Westerdam - Reviews

If you like to be bored and spend a lot of money on uncharges, this cruise is for you. Besides feeling like I was on a floating old age home, the entertainment was great, haha. If you like spending two weeks at sea with nothing to do but play bingo, watch movies, eat, and sleep by the pool than you might like sailing with Holland America. Personally, I would prefer more than one thing scheduled to do at night. Staff is very friendly, but then again they should be since you might feel like jumping off to swim to shore because of boredom.

Very good cruise but felt not as fully expected. Fully understand having to pay for alcohol bu not able to get a soft drink or bottle of water without charge - plus 15% - to me is a grab for money. Lots of attempts to up sell - by bottle of wine not a glass, buy products from spa, etc. Also thought the “sail away party” would have been that with a few drinks included but the special occasion drink was still a $9 extra. Enquired about a bridge tour and was told a $150 fee for a behind the scenes tour and minimum of 4. Again another money grab in my opinion. Gala nights were “odd” - apart from the Captain’s Toast Monday night there was nothing more “gala” apart from the suggestion to dress up (not all did) and the Friday night, there was nothing else at all to signify. Seemed lacking, I expected something “gala”!

The ship is really not impressive in any way. A ports were mostly high rise buildings. If you take a tour you can can see a little of the country side. A few of the trips were worth the money, others a total waste. If you truly want to see these countries do not attempt to do it on a cruise ship. Please note that the cruise line gives this rating an overall 2.4 out of 3. It is not that high in reality.

Overall we had a good time and enjoyed the cruise! We would recommend this cruise to others interested in Asia.

Great ports. Have been on two other wonderful HAL cruises....SE Asia (again) and Mediterranean. This one was such a disappointment, I cannot recommend to friends, and will probably steer away from future cruises on HAL. We are planning an Alaska cruise......saw that Westerdam will be going there.....NO WAY!!! I told our friends that we would not cruise on Westerdam again, and to stay away from HAL, unless HAL is the only line that goes where we want.

Great itinerary. Never enough time in port (but that's always the problem). Food was terrific and crew was very friendly and helpful.

Outstanding cruise. Never disappointed with Holland America!

This cruise was boring with no quality night time entertainment and the the ports and excursions were not interesting. The cruise ship is old and food was average. I thought there were more than 1 specialty restaurants. In fact, the cruise has only 1 cafeteria and 1 restaurants. The cruise ship changed Pinnacle Grill into 3 different restaurants on different nights. They also changed Lido their cafeteria every night to Cannaletto Italian restaurant. The foid were not Italian at all! All the restaurants have similar foid, primarily steaks. I prefer going to Europe after taking 2 se asia cruises.

Good overall view of 5 countries in Asia. Too many beach ports and others took a ride to get to the attractions/cities.

Excellent crewmen and women . The Endnonisionbcrewvlookedcafterbus and provided excellent service

Had a great trip!. The ship was great, the staff very accommodating, and getting on and off very ready.

I only gave a good rating for ports in Alaska mainly due to the weather. We had drizzly days which required a rain jacket. We were told that we were actually lucky it only drizzled. Apparently it rains a lot. Vancouver was supposedly sunny, but the smoke from the fires in BC cast a blanket over the city. Since the fires won't last forever, any other time will allow you to see this great city in all its glory. Be sure not to miss the Granville Market and Victoria was interesting but made for a very long day.

Disembarkation was the worst. We were told by Rosario that we were not on the list for "straight to shuttle" when our luggage was tagged the night before with the correct tags. She turn us over to Harvey who was doing 1000 other things and said he would fix it but abandoned us. Luckily, Pam from the vancover port assisted us in getting off of the ship and to our shuttle.

I again want to bring up the dinner staff (Paulus, Mark Dig, Yohan), our stewards (Paul and Nicky), and Billboard On-board entertainment (Andy and Polina) for making our experience one that our family will never forget. We needed a great experience after the recent loss of my father and this is exactly what we were hoping for so thank you Holland America.

The suite was well worth the extra cost. The most enjoyable, and unexpected aspect of the cruise was the terrific entertainment. This includes on board-musicians, magician and comedian, as well as the excursions. We did excursions in Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau and each time our guide was superior or even better. We learned so much more than we anticipated. Highest recommendation possible!

My first cruise and first visit to Alaska were all amazingly beautiful. We had extraordinary sunshiny days and tolerable temperatures. Only one rather rough day at sea (our only rainy day) but the ship provided lots of entertainment choices and good food. Since there are no roads in and out of most of the ports of call, cruising Vancouver to Seward is the best way to go. Met some great people along the way and had a great experience!

This truly was an amazing trip. In addition to the ports we Loved the day we cruised through Glacier Bay. We pulled up parallel to a large glacier and sat there for about 1 1/2 hours giving us plenty of time to see not only small pieces slough off but hear the thunderous cracking and witnessing a larger portion calve off. I would recommend the Alaskan Inside passage cruise heartily. The only downside was the disorganized way that the Vancouver embarkation & disembarkation is accomplished. They shouldn't try to have 4 cruise ships (1 wasn't Holland America) embarking & disembarking at the same time. We also had difficulty when we disembarked as we had a shuttle (not through the cruise line) to take us back to our hotel. No one seemed to know where we needed to catch it. We went to where it dropped us off & were told to go to door D, which was all large buses. From there we were told to go to Door A which turned out to be for taxi service, then Door E which was excursions????????????? Finally found someone who guided us to the street level where we got the assistance we needed.

This was a wonderful trip. Very comfortable state room. Ports of call were very interesting. Food was excellent. Only hassle was getting off the ship in Vancouver. The problem was with Canada Place not with the Westerdam.

It is worth the money. If you have not seen this part of the world it is a good trip

I wish the port stays had been longer. I prefer a more in-depth experience. In general it was what I expected and I enjoyed the opportunity to be back in Mexico and Central America as well as Cartagena. The Westerdam is well run from the cruiser's point of view and if I were to do another cruise, I wouldn't hesitate to book with HAL again.