Zuiderdam 8/20 vs. Constellation - 2nd try

[julieawill]

It doesn't look like my attempt yesterday worked - the site was up and down all afternoon. Here we go again.

 

This review is as unbiased and fair as I can possibly make it. It’s also long…

 

As background, my husband (51) and I (45) took our first cruise last November. We sailed a Southern Caribbean itinerary out of San Juan on Celebrity’s Constellation and booked a balcony room in Concierge Class. This year we paid a little more per person for a balcony room on Holland American’s Zuiderdam sailing an Eastern Caribbean itinerary on August 20. This time around, we took our blended family of young men ages 21 (2) and 18 (1).

 

Embarkation: We arrived at Port Everglades at 12:25 and were on the ship by 1:10p. We simply followed the person in front until we reached a packed Lido dining room. We went around the restaurant several times looking for a table before someone finally left. By contrast, Concierge Class on Celebrity allowed priority embarkation – we went through the suite line (which was non-existent) and were on the ship in less than 10 minutes. On stepping aboard, an army of crew members awaited, peeling off one by one to escort each arriving passenger to their cabin. Ease of embarkation awarded to Celebrity.

 

Dining: Breakfast is a toss up between the two lines; HAL does a great job of cook-to-order eggs (way more stations and shorter lines than Celebrity), but Celebrity has the most amazing Belgian waffles with different toppings. Lunch goes to HAL and the Lido dining room, amazing choices and incredible pizza. The Italian station and Terrace grill are both awesome and open most of the day. I don’t know why, but the ice cream on HAL is really wonderful. Dinner goes to Celebrity, just a slightly more elegant presentation and the choices were better (especially salads). Celebrity was just a notch above. Incidentally, we had to wait at least ten minutes every night to enter the Vista dining room, we had the 8:30 seating, so we were pretty hungry by the time we were seated. Celebrity ran like clockwork, and we never had to wait. We did dine in the Pinnacle Grill the first night, and were extremely pleased with both the ambience and food. We didn’t want to leave the dining room and our companions on Celebrity, so I can’t compare the two specialty restaurants. A huge thank-you to all on the boards who recommended the Pinnacle and especially the Chocolate Lava Cake. Oh my…

 

Ports of Call:

 

Half Moon Cay is amazing. I wouldn’t call it a beautiful island, but it is easily the most incredible beach ever. The water temp was perfect, and the sand was like powder. We rented clamshells and floating mats, and couldn’t have had a more relaxing day.

 

Tortola was wonderful. We booked independent dolphin swims for the boys in the morning, and took the ship’s excursion to the Baths in the afternoon. The Baths are amazing, and we had a great time snorkeling. We all wished we had more time there.

 

St. Thomas was the only port in common with the Celebrity cruise. We went on the Screaming Eagle Jet Boats, and they lived up to their name. 45 minutes of 360s and full-stops before we were deposited back on the dock dripping wet. The boys loved it. Our St. John excursion was cancelled due to Tropical Storm Katrina, but a couple of the boys took the Paradise Point tram up to the top and hiked around a bit. We all loved St. Thomas.

 

Nassau was easily everyone’s least favorite port. The boys took the Seahorse Catamaran Sail and Snorkel, but were disappointed in the snorkeling. My husband and I went with a local guide for a quick tour of the island and Atlantis. There just isn’t that much to see as far as sight-seeing goes. We all would have traded it for another day on Half Moon Cay.

 

The ports of call and shore excursions are a toss-up – Nassau wasn’t any worse than Casa de Campo (on Celebrity’s list). Celebrity does have a nice touch on re-boarding; they have cold washcloths at the pier which are very refreshing.

 

Ship Décor: the colors of the Zuiderdam didn’t bother me, but they certainly didn’t scream “class”. I don’t know how anyone could miss the potholes in the hallway; not only can you feel them, you can see the dents in the carpet. There were 2,000 people on a ship meant to carry 1800, so the Zuiderdam seemed crowded. There weren’t a lot of open spaces, but there were little bars and nooks scattered about. All in all, the Constellation was much classier.

 

Spa: The Constellation does not charge a fee for the thalassotherapy pool and at times it was a bit crowded. HAL does charge for the Hydrotherapy pool, but I thought it was worth it since it wasn’t crowded, and we always had space even on sea days. We also used the thermal suite – my husband loved the Turkish bath (steam) and I loved the heated ceramic tile lounges with a view of the ocean. Spa award goes to HAL.

 

Rooms: Design is very similar. Celebrity has drawers, which we really missed on HAL. HAL bathrooms are big, but the “greige” industrial décor did not impress. Celebrity seemed more open and airy, despite being slightly smaller, and they had more aesthetic appeal. One thing Celebrity has that’s really cool is the glow in the dark ring in the bottom of the toilet – it’s bright enough to act as a nightlight, so you don’t have to turn on the light in the middle of the night. I really liked the curtains in the HAL staterooms; they block the light from the hallway and from the verandah. So, function goes to HAL and form goes to Celebrity.

 

Service: This is where the differences really show up. If not for the Front Office staff, we would say the two lines are very comparable. On boarding we realized that we had a problem with the rooms; the solution seemed simple, just recode three of the keys. Apparently HAL can only recode one key per room, so we all had to switch rooms. The other guests waiting in line just shook their heads at this convoluted logic.

 

We had two in one room and three in the other, but both rooms were outfitted for only two (two robes, two glasses, etc.). We ran into this problem quite a bit, but Hasan, our cabin steward took great care of us. When we went to dinner our first night in the dining room (the second night on the ship), they seated us at a table for four. They brought over another place setting and pulled up another chair, which jutted out into the pathway. They told us that we had only been four the night before, and we told them that we weren’t there the night before, we’d been in the Pinnacle Grill. We’ve always been a party of five. My husband spoke to the maitre d’, and he told us that there were 2,000 people on a ship meant for 1800. He said they had tables for four and tables for six, and unless someone cancelled he couldn’t help us. All he needed to say was that the ship was overcrowded and he would do his very best to help us out – we’re not unreasonable. It’s not like we had a stowaway; we had booked the cruise months in advance. The unhelpful attitude, as if it were our fault we had a party of five, was what rankled. They did find us a lovely table in the end, and Pande and Dewa were awesome table stewards.

 

Our final battle with the front office involved our soda cards. A word to the wise, just because you see the charge for the soda cards on your credit card statement, doesn’t mean HAL has any record of it – take a copy of your statement with you. The whole issue was complicated by the fact that our travel agent gifted us with two stickers as well as the four we had ordered ourselves. On Saturday they told us they couldn’t check on the problem until Monday, which would be essentially one-third of the way through the cruise. We checked on Monday, and they still hadn’t heard from the main office and they basically told us they would let us know when they had it resolved. We didn’t hear another word until a credit showed up on our room statement at the end of the week. By contrast, my husband went to (re)purchase the soda cards and told the bartender what had happened – the bartender just handed him two soda stickers. This seemed to be a theme – we would get nowhere with management, but the people on the service end bent over backwards to make our stay enjoyable.

 

All in all, we had a fabulous time. The only problem was the front office staff, and we decided not to let them ruin the cruise. Would I cruise HAL again? Sure. Would I choose HAL over Celebrity? Not unless the itinerary was really, really good.

[BLStokes23]

Thanks for posting your review - I enjoyed reading the comparisons with HAL and Celebrity. Sounds like you had a wonderful time in spite of the problems you ran into.

We had trouble with our room keys several times while on the Zuiderdam last year. Must be a very common problem.

[sghetrick]

Thanks for the review - it was very helpful!