Oosterdam Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We really enjoyed our time on this trip. Got to visit some places we've never been before, met some great people along the way and, once again, got to marvel at the engineering of the Panama Canal. Wonderful trip.

We are presently on this cruise on the Holland America Oosterdam from Buenos Aires to Fort Lauderdale around the southern tip of South America. For some crazy reason, Holland America head office has decreed that Port Talks can not be broadcast to cabin TVs. No reasonable reason is given. The talks are given by the cruise director and are the best I have seen on any cruise. Nobody wants to miss them. They are only given once and the Mainstage auditorium where they are presented is super over-packed with passengers (and HAL's are generally older people) who have to stand or sit on the stairs. Worse than this, people who are sick (and the boat is loaded with them) have two choices - miss the Port Talk or go to the Mainstage and share their bugs. They should, could and would watch in their cabins if it was available on their TVs. (My wife is sick and I ended up puking my guts out one night and not eating for two days. Thanks HAL!) I sent an email to the president of Holland America and his assistant wrote back to say that, due to copyright restrictions, they can not broadcast the Port Talks to cabin TVs. I don't understand how copyright restrictions could get in the way of televising a talk by one of their own employees. These talks have always been available on cabin TVs in the past. The focus at Holland America doesn't seem to be on the health and comfort of their passengers any more. We'll be looking for another cruise line.

31 days well spent at sea plus three days pre -cruise in Buenos Aires. Canal transit a must for all cruisers.

Good cruise, staff was excellent . Cabin needs updating, met our needs.

It is the "trip of a Lifetime" for anyone who wants to cruise to Antarctica.

Start to the trip was damp. 14 inches of rain in Ft Lauderdale and near gale force winds from the east caused water incursion into our deck 4 balcony on port side. Cabin attendants and water clean up crew were there vacuuming and with fans till late at night. How attentive. That event bonded us to our cabin attendants Ham and Bong from Bali. We got to know them well and enjoyed interfacing. They were perfect. We were sad about our Panama City shore excursion cancellation - protests by locals made it too dangerous. And Puerto Chacabuco was cancelled due to San Antonio authorities delaying our departure 8 hours due to high winds. The rest of our port visits were asesome. None of them did we get rained on except in the Falklands. Walked to the museum in Aruba, hung out on our balcony through the Panama canal - our cruise director Ed narrated with a truly informative talk as he did for each port and also when we viewed the glaciers later...superlative CD. We had a beer portside in Panama, walked the beach and wandered through a museum dedicated to indigenous folks in Ecuador, parited onboard for Orange night and the equator passing, took a Viator excursion in Lima to see downtown and grab lunch at Peru Gourmet plus drive by huacas and visit Love park, our HAL small boat tour off Pisco to the Ballestras to see penguins and sea lions was great, a walk to the mall in Coquimbo wa oksay, as was our pier boardwalk in San Antonio. Puerto Montt hotel Ibis was welcoming with local Flugel beer, the Chilean fjords and Brujo glacier - where our captain did a donut for full viewing - were breathtaking. Punta Arenas had Austral beer at a basement pub in the old Braun mansion - much welcomed after a long stroll to Braun cemeteary, and then the 6 glaciers near Ushuaia were otherworldly. Ushuaia was just a step into the town, but braved the cold and rain after a long tender ride into Stanley to have a scone in the Falklands at West Store. Shopping in Montevideo was fun using my Spanglish, and Buenos Aires HAL excursion was perfect with a bus to Recoleta cemetery and Casa Rosada and Tortoni cafe plus La Boca. Food on the ship is good. The 8 bottle Cellar 1 wine package at $260 was passable. The service we received was best on the seas (and we have been on 30 or so ocean cruises). We did have to use the medical facilities for a non life threatening event and were extremely pleased with the service and moderate price.

We missed several ports to avoid rough seas and weather, but we were so fortunate we had the experienced captain to make sure our crossing was sunny and smooth

Our Itinerary was changed to to weather concerns. After passing through Gibraltar the captain took us south to the Canary Islands, such an unexpected treat. The Captain kept us informed of weather concerns throughout the voyage and made excellent decisions to keep passengers, crew and ship safe. The Officers, crew and other staff were some of the friendliest we have encountered. They were visible and showed interaction with the passengers that was greatly appreciated. The crew on this ship are definitely family. The cruise and Travel Director, Daniel was the best CD we have ever met.

We had great hopes for this cruise, but for us, it was 50-50. We loved certain aspects, but are very critical of others. There are certainly many things Holland can do to make this more enjoyable for travelers, especially those new to Holland and as such don't have any kind of special benefits. (1) Streamline the embarcation process. The majority of the guests are seniors who have traveled a long way and are tired. You can add more personnel to manage this process, provide some refreshments due to long waiting periods. We need, and not merely deserve, food and drink (2) Provide umbrellas for rainy days. We can even buy them if necessary. We were surprised there weren't any. At one port, we saw several other tourists using Viking umbrellas. We were so jealous! (3) Since you don't have any shore excursions included free with the cruise, and we had to pay for everything, please offer your guests FREE bottled/canned water. By charging us $4/can, you're literally nickel and diming us. Not appreciated, and not a good look. (4) Improve your internet service. Terrible, terrible connection, and in some areas, none at all! (5) For what we pay for the cruise, the excursions, etc. include house wine and sodas with the dinners. Charge only for premium drinks and cocktails. Again, don't nickel and dime your guests! (6) Offer complimentary umbrellas and ponchos for those unexpected rainy days, Plastic ponchos won't take up too much room. Include that with a welcome package (which you don't even offer) in every room. (7) Include at least a bottle of water per person FREE everyday for each room. Some of us take medication and will need water. It was a shock that we had to pay for it. An even bigger to see how much it was! (8) Don't use old, stained and frayed napkins at the Lido. Made us feel like second-hand travelers every time we ate there. (9) Believe it or not, some of the breads at the Lido were stale and hard! Improve your quality control methods. (10) Have a show at the theater every night. Not everyone drinks, gambles, or goes off shore. Remember who most of your clients are: Seniors! Most of us even have mobility issues. Account for them. (11) We can't hear the announcements in our room, and we had to open our cabin doors to hear them in the hall. Make sure each room's speaker works.

Holland America truly did a wonderful job. This was a dream come true for me.

The itinerary was amazing. The food and entertainment was not for us. The ship needs to be updated and onboarding activities a little more inclusive towards under 50.

It's a very elegant cruise with lovely Belgian captain and very professional staff. The ship was clean, the food quality and presentation was great, service staff was mostly very good, our stateroom was spotless. There was no noise or drunk partying guests anywhere on the cruise with no spilled drinks or food on the floor. Opposite, it's a quiet, clean cruise with a beautiful ship layout huge liner which did not make any of us feel motion sick at all. It was our first time sailing with Holland America, and we all had a great experience! Strongly recommended.

The problem with the two excursions was very upsetting & the cruise staff pretty much had an attitude of ‘well, stuff happens, too bad’ ! Then I found out that the Excursion Desk had not sent the information to Guest Services !! Although they did not seem to really care either! Guess I will never reach the next Mariner level as I plan to never sail on the Holland cruise line again! I also never received a reply after the cruise from guest relations on a call & from an email I sent!

Although the food was great, I was shocked that I'd have to pay for lobster tail in the regular dining room--that's a first for me. The Jacuzzi jets were not strong, (unless you paid extra to use the spa Jacuzzi), the entertainment was subpar; the ship was clean and the rooms were lovely. The excursions were expensive and no info available for anyone who wanted to explore on their own, even guest services staff knew very little about the stops and could not answer our questions. It's my second trip with HA and all-in-all, I would not recommend this cruise line!

The food was excellent. The ports were OK, and the entertainment was subpar. The service was excellent from all of the staff. They were very professional, welcoming, acknowledging, and helpful.

Awesome port calls, though some port calls were too short. The east Mediterranean is beautiful.

Currently cruising on the Oosterdam on the 12-day Adriatic Sea cruise. When we boarded in Trieste, Italy on 7/15/23, Holland America had our bags loaded onto another company’s cruise ship. How is that even possible?? When they were finally able to locate where our luggage had gone, they told us to buy what we needed and to get ourselves “comfortable” and that we would of course be reimbursed. They’ve now told us that each guest will only be reimbursed $50…? When we were shocked by this amount, Eduardo (the Guest Director) shrugged his shoulders said “fine- if you don’t want it, don’t take it.” Who talks like that when the company itself has admitted fault? It’s been 6 days and we STILL do not have any of our luggage. We’ve asked to put our communication and terms discussed in writing because of the lack of accountability and they have refused to do so. This request did however trigger a demand letter for payment in full for all charges incurred onboard up to that point. This has been a cruise from hell. We’ve been working with the Front Desk Manager and Guest Director primarily. Does anyone have advice on how to actually obtain compensation or address this issue?? How hard is it to ship luggage from one port to another? Like seriously how hard can this be?? Do we stay here onboard racking up charges and hoping that our luggage will get to us before the end of the cruise? Or do we call our losses and go home now, hoping Holland America sends our luggage to our home? Has anyone been in this situation and have any insight?? TIA

It was a very nice experience overall, I appreciated the ambiance of the cruise, peaceful and respectful. I would have chosen another city instead of Souda, probably one in Croatia (Opatja, Splitz...) and see more of Crete instead of being two days in Malta.

Wonderful cruise on a wonderful cruise ship. We do regret not having an excursion planned for both Albania and Sicily. The port towns were not impressive.

This was a long cruise to many interesting places that would be hard to visit other than on a ship. We enjoyed the comfort of the ship after full days of sightseeing, made more challenging by an extreme heat wave. Our stateroom was cozy and we enjoyed our dinners in the dining room and at the specialty restaurants. We are happy to recommend this trip to others.