Nieuw Amsterdam is a beautiful ship!

Nieuw Amsterdam Cruise Review to Alaska - Inside Passage

Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Reviews: 3
Helpful Votes: 37

Overall rating:

3.9 out of 5
Nieuw Amsterdam

7 Night Alaska Inside Passage (Vancouver Roundtrip)

Sail date: August 25, 2018

Ship: Nieuw Amsterdam

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

Great cruise with excellent food. Very mellow and relaxing. Great coffee for a cruise ship! Especially at Explorations cafe. Our Salted Caramel latte was excellent. Test Kitchen demos were very informative and the speakers kept it interesting. Saw lots of whales from the viewing decks. Overall beautiful ship. We enjoyed it!

Embarkation

4 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

4 out of 5

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5
We got double upgraded from a guaranteed inside stateroom to a verandah balcony! We were super excited and for the most part the cabin was great. Roomy & clean enough. Definitely not spotless, I found blonde hairs a couple of places and we are both brunettes. Also, found that the makeup mirror has probably never been cleaned as it is stored in a pouch in the cabinet along with the hair dyer. When I took it out I found oily fingerprints all over it. Good thing I brought along Clorox wipes! The cabin’s outside panel that separates the neighboring balcony was loose so it rattled loudly at night. So I had to sleep with earplugs. Also, the balcony rail is make out of stainless steel, not see-through plexiglass like other balconies, so when you are lounging in the loungers, you can’t really see the ocean, so that was a bummer. The cabin is also right above the main stage so you can hear the performances going on, which didn’t bother us since all shows ended by 11pm. If your bedtime is earlier than that, I would not recommend this room. Also, don’t use a lot of toilet paper in this room as we found that the toilet was very easily clogged. It happened twice in our first 3 days.

Ship tip

I found that the coffee from self service stations were better than the coffee being served by the wait staff. Older mellow crowd. Not much to do in the evenings. Hotspots were definitely BB Kings at night, and the crows nest’s and Tamarind Bar during sea days, so get their early to find a good spot. You can watch for whales from their large viewing windows.

Ports of call

Vancouver (Canada Place), British Columbia

4 out of 5

Juneau, Alaska

5 out of 5

Skagway, Alaska

3 out of 5

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
Was this review helpful? 5

1 Comment

Shh813    6 years ago

We went on Nieuw Amsterdam last March. We loved it. Only one complaint. We had the anytime dining. We had no problem any night getting a table, but our food took forever between courses and dinner lasted sometimes over 2 hours. I love leisurely but that was a little much. One night we went a little after 6 and they were full so they took us to the set time dining. Ate in half the time. Will do set time dining from now on. Anyway, we loved the ship. We are older, so laid back and no loud music around the pool was great. The staff is wonderful, especially in the buffet. Always smiling and right there for you. Our cabin steward always greeted us by name when he saw us and asked how our day was at the different ports. The food was absolutely delicious wherever you went on the ship. Hope you got a chance to try the Dive-in. The best burgers I've ever had.