Joe&Barry

Sorry, yes, it was the Oosterdam.

Great itinerary, quite a variety of landscapes, wildlife and cities. This part of the world is quite remote and being able to see it on a ship seems to be the best. We arrived in Buenos Aires 4 days before the cruise and loved Buenos Aires, it's a very pretty clean city and friendly people. We used Holland for the flights and pre cruise hotel which was a great value.

Just though I'd repost the review we submitted for our recent cruise on the forum: We had a great cruise! This was our second time on Holland America, we've been on several cruise lines including one of those "6 star luxury" lines and Holland is our top 2. The crew is absolutely the best, they are so friendly and always happy and taking care of the passengers. The food overall is very good and even after 31 days we were still enjoying it. We mainly had meals in the main dining room as we really enjoy the experience over the buffet, we never ate in the buffet... too busy! We would go to the dive in for burgers and fries which was good. We had the have it all package which included drinks up to $11 and always had our favorite red wine....Cabernet. The brands did vary a bit based on availability but we enjoyed them all. The package is a good value. Again, the bar service was mostly great sometimes a wait but usually pretty quick. We had dinner in the Pinnacle grill three times, twice for the regular menu and once we did the cellarmaster dinner which was terrific. The food was excellent all 3 times. We ate once in Canaletto which was just ok, it does not feel special just a section of the buffet, food was just ok. We tried going to a few shows but they were pretty bad so did not stay. We would end up in the Rolling Stone lounge many nights and really enjoyed the great band. We also enjoyed the classical trio that we found in the Ocean bar during our second half of the cruise but they stopped playing at 9:30 so we missed them a lot since we had dinner around 8 pm most nights. While we would enjoy a good show its not critical as we enjoy just relaxing and reading, and good music. We did all shore excursions through Holland except for three ports we just got off and walked around. They were fine and I'm glad we did them to see the area, but there are too many people on most so that detracts from the experience. Our room stewards were excellent! They took care of our room twice a day which we love. Holland seems to still remember the small details really impact the overall feeling and enjoyment that other cruise lines are losing. Fluffy high-quality towels that are bright white and not stained, comfortable beds, fresh flowers throughout the ship, peanuts served with bar drinks, actual cloth hand towels in restrooms instead of paper towels, etc. Now, some of the areas for improvement in our opinion. The ship is in need of a big refurbishment. The cabin while kept very clean by the great stewards is quite worn and dated. The balcony furniture is rusted. Our air-conditioning stopped working twice once for 24 hours, our toilet mostly worked fine but we had to call a couple times to get it fixed. Public areas are better but even there some areas are very worn such as the public restrooms. To sum up we had a wonderful time and would love to go again. Thank you Holland America.

Finally have air conditioning! Ours was fixed late yesterday. Apparently a section of 80 rooms was affected. I think the ship may need some updating. As I mentioned the staff, food, etc are great, but the ship is a bit dated in areas. We took an evening tour and dinner at Casa Aliaga with the ship. Turned out to be a nice evening. We stayed on the ship today having a relaxing day. We have previously been to Lima when we went to Machu Picchu on a land trip.

Still no air conditioning and no communication either. I did ask about changing rooms and I was told the ship is full. So we didn’t sleep much, they gave us a small fan to use. We are in Lima today and tomorrow so hopefully they can get the part they need to fix it.

We have had a great cruise until now. I’m sorry but now our air conditioning has stopped working for the second time. Today we came back to a hot room at 2pm and they told us that they were working on it and now it’s after 11pm and no ac and we are unable to sleep because of how hot it is. Front desk says they are working on it, but I bet it won’t be fixed because they probably don’t have the parts. To me this is ridiculous, they should always be able to fix issues. I understand mechanical problems occur but no excuses for not fixing it promptly. 🤬

We are just finishing our first week onboard and I just wanted to let everyone know that our experience so far is excellent! The staff are wonderful and even remember our names. They’re are always smiling and so friendly. The food in the main dining room is great and service is great. We went to the pinnacle grill last night and it was also excellent. We have only taken one Holland America cruise in 2012. We’ve tried several others including Silversea. Our last cruise was on Silver Dawn last fall. We are enjoying this experience much more. The ship is older but in good shape. The crew is what makes this ship so much better.

Hi, we are just off the Journey and had OBC to use so we took 3 excursions, just our opinion, but we found all of them to be poor and they were putting 40 of us on a tour. Very different from our Journey cruise to the Baltic’s in 2018 which were small groups about 20 people.

Thank you both for the information.

Hi All, We are on the Amadouro November of 2023 and very much looking forward to our time in Portugal. A couple of questions I have are: During the bus ride to Salamanca are there bathrooms on the bus or a stop along the way for those of us needing regular breaks? What is the typical weather like this time of year? I see this year there have been some pretty rainy periods and not very many of dry days. Thank you!