Veendam Lanai

[Sea Belle]

We are booked in a Lanai on the Veendam for a Dec. cruise.  Although we have been on the Veendam several times we have never booked that style cabin so are curious about suggestions and opinions from those of you who have.  We are 4*, getting older and want to have that experience at least once.  All suggestions and opinions will be appreciated, good and bad!

[kwb101]

We had a lanai on Maasdam (Veendam's sister ship), two years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, be aware that it takes a bit of strength to open the sliding door to the Lower Promenade deck, as well as either a bit of strength to hold it open long enough to go through, or the ability to move fairly quickly, or both. My good wife and I are about 6', but the door was daunting at times. Also, you will have to carry a second keycard for that slider, separate from your standard HAL ship's card.

I would describe the stateroom as cozy, since it's slightly smaller than a standard OV on the same deck (the door mechanism takes up about 6 inches across that end of the cabin). Still, the door to the deck and reserved deck chairs made all the difference. Enjoy! 

[TAD2005]

We had a Lanai cabin on the Rotterdam.   The sliding glass door has very thick panes of glass, much heavier than you would see on a regular balcony cabin higher up.   That heavy glass makes the door more difficult to slide open, but we never had a problem with it sliding closed by itself.   We definitely had to push it closed.   The door has a very strong magnetic lock that you push a button inside to release the magnet.   You have about 3 seconds to slide the door open before the magnetic lock re-energizes.  Same for the outside proximity lock release.   Your special lock release card (you are issued 2, and don't lose them) is a prox card.  You just hold it against the prox reader outside your cabin and you again have 3 seconds to start to slide open the door, or it will lock.

The sliding door and window have a very heavy reflective film applied which prevents anyone on the outside from seeing into your cabin.  During the day, it's impossible to see anything.  At night, with all the cabin lights on and your nose pressed against the door from the outside, you can only make out the ceiling lights.  Anyone walking around the cabin are just shadows.   But you should still keep your drapes closed at night, because the promenade deck is well lighted all through the night.   Some people use the men's pants hangers with clips to hold the drapes completely closed, if you want total darkness for sleeping.   

There is no fridge and there is little room to put one if you decide to rent one for $2 per day.   

You have 2 reserved lounge chairs right outside your sliding glass door.   The pads on those chairs were removed around 9:00 pm and replaced at 6:00 AM to allow for hosing down of the deck during the night.

On the Rotterdam, some of the Lanai cabins were under the kitchen sections of the MDR.  We did have a little noise from that in one of the Lanai cabins that were closer to the aft section.

But we enjoyed the Lanai cabin and it's great for people who enjoy walking the decks.  

[Krazy Kruizers]

TAD2005

 

Excellent description of the Lanai cabin!!

[Cruise_More_Often]

I really can't add anything to what the two previous cruisers said other than that I'd book another lanai cabin in a heartbeat! Ours was on Amsterdam, and we loved everything about it.

[Shawnino]

We just got off Rotterdam and Lanai 3331 was a train wreck. There's a separate keycard/lock for the outside door. Ours didn't work, so our door had to be propped shut with a block of wood when we were inside, and fixed in place when outside. Steward said it had been like this since start of his contract. 

 

Our thermostat would not budge lower than 24 degrees (76 F). They couldn't fix it. In an ordinary balcony cabin, well, who cares, you open the balcony and let the lovely sea air cool your room, overnight if necessary. In a Lanai that's not really on, in case someone stumbles in.

[sevenseasnomad]

Loved our Lanai so much that we have booked one on Volendam for 2-week 2020 cruise.  You can take a couple clothes pins to keep drapes closed at night.  If you don't, there's a little gap which lets light in from the Promenade Deck, but people couldn't see in.  

 

Our steward told us to bring our cushions in before 9 p.m. if we wanted to use them later.  (We forgot to do it the first night, though.)  When we indicated that we probably would do this, we never had to collect the cushions because he did it every evening when he provided turn-down service at 8:30 while we were at dinner.  Very nice, as we did use them several nights.  

 

You will love this category cabin, and you can't beat the view!  

Edited August 23, 2019 by sevenseasnomad

[TiogaCruiser]

I had a lanai on Veendam a few years ago as a solo and agree with the heavy door. It was hard for me to handle. I’m a short lady without a lot of upper body strength. 

 

The part art I didn’t like was the small “love seat”. It was barely a big chair, and while plenty big enough for me to sit on, my legs draped over it when I took a nap. There also wasn’t much space between the foot of the bed and the wall.

[Sea Belle]

18 hours ago, sevenseasnomad said:

Loved our Lanai so much that we have booked one on Volendam for 2-week 2020 cruise.  You can take a couple clothes pins to keep drapes closed at night.  If you don't, there's a little gap which lets light in from the Promenade Deck, but people couldn't see in.  

 

Our steward told us to bring our cushions in before 9 p.m. if we wanted to use them later.  (We forgot to do it the first night, though.)  When we indicated that we probably would do this, we never had to collect the cushions because he did it every evening when he provided turn-down service at 8:30 while we were at dinner.  Very nice, as we did use them several nights.  

 

You will love this category cabin, and you can't beat the view!  

Thanks for the chair cushion information.  I always sit out on our verandas when we return to the room at night and plan to do it in the lanai.  So far it looks like I will enjoy the experience.  I’m not sure about my husband though since he is a “creature of habit” but is always willing to try new things for me.

[Sea Belle]

Thanks to all of you for your responses.  I am glad to be forewarned about the sliding door and magnet situation.  Since the space is limited we may forgo the refrigerator.  I may just bring a small fold up cooler and have the steward fill it with ice once a day for cooling a bottle of wine or sodas.  I wish the ice bucket was larger. LOL!  

 

Clothes pins for the curtains at night.

Sm cooler for icing wine

Bring in cushions before going to dinner

Eat sufficiently to build up strength to open sliding door!!!!!!  No problem with that!😎

[TAD2005]

2 hours ago, Sea Belle said:

Thanks to all of you for your responses.  I am glad to be forewarned about the sliding door and magnet situation.  Since the space is limited we may forgo the refrigerator.  I may just bring a small fold up cooler and have the steward fill it with ice once a day for cooling a bottle of wine or sodas.  I wish the ice bucket was larger. LOL!  

 

Clothes pins for the curtains at night.

Sm cooler for icing wine

Bring in cushions before going to dinner

Eat sufficiently to build up strength to open sliding door!!!!!!  No problem with that!😎

Ask your room steward for a champagne ice bucket and keep it full of ice.   You can rent a fridge for $2 a day, but it has to be under your desk which eliminates your leg space if you plan to do any computer work at the desk.

On the Rotterdam, we were not instructed to bring the lounge chair pads in at night.  They came by with a push-cart to collect them around 8 or 9 pm. Then they hose down the deck.  They put them back on the chairs around 6 AM.

PLEASE do NOT leave your Lanai sliding glass door open, or for that matter, any balcony cabin door on any ship for outside ventilation, as suggested by a post above.   The air conditioning is a shared, closed-loop system.   Just like in your house,, if you leave a large door open with the AC running, your AC unit will work much harder to remove all of that hot, humid air.  On a cruise ship, with shared cooling among a group of cabins, that action will destroy the air conditioning for you and every other cabin in your area.  That humid, sea air gets sucked in from the open door, circulates through all other cabins,  and reduces the cooling for everybody. 

Edited August 23, 2019 by TAD2005

[RuthC]

32 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

You can rent a fridge for $2 a day, but it has to be under your desk which eliminates your leg space if you plan to do any computer work at the desk.

The lanai desks aren't nearly as large as the desks in the inside and outside cabins. I won't swear there isn't room for a fridge under there, but I'm not sure there is, either.

32 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

On a cruise ship, with shared cooling among a group of cabins, that action will destroy the air conditioning for you and every other cabin in your area. 

That 'area' goes down, too, and includes inside and outside cabins that don't have the option of opening a door to step outside. The people in them just have to suffer with the loss of A/C.

[sevenseasnomad]

Agree that passengers should never leave an outside door open any longer than it takes to exit or enter the cabin by that route.

 

We were on the Rotterdam when we had the lanai with the steward bringing in our cushions for us.  This was April 2018, so it may be different now.  The few times we sat out late at night, we hauled the cushions back in because we didn't want them exposed to the damp night air, not to mention any hosing down the crew may have done.

 

Yes, they do collect the cushions; our neighbors mentioned it, but no one knocked on our door asking where our missing cushions were.

[TAD2005]

23 hours ago, sevenseasnomad said:

Agree that passengers should never leave an outside door open any longer than it takes to exit or enter the cabin by that route.

 

We were on the Rotterdam when we had the lanai with the steward bringing in our cushions for us.  This was April 2018, so it may be different now.  The few times we sat out late at night, we hauled the cushions back in because we didn't want them exposed to the damp night air, not to mention any hosing down the crew may have done.

 

Yes, they do collect the cushions; our neighbors mentioned it, but no one knocked on our door asking where our missing cushions were.

On the Rotterdam, recently, if you brought them inside at night, the crew doesn't care.   If you don't, they will collect them so they don't  get soaked during the hosing of the promenade deck.   There is so little excess space in the Lanai cabins, that storing those chair pads every night would be a real inconvenience.   

[sevenseasnomad]

4 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

On the Rotterdam, recently, if you brought them inside at night, the crew doesn't care.   If you don't, they will collect them so they don't  get soaked during the hosing of the promenade deck.   There is so little excess space in the Lanai cabins, that storing those chair pads every night would be a real inconvenience.   

Our steward placed them behind the curtains, so they took up no space at all.