Having sailed on Celebrity, RCI, Norwegian, Seabourn we decided to try HAL's Nieuw Statendam. We sailed from FLL aboard the Nieuw Statendam. we stayed in port prior to the cruise and loved the Marriott harbor beach resort which is normally a 10 min ride to the cruise port. The ship in general is beautiful and elegant. There are elevators at the forward, mid and aft sections (this is recently become an issue on some new ships.) I enjoyed the various artwork displays from paintings to needlepoint crafted sewing machine and iron including a cord and plug. port side has odd numbered rooms and starboard has even numbered rooms. each bank of elevators has a *you are here" red dot on a cross section deck plan of the ship. the music venues (rolling stones, dual pianos-Billboard, classical, BBKing) are on the second floor but you could hear the music from chairs looking down over the music venue on 3. BB King/classical was closed off by glass doors from the rolling stones and billboard. the rolling stones and billboard alternated who was playing. The theater entrances were on 2 and 3. Casino was on 3 and was smoke filled at the one half of the casino where smoking was permitted. Hence i did not spend any time there. There were very few children on the cruise with most of the people being >60 years old.

Embarkation: arrival time was 1pm as directed by HAL. I had made the mistake of believing what i read here that people were being directed to enter at specific times by floor. The entire ship and all other ships must have arrived @1PM. fort lauderdale was one huge traffic jam. What should have taken no more than 30 minutes, became 2.5 hours of traffic gridlock and a disney like queue entrance to the ship.

signature suite: the suite is done in neutral colors. There is a bedroom with a 50 inch tv, and couch under the TV. the other room had a hidden murphy bed, a large desk/dressing table with lighted mirror, sockets (american --you cannot fit a 3 prong hairdryer plug into it. and european socket with a HAL provided european plug hairdryer), and drawers on both sides. there were even shelves and hooks on the walls. there were two large closets, the usual safe,.a magnificent bathroom with a shower with stationary & removable showerheads and shower wall body spray fixtures. their bathrobes were so roomy and comfortable. there is a large balcony with two lounge chairs and a small table and two chairs on the other side. Read more