This cruise started off with a pretty big hiccup but all said it was a great vacation. We spent the night before our cruise at the Vinoy in St Pete's. We woke up to an email saying that due to fog our ship was delayed arriving and there would be an update at 9am. At 9am we got the exact same email with no update. The communication from HAL was lacking. The other cruise lines seemed to have done a better job updating passengers about what was going on etc. The port finally reopened that afternoon and our ship got into port around 5:30pm. They had to disembark all of the passengers and finally around 9:30pm we were able to start boarding. Because of the fog delay we spent the night onboard in Tampa and had to skip Key West. I wasn't too disappointed about missing Key West as it ranks towards the bottom of all vacations I've ever taken. HAL did give every passenger a $50 onboard credit because of the delay. We left port Monday morning and sailed straight to Trujillo the 2d port.

We had just come off the Veedam the week before and I enjoyed the Rotterdam much more. The dining room had a better feel to it. They also had two sets of connect 4 in the exploration lounge which made my kids' week ;). The coffee in the exploration lounge was definitely worth the added cost. The free coffee was not good in the lido or the main dining room.

The itinerary on this cruise was fantastic. I really felt like we got to see more of the "real" Central America. Cruising the Caribbean it can sometimes seem like the islands are interchangeable, but going on to mainland Central America made the trip more about culture and less a beach vacation. Read more