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By way of background, spouse and I have cruised for 40 years and we enjoy sea days and repositioning cruises the best. On this trip we were with family members. We are not fans of big ships (and the Maasdam is big), having been spoiled for life by the late-lamented Song of Flower. We are also fans of the Windstar line but its itineraries are a real snooze with no variety.
We arrived in Montreal the day prior to sailing and spent a cold and dreary night and morning essentially trying to buy warm clothes as the weather had changed from the time we left our house til' we got to Canada! We stayed at the Embassy Suites on the outskirts of the Old Port but were not able to enjoy its prime location due to late arrival of flight and morning need to shop!
Embarkation was the usual irritation (this is another reason we like little ships) with all the attendant processing, screening and the like. We arrived just as the rooms were available so dropped off luggage and went for lunch at the Lido (as Mariner Club members we thought there'd be lunch in the main dining room but this wasn't offered).
Our cabin was as expected, having sailed the Zaandam. We had 2 of 3 cabins in a section on the Promenade deck and liked them
very much for these reasons: immediate access to outside without cost
of balcony which would have been a waste of money in the fall; speedy
access to elevators and stairs; convenient to laundry and show room.
The cabin is small and gets smaller the longer you're on board. The tub
is very deep so getting in and out for able-bodied folks is dicey so I
don't understand why HAL, which caters to more 'seasoned' and less
nimble clients, doesn't remove them and replace with the tubs with
walk-in showers. Biggest complaint - air conditioner/heater vents
positioned so they blow directly on the bed (I had a sore throat every
morning from the air in my face overnight) and there is no way to alter
the air flow or turn down the fan speed (there is a constant mild
roar). Finally, all the paperwork that appears hourly is such a waste!
We choose not to do assigned seating for dinner - we like to eat when and where we please. That said, we ate more than half our meals in the Pinnacle where the food is good but the service and the calm and the space is worth the upcharge (as they call it). We ate our lunches ashore or, rarely, in the Lido.
Ports of call were generally good. We don't do shore excursions. We either rented a car (Saguennay and Sydney and Bar Harbor), hired a local car/driver at the pier (Gaspe and Charlottestown and St. John) or rode the hop-on bus (Halifax). We tried to ride the hop-on in Quebec City but there were 4 ships in port that day and the little bus was always packed so we just jumped on a local bus and that was the best $5 we spent in 2 weeks - we got a 2 hour drive all over and around Quebec with a nice driver! Look for Route 400! I believe cruising is not the way to do in-depth sightseeing, rather a way to get a flavor of an area so a decision can be made as to whether or not to return for more in-depth exploring. I would go back to Quebec City and Bar Harbor for sure! The area around Saguennay is gorgeous but hard to get to. Poor little Baie-Comeau has little to offer though they tried hard and Gaspe, where we were only the 1st or 2nd ship ever, even less (here we went to the national park and that was very interesting).
The entertainment was, as usual, a real mixed bag. I really, really miss the Enrichment Speakers but, as they are non-revenue producers, I guess they have gone the way of the doo-doo bird!
The crew was wonderful in almost all respects and I really think they are overworked. I saw very little of the senior officers but that's okay - they're not there to make friends with me! Went to the spa a couple times and was lucky to get a lass who didn't try to sell me overpriced products!
The ship has been beautifully maintained but there are two areas that need some attention: the Crow's Nest needs to be 100% non-smoking and there needs to be somewhere on the ship that is 100% silent (no chatting, no music, nada!). The elevators, on the other hand, were a real mixed bag - at any given time, several were out of order and one afternoon I got stuck for about 20 minutes with several other passengers. We were speedily rescued by a couple engineers and a waiter(!) but never saw/heard from any front office staff.
Disembarkation was easy enough - we were met by family member and whisked away.
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