Maasdam - General Comments

[Orcrone]

I'm going to take KK's cue, and write up my impressions of the Maasdam. I will then continue writing detailed reports of each day.

I already commented in another thread about some of the mechanical problems. We left San Juan on Saturday at 1:00 PM for our Tuesday return to Norfolk. Monday morning the captain announced that a turbo rotor disintegrated and a diesel generator could not be used. Because of this we had to slow down and did not arrive in Norfolk until 9:30 AM.

Also, three couples from Cruise Addicts were in suite cabins (16, 18 and 20) that did not have working A/C for much of the cruise. Many areas of the ship were sometimes quite warm. It was uncomfortable the evening we ate at the Pinnacle.

On a positive note all elevators were working for the entire duration of the cruise.

The ship itself I found quite beautiful. The art collection was quite impressive. The lounges tastefully decorated. I was extremely impressed with the woodwork on the floor and walls of the Rembrandt lounge.

Finding a chair by the pool was usually very easy. I didn't think I'd enjoy laying in the shade on the lower Promenade, but on one hot day it was quite enjoyable.

I heard some lukewarm comments regarding the entertainment, however, I found the shows we attended to be much better than expected.

The food in the DR was comparable to our Carnival cruise last year, however I found Carnival's service superior. The Lido was reversed. I was much more impressed with the Maasdam's food, service, ambience than on Carnival.

My next observation is not only subjective, but some would find it a positive, whereas I thought it was a negative. Going to the Caribbean I wanted to hear Calypso, Reggae, steel drum music. I believe there was only about 5 hours total that they had live music at either pool. The group (Yu 4) sounded good, however they always repeated their musical selections. I think they have a very limited reportaire (please don't correct my spelling). Most of the time there was no music at all. Surprisingly, we finally heard the music we wanted at the aft pool on the last day.

There was also a total lack of activities by the pool. One day they had pool games for a total of 15 minutes. Even if I don't participate in those activities I enjoy seeing them and hearing the live music. Once again I'll state that many people probably prefer it that way, but I don't. This is just a note for those looking at HAL to not expect too many activities. Perhaps the Vista ships have more.

I saw some fresh flowers around the ship, but it seemed that a majority of the flowers were fake.

The Crow's nest is a great place to be during the day. The views can be spectacular.

Most of the lounges in the evening are devoted to strings, piano music, etc. If your taste is not along those lines there isn't much alternative except the Crow's Nest.

It seemed that most people followed the dress code in the DR. I saw one gentleman with a coat, but no tie. Now sit down for the next comment. This one comes from DW, who has never read a dress code thread. The percentage of women dressed up on HAL was greater than it was on Carnival. However, she felt that the women on Carnival dressed to the nines more than on HAL. It could be that Carnival has more first time cruisers who use that as an opportunity to go all out. Aside from the DR there could be seen a large percentage of people that were dressed casually. Whether it was 30/70, 50/50 or 70/30 I couldn't tell you. However, whether you stayed dressed formally or changed into casual clothes, you would not have felt out of place.

Went to the Pinnacle one evening. Was not impressed at all. Everyone's side dishes arrived lukewarm and my filet, ordered medium rare, arrived well done.

The 10 day itinerary consisted of 3 formal evenings, 1 informal and the rest casual.

DW reminded me of one other thing. We really enjoyed the towel animals that were on our bed every evening last year on Carnival.

Regarding cabin stewards. Ours never introduced himself and we didn't see who he was until there were two days left on our cruise.

[Ziggy7]

Welcome home Orcrone ! Sorry your cruise was not all it should have been :( But we did miss you here :)

[Orcrone]

Welcome home Orcrone ! Sorry your cruise was not all it should have been :( But we did miss you here :)Didn't mean to make you think it was bad. Nothing's perfect, just trying to give an honest assessment. We had a great time.

[DFD1]

Good work. Welcome home.

[cheric]

I am so enjoying reading about your recent cruise on the Maasdam. DH and I are leaving on 2/27 for the Southern Carib. It's our first HAL cruise, having only two cruises under our belt ... both Celebrity (Galaxy and Millennium). I am really looking forward to trying something new. Hope all the mechanical problems are corrected and they get bigger shrimp before February! thanks for telling both the pros and cons of the cruise. At least we will know what to expect.

[slineberry528]

Enjoyed reading the review. I am on the 11/20 sailing and can't wait. This will be my second HAL cruise and first one for my husband. I do feel HAL caters to the older crowd that has gone through the fun and games things done in younger years on maybe different cruise lines. I rember the coffee bar and ice cream bar on the last cruise and looking forward to that again. Some cruise lines charge extra for those things but not on HAL. Glad to hear they will have some caribbean music pool side. We didn't have that last year on Veedam. I think our little group we have met on the message will keep us all busy and having lots of fun.
Glad you enjoyed your champagne. 10 more days for us.
Susan

[slineberry528]

Orcrone, are you coming to see us off on NOV. 20? Would love to meet you.

[Bill S]

Orcrone: thanks for the review! Glad you had a good time! Welcome home!

[gizmo]

Orcrone,

Thanks for your comments. I am enjoying reading them.

:( I was sorry to read about the fake flowers. In the past the fresh flower arrangements have always been beautiful. I am wondering if this is the latest cut back.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Welcome home Orcrone. Glad you enjoyed your first HAL cruise.

Fake flowers? Maybe that's better than seeing dead flowers like we had on the Statendam.

Are you still looking forward to your next HAL cruise?

[Orcrone]

Welcome home Orcrone. Glad you enjoyed your first HAL cruise.

Fake flowers? Maybe that's better than seeing dead flowers like we had on the Statendam.

Are you still looking forward to your next HAL cruise?
That's an interesting question that I've been considering. We wanted to take a cruise out of FLL or Miami either 3/26 or 3/27. My mom didn't want Carnival or Costa. We also considered RCI and the Caribbean Princess, but they were both a lot more expensive. We may reconsider them.

At several ports we were there with either a Princess or RCI ship or both. It would be fairly quiet on the Maasdam, but we'd hear live music coming from the other ships. We definitely missed that.

[slineberry528]

Do you know if they had the ultra carb beer on the Maasdam?
Susan

[Orcrone]

Do you know if they had the ultra carb beer on the Maasdam?
SusanSorry, no idea on that one. Didn't actually drink much. One night they had all you can drink pina coladas from 6 - 8. Try as I might, could not get any buzz off of 6 of them. The closest I got was brain freeze.:D

[Vic The Parrot]

Hi Marc


In regards to no music poolside, consider yourself lucky.
On my Zenith cruise, the band was great. But they had the habit of turning up the amplifiers to thier maximum capacity.

I don't mind listening to music as Im relaxing poolside, but it's not necessary to make it sound like you're at a Black Sabbath concert.

good ol Ozzy ........

SHARON! ....... Where's the f*****n remote????

[palmgirl]

Regarding cabin stewards. Ours never introduced himself and we didn't see who he was until there were two days left on our cruise.

I always liked the fact that the cabin steward did his job when I was not around. Things seem to happen like magic. ;) Of course with all the cuts in personel maybe they are too busy working.

[Sue's Mom]

Welcome home. It good to know you enjoyed yourselves. :)

[ekerr19]

Marc-

Welcome home! Sorry to hear your Pinnacle experience was not up to par. We had a fantastic experience on the Maasdam, but on the Zui we did not. Don't know why it is so inconsistent.

There is no pinnacle on Noordam - but the food has been the best we have ever had on this ship. We are running out of simple things like mustard, ketchup on the Lido :( but well, what can you do? This is the final voyage, so many things were not replenished.

I've enjoyed rreading your comments - look for mine over the next few days.

Again, welcome home - it's always hard coming home from vacation, but this time I am truly ready!

[Orcrone]

I always liked the fact that the cabin steward did his job when I was not around. Things seem to happen like magic. ;) Of course with all the cuts in personel maybe they are too busy working.It is defintely good to have them be unobtrusive. But I expected the steward to introduce himself early in the cruise to let us know who our steward is, in case we need something.

His service was adequate, as far as the bed being made and towels replaced. However, I had to hunt him down after we finished the bottle of shampoo several days into the cruise. We kept a bottle of wine chilled in the ice bucket. Two or three times he refilled it, but most of the time the ice turned to water and I just went down the hall and filled it myself.

Funny thing. Every time I went to fill the bucket I passed the same lady. It became a joke with us because she never saw me without the bucket. On the last day, awaiting disembarkation, I came along on the Upper Promenade with two coffees for DW and I. She got a laugh out of seeing me with a warm drink for once. (Not that funny in retelling. Guess you had to be there).:)

[Orcrone]

Orcrone, are you coming to see us off on NOV. 20? Would love to meet you.Might be possible. We have friends on your sailing, and we're driving them to the pier.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We were fortunate to have an excellent cabin steward on the Statendam. Anytime we ran out of something, it was replaced right away. When I came down with a cold, and without my asking, he brought an extra box of kleenex to the cabin.

[slineberry528]

Just read your post about bringing friends to the pier. Hope to meet you. Telll your friends about our group, from the witless protection program and we are also known as the mystic good foots.
Susan

[dewhit6959]

Dear Orcrone;

You mentioned in an earlier post that several of the cabins did not have adequate air conditioning on your cruise. Did you get a chance to speak to any of the occupants or did you happen to hear if the mgmt. moved them or did anything to rectify the situation? This is not the first time I have read about these cabins on the navigation deck having problems with a.c. On another board, a gentleman told of his "sauna" experience and said that Holland America offered him 50% off a future cruise. He was not impressed with this and I can't say I blame him. Would you take another cruise on the Maasdam ?

[Orcrone]

Dear Orcrone;

You mentioned in an earlier post that several of the cabins did not have adequate air conditioning on your cruise. Did you get a chance to speak to any of the occupants or did you happen to hear if the mgmt. moved them or did anything to rectify the situation? This is not the first time I have read about these cabins on the navigation deck having problems with a.c. On another board, a gentleman told of his "sauna" experience and said that Holland America offered him 50% off a future cruise. He was not impressed with this and I can't say I blame him. Would you take another cruise on the Maasdam ?Our cabin (753) was fine. The cabins I know of for sure were from our group. They were three S suites and an outside on A deck. I happened to be at the front desk getting change when some people were there complaining. The personnel were of no help. The passengers did not have A/C for the first four days of the cruise, and with two days left, had lost it again. One person had a thermometer and claimed it was 85 degrees in her stateroom. The front office's response was that the engineer was aware of the problem. They also claimed that the problem was that the ship was just repositioning from New England, and did not have time to acclimate to the change. Load of BS to me.

When asked about some kind of compensation this person's response was that neither she, nor anyone on board, was authorized to do that.

Would I cruise the Maasdam again? Good question. I chose this cruise mainly because it left out of Norfolk and the price was right. There were many things I liked quite a bit about this ship. We never had trouble finding two lounges together by a pool (OK, once we had trouble). The Lido dining was very good. I enjoyed the shows and the movie theater. The Crow's Nest was a great place to take in the views during the day. And the A/C worked fine in my cabin.

All things being equal I would probably try a different ship. However, sailing locally on a ship with a very competitive fare could outweight the negative factors. So I would consider it again under the right circumstances, but I would not specifically seek out this ship. Hope that helps.

I edited this to give some more thoughts. If you get a room without A/C, it will definitely suck. But that was the exception rather than the rule. Overall, DW and I had a great time. There were some negatives, but there always are. There were some things we'd change about the ship, but that's a matter of style. One ship cannot be everything to everyone. The things I disliked, others would love and vice versa.

One thing that help tremendously. We had a large roll call, both here and on Cruise Addicts. So I got on board having a group of friends to cruise with already. It looks like your roll call is every bit as active, and you'll find the same thing. Everyone doesn't have to do everything together. But what you find is that you go to the Lido and there are friends you've made, so you join them for breakfast. Or you find out that some of you booked the same shore excursion or are going to the same beach.

There were a number of negatives, but I pointed them out for informational purposes and to give people a balanced review. For example, the cabin steward rarely refilled my ice bucket. It should have been done. But walking seven cabins down the hall to refill it did nothing to diminish the enjoyment of my vacation.

[Vic The Parrot]

Good review buddy


It seems like we both had the same type of experience, even tho it was on different ships.

Any questions, refer to my Zenith review. It's buried now somewhere on this board. LOL


Welcome home

[JohnR49er]

I was in one of the suites 020 that had no A/C for this trip. 016 and 018 were two others I am sure of because they were on our roll call and we visited each others sauna. Yes, the temps did reach 85 degrees in the cabins. It was a little tough showering and dressing for formal nights. Was it a pain? Of course but what can you do? Ship happens ! It was reported, they said they were working on it. They couldn't fix it. I never spent any time down at the relations desk complaining. They knew of the problem and getting upset and irate with the people at customer relations wouldn't have changed much IMHO. We received a letter from the Hotel Manager stating they were sorry about it and they had reported it to HAL headquarters. They said to e-mail a certain person when we got home. I will do that this weekend.

We still had a great time with all our new friends from the roll call. I was on a cruise and some things didn't go as planned. It's happened before and will happen again.

My one impression of the Maasdam is that she needs alot of work. There were still plumbing problems in some areas. There were A/C problems all over the ship, as Orcrone can tell you about our steamy night in the Pinnacle. With some TLC and some needed work it could be a fine ship again.

Problems can occur at anytime on any ship. It just seems that for awhile now this ship has the same problems popping up. I haven't given up on HAL, but I think I might pass on another cruise on Maasdam until they get things straightened out over a longer period of time.

[Orcrone]

I never spent any time down at the relations desk complaining. They knew of the problem and getting upset and irate with the people at customer relations wouldn't have changed much IMHO. Just for clarification, I didn't mean that it was John, or anyone else I knew from the boards, complaining at the front desk. It was someone I did not know. I did get a little kick out of it, since I knew of four other cabins with the problem.

John, let me know what kind of feedback you get from the home office.

[JohnR49er]

I will Marc, if and when.............. LOL

[dewhit6959]

Dear Orcrone & John49er;

Thank you for your responses. I am not concerned about food or pillows or wine, but the a.c. problem is a little disturbing. I agree that the excuse of "ship adjusting itself", is insulting to anyone with any type of engineering background or common sense. That sounds like what shade tree mechanics used to tell tourist from up north when they came to Florida and their car air conditioning wasn't properly repaired. If yours had been the only time this had been a problem, I would chalk it up to "ship happens",but this is not the first or the second such occurrance.
I mentioned my concern about the a.c. to my agent and he called later and said that his Seattle contacts told him that I should not be concerned as there were no mechanical problems on the Maasdam that operations or engineering were aware of, and that he should tell his client to disregard any reports to the contrary. My agent did tell me to address the possible lack of hvac upon embarkation and call him asap if this was a problem and he and his organization would seek solutions or make alternative plans available.
On troop carriers, you could peel down to the skivies below deck, so maybe that will be an option though I don't think the madam will be enthralled. On a positive note, we may be able to do the suite, the Pinnacle and the entire cruise in swim wear and sandals and forget laundry.

[mhshapiro]

I checked the Cruise Critic reviews for the Maasdam. I was somewhat surprised to see that the most recent CDC score was only 89, and that several of the recent reviews by passengers were less than spectacular.

This, to me, is a sign that the ship is not being properly maintained.

[Nautical Wheeler]

My next observation is not only subjective, but some would find it a positive, whereas I thought it was a negative. Going to the Caribbean I wanted to hear Calypso, Reggae, steel drum music. I believe there was only about 5 hours total that they had live music at either pool. The group (Yu 4) sounded good, however they always repeated their musical selections. I think they have a very limited reportaire (please don't correct my spelling). Most of the time there was no music at all.

We were on the Oosterdam at the same time you were cruising. (Shared HMC).
We found the same to be true on the "o". The band was a group who appeared to be composed of crew members and was bad enough to keep us off the pool deck during the few times they were playing. Definitely not reggae. This is part of the ambiance when cruising the Caribbean and sorely missed. Hal needs to get some good Reggae bands for sailaway parties and poolside entertainment!:)

[FlorenceItaly]

just in a few hours ago from Celebrity, Horizon, and was anxious to hear about your cruise so checked in here. I am sorry it was not all that you hoped for. I am tired, and will elaborate more in the future but want to say TRY CELEBRITY!!!
It is wonderful. It is now my cruiseline of choice. I like HAL, and the others, but I am now a Celebrity fan, and this was on an older, smaller ship! Service is very important to me, and it was outstanding! The food was excellent, especially the beef dishes. More later.

Marie

[Orcrone]

The other problem with the band was their demeanor. One night someone kept asking for Beatles in the Crow's Nest. They didn't even acknowledge him. When they got done with their set by the pool I would expect them to say something like, "thank you very much, come up and join us this evening at the Crow's Nest". Instead they finished their last song, unplugged their instruments, coiled up the cables and left without a word. This happened each time.

[Orcrone]

just in a few hours ago from Celebrity, Horizon, and was anxious to hear about your cruise so checked in here. I am sorry it was not all that you hoped for. I am tired, and will elaborate more in the future but want to say TRY CELEBRITY!!!
It is wonderful. It is now my cruiseline of choice. I like HAL, and the others, but I am now a Celebrity fan, and this was on an older, smaller ship! Service is very important to me, and it was outstanding! The food was excellent, especially the beef dishes. More later.

MarieMarie,

Glad to hear you had a good time. I was wondering when your ship returned. Love to hear about Celebrity. I'd love to do the repositioning cruise sometime.

Marc

[iluvcruzin]

The other problem with the band was their demeanor. One night someone kept asking for Beatles in the Crow's Nest. They didn't even acknowledge him. When they got done with their set by the pool I would expect them to say something like, "thank you very much, come up and join us this evening at the Crow's Nest". Instead they finished their last song, unplugged their instruments, coiled up the cables and left without a word. This happened each time.
I thought the band was pitiful. Often they didn't even know the words to the song and sort of made stuff up. Kelly and I couldn't help but laugh at them.

In additon to the rooms John mentioned on the AC, 2 other cabins on the portside had problems which my table mates occupied. One was a couple was on their first cruise. They have no plans on returning on a HAL cruise and are looking to plan their next one on a different line. The other was on their 2nd cruise - the first was a HAL Alaska cruise. They were very disappointed in everything on the cruise - except they enjoyed the best thing about cruising.. meeting super nice people.

Nautical Wheeler.. what did you think about 2 ships at HMC at the same time? I thought it was way too crowded. My daughter waited an hour in the food line. They ran out of iced tea and were serving horrible water. There were too many people on the beach at the same time. I had a clam shell but felt over crowding with only a foot between my chair and the one in front of me. I've been to many cruiseline private islands and this one was the pits. Mainly because of the lack of handicap access (we had older people with us who couldn't make it to the beach) and the overcrowding. I imagine it would be very nice if only one ship was docked.

[JohnR49er]

I agree Maureen. All the other times HMC had only our ship. Did seem very crowded. It's such a great place when you have more space and less lines.
But we made it and it was a beautiful day.

[sail7seas]

They lost some beach to the hurricane. It did not used to be that crowded when two ships were in.


Mother Nature ate away a measurable amount of beach.