First a little personal info about my travel companions and myself...My DH and I are in our early 40's, we traveled with his parents and they are in their early 70's (very young at heart). This was our 10th cruise and their 5th. We have sailed with HAL twice before but this was their first time. It was a great cruise. We only did a few excursions because we had been to these islands before, but enjoyed them all. As far as the excursions we booked, we booked both of them with the ship, we always do. On Half Moon Cay my DH and I did the snorkeling excursion and really enjoyed it. HMC is a beautiful island. On Aruba we did a bus tour that did some sightseeing and toured the Aruba Aloe plant and the land bridge. The larger of the two land bridges has collapsed however the smaller remains. It was approximately a 3 hour tour. After the tour, we did a little shopping. I will say one thing about Aruba, we were there on Sunday and this island has some sort of shopping law so stores can only be open for 4 hours and MANY stores didn't open at all. I would think it would be better if HAL would try its best not to stop at this port on a Sunday if possible. Maybe it was the only option for this cruise, but if you want to shop make sure you pay attention to your itinerary when picking your cruise. Embarkation wasn't bad at all. We arrived at the pier at about 11:30, we are always early. MY DH dropped us off with the luggage so that he could go and park the car where we would return, he is a fast walker and we knew he would be back to us in no time. While we were waiting for my DH to get back, we noticed that there were still a lot of people there that were disembarking, so it was a little crowded. There were a lot of HAL people walking around so we were able to find out where we had to go with no problem. There were NO lines and we walked right up to check-in. Very friendly people at the counter. We had done everything online so we took our pictures, got our cards and went over to the seating area. We waited a very short 15 minutes before they started boarding. When we got onboard the cabins weren't ready, they did have an area set up by the pool that you could check your carry on luggage if you wanted to. There was food available, and bars were open so we just sat by the pool and enjoyed our first cocktail of the cruise. We had a little lunch, listened to the band, and did a little walking around. We were able to get in our cabins around 1:30. Our luggage made it to our cabins by around 4:30 a little later than we are used to but no big deal, we unpack very quickly, my DH gives me all the hanging space in the closets. We both had the same cabin categories, VA, but my in-laws had one of the aft balconies. They really enjoyed the larger size. We were both on deck 8, the Navigation deck, so above us was the pool area. Neither of us had any problems with noise keeping us up, or waking us up. A few times I did hear the chairs being moved around, but not bad at all. It was nice being only one deck away from the lido buffet as well, as we did not have to wait for the elevator when we wanted to do to the upper deck. We ate breakfast and lunch almost every day at the lido. I'll talk about the food a little later. As for the cabins, we were very happy with them as well. There was plenty of room for all of our clothes, either in the closets, or in the drawers. Don't forget about the large drawers that are under the bed. They came in handy for souvenirs that we bought that didn't need to be locked up. I did miss the shelves that some of the other lines have placed around the cabin, particularly above the television area. The bed in my opinion was very comfortable. I loved the linens, very soft. Our balcony was a very nice size, we didn't get to enjoy it much, we were surrounded by smokers and since my DH is allergic and I quit smoking 11 years ago, (YEAH ME) neither one of us can take the smell. I understand that it is their balcony and they should be able to enjoy it, but I couldn't enjoy mine because of the smoke. But that's another story, and it by no means spoiled our cruise. The bathrooms are a nice size; the thing that I loved was we actually had a tub. For us ladies, it makes shaving our legs MUCH easier. Our cabin stewards were Arman and Dody, they did a wonderful job. As far as food goes...we enjoyed everything that we ate. We had breakfast and lunch at the Lido buffet almost every day. We were very pleased with the variety and quality of the food. For breakfast, there were omelet, eggs Benedict, and fresh waffle stations. You could also ask for eggs cooked to order from these stations. Lunch had lots of options as well. My DH really liked the sandwich area that had a few specials but you could also order pretty much any type of sandwich you would want, they had a lot of meat and bread choices. They had a very nice salad area. I ate sushi almost every day at lunch. While it was not as good as a sushi bar, it was very good. They also had some other Asian stir fry options available every day. There was a pizza station in the buffet area also. By the midship pool there was a Mexican food station, and there was also a grill area that had brats, hamburgers, hotdogs and a few other choices. For dinner we chose AYWD and had no problems with it. We showed up the first 2 nights at around 6:30 and walked right in asked for a table for 4 and got it, no problem. On the second night we were seated at table 162 and LOVED our waiter and his helper their names were Arif and Kambar. They were great. After that night we called to make a reservation for their table everyday in the mornings. Each evening as we showed up, were seated right away. After I made the reservation a few times they actually recognized me when I called, they knew what table I wanted, and accommodated my party without my asking for the table. After a few nights when we arrived for dinner the greeter would ask did we want "our" table for the next night and he took care of the next night reservation right then. No more calling, his name was Hari and was very helpful. We have sailed with Princess where the anytime dinning is similar, but we've never had such helpful reservation staff. He went out of his way to make it easy on us. Our wine steward in this section was Jel, he was great. He knew that we would want a cocktail and would always came over right away, and came back later in the meal to check to see if we needed anything else. After a few nights he started suggesting cocktails to my DH based on what he ordered. He also took the time to remind us of what was going on that night around the ship. He actually saved me from forgetting to tell my in-laws about the chocolate extravaganza. I had forgotten all about it, and he mentioned it at dinner. It really made our dinner even more enjoyable because everyone was so helpful. The food was great. We all really enjoyed the soups, there were always good entrEe choices as well. I think that the French onion soup was our favorite. As for the entertainment, we only went to a few of the shows. We saw the singers and dancers once and a Magician/pianist once. The singers and dancers were O.K., we've seen better but we've also seen worse. And as for the Magician/pianist I would have liked to see more magic and hear less piano. He was very talented but I enjoyed the magic more. (Just my opinion) When the sad, sad day finally arrived and we had to leave the ship, we weren't surprised at all to find that disembarkation was as easy as embarkation. HAL now does "silent disembarkation" you receive a letter with a time that you are supposed to leave the ship and when your time comes you head to the gangway. For us, everything worked out fine. It was a little crazy getting in line for customs but other than that it all went smooth. We really enjoyed our cruise, the Noordam is a beautiful ship, and the crew is great. We were pleased that HAL has gone to auto tipping, it's nice not having to carry all that extra money on vacation. We gave extra where we wanted to. I've never written a review before but after reading mixed reviews about the Noordam I thought I'd give my opinion. Happy sailing.