Terry Anderson

Age: 46
Occupation: CPA
Number of Cruises: 12+
Cruise Line: Holland America
Name of Ship: Zuiderdam
Sailing Date: July 5th, 2003
Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean

My wife and I just returned last week from the July 5th to 12th cruise on the Zuiderdam. We have been on over a dozen cruises, but this was our first with Holland America.

The Good:
The check in was a breeze, even with the wait to have our pictures taken by video cam and put on our cards. Great idea. When you check in and out of the ship’s gangway your picture shows on their computer screen so nobody else can come aboard using your card. I heard a couple at our table say it took them longer to check-in. They did not fill in the immigration forms online, as I did, so maybe that was the difference.

When we arrived at our cabin our bags (all of them) were already inside the room. That was a first. We had cruises before where we dragged them in ourselves after hearing them dumped outside the door much later. The cabin was nice. We had a bathtub and a little more space in the bathroom than we usually had on ships before. The little tub is a big improvement over banging your elbows in one of those little fiberglass showers. The balcony was a little tight, but adequate.

The ship (inside at least) and its amenities are beautiful. The carpet is a little wild for my taste, but not bad enough to complain about. The food at the Vista Dining Room was the best we have ever had on a cruise ship. We did not try the Odyssey ($20 per person charge, reservations required) Restaurant. Most of the support staff (despite a language problem with some of the stewards) was extremely courteous. As usual our cabin steward was excellent and seemed to be the hardest working person on the ship. Whenever we needed something he was usually easy to find and eager to please. He even gave us his personal bathroom night-light to use when I showed him that the polarity plug on the one we brought prevented me from plugging it into the only outlet in our bathroom. I don’t like flipping on their 300 watts of lights and singeing my eyeballs when taking a middle of the night bathroom break.

The shows were good enough. We have seen better and worse on other ships.

I heard and read before that Holland America is the cruise line of the elderly, not that I cared one way or the other, but I thought this particular sailing had just the right mix of all ages.

The Bad:
The first night we went down a little after 8:00pm for our late seating dinner. Our cabin was just around the corner from the elevator and 3 decks directly above the dining room. When the elevator doors opened there were so many people in line that we could hardly get out. I decided to go back up and wait for the line to clear. At 8:30pm I called the front desk to ask if the line is that bad every night. The lady stated that it probably would not be as bad, but “You had better go down now because they are ready to close the doors”. After hearing my “Excuse me?” she repeated the statement. So, you stand in line at 8:15pm and if you arrive a whole 15 minutes later they close the doors on you! Breakfast is from 8:00am to 9:30am most days (which is not too bad), but lunch is only from noon to 1:00pm. These short, rigid time frames for the dining room force a large percentage of the ship (us included) up to the Lido Deck to stand in numerous long lines for mediocre cafeteria food. Then, when you do get your food, trying to find an empty table is an adventure in itself. After the second day of this we split up in separate teams, one to look for a table and the other to get in line with the trays. This is not my idea of vacation.

My wife had a hard time opening the balcony door. It took a little leaning into it to open it and it closed with such force that I would think it to be a hazard for young children. They have a sign telling you not to leave it open for air conditioning purposes. I think they worried too much about making sure it stayed shut, and not enough about what would happen if some child slipped and had their head or fingers slammed in the heavy door.

I thought it would be convenient, but, if you’re a light sleeper, do not get a room too close to the elevator. The sound from the hall travels right through the door like it was open. About 6:00am every morning you can expect to start hearing DING –DONG several times a minute until you are ready to scream profanities. Forget about covering your ears with the pillows. They are so small and soft I think they must have sewed napkins together with just the cotton from inside an aspirin bottle in each one.

The tender service to get off at the little private island (Half Moon Cay) was ridiculously slow. THREE HOURS after beginning they still had people taking numbers and waiting in the lounge for tenders. They need to use more tenders or hire some efficiency experts to teach them how to move people faster, or both.

In St. Maarten we went on the Golden Eagle excursion. Mostly to snorkel at the reef described in the booklet. At the pier we were told that, due to the weather, we were sailing to an alternative “dive site”. Anyone prone to seasickness was allowed to abort the trip and receive a refund. A few left, we stayed. It was not until after we relinquished our tickets and were on the boat that the captain announced that this alternative site was simply a beach with NO REEF. So I ended up paying $160 for a boat ride to a beach, about $10 worth of canned rum punch and some little sandwiches. By the way, the little sandwiches are apparently supposed to be the hors d’oeuvres described in the booklet.

I started to feel bad that afternoon and had a full blown cold by the next morning. We booked online and prepaid for an excursion in St Thomas(Tiki Party Boat) departing at 1:00pm that afternoon. I went down to the front desk as early as I could. They said to go out on the Pier and speak to the excursion people. I found a young man named Brett that apparently just got out of college with a degree in apathy. “No refunds, no exceptions” is all he said. They do not care how sick you are or what the reason for not going. Once they have your money they will not give it back. When I asked him “with all the virus problems on cruise ships last year and now the SARS scares, do you really want for me to go on this crowded boat ride and possibly spread my cold to several other passengers so early in the cruise week?” His response. “That’s your decision to make sir, but we will not give your money back”.

The Ugly:
Who picked that hideous color for the outside of the Holland America ships? It makes them look like an ugly barge or freighter. What do you call that color, Navy Blue Black Purple? The inside is beautiful and the Zuiderdam is almost new, but it looks ten years old from the pier because of the paint color.

In conclusion I think this will probably be our first and last experiment with Holland America. I see no reason to try them again unless they go to an open seating dining policy such as NCL or offer a particularly attractive itinerary that no one else has. I found the absolutely no refunds policy on cancelled excursions to be particularly annoying also.

Ask a Question About Holland America Cruises