To begin with we had never been on a ship the size of the Statendam before but would not hesitate to travel on a small ship again.

We began our cruise by travelling from CA the day before the cruise and spent the night at a Best Western near the airport. The hotel was filled with fellow cruisers including the Statendam and Westerdam. We enjoyed a good night's sleep after eating at a nearby Cuban restaurant. Holland emailed us that embarkation was to be delayed by one hour. So, on Friday morning several fellow passengers took a shuttle to Total Wine where we stocked up on wine, soda, and bottled water for our two week cruise. My husband could have spent hours in the wine shop and said that the prices were very close to those found in CA. We took at shuttle from the hotel for $8 per person to the port. The driver loaded and unloaded our luggage and we gave an extra tip to the baggage handlers at the dock to make sure our wine was not broken. Embarkation was a breeze. We signed our health form and got into a very short line and were soon on the ship and to our room. We had not booked a non-balcony room for several cruises but were impressed with the size of our outside room and the large window over our bed. We were surprised that our luggage was delivered within a half hour to our stateroom. The mandatory muster went fairly fast and only one person had to be paged tersely by the captain before we were cleared.

This was the first cruise that we did not sign up for late seating but instead opted for open seating. We ended up going to dinner at about 7 pm every night. We had travelled with 6 other family/friends. The first night we all ate together but from then on four of us usually ate in the dining room while others opted for the Lido or Italian venues. The longest wait was 10 minutes and the staff did their best to seat us right away. We ate at different tables each night but on several nights had the same wait staff. Our food was good to very good. All food was hot and we had good service(even with Code Red). We even ate in the main dining room the final night and I believe the food selections that night had improved since our last Master Chef dinner in 2010. We ate in the Lido for breakfasts and lunch. We did not eat in the specialty restaurants on this trip. We thought the food in the Lido was very good. I believe that the eggs were better than on the Eurodam in 2010 and 2011 as they were not as salty. Read more