This was our third cruise, all on the Veendam. Obviously, we've enjoyed the Holland America cruise line and the Veendam enough to return every year. Our first cruise was 7 days in Alaska, second vacation was 7 days in the Western Caribbean. This trip was fifteen days through the Panama Canal. We embarked in Tampa through what appears to be a new terminal---it was hard to get a good look because you're onboard within just a few minutes. Friendly, efficient and lightning fast. We had time for lunch on the Lido Deck, a wander through the ship to reacquaint ourselves and our stateroom was ready. As before, we booked a verandah stateroom, which we highly recommend. For our money, we dearly love the option of relaxing on our own private balcony, either first thing in the morning in our bathrobes or with a late night glass of wine before going to bed. We have always been satisfied with the size and layout of the staterooms. The bathroom is efficient if not overly spacious. A larger tub would have been appreciated, as it's really not large enough for a bath for anyone over four feet tall. The hair dryer is not particularly efficient and the hand piece will get uncomfortably hot to hold within a minute or so unless you wrap a towel around it. Plenty of hot water with minimal variation in temperature, which was a minor problem during an earlier Alaska cruise. Closet and drawer space is adequate if not overwhelming---we're learning to pack what we need and use the laundry service or self-serve laundry. However, we suggest just using the laundry (or hand washing) things like underwear, socks, etc---try to minimize having to launder larger items, as competition for a washer/dryer or ironing board is fierce and occasionally bloody thirsty. It was a bit annoying having to round up enough quarters, or even having to pay at all, to use laundry facilities---Holland America is not a budget cruise line and rounding up three dollars or so in quarters for a small load of laundry is a bit cheesy. I have read a Berlitz review that onboard service from the Indonesian staff is spotty and inconsistent, but that has not been our experience. Our stewards are always cheerful, efficient and greet us by name, even when we meet out away from our cabin. Attentive but unobtrusive, which is just what we want. I wish I could get this quality of employee in my own staff at our small business at home! We never felt like part of a gigantic herd in public areas and rarely had to wait in line for much of anything, including disembarking for shore excursions. Public spaces are clean, constantly being maintained and very nice, the library is especially relaxing and pleasant. Online services are available, but quite expensive and the internet connection is abominably slow---it often took ten minutes or more just to get logged into an email account, while paying high prices by the minute for the privilege. This was one of our biggest frustrations/complaints about the entire vacation (and we don't tend to be high-maintenance people, just want to be able to scan through a few dozen emails in less than an hour). The spa facilities are very nice, and the exercise equipment very good, clean and underutilized. I never had to wait to use equipment and having a personal monitor to watch CNN or a movie while getting in a few miles on the treadmill is very nice. The dining room staff at our fixed seating was also attentive, friendly and efficient and knew our preferences by the second day. I tend to eat very small meals, which worried our steward enough to send over the dining room captain to make sure everything was okay. In general, we found the food to mostly range from average to very good. Grilled items were always right on the money, including for room service items (the steak sandwich is the best we've ever had anywhere, but the hamburger is micro waved cardboard). Be wary of roasted meats, which tend to be consistently overdone. Roasted poultry was almost always dry and chewy, lamb ordered medium-rare was on the far side of well done and liverish, and the prime rib was what we would have expected from a coffee shop. Sauces were a bit bland, which might be due to the considerably older average age of HAL passengers---my husband and I are around 50 and suspect that on the longer cruises, we were the youngest people on board not traveling with a parent or grandparent. Which was fine by us, as we are looking for a quiet, relaxing vacation with good food and excellent service, not a noisy, floating party with drunken frat boys throwing up in the hallways at 2 a.m. Service in the Rotterdam dining room was somewhat less efficient and enjoyable for breakfast. Several times, we were almost ready to leave before pastries were offered, coffee refills were slow to arrive and the attitude bordered on bored and uninterested. Skip any breakfast entrees in which you are expecting an abundance of flavor, such as a Southwest breakfast burrito, which was virtually inedible. The American breakfast, pancakes or waffles were much, much better. If you are looking for fruit for breakfast, the breakfast parfait is tasty if not an overabundance of fruit along with the yogurt and teaspoon of granola. The muesli is much better and highly recommended with whole grains, fresh chopped apple, raisins, yogurt and milk. Seasonal melon will be three tiny, paper-thin slices very attractively arranged for the five seconds it will take to consume them. In general, we were happier visiting the buffet on the Lido deck if I had a jones for a measurable amount of fresh fruit. Never, ever, ever eat sushi made by a northern European chef, but the variety and quality of food was otherwise very good, with never a neglected empty serving platter in sight. The cheese and crackers on the Lido available in the late afternoon was very, very limited---surprising and puzzling. The taco shells out on deck were stale, the taco meat bland and had the texture of having been run through a blender. Maybe I'm just being a Southern California native used to the real thing. The chicken fajita strips were better and the pizza offered was surprisingly good. We dined three times in the Pinnacle Grill and it was always very, very good food, attentively served. I ordered a wine tasting one evening for an additional $26 and was disappointed that each of the four wines barely wet the glass, nor were they served concurrently with a complementary dish or with any particular thoughtfulness or discussion. Here you go, this is a cabernet, this is a pinot. On an earlier Alaskan cruise, we attended a sommelier's dinner, which was close to the dining experience of a lifetime. We would eagerly pay a premium to attend such an event again as often as possible (seriously, we're still raving about it two years later), but the wine tasting offering was very disappointing and not even close to being worth the price charged. We tended to be very happy with room service and dined in our cabin at least once a day. The steak sandwich is to die for, the chicken Caesar salad crisp and nicely seasoned, avoid the micro waved hamburger. Breakfast orders sometimes got a little mixed up, but not to any great extent. When they say your order will be delivered between 7 and 7:15, by golly, you better be ready to open the door at 7 or you'll be scrambling for the bathrobe. We were very happy with shore excursions, with the exception of the city tour at Cartagena, Colombia. Traffic was heavy in the city and even though our entire group vigorously asked to see the historical destinations and skip the shopping portion of the tour, we were nevertheless herded from one shopping destination after another until every last possible tourist dollar has been wrung out. Heavy seas altered our port of calls at Grand Cayman and cancelled the port entirely in Nicaragua, but the captain did his darndest to get us into port, or provide a suitable alternative. In general, we have been very happy with each of our vacations on the Veendam and would not hesitate to sail on her again. We hope to vacation in Europe or the Mediterranean next year and will undoubtedly sail on a HAL ship yet again.