Holland America Line - Zuiderdam Eastern Caribbean Review

I have been on 5 cruises since 1995. Our very first cruise was with Holland America on the M S Nieu Amsterdam. It was wonderful. Had all the nice touches such as real china on the lido deck for lunch rather than the plastic stuff you get other places. There was a woman in the public restrooms handing real terry towels etc.

As we needed to take 2 other business couples on a earned cruise for them, I chose Holland America again based on the first experience. We sailed the Zuiderdam and will never make that mistake again.

It was the birthday of one of our clients during the cruise so I had ordered flowers to be brought to the table for dinner. I did this on-line ahead of time and prepaid. I also ordered a cake. The flowers were sent to the room minus the balloons and I had to inform the head waiter to get the cake, as he had no information on it.

The front desk knew about these arrangements as I double checked upon embarkation to make sure things went smoothly.

Then to add insult to injury, they came to our table on formal night and wanted the client to sign a paper that everything arrived OK!! I ordered the stuff not her and how is it they had TIME to annoy us at formal night but not on the night the flowers and balloons and cake were to be delivered?

This ship is hostile to smokers. I no longer smoke and that is a good thing. But may I be hung out and dried if I EVER wander to a designated smoking area and make loud comments or do that fake choking and coughing thing that so many ill bred adults think is cute. Leave the smokers alone. They are legal.

The smoking bars were isolated to the point that we couldn't see much less hear the shows.

The real irony here is that ALL rooms are smoking optional. That means one can light up in ANY of them. They say they clean them well between sailings. Wonder if the chokers and covers are aware of this? (giggle) The hypocrisy is to be expected I suppose. They say they will lose money if they have to designate cabins due to needing full booking.

The food was OK but the service painfully slow. The head waiter was the only pleasant surprise. He actually took his nose out of the air and interacted with the guests. On all our cruises this is a first. Kudos to him.

The live entertainment would put Simon Cowel in heart failure. It was the same show each night with the same gay revue done to different music. I realize many of our most talented performers are gay and this doesn't faze me too much in general. It's a part of life. But where is the balance? These characters were "out there". Didn't matter what character they were playing, tough guy or cowboy or whatever, it was a gay one. Attendance dropped after night 3. Boylesque belongs in Vegas.

The layout of the ship was bad too. Long corridors of nothing and then a disco or something tucked into a corner.

Days at sea when the gift shops had their sales were sorely understaffed and indifferent.

It took less time to go back to the cabin to use the toilet than to use one of the public ones and they were out of order each and every day.

The buffets closed way to early if you had late seating dinner. Same for the bars.

Really poor deal all around. I hope this is just a one ship problem for Holland America. In any event I will go elsewhere from now on.