This was the worst service I’d ever experienced on a ship. They didn’t seem to have enough crew for sailing at full capacity.
Food in the main dining room was quite pedestrian, with emphasis on inexpensive foods such as chicken and pasta. Portions were consistently small. Traditional sides such as garden salad and baked potato were not available. There were even fewer menu choices on the two formal nights. The service could be exceedingly slow and there were numerous mix ups on orders.
The buffet had lousy food and lousy service. Many items listed on the buffet menu were not available. One night I was hoping to get the Asian entrees listed on the menu, but the Asian station never opened for dinner. There were usually long lines, which was frustrating when they didn’t operate all of the stations. Many of the people in line were crew members, so they obviously don’t give priority to passengers. All beverages except breakfast juices must be obtained from the servers, but there are very few servers, so we sometimes went the entire meal without having a beverage. The juices were always warm. The coffee – when it could be obtained – was always lukewarm.
Holland America misled us about our cabin. The photos and diagrams for an inside Category L show a small sofa, but there was actually no place to sit and it was very cramped. The mini bar was too warm to be of any use.