South American Cruise
Rotterdam Retired Cruise Review to South America
16 Night South America Explorer (Rio De Janeiro To Valparaiso)
Sail date: March 04, 2006
Ship: Rotterdam Retired
Cabin type: Balcony
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 14 years ago
Review summary
Upon sailing on the MS Rotterdam to South America, I was surprised that the ship was much smaller than we have cruised on in the past. I was also dissapointed in the fact that the entertainment was so low key. Although my husband and I took this much awaited cruise to destress, confronting ourselves everynight with the same set of music played and from an era I was not, made it for boring entertainment. By the end of the cruise I could name the songs being played in order every night. There was not even an option at the disco lounge which also had horrible speaker system. It's a good thing my husband and I enjoy each others company very much, because as for the entertainment part of this cruise, it was not up to par. My biggest gripe of the whole cruise was the fact that there was a horrible noise comming from above that kept my husband and I up during rough seas, which by the way there were quite a few, and may us uneasy during the day. We finally figured out that the noise was comming from the pool, each time the ship went up and down, the water in the pool would bang on each end loudly and since our stateroom was only two floors down just by the stairs that led up to the pool area. I complained several times, calling up to the front desk where I was treated very rudely, and told that they could not confirm that the noise I was hearing was from the pool and that even if it were, they were not about to empty it since they were a conservation ship and needed to save water. After several nights of this going on I finally went to the cruise director, Michelle, and complained to her and she voiced my discomfort, but even she was not able to convice them to empty the pool. Finally, after me calling the front desk in desperation of lack of sleep, they sent someone down to listen for the noise, they finally acknowledged that it in fact was the pool water, but that they could still not empty the pool. I was so dissapointed in being treated this way, that water was more important than the sleep or comfort of a passenger. At the end they offered to put us in another room to sleep, which annoyed me more because I was told earlier on that the ship was full and there were no more rooms avaiable and yet now miraculously a room available appeared. The front desk personnell certainly needs to get attitude adjustments and training on how to treat guests. Due to that experience I do not know if I would sail on MS ships again, expecially if they prefer to conserve water than the comfort of a guest, ESPECIALLY WHEN NO ONE WAS GETTING IN THE POOL ANYWAYS DUE TO ROUGH SEAS. The water spilling over the pool area also made for hazardous conditions because the decks would be soaking wet and you would see numerous, especially since this was a majority elderly crowd, falling while walking on the sopping wet decks. You could not even lie down on the lounge chairs because you would get sopping wet from the water banging in the pool. The waves in the pool were, in my opiniom, worse than the waves in the sea. This was a long awaited cruise, since my husband and I were celebrating our 30 year wedding anniversary and were anticipating 16 nights of comfort in our beautiful balcony suite, which was the best part of the cruise, except for the noise from the pool, and felt that we could have saved so much money had we gone down to the cheaper staterooms down below and have relaxed and enjoyed the cruise more.Ports of call
Port Stanley, Falkland Islands
Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina
Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina
Port Stanley, Falkland Islands
Pros: My stateroom, and the tours up the canals
Cons: the fact that they did not empty the pool during rough seas and the noise kept me up at night and created a non relaxing atmosphere during the day. Caused me alot of anxiety due to lack of sleep. The crew did nothing about it despite my complaints.