My wife and I sailed on the Oosterdam on March 4th, 2005. We opted for this cruise only because we wanted to try something different than the Caribbean. This was our 14th cruise and 12 of them have been in the Caribbean. The other was last summer on the Maasdam to Canada-New England.
This was our 5th HAL cruise and they've all been very good. This was the first time we upgraded to an SS room. We loved the room, especially the extra space. Also neat to have both a separate shower and bathtub and the two sinks made getting ready for dinner very easy.
The friends we travelled with noted that there was a Holiday Inn right across the street from the pier so we booked there. The hotel is very good and reasonable. On embarkation day we were able to walk across the street to the ship which made the whole experience incredibly easy.