Itinerary- Africa at the top of my bucket list. Most ports were readily available to walk through. Ship tours ranged in price- from inexpensive to YIKES! Even though I now travel solo, I was comfortable and at ease. Staff on board exceptional- always willing to answer questions, give directions when we got lost or needed more information. Cabin stewards were always going the extra mile to make ...
Good points
- The ship is fairly new and well appointed.
- The service staff are very friendly and try very hard.
- Food quality is good.
The bad points
- Organisation on the ship is sub standard.
- The Lido kept some really strange hours - for example closing for diner at 8:30 pm which one would expect is peak time
Really bad points
- For the first half of the cruise ...
I loved the staff, the service and honestly the maintenance of the ship is overall very good. I would give them 4.5 to 5 stars in most cases. The ship however is old from the perspective of activities and value.
Activities are very limited compared to other vessels both in terms of physical offerings such as recreational opportunities but also in terms of creativity. Other ships have mini ...
This was the Dave Koz Cruise 2023. It was booked back in 2019 for 2021 then had to be cancelled due to Covid. The service on this ship was HORRIBLE. The Customer Service Desk was useless and the Food was very bad.
I admit that the Ports of Call on this cruise were amazing. The entertainment as always was some of the best. However, the service and the food were severely lacking. I ...
Beware of this ship!!! My cruise began with a huge stain on the couch in our stateroom. I also got food poisoning and as a result I was unable to go on the tour we had scheduled for the next day. I requested a refund but they denied it. The service was sub par but they still charged us $32 per day for poor service. The crew was unable to help with basic questions. In the dining room I asked that ...
The food in the Lido and Dutch Cafe was lovely and the service was swift and friendly. However my 6pm pre-booking for Tamarind meant almost an hour's wait at the bar (I do not drink & was travelling alone) because they had obviously overbooked the first sitting!
Every day to disembark for tours was a lengthy mess. It was unbelievable.
I had paid for a Holland America transfer from ship to ...
If you’re use to higher end hotels and resorts like JW Marriott, Hyatt, or Hilton where personal services are king this cruise line is NOT for you.
I’m a business owner of over 30 years and if I ran my business this way we would be out of business. Compared to higher end resorts which we are use to I found the following to be true.
1. The ship is very disorganized in the way they do ...
We choose this cruise due to the ports and sites it covered. We were not disappointed! Although a couple of the ports we wanted to sail to were exchanged, we were not unhappy with the changes. The boarding and disembarkation were perfect. We learnt a lot from excellent conferences. The food and entertainment were par for what we xpected from this great cruise line. Our cabin stewards cabin 2572 ...
Let me start by saying that the Nieuw Statendam is a beautiful ship with beautiful cabins and lovely employees. Unfortunately, that's about it as far as the advantages are concerned.
Embarkation was badly organized in what could seem like a good organization: check people in in groups, give them group numbers and call them one after the other. And then send them all into the embarkation gateway ...
This is a shortened version of a 2,624 word review we sent to Holland America Guest relations and never got a response to:
This cruise was our first travel adventure since the pandemic began in 2020. We booked this cruise to celebrate our wedding anniversary and to belatedly celebrate a milestone birthday that occurred during the pandemic. We booked a 5 star ship, which is our standard when ...