The public areas of the Veendam are beautiful and our stateroom was comfortable. One of the things I love about HAL ships is the number of public spaces, both inside and out, to sit and enjoy the scenery and the sun. The other passengers were a great mix of well-behaved families. The only minor negatives were AYWD (which doesn't work well when the ship is at full capacity) and unreliable room service delivery (after two times without food we gave up). After the upcoming drydock, and with a little improvement in the food service management, the Veendam would be perfect!

After some anxiety about flying through Seattle, which had some big winter storms, we arrived in Florida as scheduled. We spent the night before the cruise at the Tampa Waterside Marriott, which was very nice. We stopped at Total Wine and bought several bottles for the cruise and then had dinner in Ybor City. In the morning we could see the Veendam from our hotel window. The Marriott has a Hertz desk, which made it easy to return our rental car.

We arrived at the pier about 11:30 and were told that boarding would begin at 2:00 p.m. because the ship was being sanitized after a norovirus outbreak. HAL had arranged for a deal on admission at the nearby aquarium, but we opted to sit and play cards. Boarding started at 2:00 as promised, and we were in group #8 to board. Staterooms weren't ready, so we went right to the Lido for our first delicious lunch. At that point it was not crowded, but the Lido got quite jammed as more people boarded in a short time. Since the ship was in Code Red, the buffet was not self-serve (even for water and coffee), which slowed service down a bit, but to stay healthy I was happy to avoid touching spoons that others had touched. The shortened embarkation time threw our usual Day 1 routine off schedule; by the time we got to the spa, there were no more massage appointments for the first sea day. Oh well. After the lifeboat drill, we went to the aft pool for sailaway and a margarita - HAL cocktails are soooo good! Then on to dinner in the dining room, which tonight entailed only a short wait. Food and service were good, as always. We made it to the show, which involved a comedian who was somewhat funny. Read more