This was the first cruise that Ruth and I had taken. Also, this was part 1 of our Honeymoon.

Itinerary
Dec 10-Mon Ft. Lauderdale
Dec 11-Tue Sea
Dec 12-Wed Sea
Dec 13-Thu Curacao
Dec 14-Fri Venezuela
Dec 15-Sat Trinidad
Dec 16-Sun Martinique
Dec 17-Mon St. Thomas
Dec 18-Tue Half Moon Cay, Bahamas
Dec 19-Wed Sea
Dec 20-Thu Ft. Lauderdale

Travel to Port
We flew to Ft. Lauderdale late on Sunday night. We were married on Saturday and decided to give ourselves the majority of Sunday to recover before hitting the airport. Because of this and the fact we were going on a second cruise shortly after this one, we opted to arrange our own transportation. Being honeymooners (and Ruth getting a post-wedding stress migraine) we were upgraded to 1st class for the flight from Houston to Ft. Lauderdale. We stayed at the Marriott Marina, just outside of the port. The layout of the hotel is a bit strange, but the rooms were nice. Overall, a good place to stay when sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale and it has a free shuttle to the port. The restaurant is great for lunch and has a nice view of the marina.

Embarkation: B+
After arriving at the port, check-in went very smoothly. There was no wait to check-in, but we did end up waiting a little over an hour before boarding began. My guess is that some people had been waiting to board for about 2 hours. Once boarding began, everything moved along pretty fast. The terminal was a bit crowded, but most people seemed to be able to find a seat if they wanted too.

Cabin: A+
We guaranteed a Cat. B cabin (larger, outside with a balcony) but were upgraded to a Cat. A cabin. The only difference between the two that we can tell is that the sofa in Cat. A can be made into a bed. Our cabin number was 7073, starboard side aft. This put us right under the aft pool deck, which made for some noisy moments during the day as people moved chairs around. The room was more spacious than we had expected and had plenty of closet and drawer space. The bathroom had a combination shower and whirlpool tub, but to use the tub you would need to be about a foot shorter than either of us. Still, this made for a large bathroom by cruise ship standards. The cabinet in the bathroom had 3 reasonable sized shelves that allowed us to store everything we needed. The bed was too low to put our suitcases under it, but we were able to store one in a closet and the other stood in a corner of our cabin for the duration of the cruise and never presented a problem.

Ship Overview: A-
The Zaandam is less than 2 years old, but it was showing signs of wear and tear in a few locations, mainly the elevators. Movement from the front to back of the ship was relatively easy on most decks, except the deck that had the main level of the dining room where it is not possible to go from one end to the other. The decor of the ship was nice, but not really our taste in most areas. Ruth felt that the color scheme made the ship seem older than it really was. The ship did seem to have a lot of movement in relatively calm seas, but it didn't bother us most of the time. Overall, it was a nice ship with spacious rooms, something they will continually repeat if you watch the HAL promo channel on the tv. The trade-off for such large rooms appeared to be a rather small atrium that seemed even smaller because of the large organ. More about the small atrium later...

Dining: B+
HAL has kept the traditional dining experience, and we chose to take the late seating (8:15 PM) so we wouldn't feel rushed. Overall, the food was good, but I wouldn't classify it as great. Of course, when you have to prepare food for 1400 people, not everything can be great. We ate breakfast and lunch in the Lido Restaurant on most days and the food was good. We did have one day when the restaurant opened 30 minutes late, but that was the only time we really had to wait in a line to eat. We had a table for two in the dining room, reasonably close to a window. Of course, they closed the curtains in the dining room at night, so being close to the window didn't really do much. Being on our honeymoon, the table for 2 was a nice way to take a break from everything and just be alone for a while. However, at times we did wish for some of the dinnertime companionship we saw at other tables. Over the course of the cruise we got to know some of the people sitting around us though.

Service: A
For the most part, service was excellent. Our cabin steward (Fona) was incredible and met all of our expectations. The stories about leaving your room for 15 minutes and finding everything cleaned and straightened when you return are true. We did catch him in the room at night a couple of times when we would stop by to drop something off, but it was nice to see him from time to time. Our waiter (Wali) was good, but seemed to be spread a bit too thin in the dining room. After watching him for a few nights, it seemed like he was covering twice the number of tables as some of the other waiters. This might explain why he seemed a bit slow a couple of times. Still, he was always helpful and tried his best to meet all of our needs. The assistant waiter (Nur) was truly terrific. After Ruth got her hot tea the first night, we was there with tea in hand every night after that. The wine steward (Maverick) was also good, but seemed to be spread a bit thin as well. Since Ruth and I don't drink very often, we kept him guessing about if we would want something to drink and if so what it would be. Overall the dining room staff did a wonderful job of keeping us fed and happy. The rest of the service crew were also very helpful and almost always had a smile on their face, and after hearing what some of them had to put up with I don't know how they do it.

Entertainment: B
We didn't catch that many of the shows on board, but those we did see weren't as impressive as we thought they could be. I don't think this is the fault of the entertainers, but more of the conditions they have to deal with. The stage in the Mondriaan Lounge seemed too small. The cast members were often split between what they needed to do, so there was always one or two people out of step with the rest. Overall, the entertainment was good, but not outstanding.

Ports of Call: A
This being our first cruise, we opted to take a HAL organized tour at each of the ports. In the end we were thankful for this, considering our tours were late getting back to the ship 3 times during the trip.

Willemstad, Curacao - This was our first port of call. We had actually arranged to go on two tours in Curacao, but ended up only taking the first one, a tour of Willemstad. This tour was fun and hit some of the highlights from around the city that we wouldn't have seen on our own. The stops on the tour were a mixed bag, but we did like the seaquarium. Our second tour was suppose to be a trolley train tour of some of downtown, but given the pouring rain we decided not to go... and as it turned out the tour was cancelled anyway. After the rain cleared up, we walked into town to do a little shopping and take advantage of an internet cafe that only charges 20 cents a minute called Time Out. From the waterfront, Willemstad looks very idyllic, but once you get across the bridge it looses some of it's appeal as you are battling the crowds trying to get in and out of stores. Overall, it is a decent port, but not high on our list of places to return.

La Guaira/Caracas, Venezuela - This was probably the most unique of our stops and we were told numerous times before arriving to not venture out on our own. Since we were going to be in port all day, we decided to take an all day tour. This was our first and last time to do this. After boarding the bus, we drove for about 10 minutes before hitting a traffic jam. Something about 5 lanes of traffic on a 3 lane road seems to cause congestion. After a little over an hour in traffic, we finally got out and headed up into the mountains to the Murano Glass Factory. The trip up was the mountain in the bus was... interesting. Venezuela is a beautiful country that needs some help keeping trash off the hillsides. The glass factory was a fun and they had several beautiful hand-blown glass pieces that we would have loved to purchase. However, we decided that trying to carry glass pieces for the rest of our trip might not be a good idea. So, we just admired and then headed back to the bus at the time when our tour guide said to head back. An hour later, the last members of our group made it back to the bus and we set off for our "5-star" lunch. The food was passable, but not high on my list of places to return for a meal. As we entered into hour 5 of our supposedly 8 hour tour, we headed back through town to the cable cars. They are actually in the process of finishing the new cable car system after the last one stopped working about 10-15 years ago. The system was actually not open to the public, but they allowed us to ride up it anyway. The views from the trip up the mountain were unbelievable. The new cars are floor to ceiling glass enclosures that hold 6 people comfortably. The ride up to the top (~6700 feet) takes about 15-20 minutes, but is well worth the experience. If it had not been raining, I'm sure the views would have been even better. After the trip down and going into hour 8 of our tour, we began to think it was time to head back to the ship... but no, there was another stop to make at a museum of colonial life. Ruth and I could have done without this stop. After about 10.5 hours, we finally made it back to the ship. We were the last group to arrive back and we could feel the ship starting to sail away before we made it back to our cabin. We would go back for the cable car ride and the glass factory, but would probably skip the rest.

Port of Spain, Trinidad - We opted for the Asa Wright Nature Center/Rain Forest Walk at this port. After the first 20 minutes of the ride to the nature center we started into the mountains of the rain forest. The rest of the trip was fantastic with amazing views. When we arrived at the nature center, it was raining. Of course, we were in the rain forest, but even the guides said it was raining too hard to take the walk. Still we were treated to a wide variety of beautiful birds and views before making the bus ride back to the ship. This is a place we would like to return when the weather is nicer.

Port-de-France, Martinique - This was Ruth's favorite port of call. We took an island tour and had a wonderful tour guide. The highlight of this tour was the botanical gardens which were amazing. The views of the country side from the gardens were even more amazing. Truly a wonderful time. We wish we would have had more time in this port to just explore. Definitely a place we want to return to.

St. Thomas - Rather than just spend the day shopping, we opted for a trip to Coralworld on the far side of the island from the port. Traffic heading out wasn't bad, but coming back took more than twice as long. When we got to coralworld, we went straight to snorkel rather than look at the seaquarium setup. This was a good things since we got to snorkel and feed the fish for a couple of hours before the rain hit. We returned to the ship for lunch, then after the rain stopped headed in to town to spend money and support the local economy. We would like to return to St. Thomas at some point and Coralworld is a must see for those who go. One benefit is that the water is shallow enough to stand up so you don't even have be a good swimmer to be surrounded by bright and colorful fish.

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - This is HAL's private island. The beach and water here was truly amazing. They had a wide variety of water related activities, but after discovering that transparent fish are hard to see and even harder to photograph, we opted to just float a few yards off shore and enjoy the beautiful weather. For once it wasn't raining.

Debarkation: C
Having made our own travel arrangements and staying in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area we were in one of the last groups to leave the ship. Everyone had to be out of their cabins by 8 AM, and at this point the smallness of the atrium became very apparent to everyone. The main show lounge was being used by customs and immigration, so people waiting could not stay there. As a result every public spot on the ship was crowded with people and luggage. It seemed to take a long time to get off the ship, but we didn't keep track of the time. Once we did make it off, finding our luggage was a snap and catching a taxi was even easier. Of course when we told the driver we weren't headed to the airport, and in fact we were heading to a car rental place just outside the port he didn't seem happy.

Misc.
We were told before we left to expect to be the youngest people on a Holland America cruise, and with it being a 10 day cruise in early-mid December, the chances were even higher. Just guessing, but the average age on the boat was probably between 65 and 70. This made for a very relaxing time for us, but at times we were looking for more to do. The activities on board were there, but didn't appeal to us most of the time. Still, this wasn't bad since we needed the time to just relax and take it easy after the wedding. Also, we don't mind rain, but if you do then you should know that December is part of the rainy season for many of the ports on this itinerary.

Overall: A-
This was a great first cruise experience, but we felt some areas could be improved. The ports of call were fun and provided us with a good overview of the southern (and parts of the eastern) Caribbean. The 3 sea days gave plenty of time to really relax. However, after a while things seemed to move a little too slow for us at times.

  <-Back to Stories @ RM-News.Net Archives