I am not they type of person who needs to convince them self they made the right choice about cruising to Panama on the Statendam, I made a bad choice and here are the reasons.
First, the ship needs a refurbishment, the choice of ports needs improvement and over all I should have stayed home. On the upside the mattress in our room was the best compared to Princess, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, the service provided by all of the staff was excellent, and the food in the dining room was good but the Lido Deck Buffet could be improved. It seems the passengers I spoke to felt the same about the cruise and talked about various issues they felt were not up to par.
The negative highlight was a broken hot water pipe that burst just before arriving in Columbia that affected quite a few cabins and the passengers in those cabins were given the choice of staying in their room once repairs were made or going back to their next destination after the cruise ended; many just flew back.
The entertainment was good and the staff from Indonesia and the Philippines put on shows that were very good highlighting their cultures.
The bottom-line is I don't recommend the Panama Canal cruise as long as Holland American stops at ports that do not offer interest. The transit through the Canal was interesting but you can watch the same sights on TV's National Geographic. The saving grace was we traveled with three other couples and that made the trip bearable but not worth the money.
