The idea of cruising on a brand new ship was exciting and it turns out it was also very worthwhile. The Konigsdam is magnificent. Her captain and crew run a tight ship. Everything from embarkation to disembarkation was on time, pleasant, efficient, and professional. The public areas are well appointed and once you understand that you have been immersed into a musical instrument, you really enjoy ...
**In the interest of full disclosure this was a "shakedown cruise" that was not open to the general public and some work was still being completed in some areas (installation of some art pieces and so forth). I will not discuss the work/workers we encountered as that goes with the territory and all items I noticed during the cruise were fixed/finished/installed/etc by the time we left.*** My ...
First off, I gave HAL the benefit of the doubt and gave them 2 months to respond to my email, to no avail all they wanted to do was to sell me another cruise. Below are all the bad things that happened:
... no acknowledgement of the birthdays and anniversary we were celebrating.
... everything was an add-on or up-sale.
.... the food was awful every day, food at sub standard temperatures, poor ...
The entire Noordam staff were graduates of smile school, and were very accommodating to any need that we expressed.
- The Maitre 'd made a point of soliciting our comments about the Vista Dining Room ("tepid soup, slower service between courses than expected"- which he remedied). Portions seemed smaller than I remember from previous cruises, so we often visited the Lido deck later to get a ...