A small ship with a great staff.

Item: Zaandam
Rating: 4.3
Author: passportready

Zaandam Cruise Review

passportready

Contributor Level: Second Mate

170 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 10

Helpful Votes: 194

Overall rating:

4.3 out of 5

16 Night Caribbean Holiday (Ft. Lauderdale Roundtrip)

Sail date: December 20, 2022

Ship: Zaandam

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 7052

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

A port intensive Holiday cruise. This is a lovely small ship but there are some issues to be prepared for.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Very smooth and easy

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

Service was good. Food was sometimes different than you expected. Ice cream selections were limited

Wine Tastings

3 out of 5

If you know much about wine, you might be bored. The person sitting next to me and I entertained ourselves with snark about overly oaky Chardonnay

Lido Restaurant

5 out of 5

A small ship so the buffet area is smaller. In the morning the aft area would smell like smoke from the smoking by the aft pool

Explorations Cafe

5 out of 5

Baristas were excellent. The Library was large and varied. I mostly hung out here

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

Lido Deck

4 out of 5

The Dive In hamburgers and hotdogs were good I recommend the fries and bratwurst. There is also a self serve taco bar. I ate lunch there almost every day.

Lido Pool

4 out of 5

A nice area with the Dive In hamburgers and hotdogs. I recommend the bratwurst. There is also a self serve taco bar.

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Variable. It depends what you like. Classical music was excellent

Atrium

5 out of 5

Beautiful decorations for Christmas. The antique organ concert is recorded because the organ is now too fragile to physically play.

Crow's Next

3 out of 5

No coffee bar 😢

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

Layout is quirky. Deck 4 aft is interrupted by the kitchen so you must go up or down a deck to go forward. Elevators still have day of the week rugs. There is now a carpet near the elevators pointing forward.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

Cabin would have been perfect except there was one electrical outlet. It was on the desk and my plugs did not fit tightly- it wiggled and sagged making charging things difficult. We found another outlet behind the TV. TV was freestanding and was about the size of typical medium computer monitor. We could not see the tv from the beds. Cabin has plenty of storage. Bath has a deep whirlpool tub with shower. Beds were comfortable. This cabin is directly below the Lido- it is noisy during nightly cleaning. ( my fault in not checking- I forgot this shipping only has 8 decks- I had been on it pre Covid).