Volendam Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We arrived in Anchorage on May 24, and two-thirds of our 15-day journey was spent in Alaska and the Yukon. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing it all, despite all the travel (six hotels in 10 days, about 1200 miles). We wish there had been an extra day in Whitehorse. The train ride to Denali was a relaxing day, and the Tundra Wilderness Tour was a good overview of the park. We enjoyed both Dawson City and Whitehorse in the Yukon, despite the former's touristy feel on its main street.
We tended to eat at the restaurants in the Westmark hotels we stayed in (usually for convenience). (Westmark is owned by HAL.) The hotel food was usually quite good, although we ate at other restaurants three times during the trip, and especially enjoyed the Aurora Inn restaurant in Dawson City, a short block from the hotel.
We enjoyed our last two land days in Skagway, especially the city museum on Seventh Street: it was a gem that would not have been out of place in a big city.
Cabin Review
Lanai Ocean-View Stateroom
We loved the cabin's large window and glass door, its ready access to the Lower Promenade deck, and the reserved deck chairs. Although the weather was cool, my wife found a bin of heavy wool blankets to wrap herself in, and we both spent many hours over four days enjoying the views.
The large shower in the bathroom was a surprise: there was a small step-over, but the shower floor was the same tile as the rest of the bathroom, so there was no difficulty in access.
The bed was comfortable, no complaints. The lights took a bit of getting used to, since there were essentially two settings, one over the window and closet/bathroom hallway, and the other over the loveseat and beds. Each side of the bed had reading lamps that were largely useless, since they didn't produce enough light to read by.
The cabin was quiet: we didn't hear anything from the deck, the hallway, above us, or from either side. Overall, it looked new (and was apparently re-done in late 2014 when the ship was in drydock). It wasn't big, but we thought it was cozy and worked well for us, save that the love seat was quite snug (we're tall). On the positive side, the loveseat was next to the window, so when there was too much wind or rain, we took turns sitting there watching the water.
We brought DVDs, understanding that the cabins had appropriate players. Our cabin didn't have a player, so I called the front desk to request one. An engineer came by a few minutes later with one. He set it on the desk, and ran a heavy multi-conductor cable to the flat-screen TV on the wall next to the desk (that faced the bed). He explained that lanai cabins didn't have a place for the player to be, so they were installed as requested. It turned out the player was strictly standard definition, so picture and sound quality would have been quite low. We decided not to use it for those reasons.
Overall, the deck access, reserved deck chairs, and newness of the cabin fittings (especially the shower) made the bump-up in price from an ocean-view cabin well worth it.
Port Reviews
Ketchikan
Visited in the rain, so didn't see much. My wife went the local museum and enjoyed it. From the ship, the main street looked to be exclusively jewelry and tourist-oriented goods.
Glacier Bay
Beautiful! Especially liked the ship turning in place so folks on both sides of the ship could see the Margerie glacier.
Skagway
Very crowded during the day, but quieted down at dinnertime as folks returned to their ships. There were four in port the first two days we were there: over 10,000 on board!
Be sure to visit the Skagway City Museum on Seventh Street off Broadway: very nice small museum.