As 3 star Mariners with HAL [had sailed 137 cruise nights on HAL since 2007], decided to celebrate our anniversary and birthday on the Nieuw Amsterdam - Alaska Cruise. Made the reservation through our HAL personal cruise consultant directly and mentioned about our special occasions cruise celebration when place our reservation several months ahead. Also, mentioned to our PCC that we had a very disappointing previous cruise on Koningsdam during our sailing on April 3, 2022 cruise

The ship was not sailing in full capacity, only 600 plus passengers our of 2,650-passenger capacity. We were assigned a cabin located right below a window cleaning apparatus machinery - our balcony almost always flooded with water spouting from this equipment throughout our sailing to Alaska. Although the ship was not traveling in full capacity, HAL managed to assigned all veranda cabins on our floor right next to each other. Throughout our 7 day cruise, we had a neighbor to our right dragging their patio furniture during late evening [they were drinking on the veranda until late at night] and the neighbor to our left got up very early in the morning, talked loudly, competing with their high level TV volume control. In the evening, we could hear knocking sound behind our toilet sounded like water leaks behind the toilet wall in our bathroom. For our anniversary 'surprise' - we received 1 [one] cupcake with Happy Anniversary written on the plate and a red smudge next to it. The same cupcake served at Lido buffet daily. HAL was known for superb accommodation in the past, however post Covid it seemed that the housekeeping standard took a dive to the worse [see photos]