Have you taken a kid on the Zuiderdam?

[alj1208]

So, I am taking advice from this board and picking our Alaska trip based on the itinerary. Now, we are looking at HAL's Zuiderdam because it's RT from Vancouver (which we prefer for a number of reasons). Looks like the other cruise lines have smaller/older ships on RT Vancouver cruises.

 

Questions: Have you taken a kid on the Zuiderdam? What was is like? (My son will be 8).

[c-cruise]

As far as itinerary goes, I think that sailing is the best RT Alaska choice. You get the benefit of the extra inside passage scenery from sailing RT Vancouver, plus Zuiderdam goes to Glacier Bay as well as Tracy Arm.

 

Zuiderdam is a smaller older ship by today's new build standards. We sailed on her in 2003 and she was a couple years old then. Haven't sailed on Zuiderdam since then, but have done many sailings on her sister ships and most of those with our kids.

 

In our experience there are typically around 50-100 kids on a HAL cruise when kids are out of school. You may have a few more on a summer Alaska cruise. They do a great job with ClubHAL and our kids have always enjoyed themselves. The facilities themselves are fairly small and nothing overly exciting, but the staff do a great job and they get to know the kids since there are relatively few of them. There is also a covered pool area which is really nice for the unpredictable weather in Alaska. No water slides, outdoor movie screens, rock walls or anything like that. Much more traditional cruise experience.

 

ClubHAL does have somewhat limited hours in that on sea days they close for a 1.5 hours or so during lunch and dinner. If I remember right the evening hours are generally 7-10 and then they charge a small fee for childcare after 10pm. On port days they stay open through lunch and will feed the kids lunch in the club. They will even watch the kids while the parents go ashore.

 

There's not really a ton on the rest of the ship for kids. There is the usual ping-pong, shuffle board and giant deck chess set. There are DVD players in the cabins and they check out free DVD's from the front desk (menu in the cabin). They have lots of kids movies available. Shows and entertainment are definitely geared more towards adults, but our 7yr old enjoys the production shows none the less.

 

So, thats just some general random thoughts. Any specific questions, just ask away.

[rebeccalouiseagain]

For an all around nice vacation, I think you will be happy with the Zuiderdam. We had a wonderful Veranda Suite with a huge balcony and this made our trip. I also thought the food was good and I enjoyed the library/coffee bar. We met other nice families on our cruise.

 

As for the youth program, it's fine. My son enjoyed it at age 8 when we were on Zuiderdam. They did a little show at the end of the cruise.

[CGYCruisingFamily]

My parents are taking our boys on the Zuiderdam on that cruise in a couple of weeks. I think from our experience on the Amsterdam what the pp's have said are pretty much spot on. HAL ships are not necessarily geared towards Disney characters, water slides or rock climbing walls but out kids 5&9 have loved Club HAL. We also prefer that the kids club is smaller (not the 600+kids we had on NCL a couple of years ago).

[Photojunkie_I_am]

Last year we sailed on the Zuiderdam to Alaska with our two children who were 9 & 7. There were about 10 other children total going to the kids club and they had a wonderful time. They are both very outgoing and make friends fairly easy. Enjoy!

 

 

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[CGYCruisingFamily]

We sent off our kids this morning with their grandparents for their Alaskan cruise on the Zuiderdam leaving Saturday from Vancouver. We can give you more insight once they are on the ship about number of kids and how the cruise is.

 

As I said in a pp, our kids love HAL so they will be a little swayed by that :)