We booked this cruise as ports looked great (japan to Vancouver via Alaska) and thought would try holland America line. Overall we enjoyed everything - staff great, food amazing, efficient off and on boat, shows pretty good. A different culture compared to our previous celebrity, princess and royal Caribbean cruises. Found the cruise to be very relaxing with lots of time to read, play games and ...
We loved our cruise itinerary. Seeing Japan was our goal and the added days in Shanghai, South Korea, and Alaska were nice additional perks. The ports were all fantastic and the excursions we took through HAL were very good but the excursions team had to make changes to some of the tours and itineraries and instead of being transperent with their reasons, hid behind no-blame disclosures in their ...
We took this cruise because we wanted to see Japan, as well as Shanghai, Alaska and Vancouver. And this cruise did it all!
We love the Volendam!! Just the right size, not crowded, great staff everywhere (except EXC tours, more on that later). Nothing was "pushed:" photos, drinks, drink packages, unlike some other lines. Spent some time in the just-the-right-size casino.
Embarkation: I ...
There were three adults in our cabin, an inside cabin, that was supposed to be wheelchair-accessible, but when the third adult was added to the reservation, the travel agent changed us to the wrong sized cabin. Not the cruiseline's fault. At once when we arrived with 14 pieces of luggage split between 3 adults in an interior tiny cabin, we called to ask for a larger cabin. At first we were ...
The Volendam had recently refurbished their bathrooms and public areas but unfortunately did not refurbish their cabins which were very tired indeed. Great storage though in Cabin. The ship was continually cold onboard and we were given a variety of reasons why the air conditioning continued to blast out cold air yet I have seen other reviews about HAL complaining about the cold onboard their ...
I loved the itinerary of my cruise on the Volendam. I sailed from Singapore to Shanghai and discovered many unknown ports and countries. As far as the itinerary was concerned the trip exceeded expectations.
As usual the crew from Holland Amerika was great as well. However there are some improvements that could be made. Especially during the second leg of the trip, from Hong Kong to Shanghai, ...
We chose this cruise because of the itinerary and the price. Apart from Bali, the ports of call were nothing to write home about.....but we loved this holiday because of the ship...not too big, well appointed, quiet, delicious food, excellent service, lovely cabin....we really appreciated the recently refurbished bathrooms. Our cabin stewards did a great job and the nightly towel sculptures ...
For an older ship we were impressed. Dining room dinners were great, both the selection of food and quality of wait staff. Lido food as expected was mediocre but about as expected. the burger bar on Lido deck was better than expected. Several quality burger offerings.
Everything was on time; the Captain appeared at several occasions in the showroom and was nice to listen to about some ...
We chose this cruise as it went to spots in Indonesia that would be difficult to arrange by air. We also like round trip vice lineal itineraries, The staff did not provide us with a tile at the Mariners luncheon, however guest services was happy to give them when we requested at their counter, and also seemed surprised they had not been distributed, Missed seeing a ships log cruise summary that ...
We had a great time on Volendam’s 14 day, February 14 Indonesia sailing from/to Singapore. The crew was great, food was very good and the ship is in excellent condition. It had been several years since we sailed HAL and thoroughly enjoyed this sailing. For the past several years, we have been Celebrity faithfuls and I will post what we saw as very minor differences between the two brands. The ...