Zuiderdam Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We cruised Alaska in May on the Eurodam and loved HAL so much we booked this cruise. The Panama Canal was the main reason, knowing it would possibly be the once in a lifetime experience. We loved it! The Zuiderdam was lovely, the staff superb, entertainment was great, but did not see all shows. We will be on HAL again in November, the ship experience is as important to us as the ports.

Just spent the last 11 days onboard Zuiderdam and I was seriously considering selling our mini Texas Mansion of over 3,000 sqft, 4 bedroom, 3 bath home for the Deluxe Verandah suite #5057 that I shared with my husband and our two teen daughters. We each had our own large suite case and an additional carry on. We over packed by a lot but our cabin had plenty of room to store our things. The first couple days my 16 year old was a bit bummed that there were 11 teens on the ship and of all 11 she was the only one that showed up at the teen Lounge to meet them. Honestly, I feel like our youth are so wrapped up in technology that they miss out on what is important, family. My parents stayed next door in #5059 and our cabin stewards we're kind enough to unlock the partition that separated our balconies which allowed even more bonding time. Im only 40 so I wouldn't consider myself old but I really wasn't interested in a party boat with a bunch of drunk twenty year olds hitting on my teens. Yes there were so many older couples on the ship and they're wonderful. Many I imagine have been married for decades and you can see the love they still have for each other when they dance and dang, I consider myself a pretty hip dancer but Granny she knows the classics. I thought the captain was excellent. We saw him a lot and he made a big ship feel like a small family. The staff were all amazing and my kids are going to miss calling for room service every night. My husband will miss not having to cook or clean and im really going to miss the laundry service. Zuiderdam, we love you! I miss you so much and we only left you this morning

I found this to be one of the most enjoyable cruises I have taken. Although Zuiderdam does not have all the activities available on larger ships, the crew are friendly and give a higher level of service than on some other ships. The captain and officers were friendly and approachable when we encountered them walking around the ship or during presentations explaining the workings of the ship. We sailed on Zuiderdam when it was two years old and found it very pleasant. If anything, I enjoyed it more this time. I completely agree with the staff member who said, "Zuiderdam has a soul."

We traveled with my in-laws and was glad to have had the chance to experince traveling to the Panama Canal. It provided us with an exoerience we will never forget.

Going through the first locks at Gatun Lake was very interesting. We sat in the lake, did not cruise around. The other ports were also good. The ship, overall, was a disappointment. It's the second HAL cruise in 12 years that I've taken and, in both cases, the ship broke down. I will no longer waste my money on HAL when there are so many other fabulous ships available.

This was lovely ship but aged and can be far and compare to newer ships. Definitely like previous reviewers comments average age over 60, but we knew that booking. We had lovely staff, enjoyed casino, double piano bar and Bb King Lounge. Main stage was hit or miss. Staff was friendly, tentative and deserving of our tips. Extra fun daily with martini mixer or afternoon tea. We have no complaints even with last 2days one of propellers was not working right felt like a flat tire on a car all the time. That is mechanical misfortune but Captain kept ship up to date with issue. The food in main dinning with exceptional staff was excellent, better than specialty dining so much we cancelled our second specialty night after trying Pennicle. This trip was focused on our ports, which we loved them, Panama Canal is big check off our bucket list. Ports of call perfect.

The Captain should refrain from getting anywhere near passengers. He refused to shake hands and thoroughly embarrassed several of us in public with his negative reaction

Overall the ship had excellent services and very nice workers. Will never travel on Holland America again. Have taken many cruises and have found other ships to be better. The handling of the shore excursions was unactable. I had never had a bad shore excursions with the other ship. To put close to 50 people on a bus with knowing having no air, should be criminal. Horrible experience. Had to be all about the $$$$$ not companionship.

Quebec City was absolutely amazing, would have loved to spend more time there.

Zuiderdam is a great ship if you want a certain type of cruise. It is very casual, so much so that I dispensed with a tie for the 2nd gala night. Average age is well over 70, predominantly American, seemingly all from Virginia on our cruise, A mixture of Brits, Canadians and Aussies were on board as well with a few Dutch. If you want plenty of shipboard activities, forget it, only one place to buy speciality coffees, in the Crowsnest above the bridge, which had superb views and interactive table screens.

Great cruise, unfortunately the weather stopped us seeing al ports, but what we did see was amazing.

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.

the destinations make the trip. Ship crew and staff are delightful. On board, I most enjoyed the Americas Test Kitchen - just fun. entertatinment wasn't all that amazing - The classical quartet/quint was the most entertaining followed by the BBKing band. Everyone else works hard, just not to my tastes.

The ports of call on this cruise were amazing. St. Petersburg was my favorite. We took a two day tour that took us to the Hermitage, The Church of Spilled Blood, Summer Palace of Catherine the Great and Peterhof gardens .

This cruise was all about the itinerary--4 stops in Iceland as well as Faroe Islands and Shetland Islands--all of the ports were unforgettable!

Heerlijke cruise, goed weer gehad geen regen en de zee was spiegelglad !!!! Alles goed geregeld een aanrader !

Best cruise ever and great ship. Everything was awesome, the destinations, the staff and the suite. Food was good and a lot of variety. Nothong negative to say about the cruise

We have been cruising on Holland America now for a number of years and have been on a number of ships cruising North America and all over Europe. This particular cruise departing Copenhagen and visiting Norway, Iceland, Lerwick UK and the Faroe Islands was overall good but with some negatives as all cruises have. We sailed on the second half of the 24 day cruise called the ""Northern Isles Enchantment Cruise”. which already had some passengers onboard from the Baltic Sea part. The transfer from Copenhagen airport was fine with a 1 ½ hour tour of the city prior to arriving at the cruise terminal where the embarkation was a little chaotic which seems to be the norm lately. The PA system at the terminal was not functioning properly and it was difficult to understand the boarding instructions. Once onboard we noticed that the Zuiderdam was recently renovated and all of the public areas were updated to include our Signature Verandah Suite which was both spacious and comfortable. Our cabin steward quickly appeared to introduce himself and offer any assistance that he could. He did a very good job of locating and delivering our luggage which took some time as apparently it was misdirected. The encountered staff members were very friendly and professional with the exception of 2 or 3 members at the gangway entrance who seemed to be a little frazzled with the new passenger arrivals and were a little snippy with directions. After settling in to our cabin we went to the main dining room to make our “Open Dining” reservation and quickly found out that the dining room scheduling desk on Deck 2 was preferable to making reservations than the reservation telephone number as the representatives weren’t all that accommodating or informed. The overall food in the dining room was fair with some hits and some misses as should be expected. We did notice a slight decline in food quality from previous years. One point to make is to order any breakfast eggs “well done” as other Cruise Critic reviewers have noted that the eggs are served watery and undone both in the dining room and with room service as well. The Pinnacle Grill was fabulous and the Canaletto Restaurant not so much as the food quality decline was very evident. Over the two week cruise we met a number of very nice and interesting people while dining in the main dining room or having a glass of wine in one of the lounges. The Lido at lunch was extremely crowded with the seating limited. On the last sea day before leaving we just handed our full plates to a steward to throw away as there wasn’t even any shared seating available to include in the adjacent pool areas. We ended up waiting a half hour and picked up two chicken sandwiches from the Dine In Grill and sat at the outdoor pool lip/bench area with the food in our laps. The overall entertainment was not of any interest to us as we only enjoyed 3 of the 14 nights in the Main Stage and ended up leaving after a few minutes for the 11 performances that we didn’t care for. The “Billboard Onboard” piano/singers were fantastic but the BB King Band was not as they were way too loud for the small room and not up to the standard of other BB King Bands that we enjoyed on previous cruises. The America’s Test Kitchen activities were very entertaining and fun to attend. We purchased 3 excursions and were disappointed a bit with all of them as there were many glitches obviously with the contractors and a lack of communication with the ship. A point to make is that when trying to review the excursions on the Holland America web site the review option seems to have disappeared. Maybe I am doing something wrong and looking in the wrong place. Guest Services appeared to be “Out of the Loop” on many occasions with inaccurate information being distributed to us often with a later correction. On the plus side our final invoice was correct and billed to our credit card. The Captain was always visible around ship and gangways and was seen interacting both with the staff and passengers. There were many passengers that were coughing and sneezing all over and for the most part the personal hygiene/health habits left a bit to be desired to say the least.Bring along some cold medication. All in all a “fair” cruise experience with some pluses and some minuses.

It was an amazing adventure. this was out first time on Holland America and we would do it again. The ship is the perfect size, not too big or too small. The crew was amazing. Very friendly and not pushy like on our cruises. Our room was a great size and very comfortable.

We had been wanting to "do the Baltics" and think it may be a cruise we will repeat in a few years.....when it's warmer there.