Veendam Review
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We had planned this trip for 2 years with friends. We had cruised with Carnival 3 times before, and really thought this would be a step up in quality. We were wrong! We booked cruise tour 13 and used HAL's air. We flew into Vancouver on Sunday morning, and HAL's people were there to direct us and take care of our luggage. We got to the port about 12:30 and got through the lines pretty quickly. We were in our rooms by 1:30 and our luggage arrived right away. Our steward, Warman, was the best we've ever had. He always called us by name and took good care of us. Our verandah suite was wonderful, and has spoiled me for future cruises. There was lots of room and I loved the jetted bathtub.
That was pretty much it for the good things. While waiting for our rooms, we were approached several times to buy wine packages, and not just the 1st day, but for several days! We did buy one, but the wine steward showed his disdain when we used it.
Our dining room stewards were good, although not terribly fast or attentive. We often got our coffee after our dessert, or the coffee long before dessert and then no refills. The food was not exciting at all. It was just ok. Carnival blew HAL away when it came to variety, taste and presentation. We ate one night in the Pinnacle Grill and it was excellent-worth the extra money we paid. The breakfast and lunch in both the Rotterdam and Lido were not very good in quality, or variety, and I was amazed at how limited the hours were! The service at those meals was incredibly slow and no one seemed to care much about what they were doing. There wasn't a big showy midnight buffet, and if you wanted to eat at midnight, you were out of luck. On Carnival, you could get something 24 hours, but on this ship, the food availability was very limited and unimpressive. One night in the dining room we had lobster and filet. The lobster tail was so small, I don't know how it could be legal, and the filet was 3 small slices. Very disappointing! To make matters worse, there were several cases of illness on board, so the last 2 or 3 days everything had to be served to us. We couldn't even put our own salt on our food. That slowed things down even more, if that was possible!