We chose this cruise primarily for the Panama canal.
Pre cruise
We flew from London Heathrow into Miami the evening before. Holland America booked the transfers from Miami to our Fort Lauderdale hotel, the hotel itself and the transfers to the ship the following day, all of which worked very smoothly, with no significant waiting around for any service. Holland America representatives were on ...
Super easy to book and do your homework with their easy Holland America website!
We booked based on a new ship and because of the ports and itinerary. They met/exceeded expectations! The docking disembarkation, whether walk-off or tender, was flawless!
Its not set up to attract a family with young kids (no slides or bumper cars, etc.), and that's good if you need a break from that. I'd say ...
What a delightful cruise.
Excellent crew/staff on the cruise ship, wonderful excursions. The ship was small and ready for a refurb, but it made good use of the space. I highly recommend Alligators by Night and Rubber Planation and Indigenous Village in Manaus, as well as Piranha Fishing in Santarem. Trinidad was a great port, the friendliest one we visited in Caribean.
Tamarind pop-up ...
My family of four including 2 kids, age 11 and 7, sailed on Rotterdam for 9 days in February 2024 and had a wonderful time! This is our 3rd HAL cruise and they continue to impress. The crew on board Rotterdam is fantastic! I'm so impressed with how hard they work and their ability to remember all of our names by the end of the 1st day of the cruise. HAL still does housekeeping twice a day which I ...
We had a very nice 9 day Southern Caribbean cruise that visited Aruba and Curaçao. We missed our stop on Half Moon Cay due to the weather. We booked Club Orange and a Retreat Cabana in advance, both enhanced our experience greatly as the ship sailed full. We tried to dine in all of the specialty restaurants except the Pinnacle Grill which we’ve dined in many times on other ships. We really ...
Here’s what I wish I knew before I went. Excellent location for access to the front of the ship, spa, wet steam, dry sauna, hydro pool, gym, kid-free sundeck on deck 12. The food was excellent everyday except the first day in the Lido. On that day I got the lasagna from the buffet that was not very good. However I was told the lasagna in the dining room was much much better. In fact the lasagna ...
Amazing time!
Great food in all places
Great service all around
Ports, we love the Aqua Trax at Halfmoon Cay. We appreciated the clean up and move of clam shells down the beach.
Grand Turks- Margaritaville stay- their is a beach at Port. John Glenn exhibit to the right is cool then a smaller beach behind it.
Amber Cove - did a bus City tour. Tour guy Homberto was great. Stopped ...
We were on a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise on Holland's Nieuw Statendam from Feb. 4- 11. We loved the ship and were to have stops in Half Moon Cay (loved it), Ocho Rios, Jamaica (got cancelled due to damage of a Carnival Ship in their pier), and re routed to Montego Bay, Jamaica (didn't care for it), Grand Cayman ( got cancelled due to a severe storm that hit it before we got there), and finally ...
We are cruising with HAL for almost 10 years. And this is the first time we feel obliged to express some critique. We are in our 70s and we do expect that HAL will provide quality time for people like us . This time too many elements of good cruise were missing.
First, the usual entertainment at night, at the main stage, was extremely poor. The three shows with dancers were at high school ...
We were on a 7 night Western Caribbean cruise with scheduled stops in Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.
Embarkation was fairly fast. At Fort Lauderdale, you are put in a group of 30 people and you board when your group is called, so it was about 45 minutes to board, with no issues at all with getting to our cabin.
The ship itself is beautiful and well kept. We noticed that none of the ...