This was my third cruise with HAL. My first cruise was on the Rotterdam, my second cruise was on the Westerdam. Both these cruises were their last or second to last cruise prior to them being sold. Both of my first 2 cruises left fantastic memories of things beyond my expectations. The service, the food, the generousity on these ships was unparalleled. I have never eaten more or been pampered more in all my life. Everything was spotless (for 2 very old ships) and more than abundantly stocked, both in food and supplies. The staff aboard these ships could not do enough for you and the cabin boys seemed invisible but all the cleaning was done (as if by magic).

Then came the Volendam!

This ship is only 4 years old, yet the carpet in many parts of the ship showed signs of major staining and wear. On embarcation, the lower elevator was all smashed up, in the main dining room (the Rotterdam dining room)the windows were so filmed over obscuring your view. The white drapes in our DELUXE VERANDA SUITE had a yellow (as if pee'd) on stain along with black marks. The jacuzzi tub in out room didn't work for 2 days and had to be fixed. The toilet leaked throughout our cruise. The Lido restaurant regulary ran out of certain food items that were not replaced in the middle of meal times. The desert Extravagansa was a farce, the food sculptures were not freshly made (as was on my other cruises), in fact they were displayed broken or visably damaged. The amount of deserts available was what you'd expect from a small bakery (not a cruise ship) and no where near compairing to my previous experiences. On more than one occasion the cabin boy walked into our room unannounced in the mornings. When we did order room service (for breakfast), we were asked to place our dirty dishes in the hallway for pickup, this on more than one occasion took 4-6 hours for them to be collected. The "BIG" bottle of shampoo (2oz) and lotion (2oz) supplied by HAL were to last the two of us seven days, and would NOT be replaced if you used them up early. The automatically included 10% tipping was added to your onboard account and if you chose to adjust this amount down for any reason (like BAD service) made the staff quite annoyed and short with you. I also found that 15% mandatory tip on all beverages consumed unnessesary (whether served to your or self serve) except coffee, tea or iced tea. On our cruise, we had a person get ill on our way to view Tracy Arm so the captain decided to omit this part of our cruise and headed prematurely to Juneau 7 hours early leaving us in the town of Juneau from 7am til 11pm with all stores and the casino/games shut down onboard (nothing was given or done for the passengers to make up for this). I found the front desk less than approachable. If your an espresso(latte, mocha) person, tough. With only 1 attended machine onboard (not 24 hour)you always had lineups, not to mention weak espressos'. The questionnaires submitted to Holland America with contact phone numbers did no good and drew no responses. Is it my immagination or has the Volendam been taken over secretly by some ECONO-Cruiseline using the HAL name??!! Maybe this ship should be renamed the McVolendam...