Never make an early booking with Holland America Line
Zuiderdam Cruise Review to Transatlantic
20 Night Viking Passage (Copenhagen To New York)
Sail date: August 24, 2018
Ship: Zuiderdam
Cabin type: Inside
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
Never make an early booking with Holland America Line They are fooling early bookers when they reduce rates 1 months prior to departure without compensating early bookers to same level like other cruiselines, e.g. Royal Caribbean in such cases. On our cruise they reduced the cabin prices with 2.600 USD the last month prior to departure and thereby cheated early bookers the same price. And they difinitively reject to compensate early bookers in any way. They may have the right, but it is certainly not decent to early bookings. They could have compensated early bookers with a free beverage package, which would be a very cheap way for them to compensate the fooling. Or by upgrading. But they just gave away the better cabins to late bookers instead of early bookings. Besides, beverage packages,and especielle ordinairy wines are extremely expensive. Internet charges were 25USD for 24 hours, claiming you can be streaming, but limited to 500 MB a day. How can anyone be streaming with a limitation of 500 MB ??? - So a constant squeeze everywhere. Merely, the cabin layout is not in accordance with the showings at their website. In our case, the cabin should contain a couch with a little table and a chair. It only had the chair. All in all a very very bad experience compared to other cruise lines. So never ever Holland America Line again. And we recommend others to stay away from HAL and find other cruise lines with a decent behavour against early bookings, such as e.g. Celebrity Cruises. If it is late bookings at reduced rates they want, give it to them and save a lot of money. Most travel agents have a system of notification when prices are lowered. Just sign up at these.Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Never make an early booking with Holland America Line They are fooling early bookers when they reduce rates 1 months prior to departure without compensating early bookers to same level like other cruiselines, e.g. Royal Caribbean in such cases. On our cruise they reduced the cabin prices with 2.600 USD the last month prior to departure and thereby cheated early bookers the same price. And they difinitively reject to compensate early bookers in any way. They may have the right, but it is certainly not decent to early bookings. They could have compensated early bookers with a free beverage package, which would be a very cheap way for them to compensate the fooling. Or by upgrading. But they just gave away the better cabins to late bookers instead of early bookings. Besides, beverage packages,and especielle ordinairy wines are extremely expensive. Internet charges were 25USD for 24 hours, claiming you can be streaming, but limited to 500 MB a day. How can anyone be streaming with a limitation of 500 MB ??? - So a constant squeeze everywhere. Merely, the cabin layout is not in accordance with the showings at their website. In our case, the cabin should contain a couch with a little table and a chair. It only had the chair. All in all a very very bad experience compared to other cruise lines. So never ever Holland America Line again. And we recommend others to stay away from HAL and find other cruise lines with a decent behavour against early bookings, such as e.g. Celebrity Cruises. If it is late bookings at reduced rates they want, give it to them and save a lot of they want it so. Most travel agents have a system of notification when prices are lowered. Just sign up at these.
Ports of call
Seydisfjordur, Iceland Did not visit port
Paamiut (Frederikshab), Greenland Did not visit port
St. John's, Newfoundland Did not visit port