"My partner and I are in our early 30s and this was our second cruise. Our first was with Royal Caribbean to the South Pacific. We chose Holland America expecting a better experience considering the price difference..."Read More
Strongest recommendation to future cruisers: book the Rotterdam IMMEDIATELY if you’re looking for:
—LOUSY FOOD (except for the specialty dining rooms, which HAL surely is up-selling by downgrading everything and everywhere else). Dining room flavorless food is suited to senior living; much-touted “Dive-In” burgers are dry and flavorless.
—CREAKY SHIP which, in our case, included: 1) stinky ...
We picked this cruise for the itinerary because it went above the Arctic circle along with Flam and Geiranger. Soon after we boarded the ship on May 25th we were informed via a piece of paper stuffed in the “welcome package” that our itinerary had changed. We were no longer going to Flam or Geiranger due to tenders not working.
Ship Condition - showing major wear. Windows in dining room were ...
Avoid at all costs. While 2 larger ships just hours ahead of us made it across the Atlantic to Lisbon, we sat for 3+ days in the Azores and then headed to Rotterdam for disembarkation. We traveled 15 days from Tampa, FL to Rotterdam to spend 1 hr in Europe, and that was on the bus to the airport. There was nothing much interesting to do on board. We put lots of jigsaw puzzles together. Food ...
I don’t know what happened to the Holland America I know and loved. Food was mediocre but the breads and baked goods were quite good but even the ice cream wasn’t very creamy, and room service had limited breakfast choices unless you wanted to pay more. The room service menu in general was very limited unless you wanted to pay. Really. 2/3 ports of call were industrial with no redeeming ...
This is NOT your typical HAL cruise. We have cruised HAL many times before and this entire trip was different and not in a good way. If you want an extremely affordable cruise, I think we paid $1600 for four in one room, then go with no expectations and you will be fine. UNDERSTAND THERE ARE NO ACTIVITIES or SHOWS ONBOARD - Ill talk about that below..
Please note, on this ship the Rotterdam is ...
We loved the food and the food staff and cleaning staff!!!! They were most excellent! The private excursions were wonderful! I know whoever is reading this may not feel the need to know how much effort it takes to save up enough money to take a family vacation for 6, however more than the cost is the expectation of having a fun experience, and not having any worries. After all that is what a ...
We chose this ship for the itinerary,6145
This ship is old and in a state of disrepair. Our cabin had multiple issues, TV with awful picture quality / had to be replaced twice. Very few channel selections.
The cooler didn’t cool and had a broken door hinge.
Plumbing/ sewer repairs to two cabins away.
Hall carpet soaking wet with fans blowing terrible smelling air towards us.
Repair ...
I choose this cruise for the itinerary. After taking a number of other cruises on various cruise lines including Mediterranean cruises, I wanted to try an itinerary a little closer to home. Unfortunately, my bad experience started immediately upon boarding the ship. The Rotterdam is an old ship in need of extensive renovation. Additionally, I found the ship to be dirty...dirty windows, ...
The following are representative examples of the various problems that we encountered:
1- Shuttle from Amsterdam to ship: We paid HAL for shuttle transfer to take us from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. We were designated a location to go to get the shuttle. We went there and waited for three full hours from 9:15am until 12:15pm. With 1.5 hours waiting outside the hotel that you designated, unprotected ...
This cruise was a total disaster due to the age of ship and the fact that we missed one of our ports of call, allegedly due to weather (although two other larger cruise ships docked ahead of us with no problems) but more likely due to broken side thrusters (supposedly repaired in Tampa delaying our embarkation over an hour). Upon arriving in Costa Maya, Mexico, the port I wanted to see the most, ...
