Nieuw Amsterdam Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We had a wonderful cruise - our room stewards were great and anticipated our every need.  Food was excellent, especially when we splurged one night and went to the Pinnacle Restaurant.  Drink prices were reasonable, although it's time for cruise lines to make fountain soft drinks (not bottles or cans) included in the price of the cruise like basic coffee or tea.  We didn't do any shore excursions so can't comment on those.  Bingo was great - in fact, I won a 7 day free cruise for two!  Didn't spend much time in the casino although I heard people raving about it.  The Nieuw Amsterdam was spotless both in our cabin and the public areas.  Would definitely sail with Holland America and the Nieuw Amsterdam again.

This was our first HAL cruise after being a fan of Celebrity for years!  We expected at least equal to or even better but I'd say definitely not in the same category.

The ship was lovely, no complaints!  The overall experience was good!  The food just did not match up to Princess, Celebrity and get this, not even Carnival.

My 87 year old Mother and I took the Carnival Breeze and the experience was far above that of HAL. I was shocked, both at Carnival and HAL. Carnival did a wonderful job. Is Carnival my line of choice, No!  I prefer an older crowd, fewer twenty somethings, fewer children.....but the experience was still very good and the food on Carnival exceeded our expectations.  No comparison. What's odd is that both lines are owned by Carnival Corp. 

Bottom line, I'd take the HAL ship and the food and service of the Carnival Breeze. I specifically refer to the Breeze because it was an exceptional experience, and wonderful ship......not sure if all Carnival ships would offer the same experience. 

HAL still has the best crew of any cruise line and that's been consistent over the years. The line handled the delay in Barcelona beautifully and it wasn't easy to find about 1000 hotel rooms in Barcelona on short notice! Where was music in lounges and public areas? The endless loud passenger chatter everywhere was annoying and could have been moderated with serene background music. Food choices were far more limited than I remember. Few breakfast options are available for late sleepers. Casino slot machines are difficult to operate in comparison with Las Vegas where you simply deposit cash and start betting. Having to summon help to operate a simple slot makes customers have to work too hard to lose money. The 1-cent labeling for slots with 40-cent or larger minimums is misleading. A few bells and whistles in the casino to attract attention would certainly be more profitable. Shop selections were uninteresting and need more than the usual jewelry and evening bags on sale. Shop clerks appeared aloof and uninterested. I can't say enough good things about crew members who make or break a cruise (see below for notes on individuals). Critical areas like menu planning, vendor contracts, and casino operations need evaluation and improvement.

We enjoyed our 12 day cruise of the Mediterranean, yet were disappointed that the weather (winds up to 85 knots and high seas) prevented us from landing in three of the scheduled ports (Kotor, Kerkira, and Livorno).  Certainly the captain made the right decision in by-passing those ports, but it was the first time on cruises that we missed any ports.  On the other hand, the staff was excellent, friendly and helpful (I've never heard so many "Good morning"s in my life.  The food was excellent.  The activities were adequate but not outstanding.  The entertainment varied from adequate to outstanding.  We would probably cruise with Holland America again.

We had an incredible time & though we are seasoned travelers, our travel agent Kimberly was super helpful!  The food on Holand America Lines is always superior & was especially thankful to get meals at the specialty restaurants through Kimberly

We had a pleasant trip and a great experience with the  with Holland-America. Both my wife and I travel frequently (minimum of two cruises/year). This was the first time we traveled wit Holland-America and we both enjoyed the experience very much. We were very impressed with professional attitude and appearance of staff members and found the environment very friendly.

We both like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation of the job performed by Mr. Bagus Wahono, the gentleman responsible for our dinner table. We found him very professional, friendly and competent and would like to recommend him highly with the administration.

we enjoyed are cruise greatly. We missed our flight,thanks to delta inability to leave on time and having the connecting flight leaving early. We caught up to the cruise at its first port. Hal was very accommodating. Our room was wonderful and the food was great. We ate at all three specialty restaurants and was very impressed. We were disappointed that we had to skip a port because off rough water. But all in all it was fantastic.

Great trip and ship.. only suggestion would be to take the trip earlier or later in the season.  Hot and humid.  Trying to get away from the summer heat in Phoenix.

First cruise experience and was not let down. Great ports and as much as you want to do on or off the point and excursions on your own or through the ship.

We have done numerous cruises and agree this was one of the best. We spent extra nights in Venice, and being there at night when the city is quieter is magical. The ports are all excellent. Istanbul is awesome, but more crowded that when we were there 5 years ago, we did a tour thru Shore Excursions (bought the 3 pack, Athens, Santorini and Istanbul, and we were pleased with them all, excellent guides). Oai is one of the most beautiful places with gorgeous views and the tour included a stop at a winery that was very nice: no pressure to buy, and they served olives, bread, tomatoes and cheese.

We had to skip Lesbos due to high waves, and Argostoli was a cute town, but not much there.

the Nieuw amsterdam had an awesome crew: our room stewards were great, very attentive and we had fixed dining, with a fun group of people and our waiters took good care of us. Very patient with my elderly mother who is hard of hearing. even the servers in the Lido were helpful and patient. We were impressed with the room service this time, always prompt, and the order was always complete (something that has been a problem on the Eurodam in the past) and they even sent things we forgot to order, like brown sugar and raisins for the oatmeal. We were pleased with everything. The entertainment has improved (a new contract group for the song and dance stuff, much better) but some of the stuff still geared toward an older group.

We had an aft cabin, some + and some negative aspects. Far to walk to everywhere in the ship (but I didn't gain weight!) nice size balcony with a stunning night view in Istanbul, we saw the entire harbor. But I did notice more vibrations, and some noise from the lido deck above in the am and at night when they moved chairs.

would recommend!

beautiful public spaces, good food, beautiful flowers and orchids all around.  hallways to rooms very grim.  need better training for guest relations.  previous experiences with other cruise lines ( royal carribean, regent, windstar, celebrity) guest relations were much better.

Our cruise on the Zaandam in Nov 2014 was one of our best cruises. The entertainment was excellent and the food selection was great. I cannot say this for the Nieuw Amsterdam. The entertainment was poor. We went to all of the shows but we only stayed for three of them. We left the others after 5-10 min because they were so bad. The entertainment in the lounges was also poor. The selection of food in the main dining room was well below average compared to other cruises we have been on. Lido food was OK. We were awakened around 7AM each morning with grinding and knocking sounds below our cabin.

This was the last cruise for the crew before going into dry dock for 10 days.  The crew was seemed disorganized and rushed, as well as rude on more than one occasion.  I was gifted several shipboard packages for our 40th anniversary but and had to have the front desk adjust my bill several times because they were charging me for what was prepaid as a gift.  In addition, I never received my photo package because the crew failed to inform me that I was gifted that.

And, the crew is always trying to sell something, which is very annoying. Even on their private island everything is for sale,  

My wife and I took our first cruise... this exact cruise for our 25th Anniversary in 2013 on the ms Eurodam and loved it! After we returned she was diagnosed with cancer and passed away 21 months later.

As a time of celebration of their mom's life, I took my two daughters on their first  cruise... the very same cruise my wife and I had taken, only difference was we were on the ms Nieuw Amsterdam. We had an incredible time! Our favorite stop was the last day, on Half Moon Cay... the BEST part of the cruise, and we all wished we would have had more time there! We plan on cruising together again in the future.

Holland America was our first cruise experience and is (in part) why I again selected them. We appreciated so many of their crew members.

We enjoyed visiting the Easter Caribbean. The ship was lovely and the staff were very warm and friendly. Great food and a good gym. We had great shore excursions - snorkeling at Grand Turk Island and sailing/snorkeling in St. Thomas. We missed the kayak tour in Peurto Rico because it was fully booked. We also really enjoyed the day at Half Moon Cay. The only negative comment would be that most of the on board activites were marketing sessions to generate sales - eg.watch demonstration, jewlery info, health info etc.

We found the ship to be on the small side. The food on 9th floor was just eatable most of the time. The food at the Manhattan was mostly good, There just wasn't much of it. There wasn't a large screen t.v. by the pool as other ships has. The cabin was small. So small I could hardly get my small scooter in the room. Another ship we  were on had a large cabin, also with a balcony with plenty of room and 2 t.v.'s. We found everyone to be very friendly on our trip, especially the waiters on the ninth floor, like Nana was. Our cabin cleaner was very friendly and helpful. Where we docked was great as we found good deals and had a wonderful, memorial time at Malonos in St. Thomas. The problem was the ship and not enough to do while at sea.

Our state room had serious vibration issues.  The bed, TV, walls, ceiling was vibrating.  Hard to get to sleep with a shaking bed!  Other than this, everyone was very courteous and the food was good.  The ship is in dry dock now and being worked on.

There were many things we liked about our cruise - wonderful food, great staff, beautiful ship, our balcony.  We loved the elevators on the outside of the ship and the walking track on the 3rd level.  We were excited to see a movie theater but a little disappointed with the movies shown.  The nightly entertainment in the main show room was also not very good.  There were many empty seats so I think others felt the same way. 

The Nieuw Amsterdam is one of our favorite ships, so we were already off to a good start.  We sail often with Holland America because we like their ships and absolutely love their private island, Half Moon Cay.  On this cruise we enjoyed our "Duck Tour" in Grand Cayman and thoroughly enjoyed Key West.  We were not impressed with Cozumel, although the cocoa factory tour was interesting.  Overall, it was a good experience.

We decided for this cruise because of the ports visited especially San Juan. My husband and I were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary and we wanted to explore San Juan and have a relaxed time at the other islands. Grand Turk, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay are all beautiful islands and had a great time on our own. The only disappointment was the only tour we booked in San Juan, we visited the Bacardi rum plant and used most of the afternoon there and left very little time to see the forts and Old San Juan. We only give 3 stars to this cruise because the entertainment on board was poor. Holland America concentrated more in selling jewelry, photos and art.