VEENDAM REVIEW: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[irisheileen]

Totally agree that the Veendam has been carefully positioned having the South American and Bermuda routes. The ship also sailed out of Tampa Florida for a while.

I've been on the Veendam twice, 5 years ago in the Med and this past March in South America. We were blessed with functional cabins both times, thank God. We talked to some new HAL passengers who had AC problems, which is totally unacceptable.

 

Regarding the Princess comments, we sail both HAL and Princess, next up for us is Princess. Their West Coast based ships, Diamond and Sapphire are a cut above, their Alaska Panama Canal ships, Island and Coral, are definitely premium quality. We avoid the newest ships Caribbean Princess and her sisters, too many people shoved in a public space designed for fewer passengers. Their Grand, Golden Star class ships are all nice and reasonably priced. I would avoid the Sun & Dawn Princess but I'm pretty sure these were moved to the Australian Pacific markets.

 

We LOVED the Island Princess on our Alaskan cruise. We had no complaints on the Grand Princess, as I recall.

[irisheileen]

Therein lies the dilema those of us deciding about sailing Veendam are facing. I believe both those who say they had problems on board and those who enjoyed the ship and her crew. I have no reason to not think both are reporting exactly what they experienced. So.... there are several cruises going on at the same time and that is not totally unique. We know that happens.

 

Those who have properly functional mechanicals in their cabins are a lot happier than those who do not have the same.

 

Those who have properly functional mechanicals in their cabins are a lot happier than those who do not have the same.

 

Exactly. As the OP, I tried to just state the "facts" as we saw them/experienced them. A flip of the coin, like sspunk's cruise experience, would have been a different story.

 

It all comes down to the cabin, I believe. The rest of the ship averages out, the cabin is your "home" for the duration.

[irisheileen]

I did this, even offered to keep a Googke Docs file so we could keep it up-to-date and organized.

 

I was destroyed for the attempt by several posters. Called names, told I was wasting time, etc. So I gave up may efforts.

 

Yeah, that thread did deteriorate. Wish it hadn't.

[mamaofami]

David Wood was HM on our Veendam cruise in June. He did come to the meet and greet, told us that the early dining(5:15) was because there were so many older people on HAL who requested it. Then, two minutes later he said the Bermuda cruises had a much younger crowd. He was asked by someone about the freezing temperature in her cabin and said he would personally fix it. Don't really know if he ever did that.

 

When I had my problems with the painting on the ship while we were in Bermuda, I repeatedly requested to meet with him and he never responded.

 

We saw him one night in The Mix bar. He looked at me, knew who I was, and ignored me. I would never have approached him then since he was talking to another officer.

 

When we got home, I did call Seattle and mentioned how we were treated. They were appalled that the HM was so unresponsive. Maybe by June he was tired of all the malfunctioning issues on Veendam. Whatever the case, I found him the most unresponsive HM we've ever sailed with.

[irisheileen]

David Wood was HM on our Veendam cruise in June. He did come to the meet and greet, told us that the early dining(5:15) was because there were so many older people on HAL who requested it. Then, two minutes later he said the Bermuda cruises had a much younger crowd. He was asked by someone about the freezing temperature in her cabin and said he would personally fix it. Don't really know if he ever did that.

 

When I had my problems with the painting on the ship while we were in Bermuda, I repeatedly requested to meet with him and he never responded.

 

We saw him one night in The Mix bar. He looked at me, knew who I was, and ignored me. I would never have approached him then since he was talking to another officer.

 

When we got home, I did call Seattle and mentioned how we were treated. They were appalled that the HM was so unresponsive. Maybe by June he was tired of all the malfunctioning issues on Veendam. Whatever the case, I found him the most unresponsive HM we've ever sailed with.

 

 

To quote Douglas Hernandez, he "must have had alot on his mind"

Maybe I'll use that line in my line of work! I am a CAT Scan Technologist and if a patient of mine has a concern, I'll ignore or smuggly tell them that someone must have had alot on their mind when the infraction occured. :D

 

Oh, wait... I'm not allowed to do that at my work :eek:

[peaches from georgia]

[quote name='mamaofami'][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]David Wood was HM on our Veendam cruise in June. He did come to the meet and greet, told us that the early dining(5:15) was because there were so many older people on HAL who requested it. Then, two minutes later he said the Bermuda cruises had a much younger crowd.........
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Has anyone ever found out the real reason for this ridiculously early dining time on Veendam in Bermuda? I don't believe for a minute that it was requested by so many 'older people' that early dining time was changed to 5:15. Never heard of it happening on longer cruises where there is really a majority of 'older people'.

Now that Veendam has left Bermuda I wonder if early dining still is at 5:15. Could someone who has been on Veendam since she left Bermuda please report in!!