Zaandam Review
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I am not quibbling about Alaska. Alaska was lovely, and I am delighted to have had a chance to experience some of it! This review is solely about the cruise itself.
Ever since cruising to Canada on the Veendam, I'd been looking forward to this. The Veendam was amazing! I could hardly wait to have a similar experience, but with ALASKA!
Unfortunately, it was not to be, mostly because of the Zaandam's staff. While the Veendam's staff was attentive and proactive, the Zaandam's staff did a reasonably professional job, mostly, but were going through the motions. One had to nag them for service. The waiters regularly delivered the wrong dishes to people; sometimes it seemed like they ignored our orders and just distributed dishes at random. The cabin attendants routinely ignored "Service, please" tags, often for hours.
Cabin Review
Large Ocean-View Stateroom
The cabin was fine- a bit bigger than on the Veendam, but a familiar layout.
Port Reviews
Vancouver
We had a full day in Vancouver, and enjoyed it a lot!
Fabulous lunch at a restaurant close to our hotel-- Cardero's. The fried oysters were amazing, and the salmon "burger"- actually a filet- perfectly cooked.
Dinner was at the Water St. Cafe, and was just as good! I was still rather full from lunch, so I had the seafood and corn chowder, which was amazing! I have been experimenting with corn chowders for a while now, and this was one of the the best! I wish I could replicate it! I also had the appetizer portion of the crab cakes, which were lovely. The other people with me were very enthusiastic about their pasta, too.
The next morning, before boarding, we went to Forage for brunch. Excellent! I wish we'd had time for a dinner there... I had a frittata with arugula, duck confit, onions, and brie, and it was excellent. Other enjoyed dishes were the turkey sausage hash- the sausage had Moroccan spices and was far juicier than any turkey sausage I'd ever tasted before! The third was the corned buffalo hash with sauerkraut- it was gobbled up. Both the hashes had perfectly cooked eggs on them, and my scramble was cooked just right- done, but barely.
Yes, I'm a foodie.
Glacier Bay
Simply glorious.
Seward
We had brunch in a local hotel, then went to the Sealife Center. It's small, but very interesting and informative. I do wish they had more enrichment for the seals and sealions.
Then had halibut fish & chips at Thorne Lounge. Excellent!