on Saturday, November 10th at 4:45 PM. It took two days at sea to come to the first Caribbean Island, Tortola, on Tuesday morning. After that, each day we visited another island; St. Thomas, Roseau, Barbados, St Maarten, and San Juan. Next was another two days at sea, returning to New York on Wednesday morning November 21, 2007. Embarkation: It took less than an hour to drive from Amityville to the ship. Our daughter drove and dropped us off at the port. I was surprised and delighted that there was curbside check in. We took the bags out of the trunk, a porter took them immediately, and they were not to be seen until they were delivered to our room in about two hours time. If you are driving in without a daughter, it is possible to park your car on the rooftop garage at reasonable (for New York) rates. Our Cruise booklet had our arrival time listed as 2:45 PM and we arrived at that time. Check in was very fast. Within a half hour we had our room key, and boarded the ship. As usual we went to the Lido Buffet on the 9th deck for lunch, which had many choices of food, from sushi to pizza. After lunch we returned to our cabin. Cabins We prefer verandah cabins and a comfortable amount of space. The Noordam has four different verandah cabins: Deluxe Verandah Outside Staterooms: 292 sq. feet including verandah. Superior Verandah Suites: 389 sq. feet including verandah. Deluxe Verandah Suites: 510 sq. feet including verandah. Penthouse Veranda Suites: 1318 sq. feet with verandah (just two on the ship).

We were in cabin 8076, a port side Superior Verandah Suite on the eighth deck. It was quite comfortable with a good-sized verandah, bathtub and shower, adequate closet room, and the most comfortable mattress I have ever slept on. A nice touch in the room is the fact that you can store your suitcases under the bed sight unseen during the cruise. The verandah was very comfortable with two chairs with ottomans and a table with two chairs for dining al fresco. The cabin was very clean with a constantly refilled fruit basket and ice bucket. The room had a DVD player and a very good flat screen LCD TV set. The room layout was very convenient and the TV could swivel so that either on the couch or in the bed it could be optimally seen. The TV channels (other than Holland America ship information channels) available are not many. CNN (International) and ESPN, plus a few movie channels were all that there was. However on the positive side, Sundays and Mondays had NFL football piped in to the TVs. Service: Holland America hires its service people from the Philippines and Indonesia almost exclusively. For very good reason it seems, they are very bright, friendly, and helpful. Each night we would put out a door tag that described what we wanted in the morning for breakfast. Typically we would just order coffee and some yogurt for the room and later go to the main dining room for a full breakfast. Delivery was always right on the time specified, with a big smile and tray each morning. Service in the restaurants and lounges was also very good and efficient. One nice feature in the Lido buffet restaurant was the waiters would carry your food tray to the table for you. Our room steward (Bambang) was very solicitous of our needs and assisted us whenever required. For service I would rate Holland America right up with the best. The Ship: The ms Noordam is one of the newest ships in the Holland America stable: launched in spring 2006, it is 950 feet long, max speed 24 knots, with a guest capacity of 1918. The fewer than two thousand guest capacity on a ship this size as compared to a typical cruise ship means that there is less crowding overall. For instance the Princess lines, Grand Princess is 951 feet, with2600 passengers! Restaurants The main restaurants are in the stern of the ship on the second and third deck. The second deck is for any time dining and the third deck is for fixed time and table dining. We found the menu more than adequate in all choices and the food excellent. Also on the second deck is the Pinnacle Grill. The Pinnacle Grill charges an additional $30 per person for dinner. Their specialty is steak although they also have excellent fish and chicken. We ate there two nights and would recommend the filet mignon and the tuna sashimi appetizer (if it is offered). The Lido Buffet Restaurant is on the ninth deck, which it shares with the main pool, Spa and Gym. The restaurant is open all day changing the offering from breakfast to lunch to dinner. Additional delights; sushi, pizza, and ice cream are available anytime after breakfast. The pool is a convenient area to have lunch. Either by carrying your tray from the buffet or taking advantage of the grill at poolside serving hamburgers, hot-dogs, and make it yourself tacos. The Library The Library on the third deck consists of a very large area with many soft leather chairs, computer stations, and a Starbucks type coffee bar. It has a large number of books and DVDs available for no charge rentals. Adjacent to the library are a number of small rooms used for game playing, classes such as jewelry making and bridge. On sea days bridge classes were held in the mornings with a duplicate bridge game in the afternoons. My wife enjoyed them very much. Internet Internet access has good and bad news. The good news is that the New York Times has joined with Holland America to provide both an abbreviated paper (8 small pages) delivered to your room each morning and free Internet access to the paper via the computers in the library and the wireless hotspots on the ship, using your own computer or a rented laptop from Holland America. I was traveling with a new Ipod Touch that allowed me to access the Internet on many areas of the ship. These included the Lido Buffet and Pool area, The Crows Nest observation deck, the gym, the theatre and my room! On the first days many hot spots were not as available, and then all of a sudden they were everywhere. The bad news is that any Internet use other than the N.Y. Times cost $0.75 a minute, unless you purchase a plan of 100 minutes for $55 (55cents/min) or a 250-minute plan for $100 (40cents/min). Also if you make the mistake as I first did of signing on to the ship's network before accessing the N.Y. Times, you pay the going rate even for the N.Y. Times. In addition to the price, the network is quite slow, causing you to spend many dollars just to answer your email. If you bring a laptop you can download your email, sign off, prepare your answers and then sign on, send them and sign off. Although this will save you some money, I really think that Holland America is greedy, charging so much for something that has become a part of people's lives. Princess and Cunard (QM2) charge $0.50 a minute; Disney allows unlimited access for $90. In the future I hope to see free or minimum charge for unlimited Internet access. Hotels have used it to attract customers; maybe some cruise line will do the same. Entertainment I would give the entertainment mixed reviews. We saw a comedian who was quite funny. There was Jeff Miller, a guitarist who told stories about the early days of Tin Pan Alley, discussing the lives and music of such great songwriters as Richard Rogers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, and others. He was very interesting. Just outside the lower restaurant in the Explorer Lounge, each evening there was a string quartet. The four young women were very talented and a pleasure to listen to after dinner. The main shows were really poor. There were no live musicians; the music for the show was a recording. In addition to it being a recording of an orchestra it evidently included singing. On stage people lip-synched the words pretending to be actually singing the song. The cast had some singers and some lip syncher's; you could tell who was singing, they had a microphone on the side of their face. The costumes we saw were garish, and the choreography juvenile. On my last Holland America cruise (the Westerdam in February) I greatly enjoyed singing around the piano bar. The pianist encouraged sing alongs and could play any request. He also kept us amused with various contests, recognizing various songs. The piano was a standard baby grand. When I saw that there was a piano bar on the Noordam I was anxious to go there each night. Boy was I disappointed. On the Noordam, the piano was a synthesized one and the pianist Ian had the volume cranked up so high that it was uncomfortable sitting around the piano. The speakers blast in your ears from behind. Ian was less interested in a sing along and more interested in performing and telling stories. He started one story telling how he saw Sarah Vaughn in concert, played the song she sang, and ended by calling her Lena Horn! This sort of indicated that he might be very efficient with the truth. Unfortunately this did not change for the better and I ended up avoiding the piano bar on this trip. There is another opportunity to sing if you like to. Karaoke, open to all is presented for two nights in the Northern Lights club. Those who wish can continue the following night in a competition similar to American Idol. It includes three wisecracking judges and the typical idol practice of demeaning anyone who does not show the talent the judges deem necessary. Although I was a victim of the judges for singing an old song, I still enjoyed the competition.

Passengers As expected the majority of the passengers came from New York and New Jersey. Many of them had signed up with different groups and were bused to the ship. It seems to me that we were in the median age group with probably half the passengers older than 70, there were very few children onboard. Many were veteran cruisers. One woman my wife played bridge with had accumulated 150 days on Holland America Lines. Ports of Call We stopped at six different ports of call. This was our seventh Caribbean cruise, and we had already gone on enough excursions, so we generally stayed on the ship. We did get off at St. Maarten, took a taxi into the town, where we bought some perfume not available on the ship and had a nice lunch at a beachfront hotel. Disembarking Holland America should be congratulated on the preparations for disembarking. They do not require you to put your luggage outside your room for pickup until 1 AM on the last night. This allows you to enjoy the evening without rushing to pack. Also in the morning you do not have to assemble anywhere, you can sit in your room until they call your group (tag color and number). We left our room when our tag (Green 2) was called, and simply walked off the ship. Customs went smoothly and the luggage pickup area was well marked. We found the Green area and our luggage. Our daughter was waiting at the curb and we were back in Amityville by noon. Summary Holland America runs a very tight ship. The condition and cleanliness of all the facilities was faultless. The crew was very helpful, respectful, and courteous. Everything from check in to check out went smoothly. We would not hesitate to sail again on this line.