This was a repeat of the trip we did last December to the Panama Canal except this was an 11 day instead of a 10 day. We made an additional stop at Bonaire on this trip. We flew down the day before (Sunday) and stayed at the Residence Inn in Weston. This is outside of Fort Lauderdale and we like the area and shopping there. We also go to one of favorite restaurants Tarantella. Great food and service and very reasonable. We always rent a car so we don't have any problems getting around. After a relaxing night, we got up the next morning had their complimentary breakfast, did a little repacking and headed for the port about 10:30. I dropped off the luggage then dropped off my wife and DD while I returned the rental car. If you are not aware, Hertz does not have a shuttle back to the port. They were nice enough to give me a ride over. Went in and registered which was a snap and then had to wait about 20 minutes before we could board. We had to wait a little longer since my wife required a wheel chair. We had rented one, but it was in the room and we couldn't get to it so we used one of the complementary ones from the ship. We went directly to the Lido. We were also waiting for some friends who were going to join us. Since they live in FL, they were driving in the morning of the sailing. After they arrived we all ate lunch and got ready for a relaxing vacation. As we were walking through the Lido we ran into a couple that we had met when we were on the Eurodam three years ago. The funny part was they came to our renewal of our vows that year and this year we were celebrating our 40th anniversary and renewing our vows again. Guess we won't see them until we renew them again!

We really enjoyed ourselves on this cruise. You cannot get better service than we had on this ship. Everyone was willing to help and do anything they could to help you. Herman and Superman in the dining room were great. Even though we had As You Wish dining, we found these two and really liked them so we reserved the table every night except when we were eating in one of the other restaurants. It was table 141, the same table we had last year! We always went to the Pinnacle Bar for a drink or two before dinner. There we had Don the Bartender and Ryan the server. They were wonderful and make some really good drinks. Every night if we were not finished with our drinks Ryan would pick them up and carry them to our table in the dining room-- talk about service. Ryan also worked out on the Lido Pool during the day. He would always find us and take care of us. One day my wife didn't know what she wanted, something cold, chocolate, no coffee or alcohol. Ryan disappeared for a bit and came back with a "special" drink for her. He had gone up to the crow's nest and made this for her. He also brought her back 2 brownies in case she was hungry! We gave him a very nice tip at the end of the cruise, he was well worth it.

We had reserved a SS suite (8068) for the cruise since this was a special occasion of celebrating our anniversary. We usually get a regular balcony. We had had an SS on the Eurodam and loved the extra room. Well much to our dismay the rooms on the Zuiderdam are much smaller than on the Eurodam. We were a little disappointed with that, but that was my fault I should have done more research on the Cruise Critic before I reserved the room. Many people have talked about the air conditioning in their room. We never had a problem, in fact we never had it turned up full blast, and I like it cold in the room. The room location was great, we were close to everything. Read more