South Pacific Cruise Reviews

This cruise was "fine".

Not exceptional, certainly not the best I've been on; but fine.

HAL ships always seem to be clean and orderly, well laid out and fairly easy to navigate. I appreciate their concern with health and the omnipresence of hand sanitizer. The food is solid, and the staff is generally very friendly and helpful.

The ports of call on this itinerary aren't the most exciting in the world, but certainly interesting if approached with the right attitude. Much more about culture, history, and lifestyle than anything overly thrilling or magnificent. Overall, I'd say this cruise is one of the most low-key I've been on.

Was incredibly disappointed that we were only able to cruise one of the three featured Sounds (Dusky) in the Fjordland National Park due to severe weather conditions. I understand no one can control the weather; but it was nonetheless a big disappointment, as that was perhaps the part of the trip I was most looking forward to.

Areas for improvement:

- The notably limited hours for general food availability on the Lido was a constant frustration. Holland America easily has the most restrictive food availability of any company I've cruised with.

- Internet connectivity continues to be a severely limiting factor in cruising. I understand satellite-assisted wifi is an ever-evolving field, but cruise lines need to increase investment in this area. Personally, I would probably cruise at least 3-4 time more frequently than I do now were I able to have access to consistently reliable Internet connections at a reasonable price.

- Bathroom electrical outlets -- need to be more accessible.

- Entertainment -- easily the most mediocre of the five cruises I've been on (the piano singer was especially bad!)

Highlights:

- The dining room staff was exceptional, as usual!

- The hydropool and thermal spa were great, and the spa staff were terrific. I especially appreciated that only once following my three spa treatments was I push with a not-so-hard sell to buy product -- big improvement over past cruises. (If I'm going to spend more money at the spa, I'd rather just book another treatment -- upsell me to that!)

- The variety of trivia events each day was a hit with my family, as was the considerable movie library available for check-out on sea days and evenings.

I'll start with the few positive things on the Maasdam...the food was very good. The ships galley presented a large variety of choices each day.  Chef Peter did an excellent job of being visible and providing tasty menu options.  The ports were enjoyable. The waiters and the crew were all very friendly... which on most cruise lines they generally are.

Now to the negatives... The ship is OLD.  The carpets are miss matched on all of the decks.  We had 8 days when the toilets didn't work.  The veranda deck during those 8 days smelled like a sewer and feces.  In our cabin the smells ranged from sewer gas, engine exhaust, varnish and unidentifiable odors.  We had to purchase air freshener to mask the stink. We also had to keep the veranda door open so we would have fresh air in our cabin.  This was all brought to the attention of the customer service department who always provide a sincere apology and then did nothing.  When a maintenance person was sent up to check on the odors he said there was nothing he could do about them and provided an excuse on what he thought they was coming from.  On the ship they were constantly varnishing, painting or chipping paint.  Which created strong odors all over the vessel.

We purchased a Spa Veranda Suite at a cost of $19K+.  When we got to the room it was dirty and there were hairs all over the bathroom.  The hair dryer was so sticky and grimy that I refused to use it.  It was replaced eventually.  The room amenities that were listed for a Spa Suite were not in the room when we arrived.  We had to notify housekeeping to provide them for us.  Some of the drawers were broken and would fall on the floor when opened.  

Tendering was a nightmare.   The first port of Hilo we waited for 3 hours to get on a tender.  In the port of Kona it was just as bad with a 2 hour wait to get on the tender leaving us only 3 hours of free time in this port.   The Captain did somewhat apologize and gave everyone one hour of free drinks.  During the wait time to get on a tender no reason was ever given as to why the wait was so long.   Trust me when I say...NO ONE was happy tendering.   Well, I take that back....maybe the people who are 4&5 stars who got all of the early tender tickets for themselves and their friends.

Here was our experience with the ships specialty restaurant called the "Pinnacle Grill".   The first time we went we ordered Halibut & Shrimp.  We had seen this demoed in the Culinary Arts Center.   It look delicious at that time.   When our Halibut arrived in the Pinnacle Grill it was dried out and salty.  They offered to replace it.  It was already late and we didn't want to wait for them to recook the fish and declined the offer.   We decided to give the Pinnacle another try.  Our second time was worse then the first experience.  I ordered a petite filet cooked medium rare.   It came out well done.  I sent it back.  The second filet came back raw.   They returned it to the kitchen and recooked the same piece of meat.   This time it was brought back dried out....plus all of our side dishes by now were cold.  We requested they bring us some new sides which they did.  After that, they never came back to ask if everything was okay.  Having been to other "Specialty Restaurants" on other cruise lines and had excellent food and service....my advice is save the $35/person cover charge for the Pinnacle Grill and get a good meal in one of the ports.   

We have cruised on RCCL, Celebrity, Viking and Azamara many times before.  This was our first time cruising on Holland America.   We definitely did not feel like welcomed "new" guests.   They did nothing extra to make us want to cruise with this line again.   We only selected this cruise because of the itinerary.  Had we known the ship was is such disrepair we wouldn't have gone this voyage.

Based on our experience with Holland America....we are not sure we would recommend this to fellow travelers.   Especially not traveling on the Maasdam until it has been refurbished or replaced.    

In general, the food on the Maasdam was excellent, as was the service.  Although there was a variety of entertainment offered in the theatre, the performers, with only a few exceptions, were just average.   The HAL singers and dancers were quite good, but only performed 6 or 7 nights of the 33.  On several evenings, there was only a Natural Geographic film offered.  There was a wide variety of daytime activities to chose from. Tendering presented a problem in several of the ports, with either rough seas or a very slow disembarkation process upsetting passengers.  The ship itself had problems with the air-conditioning and plumbing, and even engine problems.   Staterooms and hallways flooded, saturating carpet inside cabins and down hallways.  This caused very unpleasant moldy and worse! smells.  Snorkeling and swimming in the turquoise waters of the islands, relaxing on white sand beaches, and taking in the French Polynesia culture were the highlights of this trip.  It is just unfortunate that HAL, which has a r long-standing reputation for immaculate ships, tarnished its reputation this cruise with the Maasdam, which is definitely in need of maintenance and repairs.

We did this cruise in March 2017. It was absolutely amazing. We had the opportunity to visit so many places within New Zealand. It really gave us a highlight of the country. The Dusky, Doubtful, Milford Sounds day was a highlight of the cruise. The ship itself is great. The food was wonderful. The only disappointment on the cruise was the entertainment - it was mediocre at best (although the Cruise Director, Joff, was one of the best that we've ever had.) We would highly recommend this cruise.

New Zealand was amazing, enjoyed each port of call however, Radiance of the Sea in our opinion is a tired looking ship, and l noticed things like plastic dishes in Windjammer, food not upto par, waite staff not attentive and not overally friendly,

Specialty resturants ok but nothing special, cost off a drink package very exspensive.

We could not get a seat to any of the entertainment, early or late shows.

Nothing special. The promenade was the only place to be a night. The bars all had something, but high prices for the booze. Shows were mediocre. Food was good, especially a gluten free section. They were charging almost 10% for currency exchange, so if you didn't pay in USD, AUD and CDN money holders were getting ripped off. Cheaper to pay with credit cards, even though they charged a 2% premium. Didn't know what to expect on excursions. They even charged $8 for shuttles from the dock in one port. 

We are diamond members of Royal Caribbean but haven't cruised with them for about three years until just completing two back-to-backs on Radiance of the Seas for New Zealand and Australia. They have really changed, and not in a positive way. There were no port enrichment lectures on the second cruise. The room attendant and dining and bar services were great. But the services of Shore Excursions and Guest Relations was horrible. They were abrupt and incompetent. When we got home we discovered they had charged our credit card daily for everything and then again charged us with the total at the end of the cruise. How will we ever trust them again with our credit card? I am not sure we will. Our recommendation is to stay away from Radiance of the Seas.

Our cruise was amazing and we met many people from other parts of the world and made friends with them. The tours we took were aursome and we learned many new facts about Australia and New Zealand. The cruise staff was awesome and he show were great to see. The few problem we encountered were in the fitness center where the steam and sauna room were hot enough  even after complaining. The other issue was that they were running out of certain food which were posted on the menus. Other then these issue we had a great time and would cruise again on Royal.

The itinerary and the cruise ship were both very good. Great ports of call and nice rooms. The food was just OK and the food at the pay restaurants wasn't worth paying extra for. I wouldn't even give them a try if you are going. My biggest complaints were the alcohol. We bought the package...but the drinks were so week I don't even know why they call them alcoholic drinks. Plus, even if you have the drink package, if you want a double you have to pay extra. There were a few martini's that had decent alcohol...but that was about it. Lastly, I bought the internet package in advance in US dollars because they were promoting it as a discount to buy in advance. When I got on board, they were selling internet for the same price...but in Australian Dollars. There were some other customer service issues that makes me want to try a different cruise line the next time around.

The stateroom was very comfortable, the service was excellent and the excursions were awesome. We swam with rays and sharks in the Lagoonairium in Moorea. We didn't book this through the ship but we learned about it on trip advisor. We saved a lot on the taxi (we used Teva Taxi) and were treated to a very good tour of the island on the way there and back. We rented a waverunner for 3 hours in Bora Bora. Fantastic! 

Despite a few problems, we enjoyed the cruise very much. NCL has excellent entertainment in most nights; their band, dancers and singers are fantastic. The workers are some of the most friendly people - they cannot trained them so well, so those workers must enjoy their jobs. The food was quite good in this cruise and the different ethnic celebrations in the buffet each night was smart and delicious. Moderno is a fantastic paid option for variation as dinner choice. We were very lucky with the weather. In our stops, don't know why we have to be so far away from all the interesting places and most of the time be tendered to nearest far away harbor. That's upsetting and time consuming. The visas with Australia were not handled well. We suggest NCL requires some sort of visa proof way before one checks in. And when mistakes are made with visas, they shouldn't send ultimate letters to the stateroom. That ruins anyone's vacation. The cruise consultants in this trip were not friendly so no cruise reward buying for us. Finally, NCL has gone paranoiac with bringing water, juices or liquor into the ship. They should cool down and follow their motto: freestyle cruises. Overall, though, we were very satisfied and will cruise NCL again. Always giving them a chance to improve.

The itinerary for this cruise was amazing. We really enjoyed all of the ports as well as the sea days. One of my favorite things about this cruise was the captain who gave us daily reports of the waterways, the ports, the weather and some of the history of the area we were in. 

The downside to this cruise was that there were several changes in the itinerary and NCL was not good about keeping us informed of the changes. Despite this we would definately do this cruise again. It was well worth the money.

I would recommend this cruise to others if they didn't have 6 straight days of high winds, rain and rough seas and were able to go ashore.  I chose the wrong time of year.

Oceania's food iand service s always excellent

We really enjoy staying in one of the Neptune Suites and the great service provided by the room stewards.  We liked having dinner in the Vista main dinning room and especially enjoyed dinning at the Evening at Le Cirque (in the Pinnacle Grill).  This was one of the best meals we have ever had and the service was superb!

The buffet dinning area - most of the meat items were over cooked and dry as a bone- people came early to get good seats and stayed long after eating making it difficult to enjoy dinning. Many food items (left-over) are served the next day in a different fashion.  There was no mention of Alcohol limited to bring on board in either your info or Holland America's info until we were in Auckland so several bottles were removed from our luggage and returned at the end of the cruise.  The was a 15% surcharge on all drinks purchased on board, $4.00 for a bottle of water (crazy)!!! Not piping most of the announcements into the staterooms made it hard to keep current. Visa for Australia was to be $35.00 on board purchase there was an additional $16.70 fee for New Zealand???  Several ports we had to pay for transportation to the city center.  Holland America has to step up to the plate.  I have been on many river and ocean cruises where you can bring alcohol   on board and they save free beer and wine at all meals and water is always free!! Thanks but no more on this cruise line!!!

The cruise is basically transportation to the various populated destinations but one stop blew us away - sailing into Milford Sound.  That was worth the price of the ticket itself!  Absolutely breathtaking!   We loved visiting all the New Zealand cities too - wonderful country and friendly people!

We were very disappointed with the "night life" on board the ship.  HA caters to an older customer (like us) but the total lack of dancing opportunities on board was horrendous.

My daughter needed a vegan diet and the chefs really provided good food for her.  This is always a problem for us traveling away from home.  This made our whole cruise experience great.  While the weather was not quite as good on our trip as expected we had no real problem with the rough seas we experienced.  Mother Nature can not totally be controlled or predicted and definitely some on our cruise suffered from sea sickness.  The Noordam had a very good acupuncture specialist on board who is capable of providing relief to this malady.  I bought his services for other maladies and was very satisfied.  Holland America has provided this type service on other cruises and I really appreciate that.  

We also really enjoyed the Noordam Singers and Dancers shows and also Clara Helms, a great singer.  Anna and Svetlana played beautiful music several times a night in one of the lounges so we were able to enjoy great music most nights.

There are 3 key ports in this cruise that one aspire and look forward to visit. They are Port Chalmers, Akaroa and Tauranga. We have to skip 2 out of these 3 ports due to heavy fog. Other than Tauranga, nothing else is worth visiting. Worse of all, having to skip Port Chalmers and Akaroa resulted in us having to cruise from 15Feb evening to 20Feb with limited entertainment. The entire cruise was a disaster and investment for cruise is as good as pouring our money into the seas.

After this episode, I am putting my plan for the 104 days world on hold.

The foods served in the Dining Room (Da Vinci) are salty making them not edible. More so for elderly where sodium intake must be kept to its minimum. To make matter worse, there isn't much choice of specialty dining available as compared to the Golden and Diamond ship. Otherwise, we could have opted for specialty dining to replace those served in Da Vinci and Michael Angelo. Unlike the Golden and Diamond ship, the Grill and Pizza served in the sun deck of the Emerald are tasteless.  

The ports can be divided into essential and non essential. The essential ports being Port Chalmers, Akaroa and Tauranga. The rest are non essential.

This cruise, we have to skip Port Chalmers and Akaroa i.e. 2 out of 3 essential ports. While skipping the 2 essential ports are unavoidable due to fog, it would be good that an alternate ports be planned ahead rather just skipping the ports.

The saving grace for this experience being the good service crew. We appreciate their friendliness and hospitality. The embarkation and disembarkation were efficiently conducted. Kudos to the crew.  

Favorite part of cruise was south New Zealand. We took 2 days exeercusion tour at Floid National Park. Which includes Mildord Sound, Queenstown. Due to weather problem trip was extended to three days on ground and we were able to see most of South Island,

Princess treated us very nicely, food , hotel, transportation and guide was excellent.

thanks princess.

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