It was my wife and I (55-60) and two friends on our first Holland America and Alaska cruise. The Zaandam was the perfect size for an Alaska cruise - not too big and not too small. We had an outside lower deck mid-ship cabin.

We had traveled to Anchorage the day before and walked around for an afternoon - nice town. We then took the Leopard Comedy Bus Tour to Seward with a stop in the Alaskan Refuge Center - very interesting and well worth the stop. When we arrived in Seward the bus stopped at the luggage pickup and we were then free to roan Seward. We decided to stay close to the port so we had lunch at the bakery and then walked to the pier. Since it was mid-afternoon we had no wait and onboard in about 10 minutes. The ship is easy to navigate. The ship's theme is music with instruments from President Clinton and a number of rock stars. We loved the promenade walk around as well as many other passengers. It was four times around for a mile so it was not a problem. The ship also had a string quartet that played mostly classical music and they had quite a following.

Problems - not worth much to speak about. We had rough seas the third night and the dining room were about half full. Not the fault of the captain and my wife and I did not miss a meal. We have had better table service and room attendant but there was nothing that ruined the trip. We had pre-ordered a refrigerator which was in our room when we arrived - a pleasant surprise. The only problem is that there is only one plug and when you plug in the fridge there is a problem with recharging the electronics but we worked around that. Read more