Our first cruise together was on the Zuiderdam in Fall 2004. With a long Christmas break at work and the availability of a Monday to Monday cruise we decided to sail on her again. This allowed for a two day drive to Fort Lauderdale instead of cramming all 14 hours of the drive into a Saturday as we did for a Sunday to Sunday trip on the Eurodam a couple years back.
This ship is now a bit more than 11 years older and in some places she is showing her age. One of the glass doors to the upper dining room was missing completely, a door from the Lido dining room to the rear deck was also awry and at least two urinals in the men's restrooms were tagged as "out of service" for several days right up to debarkation day. Our bathtub drain ran very slowly and was not cleared even though we were promised a quick resolution by both the Front Desk and the housekeeping supervisor.
Formal nights have been replaced by "Gala evenings" with the second one considered optional on this sailing. At least one diner wore blue jeans and an untucked flannel shirt to the upper dining room without a word from the dining room staff on one of the more formal nights. This relaxing of the dress code appears to have been adopted across the entire fleet but wasn't quite as apparent on the Ryndam when we sailed her in March 2015.
The size and layout of this cabin were more than adequate. Of particular interest was the availability of a 120 volt outlet near the head of the bed. This allowed plugging in a CPAP without having to run an extension cord across the floor creating a trip hazard.
We once again stayed at the Hampton Inn north of the airport. For a small fee we were allowed to leave our car there. They once again transported us to and from the ship. This is much cheaper than cruise port parking or even leaving the car at the airport in Knoxville.
Well deserved reputation as the finest cruise line private island.
Nice shopping area adjacent to the terminal building.
We only ventured a few blocks from the port area. The only suitable shore excursion for our level of activity was already sold out when we initially boarded the ship.
This stop had quite a few more shops than our visit in 2004. Plenty of places to window shop.