Many of our friends sail on Holland America and after many cruises on Princess, Celebrity and Royal, we decided to try this line. We took Amtrak from Ohio to Fort Lauderdale (dont care to fly ). Boarded Nieux Amsterdam on 7 day cruise to Half Moon Cay, Grand Turk, Puerto Rico and St Thomas USVI. Embarkation went well and we were on the ship in less than half hour. We chose inside cabin on Deck ...
This was our second cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam and we would rate our experiences as average, to slightly above average. The ship and cabins are kept very well maintained and clean. In general, the crew are hard workers and pleasant. The embarkation and debarkation processes were excellent. The specialty restaurant food was good. The food in the main dining rooms and buffet is average but ...
Chose cruise for its itinerary. Hadn't sailed on Holland-America in many years but had concentrated on Celebrity and Princess for several cruises on each and were pleased with both of them. Oosterman proved a very pleasant surprise. Entire ship was in excellent condition. Excellent cabin for handicapped. Service personnel were also excellent. Most of entertainment was very good, especially ...
We took the 31 day cruise option (Nov 15-Dec 16 2023) - Fort Lauderdale to Buenos Aries with the express purpose of doing the Straits of Magellan. We have cruised HAL many times (we are 4 Star travelers) and have enjoyed every trip. This cruise was also a wonderful experience - except for the entertainment, will get to that in a moment.
We stayed in a Neptune Suite and it was as has always ...
We flew from London Heathrow to Miami 2 days before the cruise via British Airways. Flight was on time and very pleasant with great food and service onboard. On reaching Miami we were transferred to Tony Hotel on South Beach where we stayed for 2 nights. Hotel was art deco style and in an excellent location next to many bars and restaurants. We had a very pleasant stay in Miami and did a hop on ...
This is our second cruise on the Noordam. This November 2023 is the exact same cruise we did prior to COVID.
The check in at Sydney was excellent. Five stars as they now stagger passengers arrival times and this was a huge improvement over long, slow lines in February 2020.
Cabin: Looking tired. The bed was comfortable. The sofa was grubby and looked yuck. It was so worn, the cushions ...
We chose this cruise because a Transatlantic cruise has been on our bucket list, we liked the itinerary, and we had two previous enjoyable cruises on HAL (one on Oosterdam and one on Zaandam). We have been fortunate that all three HAL cruises have been in a Neptune Suite, which is a special experience.
This cruise didn't go as planned, because a large storm caused an itinerary change. We had ...
I chose this cruise to visit the ports (Cartagena, Malaga, Cadiz in Spain and Lisbon and Funchal in Portugal). Unfortunately due to weather and a pilot boat strike in Portugal the only port I visited was Malaga. We then went to the Canary Islands as a contingency plan for two ports (one was five hours long and the other was 12 hours). These ports were not interesting to me.
The ship itself was ...
We enjoy spending time in Europe in the fall and then sailing home on a trans-Atlantic with our preferred lines - Holland America and Cunard. We appreciated the itinerary as it was full of ports we enjoyed . We also greatly enjoy the ambience on HAL ships. We boarded without issue at Barcelona , concluding ten wonderful days in Spain. The ship was spotless and remained so through our 15 days ...
My mother and I selected this cruise date / itinerary 12 months before departure. It included Japan and Hong Kong which were key to our travel desires.
Let’s start with the challenges.
We booked a “Guaranteed Oceanview Room”. Mistake. Should have selected our room at reservation.
We were upgraded to a Verandah room directly under the pool deck. The deck scraping at odd hours was not ...