My husband and I had a wonderful time on our recent cruise on the Koningsdam. We would definitely go on this ship again. Our cruise began in Rome and ended in Amsterdam, and it was action packed! Wonderful port cities, almost too much to absorb in two weeks. The ship itself is absolutely beautiful--very elegant and the specialty dining rooms are especially nice. As for changes that other cruisers have noted, I have the same set of complaints: 1) the Promenade deck is narrower with restricted views of the water. No deck chairs!; 2) no library; 3) the character of the Crow's Nest seems to have changed. It's not the elegant spot it was before. There was a lot of spill over from the Explorer's Cafe. On the other hand, we enjoyed the new music venues, particularly the BB King Blues Club. The food in the specialty restaurants was especially good, and the decor in the Tamirand was beautiful.

Dining was rather mixed for us. The dining room is beautiful and the service continues to excel. We didn't thing the food was quite as good as on our other HAL cruises. It was very good, but not superb. Eating in the Lido was problematic. If we went during traditional meal hours, it could be quite difficult to find a table anywhere. We found that a good number of passengers liked to stake out tables and stay there for hours--it was an important meeting place for them. We liked the pizza restaurant and the Dutch cafe. We never went hungry for sure.

As for other issues there were many positives. Embarkation was a bit of a crowded mess, but disembarkation was incredibly easy. Our bus transportation from the airport was very easy, although there was a pretty long walk through a very crowded airport in between baggage claim and the buses. We stayed in a Neptune Suite, so it was lovely and our cabin stewards were excellent. We only went on one ship excursion to Normandy, but we also used the ship as transportation to Florence which worked very smoothly. Read more