My wife and I took our eighteenth cruise on the Ryndam from November 20 to December 13, 2007. It was a 23-day cruise through Central America, Panama Canal, and to Ecuador below the equator. This was a great itinerary and a very long cruise. I thought we'd be getting cabin fever after the second week, but nope, we really enjoyed it.

As we always do, we booked an inside guarantee. We usually wait and get an upgrade and did so this time. We got an outside cabin with a bathtub! Seldom are we in a cabin with a bathtub, it was a novelty.

The cabin was fairly large by regular standards, had a couple outlets (most ships had only one), a flat screen TV, a two-person sofa, and a table. There was so much storage area we didn't use it all, and this was a 23-day cruise. There was a DVD player, but no refrigerator. A small safe, operated by one of your credit cards, was inside the closet. The only real problem in the cabin was the television. Holland America showed the same movies over and over and never changed them for the entire 23 days. We did complain at the front desk and found several others at that time were complaining about the very same thing. Yes, you can rent DVDs at the library for $3.00 per night, which we did, but at least change the TV movies once in a while. By the way, we did get CNN on television - for the first two days, then lost it for the rest of the cruise. Read more