Cindi

Age: 44
Occupation: Legal Assistant
Number of Cruises: 8
Cruise Line: Holland America
Name of Ship: Zuiderdam
Sailing Date: May 17th, 2003
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

This was our 6th Holland America cruise. In summary, the Zuiderdam was our least favorite ship of any that we have cruised on on any line and this was our least favorite cruise of all.

Embarkation:

This was the usual all-day ordeal that Holland America makes it. We stayed overnight in Ft. Lauderdale the night before and arrived at Port Everglades around 10:30 a.m. They took our luggage and then we waited in the hot sun to be allowed in to begin the embarkation procedures at 11:00 a.m. Holland America has two separate lines, one for people who have filled out their immigration forms on-line and one for those who did not. Supposedly doing the form on-line gave you “express check in.” We found this to be hardly the case. Most of the people filled the form out on-line, so those who did not were in a much shorter line. Hardly an incentive to fill out the form ahead of time! After waiting about 45 minutes to get our room assignment, we then had to wait in line to have our picture taken so it would show up on the computers when we exited and entered the ship. After this we were sent to what we call the HAL holding pen for about 3 hours before we were allowed to board. Priority boarding is given to those in wheelchairs and those in the upper bracket suites. Numbers are given out and then after the priority boarding, everyone else boards by numbers, after having your picture taken yet again for the first of numerous photo ops throughout the cruise. We had number 13 and boarded about 2:00. We were pointed in the direction of our room, not escorted. We have since found out that Holland America’s embarkation procedures are the most tedious of all lines. We were exhausted from all the waiting around.

Our Room:

Our room was a “B” category balcony room on the Verandah Deck located about fifteen rooms from the back of the ship. We had never been this far back before, but we were upgraded for a minimal charge and also had never had a balcony before, so we thought we would give it a try. Were we disappointed with this room! An outside room has much more room to walk around in because the beds are up against the window. In this balcony room, the beds were up against the one of the walls so we could get to the balcony door. This made a tight squeeze. HAL cut down the amount of closet space from 4 to 3, and did away with the nice 4 drawer space they had and replaced it with a mini-bar. The bathroom is very plain and very small. It is so small that there is not enough room for the hair dryer, that is “hidden” in a cabinet by the mini-bar. Nobody would call this a tub and a shower. The tub was the size of a dog tub, no person could take a bath in that tub. This room was not cleaned very well. There were no hangers – we had to call for those. There was no bath mat – we had to call for that. During our stay, the telephone broke and we waited almost two days for them to fix that. A light switch broke so that we had to sleep one night with the light on. These things you would expect on an older ship, not on a brand new one! Everyday our room had a different odor. One day it was diesel fuel. Another day it was cooking smells. This was a common complaint with people in our area of the ship. We also could not control the air conditioning. The vents were located right above our beds and always seemed to be blowing. Anytime anyone else used their balcony and closed the door, the whole row shook. We were not impressed with this room and would not even take a balcony room again if it was offered as an upgrade. We have had much nicer rooms when we selected a large outside room.

The Ship:

The Zuiderdam is a poorly designed ship and so different from all other HAL ships that it does not even look like a HAL ship. It has long, mazelike hallways and huge wasted space between the main elevators. This probably where they get their space ratio figures from, the enormous amount of space in the hallways by the main elevators to each floor. The three-tier open air atrium is no more; it has been replaced with a bar on one floor, a sitting area on the second floor and a crystal seahorse hanging on the third floor. So plain compared to the atrium on the Amsterdam, Volendam, Zaandam, etc.

This ship is being poorly maintained. There were several areas of railing, particularly on the back balconies, that were already down to the bare wood with varnish scraped off. These were more worn than on any other ship we have been on and this ship is only six months old. There were also several cracked tiles on the floor throughout the ship as well as buckling of the countertops in the Lido buffet. In addition, we never saw any HAL workers on the ship fixing problems like this. On other voyages, they were always polishing, cleaning, painting the ship to keep it looking new.

The movie theater has been replaced with a multipurpose theater. The screen goes all the way to the floor and you cannot see the movie if anybody is sitting in front of you because the aisles are all the same height! In addition, the ship rotated five movies for the seven-day cruise, meaning movies were repeated numerous times. There was a better selection of movies in the room, but there were only a few of those and they were also repeated not only throughout the day but on another day as well. HAL really has to do something about their TV problem. They lose the CNN station after the first day of the cruise and all they get is CNN Europe. They do not get the signal back until close to the last day of the cruise. There is virtually no way to get any news except for the barely adequate newsletter they send around each day. This is because they now want you to buy newspapers from them. They also no longer have complimentary papers in the library that you can read.

In the three-tier show lounge, you can only see the dancers’ feet if you are more than halfway back in the second tier due to the overhang of the balcony. By the time we realized this, of course, all the seats were filled and we could not move. Also have never seen so many pillars blocking the view in any show lounge. Trying to find a seat that did not have an obstructed view was a tough job.

The library is located in a very noisy spot, not fair away from the crowds for those who like to read. We liked the library since it seemed to be the only spot on the ship with a different type of air conditioning vent and we could actually sit in there and not freeze to death or have cold air blowing on us.

The shopping area is so small that it is not pleasant to have to step all over people to look at things -- we didn’t buy a thing. And there were never any sales announced like on other ships, no closeout on T-shirts, no purses, etc. In fact, very few things were thrown under our door announcing anything. They do not actually put this stuff under your door anymore, there are little mail slots next to your door.

It is too cold almost everywhere in this ship, except for the Lido Restaurant. It is too hot on one end of it – we were told that is due to the constant opening of the doors by the pool. This was never a problem on any other HAL ship. The Explorers Lounge was probably 50 degrees, it was too cold to even sit in there. The Queens Lounge was also very cold. There always seemed to be a draft everywhere due to the long hallways mentioned earlier. And the cover over the inside swimming pool creaks like it’s fifty years old when they attempt to close it.

We had our dining in the upper level of the dining room and looked out on the walk-around deck instead of the beautiful ocean. And people walking around kept looking in at us while we were eating. We did not appreciate this design again and wished we had known about it and could have changed to the main dining room. Also did not appreciate the long table we had with eight people. We have always had a round table before and liked that much better for conversation purposes.

Shore Excursions:

General note: We realize that shore excursions continue to be a bigger and bigger source of income for cruise lines, but they continue to be a bigger and bigger source of irritation for passengers. We have had it with the crammed in like sardines, old, barely working air conditioning buses that we are shoved on to do your shore excursions. In Grand Cayman, they put 26 people on a bus that only fit 22 comfortably, 4 people had to use jump seats. In Cozumel, the bus was old as the hills and the air conditioning did not work very well at all, and this was over an hour ride. We do not appreciate this ridiculous and stressful way of sight-seeing and will tour on our own from now on. You would think that HAL would do a better job on these shore excursions since most of the tours are available directly at the dock for less price than the ship charges.

Key West: Took the Trolley tour, $34 booked through the ship or $29 on your own. However, if you book on your own, you have to wait until all ship passengers have their tour and go later in the afternoon, so it’s worth the extra $5 to go earlier. This was described as a ninety-minute tour but it only lasted a little over an hour. Key West is a delightful little town and we enjoyed this tour. But beware that the trolleys have no air conditioning and you cannot open the windows all the way, they give you paper fans when you board. It is highly advisable to take this tour in the morning before the heat of the day. We then toured the town on our own and enjoyed some conch fritters and Key Lime pie.

Cozumel: We paid $158 for two of us to take an island tour of Cozumel and then see a folk show. People who only saw the show paid $39 each. The 1 1/2 hour tour of the island consisted of taking us to the south side of the island where nobody lives! The tour guide even told us nobody lives there, no hotels, nothing to see. There is nothing except a small lookout point called La Mirador to see. We were not impressed with this island at all. We might have felt differently if we had been there longer than a few hours and had a chance to explore it more thoroughly. Some of the shore excursions were not available to us due to the limited time we spent at this port.

Grand Cayman: We took the Island Drive which basically consisted of a tour to Hell and the Turtle Farm. Think this was $39. Hell is a place that takes five minutes to tour. The gift shop has throngs of people all piling out of buses at once so you can’t get near anything to buy. The Turtle Farm is a nice place to visit once. This was a two-hour drive which left us plenty of time for shopping. There were numerous ships in port that day, the shopping area was very crowded.

Half Moon Cay: Having been to this island numerous times, we did not get off the ship this day. We wanted to, but there was an announcement that tender service was very slow due to giant sea squalls. We watched the tenders from our balcony and they were really rocking back and forth, so we decided to take a pass. But this is a beautiful island and a nice place to sit and relax and you do not have to spend a dime for any shore excursions, just relax in the sun and then head to the pavilion for a delicious barbeque lunch.

The Food:

The food was adequate, nothing spectacular. Holland America has replaced the buffet in the Lido area with a food court type of arrangement. We prefer the buffet where you slide your tray up and down and pick out what you want. The new arrangement has you getting some pasta, then you have to carry the try all the way to the other side for a sandwich, and then carry it around to the middle for something to drink. And nobody helps the elderly with their trays like on other ships, either. There is also no midnight buffet (replaced with a “late night snack”); no more Dutch Chocolate Extravaganza (replaced with some “dessert” thing that is not very well advertised); very limited menu choice on room service; no more Dutch High Tea (replaced with tea in the Explorers’ Lounge). These are all cut backs that HAL has made across the board that in our opinion regulate Holland America to a standard cruise line from the premium title it held before. They also now charge for all specialty coffees and even have a separate café called the “Windstar Café” where you purchase all these items. We did enjoy the pizza and pasta station which is open 18 hours a day. The alternative restaurant now cost $20 per person. HAL is the last cruise line to charge for this fancier type of dining, so although we do not fault them there, we did not eat in this restaurant. We feel we pay enough for the cruise which includes food served in the dining room and are not about to pay extra to dine. The decor here is really quite garish and we did not care for the look at all. We were able to tour this restaurant as they excorted us through this restaurant to the kitchen tour.

Summary:

In summary, we did not like the style of Holland America’s new Vista-class of ship and will not be traveling on another one of them. We also will not be booking ahead of time on Holland America anymore, but instead will wait until closer to sailing date and see what bargains are available on Holland America or another line. There are just too many people getting much better prices when they book closer to sail date. There really is no advantage that we can see to booking a year or even six months ahead. Would we sail on HAL again? Yes, if the price was right and the itinerary was something more than the same old boring Caribbean ports. But not on a Vista class ship. In short, this was a most disappointing cruise from a cruise line that we had come to know and love.

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