MS Westerdam

[Cruisebuff2950]

Looking to find out as much as I can about the cruise ship Westerdam.

Looking to sail on her soon but have never sailed with HAL lines before.

Is the ship well maintained?

What is the entertainment like?

What is the food like?

Any issues that anyone has experienced being on the Westerdam?

[Kiwi_cruiser]

If you don't get any more replay's here, try posting this question on the HAL forum: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171

[SinbadThePorter]

Looking to find out as much as I can about the cruise ship Westerdam.

Looking to sail on her soon but have never sailed with HAL lines before.

Is the ship well maintained?

What is the entertainment like?

What is the food like?

Any issues that anyone has experienced being on the Westerdam?

 

If the Westerdam is anything like the Noordam, and it is, then it is an outstanding ship.

 

It's very well maintained and the crew is very professional.

 

Entertainment is pretty standard and the food very good, but not outstanding.

 

Overall a very classy operation.

[Vader1111]

Looking to find out as much as I can about the cruise ship Westerdam.

Looking to sail on her soon but have never sailed with HAL lines before.

Is the ship well maintained?

What is the entertainment like?

What is the food like?

Any issues that anyone has experienced being on the Westerdam?

I haven't sailed on the Westerdam, but I did sail on the Oosterdam in Dec 2014. They're sister ships, from the same company, so I assume the experience would be similar.

 

I'm a single guy, in my early 40s. Opinions stated are mine, and mine alone. Other passengers will almost certainly have different opinions of the ship.

 

Maintenance

The ship wasn't in great condition. Several of the seats in the Crows Nest had been removed and not replaced, with plastic bunting across the gap where the missing seats should have been. One of the tenders broke down the day on our last port visit - but I won't complain too badly about this, as tendering is one of the very few things that the ship did well.

 

Entertainment

I found it to be somewhere between poor and diabolical. The production shows were bad, and the guest entertainers were severely lacking in entertainment value. Don't get me wrong, they knew their instruments, they just didn't know how to entertain a crowd. They would have been amazing as anonymous members of an orchestra or group, but as solo entertainers... awful.

 

Worse, the lack of entertainment staff on board meant that there were almost no activities during the day. The entertainment staff consisted of the Cruise Director, the DJ, and the girl who ran the cooking demonstrations. That's it - 3 of them. An equivalent cruise on Rhapsody of the Seas (a similar sized ship) would have at least 4-5 more staff in the entertainment division. With literally no organised activities, my recommendation would be to bring a good book - or better yet, several of them.

 

Food

The food varied from acceptable, to downright awful - and there was no consistency at all. I certainly wouldn't call anything they produced "good", or "above average".

 

 

You could order the same thing on multiple days, and get wildly different results depending on which of the chefs had prepared your meal on that particular day. It also depended on where you happened to get your food - Asian style food in the main dining room was a disaster, while the chefs in the Asian buffet station were very good.

 

Issues

Possibly the biggest issue we had was the HAL smoking policy. Smoking was permitted on cabin balconies, with the inevitable result that the balconies were frequently unusable for non-smokers for much of the day. Smoking is/was also permitted in the Casino, which stank of smoke the whole trip.

 

This trip was in 2014. I hope HAL have moved into the 21st Century with their smoking policies since then... but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

 

What did they do well?

Credit where it's due - their tendering operations were conducted better than I've seen on any other ship, with the exception of the day when one of the boats broke down.

 

The front line staff were good - waiters & waitresses, cabin stewards, etc.

 

 

I quite liked the fact that they offered a free shoe shine service - very handy on formal dinner nights. That's a nice touch.

 

Recommendation

If Princess target the Baby Boomer demographic, then HAL seem to be targeting the Baby Boomers' parents. I wouldn't recommend HAL to anyone under the age of 80, and even then I'd think twice about it.

 

The Oosterdam was one of the two worst ships I've ever been on (Dawn Princess is the other). In the case of the Dawn Princess, the problems were all hardware related - the Princess service was fantastic, the ship is a lemon. In the Oosterdam's case, the problems are all related to HAL, and thus your experience on the Westerdam is likely to be similar.

[erewhon]

Last month, Holland America Line banned balcony smoking.

[Vader1111]

Last month, Holland America Line banned balcony smoking.

Only 15 years behind the rest of the industry.

[erewhon]

Only 15 years behind the rest of the industry.

 

 

So very true!!

[tompaddyelle]

if you want a cruise that you just want to lie around and read a book a day well this is the cruise line for you.

Otherwise skip it. Like someone said zero entertainment during the day and the so called entertainment at night was more suitable for a nursing home! The star performer on the Noordam last year was a glockenspiel player!! :eek: