Rotterdam Reviews

Use will defi.itely seek out other Holland America options. Loved the size of the ship. 1,400...

Great getaway and a great value. Fantastic food and service you need to go to a five star status restaurant to get.

We enjoyed our first time on a Holland America ship so much we gave a deposit for another trip

Good itinerary, but ship needs major refurbishment.

Very enjoyable cruise on the whole and enjoyed the ports.

Fantastic cruise, would consider doing it again in the future.

We were looking for a private, relaxing, reconnecting experience. This elegantly decorated ship with friendly, quality service gave us exactly what we needed.

Great cruise, even without many activities, Food was excellent. many healthy choices, clean ship, friendly staff, seemed to be not enough wait staff in dining room

I like my room with ocean view even I had last minute booking. Dinning room lido dinning and room services are excellent. Terminal agents in Tampa are horrible ! Holland company and link customers booking is horrible. my booking were not linked even I was on ship the third day when I used my room card playing slots machine.. They don’t have my booking with them.

Despite the social environment aboard the Rotterdam not being a good fit for me, the excursions and staff made the trip worthwhile.

We loved the ports of call but were disappointed in the experience on the Rotterdam.

Beware Rotterdam!!! No hot water in our cabin for a week. Holland America was unconcerned with the issues. In the end they gave us a $250 Credit for our inconvenience. Not nearly enough to have to endure two cold showers a day for a week.

We loved the cruise and being able to relax and see the sights without moving our luggage every day or so. The food was delicious, we met great people, and enjoyed new ports of call. We hope to go back to Canada again sometime. Thanks for the wonderful experience.

Overall it was pretty good but not exciting. Unusually warm weather cause less than peak foliage. We enjoyed ourselves as we went with a group. If we had gone alone we would have been bored.

Each of the maritime ports and islands was unique and colorful. Ship was relaxing and sophisticated but not snobby, met many 8interesting people in open dining. Made new friends!

We had a great time on this cruise. We had previously taken this cruise in the other direction (Boston to Montreal) on the ms Maasdam and enjoyed that so much we decided to do it again in this direction. The things that were on the other ship and not on the Rotterdam were dance lessons, flower arranging class, more Bingo, and movies we liked better. But overall, we still liked this cruise. We liked the different ports that we stopped at. The crew was fantastic. Everyone is friendly, attentive, professional, and efficient. We enjoyed the different foods and activities. Gala night was fun. The shows at night were excellent. There was no "crew show" on the Rotterdam like there was on the Maasdam (which we enjoyed), but that may be because the crew are just so busy. Overall, we would highly recommend this cruise.

Being of Viking descent,this was very interesting and on our bucket list. Sailing above the Artic Circle was nice and certifying it was a nice touch.

Norway is a beautiful country. Most of the ports we visited were small and we were the only ship in port so there weren't the usual crowds in town. One shore excursion was cancelled because not enough people signed up and one was changed due to snow on the mountain. It was a very relaxing, no rush trip. The entertainment on HAL was not up to their usual standards but the scenery made up for it. We had booked 2 shore excursions from , supposedly at a discount, for the hop on/hop off busses. When we got to the bus we found that we could have saved $10 each if we booked directly with them on shore.

+ food

+ accommodation, i.e., bed, linens, shower but not the sound from the stage

+ wait and housekeeping staff

+ ship's condition for its age (1997)

- onboard WiFi kills free, nearby, off-board WiFi 

- business processes; several errors/discrepancies in printed/webpage info

- lack of empathy from Ashore Department and Customer Service Desk

- inadequate preplanning for crowd control around elevators and level 1 exit to the gangplank

- uneven footing in the highest traffic area on the ship (can you spell Lido?)

- unbeknown surprise of booking a 21 day but receiving a 14 + 7  "Collective Cruise".....did not see that in my contract anywhere

- if the spa worked I could not figure it out and no one came to check

- there is more but it probably gets a little bit petty after the above

good price and went where we wanted to go.  all Holland America shore excursions were over priced and to much bus riding sight seeing.  should have more stops to take pictures, than trying to get a picture from a moving bus. not enough variety in night shows, not enough actives on sea days, food buffet was same items day after day for all three meals for short cruises would be ok but not when on 44 days