holland-amsterdam1

Note - this page contains multiple reviews.

Name: Fred Groth
Email: ltc519@aol.com
Age: 58
Occupation: retired
NumberOfCruises: 2
TravelAgent: No
Ship: Holland-NieuwAmsterdam
SailingDate: Dec 19, 2000
Itinerary: Costa Rica-Panama Canal-Ft Lauderdale
Cabin: B-1
FoodDiningRoom: 100
CruiseDirector: 100
CabinComfort: 100
FoodRoomService:
CruiseStaff: 100
CabinAmenities: 100
FoodLidoDeck: 90
DiningRoomService: 100
CabinQuietness: 95
FoodMidnightBuffets:
CabinSteward: 100
ShoreExcVariety: 90
FoodVariety: 100
DeckService:
ShoreExcValue: 90
GoodForHoneymoon: 90
CasinoStaff:
PrivateIsland: 90
GoodForFamilies: 90
LoungeService: 100
TenderService: 100
GoodForSeniors: 90
BeautySalonStaff: 90
EntertainmentLounges: 90
WheelchairAccess: 90
ExerciseFacilities: 80
EntertShowLounge: 90
OverallPortsofCall: 90
BeautySalon: 90
EntertainmentPoolside: 90
CruiseActivities: 90
Casino:
AirSeaProgram: 100
MedicalFacilities:
ShipCleanliness: 100
EmbarkDisembark: 100
DiscoNightclubs:
DeckSpace: 100
Stabilization: 95
ShopsOnBoard: 90
SpaceRatio: 100
OverallCruiseValue: 100
Submit: Submit Review
Date: 02 Jan 2001
Time: 20:55:23
Remote Name: spider-wb064.proxy.aol.com
Remote User:

Comments

Note: This review is for the Amsterdam. There is no default listing on this web page for this ship.

Amsterdam Christmas Panama Canal Cruise, December 19 - 29, 2000

Route: Ten day cruise starting in Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica - Nicaragua - Panama Canal - Aruba - St
Thomas - Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - Ft Lauderdale.

1. General Comments: A great cruise, and my wife and I will gladly cruise again with Holland-America (HAL).
This was our second cruise, and we were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. The main reason for
choosing this trip was for seeing the canal (I last saw it from a troop ship in 1965) and to enjoy the warm
weather.

We booked the cruise (C category cabin) early in the year, and this got us upgraded to a B-1 mini-suite with
private verandah. This was most welcome for watching the canal. Early reservations also got us a table for
two at the second seating. We chose the cruise-fly package offered, and it certainly saved grief in trying to
make airline reservations over the Christmas-New Years holidays. We further chose the one day stopover in
San Jose, Costa Rica before the day of the ship’s departure. Travelling on December 18 turned into a
godsend as our routing was through Atlanta. Atlanta had serious weather problems on the 19th. Passengers
arrived at the ship literally ten minutes before departure time at Puerto Caldera. We delayed departures in
Nicaragua and the Golfo Dulce in Costa Rica as we were picking up further groups of passengers. Luggage
was still being delivered as late as when the ship had cleared the canal and was preparing to sail to Aruba.

2. Travel to Costa Rica and Embarking: The flights to San Jose were uneventful and on time. We were met at
the airport by the HAL contract company and bused to a pleasant hotel halfway between the airport and San
Jose. What was left of the day was free. Bags were collected in the morning and the trip to the pier at Puerto
Caldera was basically a scenic drive/tour. We drove around San Jose and stopped n two villages (one church
and one ox cart handicraft center) enroute. We arrived at the pier around 2PM, and check-in was a breeze.

3. The Amsterdam: The ship was very attractive, and the Christmas decorations were nice. Our cabin was
comfortable for the two of us. There was plenty room for putting away clothes and suitcases. There was even
good shelf space in the bathroom. An indication of the modern world is that the ship receives CNN
International broadcasting - in this case English language targetted at Brazil. Only in the Bahamas did we start
receiving the US version of CNN. We also received a daily 8 page NY Times Fax newspaper. The ship has an
internet “cafe” arrangement where you can log on to your favorite ISP and check your e-mail or whatever.
Cost was 75 cents a minute with a five minute minimum. Our friends and family got a kick out of receiving an
e-mail while we were cruising from the canal to Aruba. The crew and staff were tops. Officers were Dutch,
cabin and dining room stewards were Indonesian, and bar personnel were Filipino. Deck crew was also
Indonesian. I think at least one of the kiosk salesmen was Russian. On our cruise we were around 1,400
passengers and 630 crew. While HAL appears to have a reputation for older folks, this was not the case for
this Christmas cruise: there were around 160 children on board, and there was a good number of young
adults as well. It was interesting to see the extended family groups (of at least three generations) on this
cruise. As for mobility, there were as many baby strollers on board as there were wheel chairs and walkers.

4. Meals: We join other travellers who say that HAL food is excellent. We gained little weight on this cruise, not
because of any food problem, but just plain old will power. Breakfast and lunch are open seating in the dining
room or cafeteria style in the Lido restaurant. The Lido was quite popular for these two meals, probably
because one could pick and choose more easily. We did not try the “alternative” Italian restaurant, but it was
quite popular and early reservations were needed. Dinner is the only meal with specified sittings in the dining
room. The wine list is respectable. One has to marvel at the ability of the kitchen to prepare such a variety of
meals offered at each dinner. Each seating is around 600 people sitting down at the same time for a full meal.
No restaurant on land has such a capability. Portions are of respectable size, and if you don’t try to eat all the
courses everyday, you should not do bad weight-wise. The kitchen is quite prepared to handle special dietary
requests. On one morning there is a quick walkthrough tour of the kitchen; we highly recommend it. The Lido
Deck at poolside also runs a hamburger/pizza line for those who can’t survive from lunch to dinner.

5. Dressing for Meals: For this ten day trip it was three formal, three informal, and four casual. The ladies on
board were all dressed well for the formal evening meals. While 90 percent of the men were in tuxedos or
suits, I fail to see why ten percent could not at least bring a suit on board. If you can afford to take a cruise,
you can afford to bring a suit, or rent a tux (this can be arranged through your travel agent). I heard one
woman berating her husband because he had only brought “one white shirt” along.

6. Shore Excursions: HAL sent a booklet listing all their shore tours with details and prices, so you have a
good idea what you want to do before ever arriving at the ship. You need to know what tours you want to take
because the first evening on board there is a crowd booking tours, and some of the tours fill up rapidly. If you
know the ports of call and want to travel by yourself, then, of course, you don’t need the ship’s tour office.
HAL’s tour prices are not cheap; you are paying for the convenience of having the ship organize the tour
rather than you doing it after you get ashore. Also, if you obtain your tour through the ship’s staff, you have
support when there is a problem. There were no more spaces on the bus for our tour in St Thomas,
apparently because the tour company did not send enough minibuses. Along with profuse apologies from the
ship’s staff, we received a full refund on our tickets and a fifty percent refund on a tour we had ordered at the
next stop, Half Moon Cay.

This cruise first visited San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. This sleepy fishing village has no redeeming values
other than being the starting point for tours to other parts of Nicaragua. Most people were still recovering from
their travel to the ship and just wandered a bit around the village. For stamp collectors, the local post office
does have a pretty good collection of current stamps for sale.

The highlight of the tour was, of course, the passage through the Panama Canal. No matter what you’ve read
in school books, this is worth seeing. The ship had a gentleman on board who gave three lectures detailing
the canal. During the day-long passage a member of the canal administration announced noteworthy sights
on the ship’s speaker system.

The stop at Aruba was a disappointment; it was Sunday and Christmas Eve. All the stores either closed at
2PM or were closed for the entire Christmas holiday. Also, Aruba is not Hawaii; it is flat and desert. Aruba has
the second largest water desalinazation plant in the world. An interesting place, but been there, done that.

St Thomas was a good contrast to Aruba. It was hilly, reminding of Hong Kong harbor. The shopping was
interesting, and apparently there are plenty of sights to see, too. We were four ships in on that day, and the
crowds showed in the downtown area. One person mentioned he was from the Carnival Triumph, carrying
3,400 passengers and a crew of 1,000. That was just too much ship. Taxi drivers said the next day there
would be eight ships in port for the day.

Young people especially enjoyed the stop at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. Plenty of time to go swimming,
fishing, snorkeling, etc. We were only two ships at this HAL-owned islet, but that made for some crowds at the
food line.

7. Shipboard entertainment: The ship has a daily schedule full of activities for all tastes: sports, cards, bridge,
bingo (for serious players!), etc, etc. The evening shows were pleasant and worth seeing, even if all of them
were not of Las Vegas caliber. The casino was of good size and the payoffs did not seem to be much worse
than Las Vegas. Duty-free liquor on board was more expensive than in stores in St Thomas, so you have to
know your prices and not jump at the “cheap” prices on board. The liquor on board will be there long enough
to do comparison shopping first on shore. You’ll have plenty of pictures taken of yourselves by the ship’s
photographers--pricey, but a good souvenir. The library is well-stocked; there are plenty of nooks around for
quiet reading. Those into the disco scene will enjoy the Crow’s Nest on the 9th deck which runs into the “wee
hours.”

8. Tipping: Tipping is truly not required on HAL ships, but after reading the various views on the subject on
the Net we made our own decisions: We tipped the cabin steward and the dining room steward. The “area”
maitre d’ and the assistant dining room steward received about half of what we gave the dining room steward.
The wine steward received a rounded off 10-15% of the total wine bill. The bar waiters and waitresses
received ca 10-15% of the bar bill. As we had four different bar waiters serving us during the cruise, this made
for some “over payments,” but it was nothing to worry about. We handed out tips the last night on board as
you really don’t see these people when disembarking. We would also say that the tips were received with a
true “thank you.” There was no hanging around looking for something.

9. Settling of Accounts: During your cruise anything you purchase on board (drinks, souvenirs, tours, duty
free items, photos) is punched into a computer; you sign one copy of the ticket and you receive a copy. The
day before the end of the cruise you receive a preliminary statement of your account. This gives you time to
clear up any problems. At the beginning of the cruise you give the ship’s front office an imprint of your credit
card. In the morning before disembarking you receive a final statement and a copy of your credit card slip.
Very painless. The only cash you need on board is for the casino and for some of their “gambling games” like
bingo. Serious gamblers can authorize up to $500 a day charge on their account at the casino. You will also
need cash for any tips you want to disburse.

10. Disembarking: One reviewer described this procedure as hurry-up and wait . Very true. Your bags have to
be out by 2AM, breakfast is from 6 to 8, and you should be out of your cabins by 9. Your bags are color
coded by the type and time of your onward transportation. However, waiting around in the comfort of one of
the lounges on board is much preferable to sitting on the floor in the Delta terminal at Ft Lauderdale because
we were three ships disembarking that morning. We were called to disembark, found our bags in the color
coded area pierside, handed our bags in to the Delta counter at pierside, and were on the airport bus. This
again is one of the benefits of using HAL’s fly-cruise package. Airline personnel from Delta and USAir came
on board to give out boarding passes and baggage tags. Once through this system, you don’t see your
luggage again until you arrive at your home airport.

11. Conclusion: The cruise was nearly flawless. HAL’s experience shows and it was a pleasure to celebrate on
board with them. HAL has a “frequent flier” program and two people on board must be among their star
travellers: they each had over 700 days sailing with HAL. HAL must be doing something right, and we’ll be
back. If anyone has questions, send me an e-mail at LTC519@aol.com.

Fred Groth San Antonio, TX

Name: J. D. Thornton
Email: jthorn@gte.net
Age: 67
Occupation: Retired Telephone Engineer
NumberOfCruises: 9
TravelAgent: No
Ship: Holland-Amsterdam
SailingDate: January 18, 2001
Itinerary: Panama Canal
Cabin: 6179
FoodDiningRoom: 90
CruiseDirector: 50
CabinComfort: 80
FoodRoomService: 85
CruiseStaff: 60
CabinAmenities: 85
FoodLidoDeck: 80
DiningRoomService: 85
CabinQuietness: 85
FoodMidnightBuffets:
CabinSteward: 90
ShoreExcVariety: 80
FoodVariety: 70
DeckService: 80
ShoreExcValue: 60
GoodForHoneymoon:
CasinoStaff:
PrivateIsland: 50
GoodForFamilies:
LoungeService: 85
TenderService: 70
GoodForSeniors: 80
BeautySalonStaff:
EntertainmentLounges: 60
WheelchairAccess:
ExerciseFacilities:
EntertShowLounge: 60
OverallPortsofCall: 70
BeautySalon:
EntertainmentPoolside:
CruiseActivities: 60
Casino:
AirSeaProgram: 70
MedicalFacilities:
ShipCleanliness: 90
EmbarkDisembark: 50
DiscoNightclubs:
DeckSpace: 80
Stabilization: 90
ShopsOnBoard: 60
SpaceRatio: 80
OverallCruiseValue: 80
Submit: Submit Review
Date: 12 Feb 2001
Time: 17:25:18
Remote Name: calnet14-99.gtecablemodem.com
Remote User:

Comments

Itinerary: 10-days from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica with about every other day at
sea.

The Ship: The Amsterdam is the newest Holland America Lines (HAL) ship and is the twin sister to the
Rotterdam V. This was her 12th voyage. Everything was new and bright. We selected a cabin with a private
balcony located on the Verandah Deck (deck 6) and it was one deck down to the main dining room and the
show lounge and two up to the buffet room (the Lido restaurant) and outdoors pool. Our favorite bar was the
Crow’s Nest with its hot hors d’oeures and panorama view looking out over the bow of the ship. One evening,
we select the alternative dining room of La Fontaine with its Italian cuisine – it was nice and quiet with good
service. As usual the cabin steward did a fine job as he was rarely seen and always kept the cabin clean with
fresh towels and plenty of ice. The dining room personnel were, also, very attentive. The lounge shows were
OK as we had seen better on other HAL cruises.

The Ports: Fort Lauderdale – HAL flew us on Delta a day early as we live on the west coast. The flight was
from Los Angeles to Miami and then to Fort Lauderdale. Takeoff from Miami was delayed due to mechanical
problems; we thought that we would have to spend the night in Miami but they were able to resolve the
problem in a couple of hours. The HAL hotel was nice but dinner the first evening as on us; however, the hotel
provided a full breakfast the following morning. We had previously learned that passengers were offered a
non-complementary airboat ride in the Everglades, in the morning, before the ship would sail. The
hotel-located HAL rep wasn’t interest in arranging this ride. Thank heavens that the hotel staff was more
interested in customer service and arranged the interesting ride. The airboat bus dropped us off that the ship
and our luggage was waiting for us in our cabin. The boarding of the ship was very slow and HAL did not have
its express check-in service for its repeat passengers.

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas – This is HAL’s private island and we selected the nature walk that was mildly
interesting and ocean kayaking. The two-person Caribbean kayaks are flat and totally different than the
Alaska ones. The beaches were nice and it was nice to see a Caribbean island without a McDonald’s sign.
Travel to and from the ship was by boat.

U.S. Virgin Islands – We docked at St. Thomas and took a small boat over to St. John’s to go snubing – this is
the same as scubing except the air tank is located floating above you on a small raft and you are attached to
the tank by your own 20-foot air hose. It was wonderful to see all the colorful fish, touch the sea creatures,
etc.

Netherlands Antilles – We docked at Willemstad, a most colorful town with all of its buildings and houses
painted different colors. We took submerged boat ride – similar to a glass-bottom boat except you look out the
side windows to see the fish. You and the windows are about seven-foot under water.

Panama Canal – Arrived early morning and the trip takes all day. This was a repeat as we had gone through
the Canal about five years ago with HAL on the New Amsterdam – a much smaller ship. When we approached
the last locks (the one nearest the Pacific Ocean), the wind began blowing from the south and the stern of the
ship begin to move towards the shore before the lock. At this time, the ship is under the command of a local
canal pilot, who apparently maneuvered the ship away from the shore and the large rocks. The ship’s
starboard propeller hit the rock and was so damaged that it was unusable. We left the Canal with only one
propeller.

Costa Rica - Due to this damage, the ship bypassed Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica, a natural bay noted for its flora
and fauna, and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. We initially stopped at Puntarenas, Costa Rica, to determine the
extent of damaged to the propeller. This port is a cargo ship port and has no tourist facilities. Later that night,
the ship moved to Puerto Caldera and HAL provided a nice all-day tour of a coffee plantation located in San
Jose. The cruise ended here. We flew home on United with a stop at Guatemala City where we were not
permitted to leave the aircraft.

Overall: We enjoyed the cruise and would sail again with HAL. Interesting in 1995, when we went through the
Canal before, our ship, also, skipped the Golfo Dulce, because of a delay in canal due to removing a sick
passenger and our entrance into the Canal being delayed by a large cargo ship. Another significant different
between the two Canal cruises was the first cruise had an onboard speaker who provided four interesting
talks regarding the Canal and the countries of Central America on the days when we were at sea.

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