Had been loyal fans of HAL (Veendam, Volandam, Prinsendam, but not now after the Statendam). Totally agree with dissatisfaction of this cruise. Based on this debacle, I will never cruise with any ship without asking when the ship was in dry-dock last!

HAL supposedly paid $36 million for refurbishing the ship. While the library, Mix/Ocean bars and other public areas looked lovely, overall the ship had a worn look. The lounge chairs in the Crow's Nest were broken. Obviously there had been no quality control in checking the outcome of the dry-dock refurbishment.

Additional problems from what other passenger wrote about: Seems more of the problems with plumbing/flooding in the cabins were on the 9th and 10th deck, those who paid the most! Personally, we were very lucky as our cabin on the 9th deck had very minor problems: leaking in the bathroom (water seeping thru the tile) - never did figure out if it was the toilet/sink/bathtub. TV cord was frayed, but we still had connection after jiggling it. Jacuzzi didn't work for the first 12 days - all problems were reported several times. Some people didn't have A/C for all or part of the 14-days; some didn't have use of their toilets for all or part of the trip. Yes, just imagine if you have to get up several times in the middle of the night and have to "go" hunting for a public restroom. Ladies room on deck 12 near Crow's Nest had 2 toilets, one (or both) were often not working; ditto for the ladies' room near the Rotterdam Dining room (8th deck). Read more