This was a terrific cruise! We need an accessible cabin and ours was great! Our stewards were polite, kind, and very attentive. The dining room staff were great...always remembering our names and our drinks! Food was terrific, both in the dining room and in the buffet. Service all over the ship was beyond. The staff was always friendly, smiling, ready at all times to help out. Our captain ...
As usual, I had a great time on the cruise. We had some problems but I felt that most were handled very well.
Problems first....
Probably the very worst was the embarkation in San Diego. Getting checked in was awful. First there was a line to go through security (took me 30 minutes), then a line to register your wine if you were bringing any on (15 minutes), and then the worst - checking ...
We had planned this cruise before my husband died, but he had made me promise to go even without him. I had mixed feelings but continued on with the cruise.
I arrived in San Diego two days before the cruise and was able to tour the city before the cruise. I was also able to go to a pre-cruise dinner with some of my new Cruise Critic friends.
Embarkation went smoothly for me but from what ...
At our friends' urging for us to try cruising, and not wanting a daily docking, we went all out with this 25 day, 10 port cruise. It took two days to get the gist of the routine, but by day three, we were hooked.
HAL definitely met our expectations and pleasantly so. We knew the average age would be senior and often less mobile, but that was ok. This was our first retirement getaway and we were ...
We have cruised just about every cruise line including some 5* rated lines. This was our first trip on Holland America. I was so impressed with the real concern and service given. We had a problem with the air conditioning and they came immediately to fix it and followed up with a call to ensure it was fixed. When it wasn't, they came again and came again, and followed up again and again until ...
I am not a usual contributor to review forums but I am struggling to reconcile the wonderful cruise just experienced on Volendam with these recent negative reviews on Cruise Critic. A strong influence on the enjoyment of any cruise will be the availability, cheerfulness and helpfulness of the ship’s crew and on Volendam from Vancouver to Sydney I thought it was outstanding.
The embarkation at ...
After many years of travelling to exciting destinations to celebrate special occasions, we were challenged to come up with a really special trip to celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary. We have sailed on Holland America many times, so our first thought was to explore possible itineraries on one of their ships. It didn't take us long to settle on a 14 day cruise to Hawaii from San Diego. ...
SO much to tell after two weeks! I'll try not to be ridiculously verbose...
We sailed out of San Diego. This is a great port to cruise in and out of. The airport and the cruise terminal are so close together, and many hotels between the two have free shuttles. We stayed at both the Hampton Inn (Downtown) and the Holiday Inn on the Bay. Both were great, with the only exception being the ...
We chose this cruise because of all the days at sea. Titled "Hawaii Circle Cruise" the emphasis is definitely on cruise rather than Hawaii. Though we enjoyed our time in the islands, we spent more time getting there (and back) than touring. We knew this going in and were ready for the relaxation cruising affords-- no phones, no internet (unless you want it) and no TV. No access to work ...
We have sailed to Hawaii on the Zaandam before. We were thrilled to see Michael Headla was still the cruise director and Kainoa DelaCruz was still on as the explorations expert. These two gentlemen are fantastic ambassadors for HAL. They set a bar that we have yet to see met on any other cruise we have taken. We found there was value added on this cruise, compliments of the explorations team. An ...