cruisetrail Posted March 4, 2013 #1 Share Posted March 4, 2013 A brief review of a recent cruise on MS Eurodam. (Possibly more pictures to follow later...) Embarkation Fort Lauderdale. Terminal 21. Around noon. The easiest ever. It took us a few minutes to complete all formalities and get on the ship. Ship condition Immaculate for the age (5 years). Ship design This is a famous ship designed as a classic cruise ship. The Eurodam offers a full range of amenities one would expect for a classy sea travel. Cabin Clean. Ready, no wait. Both stewards were friendly people and hard workers. Food & Service Excellent. Excellent everywhere we tried it: MDR, Lido, Pinnacle, Le Cirque. Even poolside junk food was tempting. But we never touch it on the cruise - too much real food. Pools/Sun decks/Promenade decks/Observation deck/Hydropool & Thermal Suite/Gym/Sports Court All this well-being complex was excellent as expected. No crowds. Tons of space. Quiet. Private. Enjoyable. A minor complaint - a music band was present in the aft pool area a couple of times. I would prefer to never see and hear them there. That was a nice group but let them play in the midship pool area. Entertainment In comparison with the cruise one year ago - what a difference! The live orchestra is gone. "Adagio strings" (4 musicians) is now "Adagio" (piano+violin). Yes, piano is a huge power, but.... the four strings were a part of a live orchestra. As no promenade deck means no cruise ship, no strings means no orchestra. Last year we had: Four full shows (including the introductoty show). Singers - beautiful voices. Absolutely lovely personalities. Dancers - sparkling energy, very professional choreography. And the final note - an explosive live orchestra performance. This time.... Pre-recorded music. Voices still excellent. Choreography - cheesy. And only three full shows (including the introduction). There were guest performers on the Main stage: The BB King Blues Band. IMO this is not a substitude for a real show. As usual, there was always music or something else on the small stage (Queen's Lounge) and chamber performances in all bars. I would rate last year main show program as 5 out of 5 (unexpectedly phenomenal). This time - 3 out of 5. Subjectively (to our personal taste) it's 1* out of 5*, so we had almost no entertainment program on this cruise. However, the ship is simply beautiful. So our own entertainment program was not focused on the shows this time. The art collection on the Eurodam is endless. Every time you find something new. The lack of quality shows gave us more time for sports, sea views, hydropool & thermal suite and.... great food - all that we thoroughly enjoyed on the Eurodam. Itinerary Grand Turk and HMC - p-a-r-a-d-i-s-e. There were not much sun on HMC this time, but overall we enjoyed this stop. San Juan - nothing. Enjoyed the ship and beautiful weather. St. Thomas - been there many times. Enjoyed the ship and beautiful weather. Overall - absolutely lovely cruise on a first class resort ship. The only spot was the lack of proper main stage performances. So technically it's overall 4.5* out of 5*. After the cruise we have nice tan, feel healthier and look younger. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
portofrome Posted March 4, 2013 #2 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thanks for your review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare erewhon Posted March 4, 2013 #3 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you for your review and ship photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
castle12 Posted March 4, 2013 #4 Share Posted March 4, 2013 HAL will probably regard the BB King Blues Band as a rousing success. They created a lot of buzz around the ship. We decided to stop by the Queen's Lounge to hear them for ourselves ... well, hear them is all we could do! The place was packed, standees overflowing into the hallway. We did finally catch them on the Main Stage and very much enjoyed the performance. So did the rest of the audience, who gave them a standing ovation which resulted in an encore song. We spoke to one of the band members the following day. He said they have a four-month contract with HAL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare kazu Posted March 4, 2013 #5 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with us. Sounds like you were very happy with the ship which is good to hear. Your comparisons of the entertainment were very interesting. Glad you enjoyed yourselves and welcome home! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazy Kruizers Posted March 4, 2013 #6 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you for your review. Glad you had a wonderful cruise. The night pictureof the ship is lovely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare brazilgirl Posted March 4, 2013 #7 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Nice review! Thanks! It is so interesting , here on the HAL boards , the Eurodam gets great reviews. If you read many of the recent member reviews , it sounds like an entirely different ship! I am going in July and prefer to believe tge reviews here :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisetrail Posted March 4, 2013 Author #8 Share Posted March 4, 2013 We spoke to one of the band members the following day. He said they have a four-month contract with HAL. Oh, I see. So they are not guest performers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DFD1 Posted March 4, 2013 #9 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thanks for your review. We always enjoy Eurodam. I don't agree with your assessment of the entertainment. IMO, it is much improved with the smaller acts, guest acts, and shorter shows. As far as I can tell, HAL is getting much approval from guests with the new format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yenta Posted March 4, 2013 #10 Share Posted March 4, 2013 We also felt the cruise was great. Food seemed better than usual and we loved the BB King Blues group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvz2cruz Posted March 4, 2013 #11 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you for your review. We love Eurodam too. I have a question though. When we cruised in December the CD was JC. Every morning we were awakened to an annoying announcement by him. There were several throughout the day and it was totally not what we usually love about HAL. Of course constant reminders of Bingo. I think he likes hearing his voice. He totally botched the Newlywed Game and was just really bad. When he introduced the show each night if he did not get enough applause, he walked off and came back on "so we could try again". Is he still onboard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisetrail Posted March 4, 2013 Author #12 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thanks for your review. We always enjoy Eurodam. I don't agree with your assessment of the entertainment. IMO, it is much improved with the smaller acts, guest acts, and shorter shows. As far as I can tell, HAL is getting much approval from guests with the new format. I have to agree with your disagreement because it's a very subjective matter. However, I cannot stress that enough: a live orchestra on a cruise ship is totally different experience. Nieuw Amsterdam Orchestra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George C Posted March 4, 2013 #13 Share Posted March 4, 2013 thanks, excellent review, we also stay on the ship in San Juan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisetrail Posted March 4, 2013 Author #14 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you for your review. We love Eurodam too.I have a question though. When we cruised in December the CD was JC. Every morning we were awakened to an annoying announcement by him. There were several throughout the day and it was totally not what we usually love about HAL. Of course constant reminders of Bingo. I think he likes hearing his voice. He totally botched the Newlywed Game and was just really bad. When he introduced the show each night if he did not get enough applause, he walked off and came back on "so we could try again". Is he still onboard? The CD: JV. He is a handsome man with good manners and a good sense of humor. Not annoying at all. We are on the promenade deck in the morning (jogging). We did not hear anything like that there. Announcements were minimal. "Bingo" - I don't remember this word at all. There were no "so-so" jokes when introducing the shows (4 nights). I need to add that normally we do not participate in so-called "activities". We mostly enjoy the activities provided by the ship itself: open decks, pools, sports court, gym, spa, various food options, exploring ship's interiors and the art collection. So we are somewhat less exposed to the situations where we see and hear ships' entertainers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boytjie Posted March 4, 2013 #15 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you for your review. We love Eurodam too.I have a question though. When we cruised in December the CD was JC. Every morning we were awakened to an annoying announcement by him. There were several throughout the day and it was totally not what we usually love about HAL. Of course constant reminders of Bingo. I think he likes hearing his voice. He totally botched the Newlywed Game and was just really bad. When he introduced the show each night if he did not get enough applause, he walked off and came back on "so we could try again". Is he still onboard? JC had an accident and left the ship prior to our 2/9 cruise, Jason Venner replaced him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seago2 Posted March 4, 2013 #16 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thank you. You're right, the reviews in the forum are better than the posted reviews. Beautiful pic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandij Posted March 4, 2013 #17 Share Posted March 4, 2013 thanks for the review, we sail on her in 43 days and the excitement keeps growing/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typhoon1 Posted March 4, 2013 #18 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Thanks for taking the time to share your impressions of your cruise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PathfinderEss Posted March 5, 2013 #19 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Thanks for your review, sounds like you had a good cruise on a wonderful ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Himself Posted March 5, 2013 #20 Share Posted March 5, 2013 It troubles me that the Adagio strings have been replaced by a violin and piano. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie Sue Posted March 5, 2013 #21 Share Posted March 5, 2013 We were on the Eurodam sailing Feb. 23. We also really, really enjoyed B.B King..... they were a refreshing, modern change. But contrary to some, we found the food to be the worst we have had on any Holland ships. I could not believe that the main dining room menu repeated after only 3 days. We ended up dining in Tamarind 3 nights to escape the boring main dining room food........ I guess it goes to show that food is a very subjective thing. Otherwise we also really enjoyed our cruise.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisetrail Posted March 5, 2013 Author #22 Share Posted March 5, 2013 We were on the Eurodam sailing Feb. 23. We also really, really enjoyed B.B King..... they were a refreshing, modern change. But contrary to some, we found the food to be the worst we have had on any Holland ships. I could not believe that the main dining room menu repeated after only 3 days. We ended up dining in Tamarind 3 nights to escape the boring main dining room food........ I guess it goes to show that food is a very subjective thing. Otherwise we also really enjoyed our cruise.......... Hi Sue, There is a very good method of making the food topic less subjective: attaching actual menus. Unfortunately I did not excel in that - the ship kept us too busy. I will try to reconstruct something from the pictures I took. Any help will be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicksPhilly Posted March 6, 2013 #23 Share Posted March 6, 2013 We sail in 10 days and cant wait. We have had JV as our Cd before and find him entertaining,again we are thrilled to cruise on the Eurodam again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisetrail Posted March 6, 2013 Author #24 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Ship Facts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare brazilgirl Posted March 6, 2013 #25 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Love the photo with the igana in the foreground! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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