Volendam?

[Arlenedow]

We're thinking of booking a Southern Caribbean cruise on the Volendam but I just read 4 reviews from people who have cruised on her in the past few months and they are very negative. They site dirty cabins. poor service, etc.

 

I'd like to hear from anyone who has sailed on her recently to see what you might have to say.

 

We decided not to go ahead with our booking based on these reviews but I would like to hear another voice.

 

Arlene

[Esme]

Don't believe everything you read. Volendam is one of the best run ships with a great Hotel Manager and Captain and I know they would never let the ship get into the disrepair that you have read about.

 

We have sailed on her many times and our 2 favourite ships are the Volendam and Rotterdam.

 

I would never not book a cruise because of someone elses opinion of a ship. Why do we always seem to read the bad and not the good about a ship, no matter what line it is.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We have also read all those negative reviews over the last couple of weeks and if we thought the Volendam was in that bad of shape we would have cancelled our up-coming back-to-back cruises on her.

[Sage]

I board the Volendam tomorrow and will be posting once aboard. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[Sue's Mom]

I am currently on the Volendam sailing for Ft Lauderdale to arrive tomorrow morning.

 

May I refer you to a post I made a couple of days ago? I hope this helps.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=105729

 

Sage - I hope you have a wonderful cruise.

[Peggy Sue]

We were on the Volendam last month. She is a beautiful ship. Crew was constantly cleaning, etc. That said, we know the individual who had a problem with things in her cabin not being up to par. We were in a suite, and it was in beautiful condition. Our only complaint, was the sporadic A/C.

 

If you read other ship reports, you will find a common thread .. service appears to be down from what we enjoyed in the past. This doesn't mean that service was terrible, just a notch down from what we anticipated. Staff looked tired, and you could feel an undercurrent of their discontent. But..we received good service. Our cabin steward with excellent. Our wait saff was excellent in the dining room. They were just too busy to spend any time with us. Our orders were taken, delivered correctly etc., they said hello and good by each evening, but the number of tables they service didn't allow for any of the chit chat that we have enjoyed in the past. It is necessary? No, just something we enjoyed in the past.

 

The Volendam is beautiful--lots of flowers, beautiful art work. they layout of the ship is very easy to navigate and there are plenty of pleasant nooks and crannies.

 

Those of us who take the time to post a review do so to share our experiences and perhaps help others. I like to report the good and the not so good...your experiences may be totally different than mine. In the group we met on board (all from cruise critic, and a delightful, fun group) we all had different opinions of what we saw, enjoyed, etc. Some of us had problems, so of us did not..

 

So, with that...go and enjoy your cruise. We are glad we went..wish our weather had been better...but no one can control that!!

 

Peggy Sue:)

[doone]

A couple of years back I had booked the Volendam and was very excited. I read more posts of this ship being horrible, service bad, dirty ship, crew not friendly, I was so upset I was going to cancel my cruise, but did not. When I boarded, I quickly found all my fears about sailing her to be totally unfounded. Take what you read here with a grain of salt, I enjoyed the Volendam so much, I have booked her again for this March. Have I seen changes in HAL over the years? Absolutely, no question, but I think that's across all the lines to try to stay competitive.

 

I think you will find the Volendam to be a wonderful ship and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her or sail her myself at any time.

 

Hope this helps.

[emsachs]

Thanks for this GREAT thread!!

I recently booked Volendam to Alaska (June 15 RT Vancouver) for my wife and I, and our 81 (soon to be 82) year old parents.

I was really starting to get worried too when I saw all of these bad reviews.

 

However, now I think this is all going to be about attitude.

Everything is going to have good points and bad points. Enjoy the good points and work around the bad ones. If I have a problem on board, I'll complain and if that doesn't work, if the problem is unbearable to us, I'll complain until it DOES get fixed.

I'll just try to blow off the small stuff.

I think PeggySue may be right that this may be about expectation of how things used to be.

My attitude will be: this is my vacation and nothing will stop me from having a great time and spending time with my Pop, my wife and my in-laws (all of whom I really love)!!

Reading some of this good stuff about Volendam has really helped.

Thanks

[KenM]

I just returned today from 10 days on the Volendam.

The ship is well maintained and there are no maintenance issues that I saw and I have sailed many times...

I saw all the previous posts- I had no AC issues. I just put a summary of my notes on the board..

[DFD1]

Krazy Kruizers: I'm really sorry you cancelled your Volendam Cruise. We just returned today from the 10 day cruise. The ship seems to us to be in tip top condition, well maintained by a very capable crew. We'd sail on her again in a New York Minute.

[grammymurray]

I agree with all these people...Peggy Sue...go and enjoy. This is a great ship, my husband and I and several of our friends have been on 3 times. Everybody was very nice,the entertainment great, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I would agree that there seems to be a problem in the dining room recently. The service one night was very slow...but then where are we going? to the lounge to see a show! and why rush?

 

The dissenters here sure are trying to discourage a lot of people from using HAL and it very sad. With increased prices for everything, food, fuel, services it is amazing that we can still go and enjoy the cruise for a great price...if you shop right!

 

Go and enjoy! :)

[Himself]

I have travelled on the Volendam on three separate cruises. 2001 to Caribbean, 2004 to Alaska and 2004 to Caribbean. I would travel on this ship any time to any destination. I am very positive about the Volendam.

[Arlenedow]

Thank you one and all for your wonderful replies. We are going on the March 30th cruise and I can't wait. I know we will enjoy the Volendam. We loved the Zaandam and I think they are sister ships. We are going with a positive attitude and we WILL enjoy the cruise! :D

 

Arlene

[DFD1]

Arlene: I'm really glad you're staying with the Volendam. We had a great time. I posted a few notes on it this afternoon. They're around here someplace.

[elmorejj]

DFD1, I don`t think KrazyKruizers cancelled their BtoBs on the Volendam. If you re read their post, you will see.....jean :cool:

[DFD1]

Thanks for setting me straight. I'm glad they are still going.

[perrys]

We loved this ship!! We were on the 11/26/2004 sailing. I think it was the most beautiful and elegant of all the HAL ships we have been on (Noordam, Veendam, Zuiderdam, Maasdam, old Westerdam) Navy blue and gold tones carried throughout. Beautiful dining room!! We had THE BEST service that we had ever received on any sailing. If anything, I feel that the new tipping policy has settled in and the crew is more relaxed and authentic, genuine. Our wait staff was attentive and quite funny. We had a table for two, 8:00, upper around the balcony. I know this probably sounds like a HAL ad, but just wanted to give kudos , as they are due.

Pros- Dottie (CD) and Tom (entertainer) -a real cute pair. Truly seem to enjoy the passengers and not overly "polished and on" all of the time. Real people-I like that. We can only say good things about the entire crew. This was our first time in a S cabin, which was special. We enjoyed all of the special parties and the FREE LAUNDRY SERVICE!! The Neptune lounge was nice and the room was great. However, we were treated just as well by crew that had no idea which room we were in this time. Ports were fine and weather was great. We rented a car in Barbados which is always a fun adventure. Food was yummy at every venue. We did not try the Pinnacle because we enjoyed the dining room so much. Ahhh... missing Volendam..

Cons- I actually got a bit a the flu for a couple of days. Not an outbreak on the ship, just bad luck on my part. Bounced back, but did not get to go snorkeling in Dominica. At least I had a nice comfy bed !! Has anyone else noticed how LOUD the built in wall clocks are in the S suites?I have not seen any comments about it, and maybe I was hyper sensitive to it,but that clock

made alot of noise. I did not see any way to turn it off. It did it's own time changes going into different zones. Instead of just advancing the hour forward or back, that thing grinded all the way around . Casino is EVIL- at least it was to me. But, I should know better, anyway. Saw some other people winning, and met some really nice people in there (passengers). When we first got to the pier the luggage guys at were being really mean to the passengers that just disembarked the ship,when we were boarding. Seems like they could have done there jobs without leaving that rudness as the last impression for people who just finished their vacation. This was at Port Everglades. All of the HAL staff at the pier were wonderful.

That sums it up. I hope that you will love the Volendam and the sweet spirited crew as much as we did!!

[michmike]

We were on Volendam 11/6-16 with Peggy Sue. Would I go again tomorrow?? You bet. That does NOT however minimize the fact that service in the bars was slow, both in getting your order taken and getting the drink to you. Neither of our dining room staff made any effort to get to know us as individuals, they were stretched too thin due to staffing cuts and were on the run constantly.

 

The air conditioning in our cabin was NOT adequate. It was particularly warm and uncomfortable when getting ready for dinner in the evening.

 

Our cabin steward was the one staff member who stood out and he did a fine job.

 

They no longer (at least on our trip) offer iced tea at the hamburg/hotdog station out by the pool. You have to go all the way into the lido to get a beverage.

 

The general feel aboard was NOT what we have experienced on our first 2 cruises on HAL in 2001 and 2002. In our opinion too many of the staff are going thru the motions and are not providing the exceptional service that HAL has been known for.

 

Did we have a terrible trip? Of course not. Would we go again? In a second, esp with snow flying today here in Michigan and wind chills under 5 degrees.

 

Should you cancel your cruise? No.. but be prepared for things to be less than they have been in the past. In my opinion I would rather pay another $200 per person and have the experience we had on our first 2 HAL cruises.

 

Not gonna argue with those who think that everything was mahvelous on THEIR trip.. my father-in-law always thought that Ponderosa was a heck of a spot for supper..

[BCEagle78]

Just got off the Volendam on Dec 6.

 

This was our 5th HAL cruise. Volendam was just fine. We had good service, good cabin and good food.

 

There were some changes that we noticed but they did not affect our enjoyment of the cruise.

 

In the dining room is where I saw the biggest change. This included:

1) Waiter/Asst Waiter never got to know us and we never got to know them. Their service was adequate and we could see that they were very busy. Not their fault but on previous cruises we had a lot of fun getting to know the Waiter/Asst Waiter.

 

2) Menu - It seemed that there were fewer seafood options than before. I missed having my Dover Sole on Dutch night since there is no longer a Dutch night. Also, every night there is an entry that is titled, "Comfort Food". On one of the nights, the dreaded "meatloaf" was on the menu. One person at our table ordered it and admitted that it was mistake...

 

3) Dress - On our 10 day cruise, there were 6 casual nights. We are used to a fairly even distribution between Formal, Informal and Casual. We thought it was unusual to have 3 Formal, 1 Informal and 5 Casual. Not a big deal but a difference from prior experiences.

 

Besides change in the dining room, we sensed that there was some subtle changes with the bingo payoffs - My wife enjoys playing bingo while on board. It seemed that the money prizes were quite a bit lower than in the past. At $20 a pop and 100-150 players, you would think that the winner would get more than $90-120. Here are some of my estimates for how the money changed hands - Using my calculator, with 150 players, they had $3000 in revenue per session. They has about 12 sessions so their revenue is about $36,000. Payouts were about $120 per game or $480 per session and a big jackpot on the last night of $3800. Total payout was about $8200. They made about $27,800 in profit... WOW... In addition, several of the lights on the bingo board were not working... you think they could spring for a couple of light bulbs.

 

Speaking of light bulbs, that was a little detal that I noticed on the ship... lots of burnt out lights in many places on the ship... Kind of sloppy if you ask me...

 

The only other mishap we had was with the wine we ordered. I had called before we left and asked for 4 bottles of their house Merlot (at $18/bottle, this was a good deal and decent wine). They told me that the 4 bottles would be in my stateroom upon my arrival. When I got there, there was only 1 bottle. I went to the main desk and informed them that I only got 1 bottle and the problem was rectified in a matter of hours. No big deal, just a small annoyance.

 

Overall we still had a great time, would go again in a minute... we really enjoyed this cruise...