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Volendam 11/23 Panama Canal Review

By Orlandocruiser , December 4, 2007 in Holland America Line

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Orlandocruiser

Here are some on my thoughts from our 11/23-12/3 cruise on the Volendam out of Ft Lauderdale. We went to Aruba, Curacao, the Panama Canal and Costa Rica.

Embarcation : This was probably the easiest embarkation ever. We drove to the port and when we arrived at the security gates at around 10:45 there were about 5 cars ahead of us so it didn’t take too long to get through the gates. When we arrived at the terminal at around 10:55 to drop off our luggage there was a bit of a line going into the terminal (they don’t open until 11) but by the time DH parked the line was gone. One warning regarding parking – apparently they don’t open the parking lot until 11 am either because when DH got to the lot entrance at 10:58 there was a sign “Lot closed park elsewhere” with no indication of where elsewhere could be. The lot attendants stood there and watched the car in front of ours make a difficult u-turn and then at the stroke of 11 they opened the lot. There were lots of HAL staff doing check-in so there was no line at all there – we had number 6 for check-in so we didn’t have to wait very long to enter the ship.

Ship : I didn’t notice any horrible flaws in the ship – one elevator was pretty scratched up inside from carts scraping the wall , but so what. The elevators all seemed to be working – occasionally one would seem to be out of service but when you would go back later it would be working again. We had no plumbing problems in our room. (Midship, main deck) Our room verged on cold – I turned the AC to the warmest setting and the temp hovered from between 68 and 70 (I purchased one of those LL Bean travel alarms with a thermometer especially for this cruise since so many people had complained about the lack of air conditioning.) I would say that some people I spoke to felt their rooms were warmer than they would have liked but I didn’t hear of any huge breakdowns. I just fished a blanket out of the underbed linen storage the first night and every night after that the steward put on a much nicer one on the bed at night. Our dining room area temp was fine but I would say that the under those sloping aft windows it gets pretty warm (we were seated there the first night.) I also thought that the ship was sorely lacking in deck chairs on the lower promenade deck – there was lots of space for them. We never were able to get an empty chair.

AYW Dining: We had fixed late seating and I noticed that the lower dining room was completely empty whenever we would leave after dinner even though AYW ended rather late. I spoke to someone on the tender from Half Moon Cay that was upset that they couldn’t get through at 8 am to get a reservation and when they did get through the times were all gone. I suspect, however, that they wanted a reservation for those very early times that seem to be so popular with some people. The people from our CC group didn’t seem to have any trouble with AWY although someone said that once they were once seated with someone who was halfway through their entrée. (I’m sure some of those CCers will post regarding their experience with AYW) This was only the second cruise with the ship on AYW, so I imagine they will get the wrinkles ironed out. We had a table for 6 and the other 4 people never showed up so on the 2nd night the people at the table adjacent to us who had 2 no-shows at their table invited us to join them. A few days later we added one poor lady who was traveling alone and had 5 people from her table bail on her. We had the best service that we have had in a long time – engaging wait staff , correct orders, hot food and prompt service. (Not to take away from the professionalism of the staff but I suspect that part of that was because of the empty tables – when they don’t have as many tables to attend they can give service like the “old days”. ) We had given up eating in the dining room for lunch several cruises ago because the service was so painfully inadequate , but when our CC group went to lunch on the last sea day we had wonderful service.

Activities : We don’t do any of the organized activities but we did go the the Mixology classes in the Crow’s Nest. They were lots of fun and to quote Terrydtx it was the cheapest buzz on the ship. All you drinkers out there will enjoy it. There was a speaker on board to talk about the canal but he was so incredibly boring we only went to the first lecture. He also spoke through the PA system as we went through the locks but if you were watching outside it was hard to hear him. The Mariners luncheon was very nice but I thought it was strange that they couldn’t round up someone to briefly thank us for our business before the meal started. There was no Black and White Ball although after the experience of those on the Nov 3 cruise I guess it wasn’t a great loss.

Entertainment : There were 3 shows with the Volendam cast (although the late show was cancelled one night because one of the cast members was injured during the first show because the seas were so rough). They were quite good if you like that sort of show – they were different shows from what we saw on the Ryndam last Thanksgiving) The other stuff was rather uninspiring. The magician/comedian was quite good; the regular comedian was barely OK (he did the typical jokes about the cabins, toilets, etc and his thing was “comedy can be clean” – I personally like it when they have a comedy act that can do a late night “adult” show); the third act was a man who played the piano while his wife played the banjo – we didn’t stay for much of that. Sometimes the show times changed and the show for the late seating was held at 6:30 so it pays to read the daily schedule carefully.

Ports : We have been to Curacao and Aruba so we just walked around. We stayed on the ship through the Canal and that was fascinating (the excursions in Panama were all very long and apparently there was a lot of being stuck in traffic). There was a nice selling area at the port in Cristobal which had lots of inexpensive T-shirts and Panamanian crafts. In Costa Rica we did the Tortuguero Canal ride which was great. All the other tours while interesting looking were very long, in fact the ship had to wait almost a hour for a tour that had gone all the way to San Jose. The canal ride was a 2 hour nature ride that left from a lovely facility that had very nice bathrooms – they provided drinks and fruit when we returned. We thought it was wonderful - DH got fabulous pictures of monkeys, sloths, bats, a toucan and all kinds of other birds. However I did hear a women say “well at least we didn’t pay a lot for that” so I guess if you aren’t thrilled by seeing exotic animals in the wild this wouldn’t be for you. There was also a craft market at the port in Puerto Limon which had a lot of beautiful things and also sold Costa Rican coffee.

Conclusion : This was one of the best cruises we have been on in a while. We really like the Volendam and the best part was the great people we met from our roll call. So my parting piece of advice is: JOIN A ROLE CALL AND GET TOGETHER ON THE SHIP.

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Thank you for your review. I agree with you about the lack of deck chairs on the promenade deck. You would think that with people being more aware of overexposure to the sun there would be more shade available. I wish HAL would have umbrellas on the aft deck and Lido deck when the dome is open.

We like to lounge and read on sea days.

Two things I forgot to mention in the above review:

1. It was irritating that the wine stewards were continually trying to sell you on the premium wine tasting($35 pp) and the sommelier dinner in the Pinnacle ($75). I know they are required to do that but having the steward in various parts of the ship continually approach you was poor. I didn't put this on my comment card since I didn't want to get anyone in particular in trouble.

2. DVD player - on our last cruise we couldn't get the DVD player to work and thought there was something wrong with it. One day on this cruise while we were waiting for the elevator a lady asked us if we knew how to work our DVD.. Of course we told her we had no clue. One day after lunch we decided to watch a movie and again couldn't get it work. I checked the notebook that they have with ship informattion - no instructions regarding the DVD player, so before we went up to the front desk to find out how to use it I filled out the comment card suggesting that it was kind of foolish for them to have spent so much money upgrading the TVs and DVD players without leaving instructions for their use. (BTW we are not completely clueless - we have several different video systems at home). Anyway when we returned to the room after finding out how to work the thing we couldn't get the TV to turn on- ARGGH:mad: . Well a few hours later there was a tap on our door and there was an officer inquiring whether we had gotten the DVD to work. Well we said we now can't get the TV to turn on:o - he couldn't either and then got another officer to come - the second one climbed up on on the desk and with great dififculty reached behind the TV and unplugged it to reset it. (folks don't try this at home!). I pleased with the service but a lot of frustration could have been avoid by having a simple set of instructions available.

Thank you for your review. I agree with you about the lack of deck chairs on the promenade deck. You would think that with people being more aware of overexposure to the sun there would be more shade available. I wish HAL would have umbrellas on the aft deck and Lido deck when the dome is open.   We like to lounge and read on sea days.

As windy as it was on the Lido and aft deck last week, I do not think umbrellas would work too well. :eek:

Great review, Sue and Jim! It was such fun meeting you. That really made this cruise special for us.

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