Nice Quiet and Small Alaskan Cruise

Zaandam Cruise Review to Alaska

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 70

Overall rating:

4.4 out of 5
Verified Review
Zaandam

14 Night Great Land Explorer (Seattle Roundtdrip)

Sail date: July 30, 2018

Ship: Zaandam

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 6141

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

We have always wanted to visit Alaska and a cruise was the way to do it. We knew we wouldn't be doing this again so we wanted to make the most of it. Many of the cruises or cruise portions of the trips don't visit a lot ports, especially the ones up around Anchorage and Homer. That was really nice to be able to see all of the coastline and the different landscape of Alaska from Ketchikan all the way to Kodiak. We saw the glaciers around Tracy Arm Fjord and also Hubbard Glacier. Those were our favorite places we visited. We don't get around very well and figured a land portion would be more difficult for us. This was a great option to be able to see as much as we could in one trip. The weather we had was absolutely gorgeous! Only a couple rainy days during the entire trip, and we went in early August!

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5
The food was excellent. Between the other more casual restaurants and the room service we didn't even go to the main dining room. We are not drinkers and only had a few sodas on board. They are expensive. The water options are not great. A bottle is $5 and other than that you have to order it by the glass through room service or go to one of the dining areas to get a glass. It would have been nice if they at least offered a bottle or two a day for free for guests, since water is a necessity.

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5
We are older and did not participate in much on board. I would not recommend this for a family or anyone that doesn't just want to lay quietly around the pool. The shore excursions were much better for activities than the ship.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
The room stewards we had and the service staff on the rest of the ship were absolutely wonderful! They were great the entire trip and we couldn't have asked for any better service.

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5
We had a verandah suite, I'm not sure what the difference would be between that and a balcony. It was a decent sized room compared to the inside and oceanview rooms. Our verandah was great. I wouldn't have wanted to do this or any Alaskan cruise without the option of a verandah. That is where we spent most of our time on the ship.

Ship tip

There is NO coin operated laundry, only valet laundryt that you have to pay extra for. The ship info said there was one aboard but we aksed and also looked and could not find one.

Ports of call

Ketchikan, Alaska

4 out of 5
We didn't really look around town too much at this port. It was our first stop and we were still a little nervous to veer far from the ship after our morning excursion.

Juneau, Alaska

5 out of 5
Coming in and out of Juneau was absolutely beautiful. We saw tons of whales on our excursion here and also got to take a detour and visit a really nice lookout to see the Mendenhall Glacier. We also took the tram and that was really nice to view the area from that high up.

Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), Alaska

3 out of 5
Wasn't much here. The town itself was fairly dumpy but the trolley tour we took through the forest was really nice.

Anchorage, Alaska

4 out of 5

Homer, Alaska

4 out of 5

Kodiak, Alaska

5 out of 5
This was a close second as our favorite port. We did not take any excursions here but the town was really neat and the landscape was spectacular.

Sitka, Alaska

5 out of 5
This was our favorite port. The landscape was the most beautiful on the entire trip. We were lucky to see this on a clear, sunny day.

Victoria, British Columbia

4 out of 5
We loved this because of the Butchart Gardens tour we did. The gardens were amazing. Other than that we didn't tour any of the city.

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
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