My wife, sister and I embarked on a 7 day Christmas cruise on board the Zuiderdam. This is my 10th cruise overall, 4th on Holland America. We are in the 56-60 age group. Overall, it was a terrific cruise, exceeding my expectations.
We booked air and pre-cruise hotel through HAL. We were promptly and pleasantly greeted at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and quickly whisked to our hotel, the Renaissance Plantation. The hotel was very nice. I was a little disappointed to find the next morning that we would not be taken to the ship until 12:30. I normally am boarding by that time. We arrived at the terminal at around 1 pm and the line stretched way outside the building. The bottleneck seemed to be security screening. Once past that, about 20 minutes, we were quickly registered and went straight to our stateroom. The room was a bit tired, and the floor resembled the surface of the moon. The verandah floor and furniture were also in bad shape. Otherwise, I thought the ship was in good condition, considering that it is going in drydock in just a few months. Hopefully, they will replace the furniture, fix the floors and get some new sheets for the bed! We met our Room Steward Widodo shortly after embarking. He gave generally excellent service throughout the week, although we rarely saw him. He appeared to be doing his rooms in order, rather than looking for who had just vacated theirs for a meal, etc. and as a result our room was often not made up until noon.
We were unsure just how much effort would be made to make it feel like Christmas onboard, and were pleasantly surprised to see quite a number of Christmas trees, poinsettias and garlands around the ship. Apparently, all had been put up just that morning. But the little Christmas tree we had on our Dining Room table was pathetic. It had been crushed in storage and no amount of pruning by my wife could whip it back into good shape.