Eurodam 21 day Panama Canal Seattle – Fort Lauderdale 10-7-23
This is a long, detailed, "Daily log" type of review. If you just want the summary, scroll down to the bottom! :-)
Pre-Cruise travel: Thursday, October 5, 2023
Andy from Air & Cruise car service picked us up at about 6:50 for our drive to Fort Lauderdale airport for our 10:45 flight on Southwest. It was good that he was a ...
This was my first Alaskan cruise on any cruise line and my first trip to Alaska in general. I only have other Holland America cruises to compare it to (but I am also a cruise nerd and binge cruise news and reviews for other lines and ships), so I will do my best to describe everything. I have been on Eurodam twice before, back when it was a "newer" ship and also in 2019. I have to say, comparing ...
I chose this cruise as an anniversary gift to us both. We wanted a more quiet, adult cruise. Less children. Smaller more quaint ship. The Eurodam gave us much of that. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise. I thought seeing Alaska, the glaciers and wildlife would be nice. I can tell you that our cabin suite was marvelous. Spacious. Beautiful. King bed. I'm 6'5". Cleaned every day. The shower was ...
My family of 7 took our first Alaskan cruise last week. My husband and I are in our mid-40’s, kids are 19, 17, 15, 6, and 3. I know we are not the typical HAL demographic, but we all had a great time.
We chose HAL and this specific cruise because 1. The dates worked with our tight schedule 2. the itinerary visited Glacier Bay 3. There is typically a Catholic priest onboard so we didn’t have to ...
We did a cruise with two other couples on the Westerdam round trip out of Seattle to Alaska.
Some of the pluses:
The ship was in very good shape for its age and didn't generally feel overcrowded.
The indoor pool and hot tubs were nice since the weather outside usually wasn't nice.
The promenade deck went all the way around the outside of the ship which was great for exercising with ...
This is a great cruise out of Seattle. If you fly into Seattle the same day that the cruise departs Seattle, Holland American will transfer your luggage to the ship. If you stay at a hotel the night before the ship leaves Seattle, the same service is provided. Boarding and off boarding the ship was very easy and pleasant.
PROS:
-The staff on the Eurodam on a scale of 1 to 10, and ten ...
We live in the Seattle area, so this was an easy cruise to take. This was our first post-pandemic cruise. It was the 3rd time we'd cruised to Alaska. And we had a good time.
The pros - it is awesome to go on vacation someplace nice, and Alaska is beautiful. The ship was friendly and well run. Things seemed a bit lacking compared to pre-pandemic, but nowhere near what I had feared.
The cons - ...
The food was excellent in the buffet. I love comfort food and was very taken with the homemade macaroni and cheese served at lunch. Best I have ever had. The only thing lacking was the lunchtime sushi, much to dry. The eggs Benedict were superb. Overall it was the best buffet of 19 cruises. The service at the Lido was impeccable. Dining room was nice too. Our veranda room was very nice but the ...
We choose this cruise for a few reasons. 1) we had always wanted to go to this area of the world 2) we love the "at sea" days as much as port days and 3) there were at sea days between every country visited, so on the off chance that someone would have gotten Covid, we would only have missed at most 1 country. As it was, we traveled with another couple,1 person got Covid, and missed 1 country. ...
The morning cruising glacier bay was the scenic highlight of this cruise, which we selected because it was a different route from the inside passage cruise we'd been on. At the last minute, we upgraded to a Neptune suite, which made the cruise a more comfortable and enjoyable week - spacious room, giant balcony, lots of comfortable furniture inside and out, king bed. We appreciated the neptune ...