Mini review Ryndam

[alolewis]

We were on the 10 day NON Mexican cruise, we only stopped at Puerto Vallerto due to the Flu travel adivsory then we went to San Diego, Long Beach and Catalina Island and back to San Diego. We made the best of it and had a good time anyway.

 

Some comments on the Ryndam, I will tend to highlight the negatives but we really did have a good vacation. We had Anytime dining and never had to wait and we usually asked for a table for 2, we usually ate late (after the early show) but at least twice ate early.

 

issues with the Ryndam:

had preorder flowers and champagne for the stateroom, flowers were there when we arrived, when the champagne did not arrive by the second day, asked at the front desk, champagne was in our stateroom a couple fo hours later but in a box without any ice or glasses, had to request those from the cabin steward.

 

The white chaise loungers on the sundeck, aft deck, etc many were broken and the back would not raise up. One lounge chair in the Crows nest was broken.

 

Pool towels were kept at the bar, not a real problem but seemed strange that you had to ask the bar tender for a towel. never saw a pool attendent. Jacuzzi was closed from noon until 6 PM one sea day, explanation from the front desk was it was closed for scheduled maintenance, why isn't scheduled maintenance done at night.

 

in our cabin, 328, the bathroom floor was buckled like the underlying floor was badly rusted around the toilet.

 

Saw at least one baby in a diaper in the pool right by the "No diapers in pool" sign

 

the safe in our stateroom would not work, cabin steward said I had to use a credit card, front desk said my room key should work, Passenger Service Manager said to follow the instructions on the front, when I told her the instructions were missing her response was "OH" never offered to give me a copy of the instructions or have someone look at the safe. I had about $1000 cash with me and was not comfortable just leaving it and my passport in the stateroom. Issue never got resolved.

 

one night our stateroom was hot, the front desk sent someone who determined the temperarture was 29 degrees C (86 F?) but said it would be the next day before it could be fixed as maintenance doesn't work at night. i guess they all go home for the night. i suggested that we exchange cabins with the chief engineer and they failed to see the humor in that.

 

Paid for thermal suite pass we we loved but couple of issues, one sauna only worked 2 of the 8 days (Spa closed 2 days due to red Alert), one of 5 the heated beds did not work after day 8.

 

Getting ready to leave the second visit to San Diego and the ship lost power. Afterwards water in stateroom was brown. Told this was due to power failure and it would clear up if we ran the water. I asked what caused the water to go brown and was it safe to drink, was assured safe to drink but not why it was brown or what was in the water that made it brown.

 

frequent errors in the daily program, went to movie at the schedule time, told the movie was delayed 1 hour due to schedule conflict, one day listed table service in the Lido restuarant (12-1PM) for lunch which was incorrect, a future cruise lecture was cancelled when we went as there was something else in the Wajang theater, showed lack of attention to detail.

 

Otherwise service was good, crew friendly but the ship seems to be suffering from lack of maintenance. BTW the deck plans I printed off the Internet did not match the ship as the deck plans showed Lower Promelade deck as deck 3 when it was deck 6 (I noticed HAL has updated the online deck plans since then and they are correct now) I was also surprised as to how many ship crew members ate in the Lido, many times there were several people ahead of me in line in uniform. Don't they have dining rooms for the officers, spa personnel, dancers, etc? Can I eat in the crew dining room? Also on the tenders the crew memebers riding the tender jumped up to make sure they were first off making the paying passengers wait.

 

To be sure we had a good time but the ship needs maintenance and HAL needs more attention to detail to be an upscale cruise line.

[velvetred]

Wow, you had a lot of hassles/annoyances on your vacation. You should post this review in the member review section on Cruise Critic. I hope someone from Holland America reads your review and passes it along to the management on the Ryndam. Some of things you mention are minor fixes. I am on the Ryndam for 14 nights in August and while non of things you mention are fatal flaws, it sure would be nice if HAL addressed them soon. Thanks for the review.