Holland America Line Southern Caribbean Cruise Reviews

A very good experience overall! Rotterdam is a beautiful ship and, like all of Holland America's vessels, boasts a fascinating collection of artworks commissioned especially for this ship. Even though I was suddenly unable to use the Navigator app on my older phone, everything went smoothly. The only extra steps I had to take without the app were [1] print out my boarding pass in advance and ...

We had a very nice 9 day Southern Caribbean cruise that visited Aruba and Curaçao. We missed our stop on Half Moon Cay due to the weather. We booked Club Orange and a Retreat Cabana in advance, both enhanced our experience greatly as the ship sailed full. We tried to dine in all of the specialty restaurants except the Pinnacle Grill which we’ve dined in many times on other ships. We really ...

Easiest embarking ever. We were on board by 11:30 am sitting at the Lido having lunch. Disembark was super quick and easy thanks to the face scanning technology at the Ft Lauderdale cruise port. This was our 7th cruise on an HAL ship, out of 57 total cruises ( other lines mostly Celebrity, RCL, Oceania). Food varied from being poor to fair in the Lido, Deck 9, to very good in the Main ...

The ship was clean and beautiful, everything seemed to be working, and the service was absolutely fabulous. The Eurodam is a little older now, but still very nice. On service, standouts were our cabin steward who helped our disabled mother very much in her suite, the management in the Tamarind, who went above and beyond, and the disembarkation help we received because we were traveling with a ...

The Eurodam and the Jewel of the seas are almost identical in size. The Jewel has a more customer friendly central area that can be used to host music and dance events, too. It has a larger outdoor pool with far more sunbeds than the Eurodam. The Eurodam has a more enclosed, covered pool area as if it was designed for overcast, chilly North Sea sailings. The Jewel also has a solarium type warm ...

I swear that cruise lines encourage (or at least allow) employees to slack off, or more likely, weaponize incompetence on the first and last days of the cruise. After a smooth embarkation we were aghast that not only was the maître d’ not available to fix the incorrect dining assignment we had been given, but we were told to stand in two long lines that were both the wrong line. It turns out ...

This was a completely full ship and had a large Church group onboard. It never felt too crowded and HAL did a good job of setting up the Church group's activities so they did not interfere with other passengers. I had one minority annoying experience with a group member being invasively friendly and proselytizing. I eventually deflected them by telling the I was "not on their team" and am Wiccan ...

I chose this 21 day back-to-back cruise booking because of the Pinnacle Class ship (Nieuw Statendam) and the itinerary (ABC + Greater/Lesser Antilles) I chose to repeat this itinerary because the islands are varied in local culture and available excursions. HAL did not disappoint, and we were blessed with great weather for the entire 3 weeks. The ship was decorated beautifully for the ...

11 day cruise Ft Lauderdale. , balcony cabin. Boarding - Easy. Cabin Crew - Great, Cabin - Clean well maintained. Dining - main room #1 - first night given table 85 - directly in front of waiters' station - when I sit down for dinner I want to relax - that table with it's constant clattering of dishes, glassware, silverware and waiters coming and going made that impossible. From night two on was ...

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 ...