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Saturday 4th Feb 2012
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Glacier bay |
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Reviewed By: hall, chester on 15th Jun 2009
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| Cruise Line: Holland America Cruises |
Times cruised before: 3-5 |
| Cruise Ship: MS Zuiderdam |
Sailed:
May,
2009 |
| Destination:
Alaska
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Age: 65+ |
| Cabin: Inside |
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Having read the previous reviews I was amazed with the diference with my experience. As with others we were a part of a packege doing the Rocky mountineer before joining the ship. the joining went well considering the big delays with US immigration. with chairs provided whilst queueing. Our cabin was an inside on the main deck (3) when we had got the bed changed to Twin beds ( instead of a Queen sized one) we were very pleased by the size and layout, we had a corner settee, chair and table, there was loads of storage space with clever fold down shelves also a LCD television. Despite being a large ship it was easy to get around with plenty of lifts. During the compulsory deck drill it was by our experience very stressful, we were herded and bullied into a smll compact group, the crew being indonesian and I can only assume fairly new to the ship, in that we had difficulty in communicating with them, they either didn't understand or didn't want to, this we found occured all over the ship. the real problems occured in the dining areas, we were led to believe that the previous cruise had had an outbreak of gastro enteritus (food poisoning ???) this led to the fact that there was a plethera of bacterilogical hand washs about, there were even staff with bottles who tried to 'sqirt' you at every chance. We used the casual (24 hr Lido) dining, all the buffet counters were either roped off or covered in 'cling' film meaning taht the staff had to serve you, even the little sachets of salt and pepper, I personally found it difficult and frustrating to get exactly my choice and amount, even tea had to be made by the staff. In the end I ended up getting cups of hot water, tea bags and milk separate so as to get tea as we liked it. The food we found was very dissapointing the was very little choice apart from the evening roast, the vegetables were to us strange, there were aubergenes and masses of asparagus but little of the 'normal' ones I.e. carrots, sweeds, cabbage and beans, although they had a medley which always seemed under cooked and hard. One of our main moans were the lack of potatoes there were very little mashed , roasted or any of the other amazing dishes you can do with potatoes all we seemed to get was chips, I for one prefer other potatoes with a roast or stew. There was a huge desert counter , mainly bite sized cakes I did find by accident that there was a hot sweet one day. Another problem was that they were always running out of something beit lemonade, tea, icecream or one of the choices at the bistro, at an on deck barbecue they ran out of fried onions after the first dozen customers. there were several counters such as pasta and pizza, salad, deli (for sandwiches), bistro ( for the main ! meals) and the asian. whilst these were all open for lunch several were shut over dinner time in the evening. I also found out that the people eating in the free dining room were getting diferent food to the casual diner, I admit this annoyed me as cI was under the impression that this was a one class boat. Despite the nubers casual eating there always seemed to be space to eat although you had to share tables. The layout of the pool deck was good there was a moveable roof over the pool which gave the effect of sitting in a conservatry, and I'm sure the swimmers appreciated it. The ship had it's own troup of dancers with some singers, these did most of the shows with the exception on our cruise we had a comdian(surprisingly clean) and a magician. The excursions were controlled with military precision to the extent they had their own gangway at times nad DIY customers were held up. We only went on one official tour from the boat and that was a 'Salmon Bake' in Juneau, if you're the otdoor type or like barbecues you'd be happy with this tour, when we got there it was situated at a worked-out gold mine beside a salmon stream. we were invited to play at panning for gold walked along the stream to see a waterfall. the food was far supior to the boats offerings, with chicken and wild Salmon and loads of vegatables with plenty of drinks with hot cider my favorite. the main purpose of the cruise was Glacier Bay which was incredible , at first you think is this all there is and then the boat goes closer and you're standing looking up at the ice towering above you.
to sum up, the whole catering format was the main reason for me giving this cuise a big thumbs down, we found that this was not a happy ship, we've travelled on other ships which all had a happy atmosphere but not this one, as I've already stated there was a difficulty in communications. aprt from the waiters/clearers and cabin staff we found the rest tended to be arrogant or couldn't care less. As an aside they even had the dancers and spa staff serving at the counters. We will not travel on this line again or recommend it.
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| Quality of Food |  |
| Casual eating on the Lido deck, best was asian (I'm not asian) | | Entertainment |  |
| ships shows were all songs and dances , although the stage was technically brilliant | | Shore Excursions |  |
| Salmon bake in Juneau with ship tours and whitehorse pass by bus do it yourself | | Staff |  |
| cabin staff | | Children's Facilities | n/a |
| | Onboard Activities | |
| library,internet spa, beauty treatments, gym, casino (with bingo) and a Quiz | | Cabins | |
| | Overall Rating |  |
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