Amsterdam Review

4.0 / 5.0
0 reviews

Ports were great, Amsterdam was poor; we will go back to Princess.

Review for Alaska Cruise on Amsterdam
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k26cruiser
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: May 2015
Cabin: Large Ocean-View Stateroom

What a disappointing cruise ship. This was our 12th cruise and our second with Holland. It is also our last with Holland. Starting from the beginning, the embarkation was good. Once on the ship the accommodations were great, love the way the rooms are set up. Nice storage and a full tub/shower. However the service was really poor. I tried to book a reservation in The Pinnacle Grill before we ever set sail and it was already booked for the entire week. We later found out that they had 600 giftcards that had to be served before anyone else could eat there.

There was no spark or enthusiasm with the wait staff and there was not enough wait staff in the eating areas or specialty area. Specifically, the Explorer Cafe had only 1 barista regardless of time of day. They even forgot to open the last morning of the cruise. The food was a disappointment as well with the exception of the Salmon Bake they did around the pool one day. That was great and the salmon was wonderful. In the Lido Cafe we had to get our own drinks most of the time. I have no problem doing that but in comparing to other cruise lines who really spoil you, this was definitely not the case. I also noticed that there was no particular push regarding hand sanitation when entering the eateries. There seemed to be an Art Auction every time you turned around which was overkill, especially when you see the same art on every ship that you cruise with.

The size of the ship was nice as it was a bit smaller than many of the others and getting to go to Sitka was great. What a fun little town. The entertainment was average except for the comedian who was too funny. The Cruise Director was great. I wanted to go up to him and tell him he needed to go work for another cruise line. We usually travel with Princess and will return to this company. What surprises me is that both are part of the same corporation so you would think the standards would be the same, but not so at all. One good thing was in the disembarkation, they offered a program that would check you all the way through to your home destination with regard to luggage. There was a slight fee, but it was so worth it. We signed up for this and a packet was delivered to our room with airline luggage tags and our airline boarding passes. When they picked our luggage up the night before we disembarked we were done. The next time we saw it was when we got off the plane at home. Also we no longer had to check in at the airport, just had to go through security and hop on the plane. Great offer, especially for passengers who want to explore for the day in the final port but also for those of us who don't want the hassle of finding our luggage and hauling through the airport, etc.

Cabin Review

Large Ocean-View Stateroom

Cabin FF

Love the layout of the Holland cabins. They offer more storage for clothing than most of the other cruise lines and have full tub/showers regardless of level of accommodation. That was a nice plus. Also they still have the towel sculptures to greet guests each evening which I always look forward to.

Port Reviews

Ketchikan

Been there before so did not do a tour this time. We were only in port a short time. I walked around town and saw lots of Bald Eagles. It is always fun to watch the float planes as they fly right over and next to the ship.

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