Holland America ms Noordam Southern Caribbean April 4-14, 2010

This was the 27th cruise for Jim and I, having cruised on Seawind, RCI x 5, Celebrity, NCL, Princess, Carnival, and HAL's Westerdam x 2 (old), Noordam (old), Zaandam, Maasdam, and our beloved Zuiderdam x 11. We are in our 60s and for us our destination is the ship itself. Many times we say we'll leave the ship to explore a new port, but we often don't. We generally eat, sleep, eat, gamble, sleep, eat, gamble, repeat. This adequately describes our Noordam cruise, as we did not leave the ship.

Avoiding the stress of missed connections when flying in on Embarkation Day, we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale a day before and stayed at the Hilton Marina on 17th. We had a nice stay last year, but this year we found it cold and impersonal. They have changed the check-in procedure so that more people get tips. Now after you tip your driver, you tip someone to take your bags to another porter who gets a tip to take them to your room. We had a mini-suite with a view of the Marina and pool from the balcony. The access door lock was broken, and after several attempts to fix it, the Manager offered us drink coupons to enjoy while Maintenance did some noisy work. We don't drink, so we had some fruit juice and gave the other coupons away to someone who could actually enjoy them. We asked for a different room, but apparently the hotel was full, and this was the best they could do. I booked a smoking room, but at check-in they said it was a smoke-free hotel, but would send an ashtray to our room. Actually, we asked FOUR different people for an ashtray and got four promises, but no ashtray. We had to appropriate one from the pool area. Although the suite had a lovely spa shower, what we needed was a soak, and we're not hot-tub people, so this was a drawback. In the morning we splurged for the Sunday Buffet, which was the highlight of our stay. After two more unnecessary tips, we were outta there, never to return. Read more