Review Veendam Bermuda cruise

[ConnCruise]

Since I’ve taken so much good information away from CC over the years, I thought I should return the favor and write a comprehensive review of our cruise. We traveled to Bermuda on the Veendam from Sunday May 29th until Sunday, June 5th. We were docked in Hamilton from about 11.A.M. on Tuesday until 1P.M. on Friday. (Our scheduled anchorage in St Georges was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the shore side tender.) I was traveling with my girlfriend. This was our 8th cruise together since 1998. Previous cruises have been on Royal Caribbean (3x) NCL (2x) Celebrity ( 2x) This was our first cruise on HAL.

 

The Ship.

At about 60,000 tons and built in 1996, this was the “smallest” and “oldest” ship I have cruised on. Did I notice the size difference. Honestly, not so much. The Veendam follows the typical cruise ship layout: Pool, gym, spa and casual serve yourself restaurant on the top, main dining room, casino near the middle and staterooms above and below. Since this ship was put in the water a few years before the boom in balconies/veranda’s, it has a limited number of staterooms with these wonderful little additions, on two decks.

If you’re into ships, (I am) from the outside the Veendam is one hamdsome looking vessel! (Hint to other lines: Navy blue looks way cooler on the hulls than white ) Seeing her tied up in Hamilton, especially at night, almost took my breath away.

Inside, the Veendam, looks her age, but in an extremely well preserved, well maintained way. This is not a negative. Its just that styles and taste of ship architects have changed and the Veendam reflects what was going on in the mid 90’s. Carpeting and other heavy use surfaces were clean and it looks like the carpeting has been updated recently.

Our Stateroom

Lucky for us, we took a “chance” on a guaranteed Veranda suite and ended up on the Navigation Deck in an A suite toward the stern on the starboard side. Our cabin was one of the units added when the ship was renovated recently, so it was a very up to date, modern stateroom, really no different than what I had on newer ships. Storage space was completely adequate, nice flat screen TV, the bathroom was very large and modern, with a tub\whirlpool combo. We did have some problems with the toilet, however. Several times throughout the week, the commode failed to flush. We called down about this, but eventually came to the conclusion that the problem was systemic, somewhat, and not local to our throne. (Eventually, about 2 to 3 minutes after the initial push, the contents ejected with that familiar cruise ship roar.) I also noticed a gurgling sound coming from the drain in the sink and our bathtub drained very slowly. This last part I may have been imagining, but from time to time I thought I detected a faint, sewer like odor in the bathroom.

Our room was kept very clean and tidy by an efficient, friendly pair of guys. Forgive my spelling, but hats off to Rifqy and Bagus for getting our special requests right daily and providing excellent service .

 

Food and dinning areas

The Rotterdam main dinning room was a typical, two level cruise ship facility, not very different from any other ships.The service staff was mostly efficient and friendly and the dinning room managers were pleasant problem solvers. Food wise, my girlfriend and I are an odd couple. I’m a vegan vegetarian (no animal products at all. No fish, no chicken, eggs, milk, etc) and she’s a picky eater. (simple, low spiced food. Beef or chicked or pasta. No onions, no carrots! No shell fish.) She was able to order off the right side of the menu and get the daily chicken breast. She reports the desserts were good. For me, after a little initial confusion, they had a complete vegetarian menu with several vegan selections. Each night they asked me to pick my choice for the following evening and each evening I enjoyed a nice meal! (like everyone else, my belt got shorter over the week and my pant got a bit snug. Back to broccoli and the treadmill today ) Hats off to the managers in the Rotterdam for watching my back.

 

On the other hand, we thought the Lido casual, self service restaurant was about the weakest we’ve seen in our 8 cruise vacations. I can’t really speak to the quality of the meat and fish served there, but I do know salad bars and this one stunk! Each day they had poorly cleaned (sandy at times) romaine lettuce, wedges of tomatoes, shredded carrots, shredded radishes (a nice, unusual touch for such an otherwise lame presentation) and shredded, purple cabbage. That’s it. (they did have some bean and grain salads, but these did not look appealing and were typically soaking in oil or mayo)Come on HAL, you’re supplying from New York, the food capitol of the world. You can’t get chic peas, broccoli and califlour and maybe some green peas?

My little rant on the Lido continues as I felt food areas were not kept neat and tidy. The salad bar area was looking pretty shabby a lot of the time. Additionally, piles of dirty napkins, silverware, glasses and dishes collected on free surfaces thoughout the lido and tables were not cleared quickly. (In comparison, my memory is fresh from our European cruise last fall on Celebrity’s Constellation. They had those tables cleared fast) This lack of clean tables made a big difference a during busy times as tables became scarce. And what happened to trays? I know it lowers food costs and all, but I was not too fond of making four trips up and down, to get everything needed, before I could begin my meal. Bring back trays!!

 

For those of you not familiar with HAL, for the first two days of the cruise, the Lido is full service, in the sense that you cannot serve yourself anything. This is done to prevent infection with those nasty gastrointestional bugs that blow through ships and ruin lots of vacations. I congratulate HAL for being creative and proactive in this regard. That said, they need more staff to serve the passengers and reduce congestion during these times.

 

We did not sample room service during the week and neither of us drink, so we have no reports back on the bars and lounges.

 

Air Conditioning

No issues for us here. A few areas of the Lido seemed overly warm, as did the elevators, but not a real big problem, least to us.

 

I’m running out of steam, so I’ll post again with my impressions of the pool areas, changes and improvements as well as our thoughts on the casino and the singers and dancers and two performances we saw in the main showroom.

 

thanks for reading. Any questions, fire away. I love to hear myself type. :)

[kazu]

Thanks for sharing. I am looking forward to hearing more. I am not a Lido fan honestly, but when I have nipped up to grab something it always looked nice. Sounds like this time they really let things go?

 

but did you have a good time?

[ConnCruise]

on a cruise!

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Great -- looking forward to rest.

[pbnjrockette]

Looking forward to hearing more!! We sail on July 3rd. First time to Bermuda.

 

No trays? And no self-serve in the buffet? How is that managed ? Disappointed in your assessment if the salad bar as that is my main meal---no other veggie choices?

 

Did you tour on your own or book ship excursions? Would love to hear more about what to do in Bermuda!

[ConnCruise]

Pool Areas

 

We did not spend too much time in either the main pool area, midships or the stern are that features several hotubs on a large raised platform in the middle of the deck. On the sea days, we were too slow, so all chairs were either taken or saved. The main pool is covered by a retractable roof that was adjusted several times during our cruise. I guess it has its plusses, especially on rainy days, but on bright sunny days I think it gets in the way. First, whether semi closed or more open the deck area above the pool, the Sports Deck, one that is part of the pool area action on all the other ships I’ve enjoyed, is effectively cut off and isolated. Its real quiet up there on the Sports Deck and for the few folks up there its probably a nice thing. On sea days it would be nice, however, to have more to have more chairs to hang out in the pool area. I realize this is fairly impossible, since the roof is not coming down.

I know there are some here who were unhappy that the pool at the stern is gone. I see how it really must have been nice and the hot tub “solution” seems pretty much a waste of valuable deck space. But I also know that the nice new stateroom I just enjoyed was part of the addition that displaced the old pool.

 

Entertainment

. We went to three performances in the main showroom and frankly, what we saw to was not to our taste. Please don’t take this the wrong way. The vast majority of audience loved the shows. The kids performing were very talented and all, but last night I heard Danke Schoen, Que Serra Serra and People Who Need People all within one half hour. This is bad for your health.  On another night they had lots of opera style singing and plenty of show tunes. Again, the crowd loved it, but lots of people just don’t appreciate opera (me) and while I like some old Rogers and Hammerstein or anything form West Side Story, I hope I never hear another thing from Cats or Phantom of the Opera, least on cruise ship. OK, Please HAL, do a little something for, as Ed Sullivan used to say, “the youngsters.”

 

Bermuda

Cool place. Clean, nice people. Very expensive. Spectacular beaches. Good snorkeling. Did I mention clean? No billboards of busboards. Nice cabdrivers, nice bus drivers.

 

Casino

My girlfriend enjoyed the casino and the blackjack tables. She plays, I watch. The dealers are very friendly and so are the players. A real comradare develops. I usually play the slots, but they’ve done away with any coins or paper slips and you must open an “account” attached to your room card to carry your winnings. You can cash out by presenting your card to the cage and putting in your selected pin, but this was too much trouble for me, so I passed on the slots this trip.

 

Embarcation and Deemabarcation

Smooth and trouble free. I was at my front door, about an hour and a half from the pier, before 11A.M. The cruise lines seemed to have figured this one out. Its way easier getting off than it used to be. Customs was quick and friendly and we got a world class porter to help us with our bags. This guy called my limo company and ran after the ride when he drove past us. Really. He got a big tip.

 

Would I travel on the Veendam again. Sure, to Hamilton, Bermuda. Other HAL ships? Yes to that too. Overall, I found the HAL experience a bit different that my previous cruises, but for the right itinerary I would I would be a return customer.

[aloisia]

Thanks so much for posting your review! :)

[ConnCruise]

To PBN

 

They have staff, (not enough) dishing out the chow or handing you coffee, rolls or desert. They slap your hand if your reach in yourself. Gets a bit jammed up. If you like lots of food, you need to keep telling the servers "more."

 

Just the fresh veges I mentioned. I'm sure there was broccoli lurking about somewhere,maybe by the guy with the wok,behind the counter, but not at the salad bar.

 

Trays are history. I think they found you take less food if you've got to carry each plate or glass so down goes their food costs. Also, since the Lido is an old style line serving area thats been "modified" to a scramble system by using velet rope dividers, I think the lack of trays saves a little bit of space. But, IMO, it does not improve the dinning experience. Don't tell anyone, but we borrowed a tray( a few were about) and kept it in our stateroom so we could bring lunch or breakfast back to our stateroom and enjoy it on our balcony.

 

We did the Sail and Swim through the ship. Nice sailing boat, called a Ketch about 50 feet long. I say about 20 folks were on the boat. I think it would be probably easy to do your own booking. Trip Advisor has a good board and some top ten lists with lots of recommendations.

 

We went to Tobacco Bay, which is near St Georges. Its a smallish beach, but it has a very protected swimming snorkeling area. Facing the water from the beach, there's some of the best beach snorkeling I've ever done, all the way to the right, in the rocks. Lots of fish and coral examples. We took a cab out to the beach, $35 and then walked back to St Georges to catch the number 10 0r 11 bus back to Hamilton.Nice 45 minute ride. Fare $4 each I think. The walk from the beach to the town was about 30 to 60 minutes, but we walked by a fort and some of the bluest water I have ever seen.

 

We also took the number 7 bus to the lighthouse and then to Horseshoe Beach. What a beach. Pink fine, fine sand and more blue water. A bit too rough for snorkeling, but lots of fun surf wading going on. Beaches right next door to Horseshoe are equally as spectacular without the crowds. At low tide we could walk from one to the other along this great continuous beach. World class stuff!!!

[Gypsy2]

Also had rifqay and Bagus, excellent room stewards.

 

This was my first HAL cruise, I too not an opera fan but had to marvel at thier talent.

[erewhon]

Thank you for the interesting reports of your cruise.

[schacke03]

I was on the same cruise and feel pretty much the same regarding your review. However, I did have a problem with the cabin being extremely warm and no matter what the thermastat was turned to nothing changed. I called and complained 4 times, two times someone came to the cabin to measure the temp and told us they agree the reading indicates that the room is warm and they will report it, however, nothing changed. They finally offered a fan which helped but I was told all the cabins in our area were the same. I heard about air conditioning problems on the ship but ignored it until I felt what several people discussed. The ship was kept up very well and everyone on the ship was extremely pleasant. The ship is definately geered towards an older crowd with the entertainment, however, it was a very nice low keyed vacation. This is my 17th cruise and second with HAL. I would cruise with them again but they wouldn't be my first choice.

[ConnCruise]

Twice about the toilets and got a similar response. Lots of sympathy but not much else. When I mentioned that my room could not be the only one they remained silent.anyway, that's how the travel resort business is: not very transparent. Problems mostly don't exist and are never directly acknowledged. Years back I worked in the ski area business and a pr person at a ski area would rather shoot their dog than address or acknowledge a problem.

[lenquixote66]

Friends of ours were on this cruise .I hope to speak to them soon .

DW and I are doing this cruise July 17

[JamesEM]

ConnCruise, did you see anyone from the Duck Crew group?

[ConnCruise]

Not sure what you're referring to.

[suek113]

:D

ConnCruise, did you see anyone from the Duck Crew group?

 

I was on this ship also and did indeed see lots of Duck Crew folks and the little ducks they left everywhere! Seemed like a great group of folks.;)

[Gypsy2]

The Duck Crew was awesome. I found myself looking everywhere for the hidden ducks!!

[JamesEM]

The Duck Crew is fun group of cruisers that go on a yearly cruise together, next year they will be on the Amsterdam for a 14 day cruise to AK in July.

[ConnCruise]

I did see all the ducks on the veranda. So if someone asks if you're a duck are you supposed to reply "you bet your sweet a** I am"? Is this that duck group. Pretty world famous or something.