We sailed on Nov. 3rd thru 13th on the Volandam out of Ft. Lauderdale. This was our 18th cruise but a first on Holland America and our LAST!

There were many problems, and they could be solved, but in our opinion this cruise was average at best. We are in our mid 50's so this will help in your understanding of our experience. It was a recommended cruise by our friends, although they had only been on one cruise in their lives and it was the Volendam about a year ago. Others told us what we about to experience and we should have taken there advice. I do have grey hair by the way.

So here goes. Everything went well at check in and we were on our way around 5PM. The first thing we noticed that evening was that there was very little to do after the Show. It was like this ship had no clue how to entertain after 10 PM. So this was the start of the cruise, but it was this way every night. If you went to the show, then after it, the only thing left was the Casino and if you didn't do the show, the Casino or the movie theater was the only option. But we survived the 10 days.

Now for the details.

Food:

Fair. Have had much better on other lines. Out of 10 suppers, 3 were very good and the rest average. You always had a selection of 5 entres but no option like chicken or salmon if you didn't care for an entre. So we tried the Lido Buffet on night two, and a big mistake. Just poor quality so a few nights later we tried the BBQ on the Lido Deck. VERY Poor in our opinion. Ribs were barely edible. So we decided to eat in the dining room from then on.

Entertainment:

Not allot to offer here. Shows were ok. Paul Pappas was very good on Piano. Steve Frank in the Piano Bar was always off tune so we did not spend any time there. The Philopino Band was good. Slow dance music. The Band in the Crow's Nest was average at best for a faster dance band.

Rooms:

There were 4 of us so we had two outside cabins on Dolphin Deck. Nice size rooms. Very quied rooms also. But we noticed our bathroom floor smelled like urine as did our friends room. As we used the ships other rest rooms we noticed the same thing. There older men clientle may be the reason here. They definately have a problem here.

The Spa:

Old equipment so I didn't use it much. Treadmills were fine but difficult to use when the ships movement swayed back and forth.

Ship Overall:

What we noticed was a lack of cleaning. Tables in the reading rooms were dusty and the chairs were dirty. Even had obvious spots on the cloth chairs. This says that the ship is not being cleaned properly as well as the restroom problem. They seemed to be more concerned about you washing your hands constantly (which isn't a bad thing), than keeping the ship itself clean. I liked the Deck 3 walking Track.


Finally:

The main thing for us was the age group. If your thinking of a Holland America cruise, just be aware that it is specifically catering to ages 65 to 70 and UP and not below 60. It will be 20 years before we consider Holland America again. We saw very few young people, but the ones that were there must have been really bored. To put it plainly, 75% were above 65, 20% between 50 & 65 and 5% below 50.