Lets start from the first.

I am Blind and travel with my wife, and guide dog. I booked the trip on the phone last minute with Holland America. I requested and was assured that our luggage would be taken direct to the airport, and it was included in the airport transfer. The airport was about 1 half mile from the port. When we boarded the ship it was older, and showed the age as one would expect for a 20 year old ship, but still nice. Our cabin nice, cool not cold, and clean. Crew was great as they usually are, First night in dining room our meal took almost 2 hours to be delivered, there were only 4 waiters for each side of the room. We later learned that this ship has less crew that any other ship with the exception of the Prinsendam. The dining room food was poor quality, the prime rib was tasteless and tough, I tried a steak and had trouble cutting it, you could tell they were no longer prime or choice cuts. Every thing went up in price while service and quality was cut. My wife tried throughout the cruise to take photos but you had to go to the open top deck as the windows had not been washed throughout the cruise, not even when we boarded.

On day two our Air and all the air for the port side of our deck stopped working, this was never really fixed, we and every room on the port side were issued fans. The theater and crows nest were so cold even we could not sit there. Private contractors were in abundance on the ship. Pinnacle grill went up to 35.00 per person service and quality was good, no air on one night and was extremely hot in there with outside temps in the high 90's and humidity levels at 100 %. Lido food was of better quality and flavor than the dining room, staff in Lido was excellent, we had dinner at Lido most nights, ( best grilled lamb chops I have ever had) Mexican BBQ on Lido was great.  Read more