We had a good time on this cruise but could have had a great time. The Veendam Is an older smaller ship - certainly there are some benefits to the smaller ship such as being able to dock on Front Street in Hamilton Bermuda. The downside is that the ship is old and it shows in the broken elevators, substandard service and lack of general upkeep. ( Surely HAL can wash to eh windows once in awhile!)

We bought an outside guarantee about 6 weeks prior to sailing and were immediately assigned a porthole stateroom right next to the anchor chains. As soon as I saw the cabin assignment, i tried to talk HAL out of the "upgrade" but nothing doing! The rep even acknowledged that it was a very poor cabin location but too bad, so sad! As a consequence, we were awoken several times very early in the morning. One of my favorite things to do on a cruise is to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 which was not possible due to the cabin's location. I bought a "run of the ship" and I got it. I wish HAL would have recognized that this cabin was , in reality, a downgrade.

Long check in lines in NY put us in a sour mood to start but the luggage was delivered promptly and sailing out of New York Harbor was fun. Read more