Ryndam back to back norweigan cruises may 2011

[MATHA531]

Well I have just come off within the past week back to back cruises on the Ryndam from Rotterdam to Scandanavia (Copenhagen, Oslo) back to Rotterdam and then on to the Norwegian fjords. This was my second cruise, the first being a year ago on the Eurodam to the Baltic and | was somewhat disappointed in some things. Obiously the fact the Ryndam is much smaller than the Eurodam will contribute to some of the disappointments I will describe and while the cruise(s) were hardly terrible, they did not meet my expectation for a variety of reasons some of you may consider whining. Let me give you some of my thoughts.

 

CRUISEMATES: I was travelling alone and had enjoyed all the Eurodam had to offer but I should have known better travelling on a line called Holland America out of Rotterdam pivoting in Rotterdam. The first cruise was probably about 65% to 70% Dutch speaking. The second about 80% Dutch speaking. What did this mean? Please, do not think I am saying anything bad about travelling with Dutch people. But it meant all annoucements were made in Dutch as well as English (perhaps given the nu mbers, I should be thankful annoucements were done in English in the first place). It became tedious after a while. Sorry friends. Dutch will all its ch sounds is very tough on my English ears. It mean two cruise directors. One fluent only in English the other fluent in both Dutch and English Why we needed two cruise directors is beyond me. It also meant many of the acitivites, what few there were, were sometimes only for one group or the other (trivia contests for example). It also meant when I went to the MDR, it really was hard to share as I might be placed with several Dutch couples only speaking to each other in Dutch. I asked for a table by myself (it was given to me). Again, not blaming anybody or denigrating Dutch people or playing the role of Ugly American; it just took away from my enjoyment of the cruises.

 

STATEROOM: Being the cheap person I am, I booked an interior cabin. The cabin was large and more than adequate and the cabin stewart was great. BUT...no fridge. Sorry folks, I had a fridge last year on the Eurodam; I thought perhaps all the cabins on the Ryndam don't have fridges but apparently most do. It's not like when I stay at a cheap hotel with no fridge. I walk out into the hall to get ice. Waking up in the middle of the night and finding the ice provided had melted meant no cold water or cold soda. If the Eurodam cheapest cabins had fridges, then so should the Ryndam.

 

PORTS: Fine although of course we all know the cruse lines shore excursions are overpriced. C'est la vie.

 

TELEVISION: Well obviously you don't cruise to sit in your room and watch television but when I get back to the stateroom or wake up early in the morning, you want something to watch. Yes we had CNN. We had BBC World Service. We even had the Fascist oops Fox News Channel. We were supposed to have ESPN1 and ESPN2. When I boarded the ship the first day, it was stated that ESPN1 and ESPN2 were temporarily unavailable due to satellite transmission problems. Temporarily lasted the whole 2 week cruise. Unacceptable. I truly believe, no matter what Holland America will tell me when I write to complain, that ESPN raised its rate for the NBA finals and HAL, figuring much of their clientelle was Dutch, did not want to pay for it. But they sure as hell didn't have to lie and it should not take two weeks to fix a simple satellite problem..a day or two at most.

 

FOOD: Was good but....they had surf and turf the two formal nights. I don't believe in formal nights so I usually go to the Lido onthose nights. On the Eurodam, they always had the same entrees in the Lido as in the MDR. On this cruise, the nights of surf and turf in the MDR, we only had the turf in the Lido. No lobster and this went on throughout the crew. All entrees servied inthe MDR should be served in the Lido. Period.

 

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I will be writing to HAL with my complaints but again, please do not read this in any way as denigrating the Dutch people on the cruise I admire most Dutch people and especially their linguistic abilities (apropos of that, it was amazing to me waiting at the ice cream bar when two Dutch kids, who couldn't be more than 10 years old if that, were conversing with each other in Dutch and when they got to the head of the line switched over to faultless English! Imagine American 10 year olds ding that).

 

As I said, while the cruises were hardly a disaster, and yes I should probably have known what to expect, they were really not what I expected.

[gregdude]

"R" and "S" class ships only have refrigerators in the Verandah cabins, this is clearly stated on the web site. If you want one you can rent one through guest relations at a per diem rate.

[Ine]

I must admit I feel kind of denigrated in your comments about the dutch. Leaving from Rotterdam you could expect to have many dutch (and probably also germans) on board. Most of them, but not all, can speak some english. Some better then others, some might be too shy to speak it.

When we sail from the USA we know that at least 95% will be english speaking and we will be the minority.

Yes most dutch (and many swiss, people from southern germany and even those from Tirol) ) have the ch in their language, just your bad luck.

[erewhon]

sorry delete

[erewhon]

MATHA,

 

Did you try to converse with any Europeans? What a wonderful opportunity you had to learn about their countries.

 

You were very lucky to receive BBC World Service.

 

What will you complain about in your letter to HAL?