Westerdam Review

Holland America - False promises and lies of amenities that are not provided

Review for Alaska Cruise on Westerdam
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LoriEm58
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Sep 2016
Cabin: Deluxe Ocean-View Verandah Stateroom

We chose this cruise as it was the last one of the year, which we knew would not have a lot of children, which we had heard monopolized the pool area during summer cruises. This was our first cruise and Holland America completely screwed us up. We were "given" several amenities, for which we had the confirmation paperwork with us. Upon trying to dine at the Pinnacle Grill on the 1st night, we were turned away, saying we didn't have the dinner on our account -we took our confirmation paperwork to the front desk on the ship, they said they had to contact the HA office, and for 2 days we heard nothing - after 3 days they said they were still working on it - and at 3:15pm on the 7th night (last dinner night of the cruise), our travel agent informed us that the dinner was all set, but HA never bothered to tell the ship that. We spoke with other folks on the boat, same story, amenities promised, and not delivered. This happened to like ten people that we talked to - We couldn't figure out if ALL of our travel agents lied, or just Holland America. The entire cruise was like an unending infomercial - all they did was stuff your stateroom mail slot with advertisements for jewelry, art, wine, tours and crap. Nice invitations with your name all typed out, only to find out that you had to pay for the what they were inviting you to. The TV, although we didn’t expect TV at all, was basically just 5 stations of never ending commercials for onboard shopping, tour purchases, art, spa treatments, etc.

The crew was wonderful, but HA is cheap. HA advertised that the food was from the crab pots of Alaska - we saw crab twice - 1 soft shelled crab as appetizer, and some crab legs (half of one) in some bloody Mary's on the last day. The salmon quality was lacking, but you could tell that the cooks/chefs did their absolute best with the cheap products they were provided with, by HA.

The beverage package gives you 15 drinks a day, but tells you it's unlimited. As you are trying to relax on the Lido deck, and enjoy your spouse's company, you are constantly bothered by crew members trying to sell you raffle tickets, or Alaska beer (2 for 1) because they were heading to Hawaii and didn't want to carry the inventory. Embarkation was fine, disembarkation was chaotic - you were told to stay in your stateroom until they called your color and number, but you couldn't hear the loudspeaker when in your stateroom. Then when you heard it, by standing with your door open, some big dude comes and basically kicks you out of the room, making sure you leave as fast as possible.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Ocean-View Verandah Stateroom

Cabin VB

Comfortable, adequate storage, clean, but decor was dated and old, bed was saggy on one side, tv screen was tiny

Port Reviews

Juneau

Tourist trap

Glacier Bay

Really nice cruising and scenery

Sitka

Absolutely loved Sitka - the bus transportation to town was informative, even though it was not a tour - the crab shack on the docking pier was ridiculously overpriced - like $55 a pound for dungeness crab? Ridicuous - I would go back to Sitka - all the whales in the bay, the amazing scenery - LOVED IT

Ketchikan

Good shopping, short walk to town

Victoria

The amount of time we were there was not enough to warrant disembarking, and we were even late getting into port.

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