Volendam Review

4.0 / 5.0
591 reviews

almost a 10, but few things...

Review for Alaska Cruise on Volendam
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beatriz22
First Time Cruiser • Age 2020s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009
Cabin: Large Interior Stateroom

My sister & I flew to Vancouver a few days ahead as we dont like to cut it close & it's 1 of ur favorite cities to visit.We always stay at the Hyatt,its nice and a small 5$ cab fare 5 minutes from the ship and less costly then the ones right next to the terminal.Everyone takes US dollars there by the way.Check in was easy after alittle confusion at the entrance as there was no sign advising if it was 1 line for all cruise ships or not.They were starting to check in around 10:45,and I believe after it all being a really easy boarding process, sitting in a nice little wait area bout 20 minutes or so we began to board around 11:30 or so and had lunch on lido deck in the buffet restaurant that was quite good.Cabins were ready around 2.Unfortunatly when we got to our cabin the bed configuration was all wrong and the air conditioning seemd to be messed up (the entire week) with warm air blowing all the time(& in other parts of the ship including the dining room as well,a major air conditioning issue through out the ship we were told).The one really bad thing we experienced on our trip was our cabin attendant,unfortunatley. We asked what was up with the bed thing,he said,"Oh I just now saw the request for the twin beds" ,and we think it shoudve been done before we got there. That first night he failed to clean the room and never stopped to do an evening turn down so we returned that night to a lavatory of wet towels and no clean ones. We waited about 1/2 hr around 1 am for them to arrive.During the week we repeatedly had to ask for towels,the air conditioning to be fixed, linens to be changed and extra towels,all requests were ignored until the 4th day out when we really had to speak up about it all.Funny last day we had to ask to have some comment cards left in the room as they were supposed to be left,guess he didnt want us writing anything up.The cabin was not as elegant or as large as we'd expected either.The atrium was small and not too elegant compared to others really but we liked the small size of the ship making it easy to get around, which is why chose this one. We really didnt care for the line up with 1 plate thing in the lido buffet restaurant. You had to get a plate, no trays, and go up to get what you wanted every time, and then be served. Sometimes the server gave small portions and the walkway behind was narrow and often got crowded with people walking into each other as they were passing by.Otherwise,the service and food was the best we've ever had on any cruise line to date.Bartenders and servers everywhere were the best.The captain was great. We liked the clean ship & restrooms and signs asking to wash hands everywhere,use towels on existing restrooms to grab door knob and to wash thorougly. There werent too many families with small childlen either. Whenever there were mammals to see hed announce where to look.We didnt go thru Tracy Arm because of some problems, I think lo visibility and ice so that was disappointing but nothing to be done understandably. Contrary to the first review and perhaps because we are in our 40-50's age range we found the shows lacking in quality and the bar/lounge areas other than Ocean Bar, more to the liking of people probably in their 70's up.We dont care for a bar with violins all night or a piano player that lacks some. They need 1 area with more contemporay music playing.The band in the disco wasnt the greatest and there never were many people up there.Otherwise the ports and scenery were outstanding altho some ports seem to have alot of rip off jewlery stores,and touristy stores mostly owned by cruise lines we were told. We thought Ketchikan had alot of pretentious and over exaggerated shows just for tourists and we prefer to see the nature and natural beauty of places.We went off ship and arranged our own individual tours for what we wanted at 1/2 the price of the ships. The getting on off the ship was really organized in all the ports and when the trip was over. We give this trip an 8 out of 10 because the carinn, great service,ship cleanliness and great food bypassed the bad service in our cabin. We had a good time and would probably use this line again and go a diferent route to see more of Alaska.

Cabin Review

Large Interior Stateroom

Cabin J

a huge disappointment due to an inattentive attendant;see review above;lacked good service,cleanliness and necesary accomodating items and poor air conditioning the entire time and from what we saw unless it was a suite most cabins not that large.

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