RECENTLY RETURNED FROM KONINGSDAM 11 NIGHT CRUISE

[Rick-n-MeMe]

We just returned from our Koningsdam cruise Sunday, November 24.  The cruise was 11 nights and left Fort Lauderdale on November 13^th.  We were excited to go on the Koningsdam and the cruise for the most part was very nice.  We are retired and living in Florida after traveling many years back and forth across the USA from Seattle for cruises.  Leaving out of Florida is a real plus and we are enjoying that. We have cruised numerous times (more than 25) on Celebrity, Princess and Holland America and some with RCCL and Carnival.  Our favorite cruise line at this point in our lives is Celebrity, followed by Princess and then Holland America.  We enjoy the more restricted smoking policy of Celebrity and we are getting to a point where we get more loyalty amenities for sailing with them. We do have status with other cruise lines and certainly would not discount them if the price and itinerary are right.

Well, enough with the background information! We didn’t take a lot of photos as we have been to all the ports more than once. I hopefully will post some photos of the stateroom/balcony, etc. in separate posts. So, it might be easiest to just do a list of things we liked and things we didn’t like.

Things we liked:

·         Many aspects of our room, #6216 aft balcony, we enjoyed including all the outlets in the room and USB ports by the bed (both sides) and at the desk area.

·         Enjoyed the firm mattress and pillows for comfort.

·         Really liked the anti-fog mirror in the bathroom.  It worked perfectly.

·         Liked the brighter than usual lighting in the bathroom and over the desk.

·         The shower size was awesome and the water pressure was crazy good. 

·         Loved the elevated refrigerator.  Why don’t more cruiselines do this?  It was great to not have to bend over to get things out of the fridge.

·         The room storage was way better than adequate.  Had ample hanging areas and good number of drawers. Also had two nice hooks by the bed for hats and totes, etc.

·         The bar prep area in the room was handy as it sat right by the fridge and it came with champagne, wine and cocktail glasses as well as a wine opener.

·         TV on demand movies had a great selection and saved your place as long as you paused it.

·         Room service answered the phone fast and we felt they brought items quicker than we were expecting. The food was warm and tasty. Love the chocolate cake. Even ordered dinner one night off the main dining room menu when we didn’t feel like going out. Very nice indeed.

·         Really enjoyed the music walk venues on the ship with emphasis on BB King Blues Club and Rolling Stone Rock Room.  Great bands in the evenings for listening and dancing. Seating was good too but did get very crowded in the RSRR. 

·         Port Itinerary was good. We went to (not in order) St Lucia, St Martin, St Thomas, St Kitts, Martinique (we were there on a Sunday which is a dud because not much was open in town), Barbados and Half Moon Cay.

·         Buffet area was good for the most part. We didn’t go often but did enjoy the Salad and Asian sections and the bread pudding was great, if not better than usual.

·         Flowers throughout the ship are lovely but not as plentiful as in past years.  Still, they have more than other lines we have been on.

·         Nice ship décor and clean everywhere we went.  Ship is new enough that seating was comfortable and upholstery wasn’t worn out.

·         Club Orange: We paid to go. This class of ship, Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam have dedicated, separate dining rooms which was great.  Will address the negatives of Club Orange in the section of things we didn’t like on the ship.  But what we did like: Staff very nice, venue pretty and mostly comfortable. Maitre D’ was very accommodating and friendly, nice separation of tables for privacy, little to no waiting to be seated and if there was a wait, the Maitre D’ would come find you at the bar/lounge which was steps away. Really enjoyed going to breakfast here every day and the mimosas are included (not the cappuccino/lattes as someone previously reported, I believe.) Most of the time we were made to feel special and they did call us by name after getting to know us.

 

What we didn’t like:

·         Mattress in the stateroom was incased in a waterproof casing which made for an irritating sleep.

·         Balcony was only partially covered and suffered from soot more days than not. Wasn’t properly cleaned most of the time.

·         Would not choose aft on this ship again due to no fully covered balconies. We are inclined to fully covered and large balconies. This was on the smaller side but we had room to move which was nice. Sun was overpowering at times.  Note to self: book an angled deep balcony on the side of the ship next time on this class ship.

·         We prefer a sliding door on the balcony over this style.

·         Coffee table and table on the balcony were too small to be useful.  They could benefit from two tables on balconies and a taller and wider table in the room. Didn’t Holland America used to have adjustable height coffee tables years ago?  I miss that.

·         The arms on the loveseat are just weird. They snap on/snap off and kept falling off the couch.  Yikes. Safety issue not to mention, useless.

·         We were unable to contact our stateroom attendant. We were told if we needed anything to call Guest Relations. Surely didn’t like that hassle.  But our stateroom attendants were very good.

·         There was a large wasted space between the balcony door and the curtain. Don’t know if all rooms are like this, but strange design.

·         Couldn’t order room service via the TV.

·         Need more live tv stations. It was very limited.

·         This ship kept us up a couple of nights or so. It really shook and shimmied its way through the ocean. The only other ship that bothered our sleep this much was the Emerald Princess years ago. 

·         Definitely not a fan of Holland America casinos. Way too smoky. They only had two non-smoking nights in the casino starting at 530pm. They should have no smoking in the casino or at the very least half the nights should be non-smoking. (no flame intended please and yes, we do know some of their ships are non-smoking in the casino)

           Shows in the theatre need work. One comedian was terrible. Forget his first name but think last name was Frazier.

·         Food-red meat was not great and not as tender as normal. In the buffet, they need more dessert selection. Best thing was the bread pudding and pies in the bakery section. Pasta section of buffet was not appetizing looking so we didn’t partake. No burgers or hot dogs in the buffet area that we could find. I know they have it at Dive-In but that is just a plain hassle sometimes when you don’t want to wait 15 or more minutes for a burger.  No potato salad that we could find and that was a disappointment because HAL used to have great potato salad. Anyway, we prefer to serve ourselves at the buffet and could have used more choices.

·         Disembarkation was not great because the luggage was not all in place until 0830. Guess they were behind so it was kind of a madhouse down there once they released the barrier to go grab your luggage.

·         Guest relations failed to follow up with us on two occasions.  One was for being double charged for a burger in room service when we only ordered one burger, one time. There is a 4.95 charge for the Dive-In burger.  Took them three days and much research to take the charge off…including us calling or stopping by 2 times to make it happen. Simply unacceptable.

·         Club Orange: They need more help in their dining room. They could really use an assistant to the Maitre D’ to greet people at the door/podium. That would free up the Maitre D’ to do other things such as supervise.  They could take a lesson from Celebrity’s Blu dining. They need maybe two more waiters each meal service as well.  We had many long waits to order and in between courses, especially after finishing the entrée.  We feel strongly that for this type of upcharge, they really need elevated menu items. Most of the items are directly from the main dining room except for one item per evening which is done on site.  

·         Club Orange cont’d: the amenities were not enough for the upcharge. Yes, a more private dining room is good but the mention of things like a tote bag and dedicated 24 hour concierge makes you think you are getting something good. Well, the tote bag, we left behind as it was very cheaply made and didn’t appear in the stateroom until we called Guest Relations to ask where it was. The 24 hour dedicated concierge didn’t exist. We asked several times and were always told to call #90, the guest relations number that everyone calls.  Pretty misleading “amenities”. There was a tour of the ship which it turns out was offered to anyone interested and not just to CO people. We did have priority tendering in Half Moon Cay but didn’t utilize this as the tenders were huge and they were not backed up. The priority embarkation was somewhat nice but we had to insist that we were priority even though not in a suite. A bit annoying.   So, unless they make it more special, we won’t be going for the Club Orange upcharge in the future.

 

[freestyling]

Thank you for the detailed review. We have sailed on “king” and also missed the little things and hated the small outside table and no table in the stateroom. 

[canadianbear]

Great detailed report.  Appreciate you taking the time for your likes and dislikes.  

[Rick-n-MeMe]

I am now on my IPad and trying to remember how to attach photos.  Anyway, we do enjoy balcony dining and the tiny table makes it pretty impossible! 

 

 

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Stateroom #6216

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Stateroom #6216 Aft

We dragged out our “coffee table” from the room to use on the balcony. Took a photo to show the overhang.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for taking the time to write your pros and cons on the ship.

 

Thanks for the cabin pictures.

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Aft and side view of Koningsdam.

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Stateroom #6216 Aft

 

The odd removable loveseat arm and other photos. Oh, we really liked the shower gel, shampoo and conditioner in the shower. They worked great.

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Stateroom #6216.

Photo of the strange unusable space by the door to balcony and more photos of the balcony with the tiny table.

[*Miss G*]

I am guessing the “strange and unusable space by the door to balcony” are structural support columns.  Thanks for the report and pictures!

[msteries]

Thanks for the thorough review!  Going on the Koningsdam this February, and will think twice if offered Club Orange.  Hoping ship movement was not typical!

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Well I guess if you can get Club Orange for 15 pp per day, it might be worth the upcharge but alas, we paid more.  They just need more help in there and we would love to see more variety other than the one extra dish per night.  Don’t get me wrong, we really did love the more intimate, special space and the breakfasts. The expanded in room service breakfast menu was not a big deal at all after studying both breakfast menus.  You just didn’t have to pay extra for crab Benedict or steak and eggs if you ordered room service. We didn’t use this feature as we did enjoy going to breakfast. The eggs Benedict in Club Orange was very good!! Oh and we really appreciated that they always gave us a table for two and we never had to be seated with others. 

[ski ww]

The balcony looks like it's covered from your picture.

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Club Orange on the Koningsdam.  We preferred the regular tables over the high bar seating tables. 

 

 

[Rick-n-MeMe]

The balcony was partially covered.  It did get very wet during rainfall at night. It never really rained during the day which was great. 

[Rick-n-MeMe]

Partially covered balcony 6216 Koningsdam

[3rdGenCunarder]

29 minutes ago, msteries said:

Thanks for the thorough review!  Going on the Koningsdam this February, and will think twice if offered Club Orange.  Hoping ship movement was not typical!

 

No, it's typical. That ship shimmies in the wind. And if you have following seas (waves hiitting the ship at the back), the ship slams and bangs against the waves. 

 

OP,  you're right that HAL used to have the adjustable height coffee table in some of the cabins. Oddly, the Neptune suites never had them in the time I've been in Neptunes. And I agree about the phone concierge. We had that in a Signature suite, and we always just got the front desk. Also agree about the high tables in CO. I sat in one of those stools and my back instantly screamed NO! So I asked to be moved to a regular table. 

 

Did you try any of the special entrees at dinner? Several posters have been asking about that, so it would be great if you could comment on them.

 

[cat shepard]

Thank you for sharing!

[Rick-n-MeMe]

We enjoyed Tamarind the first night of our cruise and absolutely loved it.  Forgot to mention this in our review above.  The service and food were very good.  This is one venue we would love to do again.  Worth the price of admission!

 

Lobster and Shrimp Gyoza

Wok-Seared Lobster and Shrimp with Bok Choy side

Penang Red Curry Coconut Chicken with Dungeness Crab Fried Rice side

 

Yusu Cheesecake

 

Satay Sampler

Edited December 3, 2019 by Rick-n-MeMe

[Rick-n-MeMe]

We did try some of the special entrees in Club Orange. One dish was a lemon shrimp cream sauce fettuccini.  We had that twice and yes, we did like it very much.  They changed up the name a bit, but it was the same dish.  We had the half roasted Peruvian chicken with a special spice one night and the chicken was tender and very good, but the dish was huge. I don’t think we took photos though.  

 

Quite a few nights the special entree was short rib related and we don’t care for short ribs as they often are greasy and fatty. We recall a veal dish one night or more than one night, but didn’t try that either. If we can remember any other dishes, we will mention them later.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Rick-n-MeMe

[Rick-n-MeMe]

One night we went to Notes for Whisky Tasting and this was at 6pm numerous nights. Our particular night we got to choose from 20 bottles of whisky which included Irish, Single Malted and Blended Scotche, Bourbon or Whisky and Rye Whisky. The bartender/instructor was very knowledgeable and passionate about whisky.  You got to select four tastings plus he threw in one extra one for free. The price ranged from 25 to 50 depending on the night you chose. Our night was 35 dollars per person.  

Notes was very enjoyable and we would definitely do this activity again. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Rick-n-MeMe

[DeeniEncinitas]

Thank you for a very in depth review!!!

HAL has taken away the ottomans that are suppose to be under those chairs!! I am so surprised! Maasdam Cruise we did to SA for a month we had those chairs with ottomans that made it comfortable to push in and out! Will be on Koningsdam next year and in a NS. I enjoy the small perks of Pinnacle Grill breakfast and what we get from being a 4 star, but now knowing no PG breakfast and having to go to OC for it not my cup of tea. Thank you for your photos too!

Denise😊

[Rick-n-MeMe]

We had been to Barbados two or three times in the past but have never really done anything except go into the port area shops. Well, this time we ventured out. We took a shuttle to Rockley Beach area but it seemed busy there. Since we were the last people left on the shuttle after the driver stopped at Carlisle Bay to leteveryone off, he asked us if we wanted to venture out a little farther to a quieter area. We said yes!  He took us to the Royal Sands Beach Club. We had no cover charge and no charge for using the beach chairs as long as we ordered some items from their restaurant.  No problem!  Two rum punches please!  The staff member set up our chairs under a tree in the shade and soon delivered the rum punches...strong and good with a sprinkle of nutmeg. 

 

We later had a very nice lunch.  This beach area was beautiful and serene. The water was warm and inviting. 

 

 

 

 

Conch Fritters. Very nice.

Fish Tacos. Not sure why photo is so small. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Rick-n-MeMe

[Bemidji Ty]

Thanks for your review.