Excellent Cruise !
Oosterdam Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 20
Review summary
Overall a great cruise. I booked the cruise through for the extra miles. The agent that sold me the package was initially very attentive and answered questions. Towards the end she was not respondent and knew that I was not happy with her service so she refused to respond to emails. Our next cruise has been booked through HAL directly.Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The main dining room was excellent as was the Canaletto. Our experience in the Pinnacle Grill was the worst. We met others on the ship that were given the Pinnacle Grill and chose not to go and we quickly understood. Not sure that we will visit on our next cruise.
Onboard Activities
Did not use; however, the pool appeared to be clean.
Entertainment
The shows that we attended were excellent.
Children's Programs
Because we did not travel with any children.
Service and Staff
Excellent service. We visited the Ledo Bar often and Alan, Ken, etc., everyone was EXCELLENT!
Ship Quality
Someone was always cleaning everywhere. Very clean!!
Cabin / Stateroom
Excellent ! The bed was very comfy and the room always kept very clean. Just wish the room was larger. We had issues with the water in the sink that maintenance worked on several times; however, it still remained HOT intermittently. The A/C in the room also had to be looked at several times. HAL was great and brought us a large fan to use during the duration of the cruise and also worked on the A/C. HAL also offered compensation for the issues we experienced during our cruise.
Ship tip
Nice boat and a GREAT staff!
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We stayed in Rome 3 days prior to the cruise. We did our own touring and saw a LOT of amazing history, which was great. Many of the locals were not friendly and would not help with directions when asked. The cab drivers will try to take advantage of you every chance they have. VERY dirty city. With all of the money that Rome is taking in for tourism, one would think that they would clean it up. I would have rated this port of call lower; however, the sites we visted were AMAZING!
We did an excursion through Shore Excursions Group, which was EXTREMELY disappointing due to the driver and his lack of engagement with the 6 customers and showing/pointing out all of the sites.
Beautiful; however, like someone else mentioned on facebook, don't expect to see the blue roofs everywhere. The blue roofs are for churches. We did a nice excursion. Word to the wise take the tram back to the ship, unless you want to walk thousands of steps, which are uneven and in some places very hard to manage. Don't forget that you'll have to share the stairs with the donkeys. It's a LOT further down then you think... do your homework, which I did not do.... and regretted it.
Good stop. Beware of excursions for some, even though they don't advertise it.... end in a HIGH PRESSURE sales pitch for rug purchases. You are told that you are going to stop at a rug store to see a "DEMONSTRATION"; however, this is a lie and its really high pressure. Just beware.
Good port. However, we had bad weather and was not able to see what we hoped for, which is not HALs fault.
Really nice port and people. We did an excursion, and too much time spent in the first stop so another part was not able to be included.
Disembarkation
It was OK. We were told that we would leave at 7:45AM. We left the ship at that time and the people that were going to City Center Venice boarded a bus. After everyone appeared to be aboard the driver THEN noted that if you needed to use the rest room to go back to some building and do it now for it was a 2 hour drive. This should ALL of have relayed ahead of time. I think we finally left the dock at 9AM, which really affected the pickup reservations that we had through our hotel.