Veendam Review

4.0 / 5.0
0 reviews

Wonderful Ship, Wonderful Crew

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Veendam
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cnicholson
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Mar 2015
Cabin: Large Interior Stateroom

In all fairness this review mostly will be about the service and food on the Veendam during this cruise as there has been fair coverage of other areas of consideration.

Out of many cruises, the food on this cruise was in the top 3 including Celebrity, Holland, and Princess. The selection was not as continental as Celebrity but the quality and presentation was equal. Superior, this was, to our experience on Princess, which really was not bad at all. It was an elegant, beautifully executed experience and everything we ate tasted as good as it looked. Holland seems to place great importance on their food and service. The buffet also was like you would find in a moderate hotel in Vegas, but not as large as other buffets we have experienced on cruise ships. But nothing to complain about other than the lines at times. The Dive In burger bar was a very pleasant surprise! Super good food. The Pinnacle restaurant has a surcharge, which we felt was worth it. The food and service were exemplary, what I would expect in a five star restaurant. Room service provided a varied menu, the best we have seen on a cruise ship, and the service was excellent with food being brought to your stateroom in a timely fashion, served on beautiful service, and everything was hot or cold as you would expect. You would pay a fortune for this level of service in an American hotel!

Service in the stateroom was perfect to us. We can't think of one complaint. Same thing with service at the main desk. They seemed to be more than willing to help out with REASONABLE requests and complaints. Announcements were few, unlike some cruise lines, and the captain gave out very good info. There seemed to have been a small outbreak of norovirus but it was dealt with professionally and we saw no evidence of suffering. Makeup of passengers was a nice mix of young, middle, and old.

Cabin Review

Large Interior Stateroom

Cabin I

Clean, comfortable, nicely appointed and decorated. The TV shows 24 hour video cam out the bow so it was quite like having a porthole!

Port Reviews

Cabo San Lucas

You won't be able to tell if you are in Cabo, Cancun, or Miami Beach. Commercialized, very little Mexican about this place. Just a port town. But hey, if you haven't spent any time in Mexico before you probably will enjoy it.

Mazatlan

A good place to actually see Mexicans! Skip the over-priced swim with the dolphins and pirate cruises and walk downtown to old Mexico. Beautiful place.

Puerto Vallarta

A stunningly beautiful setting with the typical beach hotels, time share pitches, hawkers, and you know, anywhere world tourist beach. Be careful with your bills at restaurants in this town. They have the art of overcharging down to, well, an art.

San Diego

Having lived in SD for 12 years, back in the 80s, it no longer has much appeal to us. It has become crowded and a little gringy with bad traffic. But if you haven't been before, there are a lot of neat things to see with a little effort: Old Town, Balboa Park, the Zoo, Space Theater, and La Jolla to mention a few

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