I’m surprised not to see mention of the dozens of buckets spread throughout the ship, across all decks, collecting dripping water from the ceiling. I work in hospitality - we would be terribly embarrassed if this were our guests’ experience.
It seemed as though every other person I spoke with either had a toilet fail or AC break, or both. In our case, it was both. My husband got food poisoning, I got an ear infection.
As far as shipwide experiences go: Significantly delayed embarkation, 2 cancelled ports (leaving a total of 4 ports for a 14 day cruise), 3 medical evacuations (not counting the two ambulances that met us at Port Everglades), 1/2 pools open for the first 5 days, menus on the app/TV never quite seemed to match up with the offerings in the lido.
The crew was phenomenal, but the Zuiderdam is on her last legs. It’s really rather appalling that HAL does not have more shame. The buckets collecting dripping water really say it all. And that was across all decks, from deck 1 to deck 10.
We made wonderful friends and had a great time overall. We have a good attitude and are easy-going, pretty easy to please. But these issues, on paper, paint a pretty grim picture. As one of our new friends said, it felt like we were on the holodeck or an episode of the Twilight Zone. Something was just off on this voyage.