This was our 8th Holland America cruise and by far the worst. Maybe we're jaded, but the Statendam has definitely seen better days. It seemed like everyone we met had at least one thing go wrong in their cabin. We experienced a few things...we called down three times to get a shelf fixed and it remained broken the whole trip...we also reported air conditioning not working, bathtub draining very slowly, and water in the shower alternating hot to cold and back again...and nothing was ever fixed.
By far the worst experience was the tendering. Unfortunately most ports on this itinerary had to be accessed by tenders...definitely not the cruise ship's fault. But...at some ports you had to wait 90 minutes to board a tender...and the ship was only in port for 6 - 9 hours. They have two tender docks on the Statendam but they only used one of them. This was the number one complaint that we heard from other passengers.
There were less activities during the day than we have experienced on previous cruises. And although the prizes given out have never been too exciting...hats, mugs, umbrellas, etc. this time they have sunk to an all-time low with most of the prizes being Holland America pins...you can only use so many decorative pins with Holland America written on them.