Boy, where do I start?  Upon arrival to Vancouver we discovered that the HAL Transfer Direct gate was closed..  We then found some Holland America reps at the airport who informed us that boarding the ship had been delayed and that we needed to go through Canadian Customs and prepare for a tour of Vancouver by bus..??..  This was the last thing I wanted to hear after spending the day flying to get to Vancouver.  We later learned that the ship was being disinfected due to some illness/virus on the ship.  So we then spend the next 45 minutes clearing customs.  One would generally expect to go through customs, but the HAL Transfer Direct was suppose to keep us from having to go through this.After clearing customs we then started the process of getting on buses.  This was a challenge since we had a large group of people that wanted to stay together and nobody with HAL or the bus drivers seemed to know if all of the buses were going to the same place.  Nobody knew for sure when we would make it to the ship or exactly what we were going to take a tour of.   We were then taken to some place that I don't even remember the name of.  The bus driver pointed out various sites around Vancouver and several hours later we finally made it to the cruise ship port.  We quickly made it through the check-in process and thought we were about to board the ship, only to be herded into a large room that was occupied by the majority of all the other passengers that were waiting to board.  The room was very hot and stuffy.  We waited for about an hour and a half which really seemed like an eternity.  Please keep in mind, we had just been on various airplanes all day, then put on a bus to tour Vancouver for several more hours, then worked through the extensive check-in process and just when we thought we were getting on the ship,  another roadblock, stuck in a hot stuffy room with a thousand other people..We finally were allowed to board the ship, only to discover that EVERYTHING on the ship was coated with a film of whatever was used to disinfect the ship.  The ENTIRE ship had been sprayed down.  All windows, doors, mirrors, walls, floors, tables, I mean everything had a film on it.  Apparently the delay was so that everything could be sprayed down and dry, but there wasn't enough time to clean it all up.  The crew spent the two weeks we were on the boat cleaning up the mess around the entire ship.Once on the ship and underway we made several trips to the front desk.  We tried to inquire about getting out money back for the HAL Transfer Direct that we didn't get.  The girls at the front desk seemed put out and claimed they didn't know anything about the HAL Transfer Direct being closed down.  We made numerous trips to the front desk to take care of this problem before the money was finally credited back to our account.  It was very frustrating to say the least.Okay lets talk food!  I've cruised on other cruise lines and the food has always been the highlight of the cruise!  I'm not a picky eater by any stretch of the imagination, but the Veendam food was without a doubt a let down.  The Rotterdam Dining Room food seemed to have issues each night we ate there.  Almost every time the soup was luke warm at best.  The steak came out raw (dripping blood) after requesting Medium Well.  The lobster that was served one night was EXCELLENT!  The last night the crew did their little song and dance routine which was very cheesy.  A bunch of waiters marching around with light sticks??  Various waiters marching in with various parts of a salad while singing and dancing?  The whole deal was just a waste of time after 14 frustrating days on the ship..  Why can't HAL buy some salt and pepper mills that really work?  During the 14 days I would estimate that I picked up at least 10-15 individual salt or pepper mills that didn't work!  By the end of the cruise I was ready to start throwing them in the trash,  Water glasses and coffee cups ran empty almost every night in the dining room.  I can remember cruises on both RC and Carnival where the waiters almost jumped over each other in attempts to keep the drinks 3/4 full at all times.  Most of the food served in the dining room was always cold or luke warm, but NEVER hot.When I didn't eat in the dining room, I ate at the Lido Buffet.  WOW, I only THOUGHT the dining room had problems with organization!  I started off in the Lido with wanting to eat breakfast.  There was no direction on how things were suppose to work.  Many times there was a cruise employee asking what room number we were from at the beginning of the line.  I never did figure out why he had to have our room number..  At each meal there were continually arguments between passengers over cutting in line.  I *think* that one was suppose to walk straight to the portion of the buffet line that had the food that you wanted to eat.  For instance, there was no reason to wait behind everyone waiting in line for fruit, if you didn't' want fruit and wanted a fried egg.   Unfortunately nothing was clearly marked and when going around other passengers waiting, that always caused hard feelings.  There should have been employees or signs that explained how the whole deal was suppose to work.  Now lets talk about freaking TRAYS!  The only people that had trays were the bus boys that were cleaning tables.  So try to imagine this...  The LIDO dining room is a very busy place.  Finding a table is a challenge on most days.  You just got your plate of food and maybe you also picked up a second plate or bowl that contains fruit or oatmeal.  Your hands are full, so you start walking around trying to find a table to drop off your plate and bowl of food.  Dang, you can't find a table and your food is getting cold, if it was ever really hot to begin with.  Sweet success, you just found a vacant table that is covered with left over dishes from the previous passenger.  You then bus the table yourself and set aside the dirty dishes and put down your food.  Now you need eating utensils, so off you go looking for a napkin and utensils.  Also this is the time to go to the drink station and stand in another line for water, coffee or tea.  This wait could easily last 1-3 minutes each morning.  Often times they were looking for cups because they had run out.  If they had coffee cups, the coffee was out and everyone was waiting on coffee.  On some mornings everything was in place, but the server was just running behind.  Everyone had to wait on the server to make someone a cup of tea, even though the coffee spicket was open and available, if only a person would be allowed to self-service!  Okay so you now got your cold coffee and made it back to your table.  WHAT THE HECK!  Now your food is gone and some other passenger is sitting at the table??!!??  YES THIS DID HAPPEN!  I can't blame the passenger, I was gone for several minutes looking for utensils and coffee..  A HUGE part of this constant frustration could be solved by providing trays!  Now that I'm back home I did some GOOGLE searches and see that TRAYLESS buffet lines is something that is being tried by several ships and or cruise lines.  I've read they are trying to cut down on waste by doing this.  I don't know the answer, but I do know that if they are going to go TRAYLESS some things need to be seriously tweaked so that the process of getting food and drinks to a table is a little easier.  Right now on the VEENDAM, the system is BROKE!  Generally speaking, the food at the Lido was better than the food in the dining room.  Most of the time the food a little warmer, than it was in the dining room.  Notice, I said "most of the time."  The pancakes were ALWAYS cold.  The waffles were ALWAYS cold.  The entire buffet line continually came to a standstill when someone ordered toast.  Nobody toasted bread, until someone ordered toast.  The entire buffet line continually came to a standstill when someone wanted a fried egg.. They were cooked to order, just like the toast.  As mentioned before, someone on VEENDAM needs to make it clear how the buffet line is suppose to work.  Do you wait in the buffet line behind someone waiting on toast or fried eggs or not??  If the line is backing up, someone needs to direct others waiting to go around!  Passengers are capable to dispensing coffee or hot water!  Why make everyone wait in the coffee line for minutes, while the luke warm food is getting cold?The casino and employees were nice.  Some of the dealers could use more practice dealing poker, but not bad overall.The cabin and room stewards were nice and no real complaints, other than the aforementioned film of disinfectant that remained on most widows and mirrors for several days.  The closet door mirrors never were cleaned during the 14 day cruise.  Oh yeah, on the first day we found lots of hair 10-15 strands from the previous passengers on the bathroom floor.  Also, we had a cabin with an outside window view.  Half of the window was completely clouded over and one could only look out of the left side of the window.  The window needs to be replaced or HAL should give a discount for obscured view window room.Overall, I wouldn't risk going on another HAL cruise, even though I spoke with many people who claim that my experience was a fluke and not the norm on HAL ships.  The ports of call were fine and what I expected.  I saved some money and booked my excursions direct, rather than using HAL.