Volendam in Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising 2007

I picked up a new copy of the Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships 2007. It seems to be outdated and inaccurate. The following don't jibe with other published information:

"The 747 seat Rotterdam dining room with smoking and no-smoking sections..."

"Alternative dining option: The casual-dress Marco Polo Restaurant seats 88, and there is no charge..."

"The Lido Buffet is also open for casual dinners on each night except for the last one..."

Am I right in thinking these statements are wrong?

There may or may not be 747 seats in the dining room; I don't know.

But other than that you're right. Every other "fact" is wrong.

There are no smoking sections in the dining room.

The Marco Polo was replaced by the Pinnacle. Dining charge there is now up to $30.

The Lido is open for dinner on the last night.

When I started cruising a couple of years ago, I signed that book out of the library. It's a horrible book that you'd think you could trust because it's from Berlitz. I was reading about the different Voyager class ships on RCL and the food comments were the same for all the ships, which might be ok except the person made them sound like they were bourne from personal experience ("I found the bread to be stale...). To write that a whole line is this or that based on one trip does not seem like a valid professional criticism.

That book seems to have been written piecemeal, with very little editing. Offering very quantified ratings about how a ship fares in this or that area gives the impression that they have researched it exhaustively. I fear they have not and are misleading folks.

That information is realy old!!!

If I bought that book, I would be requesting a refund from the publisher.

If I took it out of the library, I would be advising the librarian it is an inaccurate reference source.

It is understandable that changes that might be six months or even a year old could not be updated but not information such as a smoking section in the dining room......that is a policy of a number of years now. Not at all current.

The HAL overview section has the correct information about the no smoking dining room and the Pinnacle Grill. Some other comments from this section that CC'ers would take issue with are:

"Fresh management with updated ideas, HAL's "Signature of Excellence" program, the food variety and creativity have all made the HAL experience better during the past year."

"Holland America Line food was greatly upgraded when consultant Master Chef Rudi Sodamin arrived in 2005..."

"...and there is always serenading string music in the Explorer's Lounge and dining room."

This is not a book I will be recommending.

. ...........Some other comments from this section that CC'ers would take issue with are:

"Fresh management with updated ideas, HAL's "Signature of Excellence" program, the food variety and creativity have all made the HAL experience better during the past year."

"Holland America Line food was greatly upgraded when consultant Master Chef Rudi Sodamin arrived in 2005..."

"...and there is always serenading string music in the Explorer's Lounge and dining room."

This is not a book I will be recommending.

Actually, I, personally, do not take issue with (a) fresh management and updated ideas. I don't love all of these new ideas but some of them I do. I'm very happy with the earlier embarkation. Sure beats waiting in the terminal as we used to do for sometimes over 2 + hours. I like being able to wait in our cabin for our disembark number to be called. I like more generous Burger Bar/Taco stand hours. I like a veggie burger late afternoon, sometimes.

I DON'T LIKE PULLING ALL THE SHIPS OUT OF THE CARIBBEAN FOR A FULL SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR.

(b) I think the food/menus are better since Chef Rudi Sodamin 'came aboard'. We have been very satisfied with our dining experiences in the last 2 years. We think it better now than it was 4 years ago. Maybe we are incredibly lucky or someone is looking out for us but we have had excellent stewards/wonderful service and have enjoyed our dining experience.

Been a long time since we heard 'serenading music' in an HAL dining room but that's okay with me. I used to like when the Rosarios played and definitely miss that.

© Signature of Excellence Program provided us with the heavenly beds in every cabin, individual tv's on treadmills in the gym, flat screens in our cabins, Elemis Bath Products which I like, DVD players, Explorations Cafes which we think are fabulous. It gave us Neptune Lounges on every ship and Club HAL to keep the young 'uns busy and happy and not screaming in our ears.

Those are all good things IMO :)

Excellent point, Sail7Seas, about early embarkation and disembarkation. That is the best improvement I have seen in cruising.

Our first HAL cruise was a 1999 Rotterdam Europe cruise. The food was so much better than the previous year with Royal Caribbean. I had trouble choosing from a number of tempting entrees. Our second HAL cruise was on the Zuiderdam this spring. I had the opposite challenge, trying to find one dinner entree that I wanted. I ordered the always available salmon on one unpromising night. I had been hoping for high quality fish offerings.

The problems with wrong informations in the Berliltz book seems to be the same I have with my local German newspaper.

E.g. when I know the people on a picture, the names are sometimes written in a wrong order, left to right instead of right to left or there are names of another picture and so on.

But now my problem: Who tells me that all the other informations in this newspaper are o.k. or are they only o.k. because I cannot verfiy.

When I find out that what I know is wrong I have the feeling what I don't know is wrong too.

I have another bigger problem with our German government. No, they don't lie, they only don't tell you the truth. But that's another story.

I think, in the case of the Berlitz book, a lot of those descriptions are written once, when the ship is new, and rarely updated. I noticed in the last Berlitz guide to Cruising, it makes mention of the fact that the Zuiderdam/Oosterdam have 'soaring, 6 story atriums' or something to that effect. I must have missed those somewhere ;) Overall, it's a good book, but I think they must have fired their fact-checker a few years back...

I prefer the Fodor's book & a good Google search.