The Baltic is a wonderful place to cruise, with many interesting ports. However, St. Petersburg has to be the most wonderful port of all. We saved several hundred dollars there by using Alla Tours rather than excursions from the ship. All is the best!

The Zuiderdam interior is excellent, the common rooms are beautifully decorated, the cabins are clean and comfortable. However, the exterior of the ship is more like a rust bucket - rust everywhere you look, from the ceiling of our balcony to the winches which hopefully lower the lifeboats. HAL should be embarrassed and ashamed. We've sailed with HAL for well over 100 days total and have never seen one of its vessels so rusty and poorly maintained. I contacted HAL about this and just received a boilerplate response. We may give up on Holland America after this - and we'll certainly never sail on the Zuiderdam again.

The staff on board were efficient and friendly as always. It's a shame they were on a rust bucket.