Zuiderdam Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,028 reviews

Zuiderdam - Western Caribbean

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Zuiderdam
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Brucemcdou
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: May 2004

My partner and I enjoyed a relaxing week on the 7-day Western Caribbean on the Zuiderdam, May 29 - June 5. We got a terrific price on a Category AA verandah cabin. This was our first cruise on HAL, and we had high expectations based on what we'd read on the HAL boards and heard from friends. Although we had some minor disappointments described below, we enjoyed ourselves and will certainly consider HAL again, especially if we see such a great value. To give you a sense of our cruise experience, we had previously cruised on Celebrity (five times) Princess (three times) NCL (once) and RCCL (once). We are confirmed Celebrity fans, but we've enjoyed every cruise we've taken, including this one. We're a childless gay couple in our early 40's, and we put a lot of importance on the quality of service and the food on a cruise. We cruise to relax, so the destination is less important to us than the on-board experience.

Pre-cruise - The cruise departs from Ft. Lauderdale, but we flew in to Miami the day before as it's the only non-stop flight from San Francisco on United airlines (we were using miles). I think the 40-minute, $70 cab ride up to Ft. Lauderdale is worth it to avoid the hassles of changing planes and the chance for delay, etc. We stayed at the Marriott Marina on the 17th Street Causeway overnight, enjoying a nice dinner in the waterfront restaurant. We spent the dinner admiring the gigantic, 100+ foot long, four story yacht owned by someone who has too much money that was parked in front of the restaurant's windows. The next morning we worked out in the fitness center, had room service breakfast, and got ready to leave. I called downstairs about 11 a.m. to check about the free shuttle to the cruiseport, and found out that they take reservations on a first-come, first-served basis. The first open spot would be at 2:30 that afternoon. Next time, we'll know to put our name on the list the night before. Instead, we took a taxi for under $10 and were over at the ship in ten minutes.

Embarkation - We gave our bags to a porter when we arrived (tip these guys - they work hard!), then got in line. There was a big line outside the terminal when we arrived (11:30-ish) which snaked into the building and back out again. It was probably a full hour from when we got in line until we got up to the desk inside. We saw special (shorter) lines for suite guests, but not for Mariner's Society members. We're Captain's Club members on Celebrity, and they always have special counters for their frequent cruisers in addition to suite guests. Also unlike embarking with Celebrity, there was no place to sit down, nor any refreshments, and we were tired after standing for an hour even though we're both pretty spry for 40!

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Cabin A
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