Veendam condition

[OlsSalt]

Veendam cruise last fall from Montreal to San Diego via Panama. I kept a temperature record in the verandah cabin every day, knowing this ship gets complaints about this issue - both too hot and too cold. Official HAL cabin temp was approx 71-75 as their "normal range", according to the hotel manager. He said to not expect 68 degree cabins when traveling in the tropic zones.

 

We had however a few days when it went up as high 78 degrees and had a service person come to adjust something and it was back in the "official HAL range. 75 felt warm in the tropics and 75 felt cold when the outside weather was colder. Humidity reading made more of the difference in how the same cabin temperature felt.

 

Overall, we found the cabin temperature satisfactory -- after all we did choose to go close to the equator when we travelled to very hot Cartegena and the Panama Canal -- And in a few days we were heading north again and back into the more temperate zones. So best one can say is expect flucuating and appropriate cabin temperatures depending on geographic locations. But not immediate on demand temperatures for one's own personal comfort expectations.

[snoopyud]

we are also considering the 47 day South american cruise next year on Veendam. Can you let us know about the gym? Is the size and number of equipment enough. We hate waiting for an elliptical machine.. how is the entertainment, casino? any feedback is much appreciated. Thanks

[snoopyud]

THANKS- What is the overall condition of the Veendam. Is the furniture old and in need of repair? Is the gym adequate in terms of equipment and space? is there lines to get on the equipment? It is an older ship and we know that but more concerned on the overall condition and if they are keeping up the maintenance of the ship..Any feedback is very much appreciated. Thanks

[iancal]

Read some of the reviews of Veendam on the Reviews section of this board. You may get additional insights.

[shrimp56]

We've sailed on her 4 times from June 2013 to August 2015. We never have had a heating/cooling type infastructure problem and we've sailed is everything from an OV to a Neptune. We ended up falling in love with the ship.and her crew. As for her seaworthiness, I remember Capt. van der Wahl telling me what a "nimble" ship she was. He clearly enjoys sailing her. We;d sail her again in a nano-second if it was an itinerary we liked.

[sammiedawg]

I didn't write a review but the Veendam was a mess when we sailed it five ago, a cruise just before everything really hit the fan in FLL. We booked the trip only because the sailing dates fit perfectly into our timeframe. Reviews were poor then and now. Entire sections of cabins had no AC and I lost count of all the plumbing and ventilation issues. Yes HAL fixed it up as best they could but my travel agent friend tells clients to avoid it, she gets too many nasty reports. Ongoing maintenance issues have not gone away.

You couldn't pay me to sail it again. HAL loyalists sing its praises until they are affected.

I'm a big believer in the Berlitz rating systems, an independent non emotional rating system. The metric is the same for every ship, ship condition, ship quality and features, food, service, entertainment, etc. Veendam rates very very low on Berlitz, 2017 rating of 1234. It is very low for a mass market ship, definitely the lowest rated for Holland America.

Buyer beware.

There are so many cruise lines to choose from, look around.

[OlsSalt]

THANKS- What is the overall condition of the Veendam. Is the furniture old and in need of repair? Is the gym adequate in terms of equipment and space? is there lines to get on the equipment? It is an older ship and we know that but more concerned on the overall condition and if they are keeping up the maintenance of the ship..Any feedback is very much appreciated. Thanks

 

HAL does not let older ships get "run down". Why would they? Maybe before they are due for their next dry dock one will see a few more scuffs and worn spots, but nothing that detracts from the overall cruise experience. They all undergo periodic refurbishment, because they want passengers to have a good experience.

 

What you may notice on the older ships is simply a heavier build-up of paint on the exposed outdoor surfaces, since the sea and salt is relentless and rust spots are part of the at sea heritage. If this fact of sea life bothers you, by all means pick a newer ship.

 

From our perspective, the Veendam was in fine shape last Fall when we were on her for about a month. Only occasionally passing by the gym during that, but it has always been pretty vacant with easy access to all the machines, except for some classes. At lot that will depend on the itinerary, length of cruise and age group of passengers. Hard to tell. There may be more impacted times of the day from that I saw, which you can get to know better once on board.

[OlsSalt]

I didn't write a review but the Veendam was a mess when we sailed it five ago, a cruise just before everything really hit the fan in FLL. We booked the trip only because the sailing dates fit perfectly into our timeframe. Reviews were poor then and now. Entire sections of cabins had no AC and I lost count of all the plumbing and ventilation issues. Yes HAL fixed it up as best they could but my travel agent friend tells clients to avoid it, she gets too many nasty reports. Ongoing maintenance issues have not gone away.

You couldn't pay me to sail it again. HAL loyalists sing its praises until they are affected.

I'm a big believer in the Berlitz rating systems, an independent non emotional rating system. The metric is the same for every ship, ship condition, ship quality and features, food, service, entertainment, etc. Veendam rates very very low on Berlitz, 2017 rating of 1234. It is very low for a mass market ship, definitely the lowest rated for Holland America.

Buyer beware.

There are so many cruise lines to choose from, look around.

 

Having been on her for nearly a month last Fall from Montreal to San Diego, I cannot recognize a single complaint in this entire post. Unbelievable. The errors in the Berlitz system about other HAL ships have been pointed out in other posts.

[OlsSalt]

For whatever this means to you, Veendam scored 100 in the last CDC Vessel Sanitation program: https://wwwn.cdc.gov/inspectionquerytool/inspectionwith100score.aspx

She is not a neglected ship.

[styles27]

I didn't write a review but the Veendam was a mess when we sailed it five ago, a cruise just before everything really hit the fan in FLL. We booked the trip only because the sailing dates fit perfectly into our timeframe. Reviews were poor then and now. Entire sections of cabins had no AC and I lost count of all the plumbing and ventilation issues. Yes HAL fixed it up as best they could but my travel agent friend tells clients to avoid it, she gets too many nasty reports. Ongoing maintenance issues have not gone away.

You couldn't pay me to sail it again. HAL loyalists sing its praises until they are affected.

I'm a big believer in the Berlitz rating systems, an independent non emotional rating system. The metric is the same for every ship, ship condition, ship quality and features, food, service, entertainment, etc. Veendam rates very very low on Berlitz, 2017 rating of 1234. It is very low for a mass market ship, definitely the lowest rated for Holland America.

Buyer beware.

There are so many cruise lines to choose from, look around.

 

 

When you say "we sailed it five ago" I'm assuming you meant 5 years ago?

 

I am far from a "HAL loyalists" as I've only been on 1 HAL cruise and it was on Veendam NY to Bermuda in 2012. We sail all of the major cruise lines and are not loyal to just one or two.

 

I didn't see or hear about the "entire sections of cabins without AC or plumbing issues", that you speak of.

 

In fact we were very hesitant to try HAL on Veendam because of posts like yours. I'm very happy I weighed the reviews, tossed out the really bad and really good and listened to the moderate and we found they were the most accurate.

 

Veendam was the 2nd smallest ship we've sailed to Bermuda on (Majesty was the smallest at 38,000ton before NCL bought her and stretched her).

 

NY to Bermuda is not a smooth ride, we've done it on 4 different ships. Veendam was fine in those rough seas and I'm very susceptible to motion sickness. On Majesty, I spent almost the entire way to Bermuda in bed with motion sickness. Didn't get sick one time on Veendam.

 

We had a great time on Veendam. Was she the most "glitzy" ship we'd ever been on? No, but she was in fine condition and I never for one minute thought she looked like she was ready for the shipyard in heaven. lol.

 

The service was great, the captain was THE BEST EVER...he was so approachable and he even did a cooking demonstration with the head engineer for us one day. If he saw us walking around the ship he always stopped and spoke to us. I can't praise him or his staff enough, they were great.

 

I know she has undergone a major refurbishment since we sailed on her in 2012 and I wouldn't hesitate to book her again.

 

I really think your TA is doing a disservice to her clients by telling them to avoid her. That's a shame.

 

Not everyone loves those 6500 passenger mega ships.

 

For us...we would be very happy if every ship we went on from now on were the size of Veendam. It's a perfect size ship for us. We are 50 & 52...far from the older HAL demographic, well maybe not as far as we used to be.:confused:

 

 

**i.e. No aft pool....we spent all of our sea days on the aft deck because we loved that it was quieter than the main pool area and there were hot tubs and plenty of loungers.

[HokiePoq]

Just returned from our 48 days cruise to Brazil and the Amazon with our group of 10 all retired people The Veendam was fine just issues with aircon but they do fix it or moved us. Public area like MDR was warm every night though

Staff were fantastic food was very good and the Best Captain we have ever had on any cruise line Eric van der Welle

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I think what happened is that a LOT of people complained about how cold the cabins and the common rooms were. Our travel mate wore a coat the whole time!

I was comfortable but I did notice a change after all the complaints.

Met several nice KIwis and hope you were one of them!

[sammiedawg]

Having been on her for nearly a month last Fall from Montreal to San Diego, I cannot recognize a single complaint in this entire post. Unbelievable. The errors in the Berlitz system about other HAL ships have been pointed out in other posts.

 

I urge you and anyone considering this ship to read the review section of CC, member review section. Because you didn't experience the mechanical problems doesn't mean others were not impacted. The mechanical AC, plumbing, ventilation problems continue, see the reviews. Everything I wrote was gospel truth from five years ago and I could go into much more gross detail.

Berlitz is the consumer report of the cruise industry. The same metric is used to evaluate all ships. Someone pointed out Berlitz gave one ship Prinsendam credit for a golf simulator which they no longer have, otherwise the mediocre ship score would have been even lower.

[sammiedawg]

When you say "we sailed it five ago" I'm assuming you meant 5 years ago?

 

I am far from a "HAL loyalists" as I've only been on 1 HAL cruise and it was on Veendam NY to Bermuda in 2012. We sail all of the major cruise lines and are not loyal to just one or two.

 

I didn't see or hear about the "entire sections of cabins without AC or plumbing issues", that you speak of.

 

In fact we were very hesitant to try HAL on Veendam because of posts like yours. I'm very happy I weighed the reviews, tossed out the really bad and really good and listened to the moderate and we found they were the most accurate.

 

Veendam was the 2nd smallest ship we've sailed to Bermuda on (Majesty was the smallest at 38,000ton before NCL bought her and stretched her).

 

NY to Bermuda is not a smooth ride, we've done it on 4 different ships. Veendam was fine in those rough seas and I'm very susceptible to motion sickness. On Majesty, I spent almost the entire way to Bermuda in bed with motion sickness. Didn't get sick one time on Veendam.

 

We had a great time on Veendam. Was she the most "glitzy" ship we'd ever been on? No, but she was in fine condition and I never for one minute thought she looked like she was ready for the shipyard in heaven. lol.

 

The service was great, the captain was THE BEST EVER...he was so approachable and he even did a cooking demonstration with the head engineer for us one day. If he saw us walking around the ship he always stopped and spoke to us. I can't praise him or his staff enough, they were great.

 

I know she has undergone a major refurbishment since we sailed on her in 2012 and I wouldn't hesitate to book her again.

 

I really think your TA is doing a disservice to her clients by telling them to avoid her. That's a shame.

 

Not everyone loves those 6500 passenger mega ships.

 

For us...we would be very happy if every ship we went on from now on were the size of Veendam. It's a perfect size ship for us. We are 50 & 52...far from the older HAL demographic, well maybe not as far as we used to be.:confused:

 

 

**i.e. No aft pool....we spent all of our sea days on the aft deck because we loved that it was quieter than the main pool area and there were hot tubs and plenty of loungers.

 

Yes, I sailed five years ago. My bad.

Travel agents have a duty to their clients to warn them about known problems.

A charming captain means nothing to me, nor do I care whether the ship sails in nimble fashion.

There are many cruise lines and ships to choose from including quite a few small ships. Veendam is not the only game in town.

[OlsSalt]

Travel agents have a duty to not pass on five year old bad information. The whole reason I kept a temperature diary ws to get facts to support the "too hot" and "too cold" complaints. Temperatures stayed within HAL guidelines -which on any given day will be registered as "too hot" or too cold" by any given number of passengers.

 

Those who want 68 degrees in the tropics will be disappointed. This is now a given. When our cabin reached 78 as we headed south, we got an instant response from a ship's technician for an adjustment.

[sammiedawg]

Travel agents have a duty to not pass on five year old bad information. The whole reason I kept a temperature diary ws to get facts to support the "too hot" and "too cold" complaints. Temperatures stayed within HAL guidelines -which on any given day will be registered as "too hot" or too cold" by any given number of passengers.

 

Those who want 68 degrees in the tropics will be disappointed. This is now a given. When our cabin reached 78 as we headed south, we got an instant response from a ship's technician for an adjustment.

 

Again I urge you to read current reviews and I doubt you will feel as confident that this is a reliable ship. Bad reviews continue.

[OlsSalt]

Again I urge you to read current reviews and I doubt you will feel as confident that this is a reliable ship. Bad reviews continue.

 

From day one back in 2008, if I actually believed CC reviews about HAL ships we never would have gotten on board our first HAL ship the Maasdam. Sounds pretty much like the way the Veendam is now getting described, and just about every other ship we have sailed on. You should have heard the descriptions of the Zuiderdam before we went on her last Spring. A rusting bucket of bolts that should have been long ago sent to Karachi for scrap. C'mon.

 

Now 350 HAL cruise days later, the same caveat holds. Sorry it works out this way, but that is the way it rolls.

 

(Read the reviews - they are a joke - suffering snowflakes, it is only going to get worse for the up coming generation of Goldilocks. I hope they all do go to other cruise lines. I would hate spending time with such finicky whiners. One hit the only right note saying HAL is Macy's and not Nordstrom - well, yes?

 

If they bring in exaggerated expectations and unrealistic demands when on a ship on the high seas, they deserve to be unhappy. Two medical evacuations made this a "cruise from hell" for them. Well, just imagine what it was like for those who got evacuated. )

[styles27]

From day one back in 2008, if I actually believed CC reviews about HAL ships we never would have gotten on board our first HAL ship the Maasdam. Sounds pretty much like the way the Veendam is now getting described, and just about every other ship we have sailed on. You should have heard the descriptions of the Zuiderdam before we went on her last Spring. A rusting bucket of bolts that should have been long ago sent to Karachi for scrap. C'mon.

 

Now 350 HAL cruise days later, the same caveat holds. Sorry it works out this way, but that is the way it rolls.

 

(Read the reviews - they are a joke - suffering snowflakes, it is only going to get worse for the up coming generation of Goldilocks. I hope they all do go to other cruise lines. I would hate spending time with such finicky whiners. One hit the only right note saying HAL is Macy's and not Nordstrom - well, yes?

 

If they bring in exaggerated expectations and unrealistic demands when on a ship on the high seas, they deserve to be unhappy. Two medical evacuations made this a "cruise from hell" for them. Well, just imagine what it was like for those who got evacuated. )

 

Exactly how we felt when we were contemplating booking our Veendam cruise. I got on the ship and immediately thought to myself "what the hell were those people complaining about?"

 

This is why I always take the "the ship is falling apart" and "blocks of cabins had plumbing problems the ENTIRE cruise" remarks with a grain of salt.

 

No reputable company will sail a ship that is falling apart.

 

Not everyone will love every cruise they've ever been on...I guess I'm in the minority because I can honestly say I have never had a bad experience on a cruise ship. I feel blessed and fortunate to be able to go. Nothing is perfect but cruising is pretty damn close.