On Eurodam in Alaska now

First off, the pros. The weather has been incredible, sunny and in the 70s every day and every port. I know this is unusual and we have been extremely lucky. The Eurodam is a beautiful ship, and very well laid out, and a great staff as usual, however,….The Lido is always always so busy at meal time it’s a nightmare to eat there. We have been eating dinner in the dining room every night and it’s been ok, the food is good, service adequate but just adequate. We will continue to eat there though because eating in the Lido as I said earlier is a nightmare. I don’t feel the Lido is any bigger than it is on the Westerdam or Oosterdam, but there are so many more people it is just almost impossible to find a seat even for two people. My grandson and I have always had to sit in the aisle where the two seaters are with people going back-and-forth back-and-forth. The entertainment is a joke there’s been no comedian one magician and then just a bunch of music stuff which I guess is fine for older people but I prefer something funny. Just a personal opinion.

This cruise is breaking the stereo type of old people if anyone is on with me they could verify that at least 60 to 70% of all passengers are under the age of 50. I have never seen so many children and young people on any cruise on Holland before. It’s fine, no problem, it’s just the way some of them dress, there is a lot of casualness. Lots of running children. It has a definite “Carnival Cruise “ vibe. I attribute it to the fact that every school district is on break now.

As to the observation deck, seems fine to me. I’m easily pleased. As long as there are comfy chairs by the front window, I’m good.

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Thank you for your review. We're taking this trip in a couple months. As we usually cruise with Carnival, maybe we'll be alright :) I hope your grandson is enjoying his gift!

We were with you in Port today before you pulled out. We have had absolutely incredible weather this week!

We too noted that the age distribution is changing along with other aspects of the cruise. We've appreciated the changes mostly though.

I hope your trip back to Seattle is great!

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Thank you for your review. We're taking this trip in a couple months. As we usually cruise with Carnival, maybe we'll be alright :) I hope your grandson is enjoying his gift!

He is.

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Thank you for checking.

Glad you all are enjoying your cruise and the weather is great.

Was on the Amsterdam a few years back to Alaska in the summer. 600 kids onboard. Lido pool midships was unusable and was like a mid-city water park. Roof was closed and the humidity rivaled Miami. In the rest of the ship, children everywhere...sitting on stairways, running about, yelling in hallways. But it wasn't their fault that they weren't supervised.

I was on the Eurodam last week. There were a good number of families, but the ship wasn't over run, and I certainly wouldn't say it was like Carnival. The aft Lido pool - with a sign saying that it's for Adults Only- was filled with kids and parents one day. But what can we do ?

We can choose not to sail during peak times for kids, meaning the summer and holiday sailings. Or we can choose another line that would be less likely to have many children.

Btw, the BBC Earth presentation of Alaska was excellent. BB King's Blues Club was PACKED on the final Gala Night night (Thursday).

And we had a comedian - David Crowe - on Wednesday night (Sitka). A friend who went to see him enjoyed it thoroughly.

I don't understand how there could have been 600 kids on a ship as small as the Amsterdam? Isn't that like 40% of capacity? Class trip maybe? Church group?

That would have been a nightmare for us, I would have seriously considered getting helicoptered off.

OP: we couldn't manage the Lido either, with our mobility issues it just wasn't possible, the mdr is our sanctuary, we took every meal there and it was probably good food 90% of the time. But Eurodam Lido needs to be at least 30% bigger, and we got stuck at that aisle table too which meant eye level with people's butts the whole meal as they squeezed past the lines.

We can choose not to sail during peak times for kids, meaning the summer and holiday sailings. Or we can choose another line that would be less likely to have many children.

 

this is a sincere question: which cruise line would that be? because lack of children is WHY we sail on HAL (and my husband is a teacher, so we can't sail when kids are not in school as he's teaching them at that time! this is ALSO why we prefer a child-free vacation. ;-) )

Thanks for letting us know about your cruise.

Fabulous weather - lucky you.

First off, the pros. The weather has been incredible, sunny and in the 70s every day and every port. I know this is unusual and we have been extremely lucky. The Eurodam is a beautiful ship, and very well laid out, and a great staff as usual, however,….The Lido is always always so busy at meal time it’s a nightmare to eat there. We have been eating dinner in the dining room every night and it’s been ok, the food is good, service adequate but just adequate. We will continue to eat there though because eating in the Lido as I said earlier is a nightmare. I don’t feel the Lido is any bigger than it is on the Westerdam or Oosterdam, but there are so many more people it is just almost impossible to find a seat even for two people. My grandson and I have always had to sit in the aisle where the two seaters are with people going back-and-forth back-and-forth. The entertainment is a joke there’s been no comedian one magician and then just a bunch of music stuff which I guess is fine for older people but I prefer something funny. Just a personal opinion.

This cruise is breaking the stereo type of old people if anyone is on with me they could verify that at least 60 to 70% of all passengers are under the age of 50. I have never seen so many children and young people on any cruise on Holland before. It’s fine, no problem, it’s just the way some of them dress, there is a lot of casualness. Lots of running children. It has a definite “Carnival Cruise “ vibe. I attribute it to the fact that every school district is on break now.

 

As to the observation deck, seems fine to me. I’m easily pleased. As long as there are comfy chairs by the front window, I’m good.

 

 

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So glad you are having a great time and the weather is ideal. I was on the Eurodam week before last and was also fortunate with the weather. No rain, sunny and 60s each day. This has been a great stretch of weather. I too avoided Lido altogether, way too crowded. Enjoy Victoria this evening. It's beautiful.

Maryjo

Yikes, that is alot of kids on the Amsterdam. My dad was a teacher and we always had to sail during peak times and I never remember that many kids on any of my HAL ships. I do sail HAL because it normally doesn't have alot of kids onboard, are times changing?

Maybe someone can answer this. I recently read here that the Eurodam was no longer showing movies in its theater. As I remember, the theater is also the location of the test kitchen and cooking events. Does this mean that more theater time will be devoted to these events?

We're on the Eurodam in ... ~44 days? so looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll have good weather too.

this is a sincere question: which cruise line would that be? because lack of children is WHY we sail on HAL (and my husband is a teacher, so we can't sail when kids are not in school as he's teaching them at that time! this is ALSO why we prefer a child-free vacation. ;-) )

Check out Viking Ocean Cruises age restrictions.

Maybe someone can answer this. I recently read here that the Eurodam was no longer showing movies in its theater. As I remember, the theater is also the location of the test kitchen and cooking events. Does this mean that more theater time will be devoted to these events?

 

We're on the Eurodam in ... ~44 days? so looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll have good weather too.

On the Eurodam it had a 30 seat theater -- with plush seats that you could recline -- way different than the R and S class ships that showed movies in the Wajang theater.

On the Eurodam it had a 30 seat theater -- with plush seats that you could recline -- way different than the R and S class ships that showed movies in the Wajang theater.

We had these on the NA and we did not like them at all. We saw so many people turned way because these huge seats severely limited the numbers of seats available. Not sure what they were thinking when they installed them. (A fire sale from some land based theater?)

Hope they take them out in the near future and offer more seats so more can also enjoy watching the movies. But at least the sight lines are vastly improved from the R/S class ship's Wajang movie theater seating. Forget it if a movie has subtitles.

Was on the Amsterdam a few years back to Alaska in the summer. 600 kids onboard. Lido pool midships was unusable and was like a mid-city water park. Roof was closed and the humidity rivaled Miami. In the rest of the ship, children everywhere...sitting on stairways, running about, yelling in hallways. But it wasn't their fault that they weren't supervised.

 

I was on the Eurodam last week. There were a good number of families, but the ship wasn't over run, and I certainly wouldn't say it was like Carnival. The aft Lido pool - with a sign saying that it's for Adults Only- was filled with kids and parents one day. But what can we do ?

We can choose not to sail during peak times for kids, meaning the summer and holiday sailings. Or we can choose another line that would be less likely to have many children.

 

Btw, the BBC Earth presentation of Alaska was excellent. BB King's Blues Club was PACKED on the final Gala Night night (Thursday).

And we had a comedian - David Crowe - on Wednesday night (Sitka). A friend who went to see him enjoyed it thoroughly.

I do agree with you. The remark about Carnival was tongue in cheek. This was the only available time we could go. I’m home now and missing the ship. It is a beautiful ship and except for too many kids in the pool, they all seemed well behaved. I miss being on board. ☹️

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We got in late and our excursion was delayed from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. So it was dark on the way back. Downtown was lovely with the lights, but unable to see the city gardens. What can ya do. Stuff happens. [emoji19]

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Maybe someone can answer this. I recently read here that the Eurodam was no longer showing movies in its theater. As I remember, the theater is also the location of the test kitchen and cooking events. Does this mean that more theater time will be devoted to these events?

 

 

 

We're on the Eurodam in ... ~44 days? so looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll have good weather too.

They have nice big tv’s in the rooms and a GREAT selection of movies so I didn’t miss it.

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Maybe someone can answer this. I recently read here that the Eurodam was no longer showing movies in its theater. As I remember, the theater is also the location of the test kitchen and cooking events. Does this mean that more theater time will be devoted to these events?We're on the Eurodam in ... ~44 days? so looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll have good weather too.

The small movie theatre on the Eurodam is gone. Replaced by a photographer studio. We just disembarked yesterday and called Guest Services to verify we weren’t somehow just overlooking it. They verified that it has been removed.

They have nice big tv’s in the rooms and a GREAT selection of movies so I didn’t miss it.

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Thank you for your comments and sharing your photos.

Thanks for the review! That;s why we booked in September after the kids were back in school....

Thanks for the review. The Lido may have been better for you if you hit it a little later. The fewer children on the ship, the better we like it. We tend to cruise during the school year and/or book longer cruises that are harder for families. We are not opposed to children on cruises it's just that there are different cruise line that are more child friendly, like Disney or any of the ships that have the amusement park on top.

We've been on ships that claimed adult only areas that had numerous kids screaming and running about (not a HAL ship). Another cruise a woman and her two daughters constantly held up excursions and once delayed the ship leaving the port. It was all about them (not a HAL ship).