Well, viet, I'm sorry to say that I was so disappointed in the Zuiderdam. I read lots of great reviews before I went and maybe my expectations were too high. What they did well, they did very well, but what they did badly was awful. I've never had a bad cruise (how bad can a couple of weeks on a ship be???) but the Zuiderdam did not meet the standards of Celebrity and Princess.
The good - Shore excursions were well organized and fun. Their private island is fantastic. It is so beautiful and well taken care of. Their shows were fantastic, especially "Under the Boardwalk." They also had a fantastic juggler - he was hilarious - and a great magician. The Odyssey Restaurant was wonderful. The service we received there was what we are used to receiving in the main dining room on Princess and Celebrity. I have no complaints about the food in general. It was all good. The "coffee guy" as he called himself in the Lido buffet was wonderful. He was always cheerful and friendly.
The bad - Service was horrible, with the exception of our room steward the first week. He would slip in and out of our cabin and it was as if by magic the room was cleaned. We moved to a different cabin the second week and the steward barely cleaned it. Dirty glasses would sit for days. The staff at the front desk was not helpful at all. More often than not they would be chatting when people were standing in line with questions. If they didn't know the answer to a question, they made no attempt to find out the answer. Service in the dining room was non-existant. Part of the problem was that the waiters seemed to be waiting on more tables and just didn't have time to get it all done. Almost every night the wrong plate was placed in front of everyone. It got to be a joke at our table and we would just switch the plates around. On one of the formal nights they used saucers from the Lido buffet area along with the Rosenthal china cups. I thought this was pretty tacky. It was early in the week and they ran out of china saucers. We did back-to-back cruises and moved to a different table in the dining room for the second week. The service went downhill. Our waiter never smiled and was barely civil when taking our orders. The assistant waiter did his best and it didn't matter when we saw him during the day always had a pleasant word for us. We ate dinner in the Lido most of the second week and had terrific service.
The ship is only about 2 1/2 years old and is already showing lots of wear and tear. I thought it had just been in dry dock for repairs in Dec. of 2003. The walls in the atrium area were held together with duct tape. If they are holding the public spaces together with duct tape, what it going where we can't see? That made me a little nervous. There was plastic sheeting taped to the ceiling in the dining room. I've been on older ships than the Zuiderdam that were in better condition.
The hydrotherapy pool was nothing like the one on the Galaxy. It was small and dark and crowded. In fact the whole ship felt a little small and dark to me.
I wasn't travelling with any children so I really shouldn't comment on this, but their children's program seemed to be lacking. Every day about 10 children would take over the pool. They were running around the pool and crawling over a statue that was at one end of the pool. Unfortunately, their parents weren't supervising them and there didn't seem to be any HAL staff around either. I was worried that one of the children would fall and hurt themselves.
There was also lots of confusion about what we were supposed to do about reboarding for the second week. We were told to leave the ship, but no-one seemed to know what we should do beyond that. It was very disorganized.
I'm a very easy going person and usually don't complain, but this cruise was really a disappointment. We are really easy passengers. We don't ask for much and we know the crew works long, hard hours and I'm sure it's hard to them to always be cheerful. On past cruises we've made friends with waiters and other crew members. We like to talk to people from other countries and find out what life is like there. We also like to find out about their families. We've made several friends that we still keep in touch with. I guess I missed that "personal touch" on the Zuiderdam. I definitely won't sail on HAL's Vista Class ships again and I'm not even sure I'll sail with HAL again. I'll stick with Celebrity and Princess.
