This was our first cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam, the 11th cruise with Holland America on 9 different HAL ships starting with the Westerdam in 1995.

We arrived at the Fort Lauderdale embarkation point about 11AM, checked our several bags with a porter on duty with a 5 buck tip, he looked at me and my open wallet and asked if I would like priority baggage delivery, I knew what he was asking and gave him another 5 bucks, knowing it was a ruse perhaps, but maybe not. We went through the boarding process in record time, less than 15-minutes and went up to the Lido for lunch. When back at the cabin, within 25-minutes, our luggage was sitting outside the door. My extra tip to the porter had paid dividends, and it was the only luggage sitting outside cabin doors on our section of the ship.

The cabin was spotless and would be kept that way by our room stewards during the 14-day cruise. The usual shipboard information was arranged on the desk as expected, a dine-around package for the 3 specialty restaurants, a prepaid beverage card, and all things there but excluding the one thing I expected to be on the desk. I had booked and paid for in advance, a cabana on the cabana club deck for the full cruise and expected a confirmation of the cabana name assigned to us. I immediately call the front office and the clerk informed me no, I did not have a cabana booked for the cruise. Panic was about to set in. My next phone call went to my travel agent, who, in her usual professional way, started the necessary inquiries to the main office of Holland America. To make a long story short, we did have a cabana for the full cruise, thanks to my travel agent and the cooperation of the ship’s manager in charge of the cabanas. The lesson here is if you have booked and paid for special services in advance it would be best to confirm those requests a few days before your cruise with your travel agent or directly through ship services for HAL. Read more