After we booked the cruise and had paid in full for it, I finally got around to looking up reviews for the boat. I wasn’t expecting anything horrible as we had enjoyed the cruise on MS Zuiderdam so much. To my shock, there were reviews like this and this and this. What the hell had I done? So I was very worried that this was going to be a costly mistake and then some.
But it turned out that the complaints made in the review I found here were nothing like the ship we found or our experience of it. The MS Zaandam is a beautiful little ship, very tastefully decorated and with a better layout than the Zuiderdam.
Whatever faults other crews may have had – and as they change every couple of months, it’s entirely possible the complainers had experienced bad service – we could not have had better experiences with the crew. I’ll add this caveat – we were sailing at the suite level, which had its own lounge and concierge, and our own deck. Most passengers did not. However I spoke to a lot of people, many staying in the (much) cheaper rooms and they had the same experience and praise for the crew, staff and the boat itself. There were minor problems, mainly to do with the eternally failing card keys, and one small plumbing issue, but everythin was dealt with quickly and politely. The ship was absolutely spotless, and the food was damn good (not universally in the Lido which was more casual, but you could always count on a great breakfast there, and in the main dining Room, the Rotterdam restaurant, was fantastic every time we ate there.)
Our Neptune class suite (room 7030) was huge and quite lovely. There was only one class of suite (Pinnacle) above ours, and we had absolutely no envy of it at all, given how wonderful our stateroom was. We had a separate dressing room, a spacious lounge area, and a deck wider and nearly as deep as our bedroom at home, with chairs, tables and sunloungers. All rooms offered free 24 hour room service, and not only could we eat light cold meals in the Neptune lounge (exclusively for suite passengers) any time of the day and enjoy the best coffee on the boat, we could have canapés or high tea delivered for free every day (we only did this once when we had guests.) We also had free laundry and dry cleaning for the entire trip.
We were spoiled 🙂
There was a promenade deck where you could do your morning walks
As well as access to the open air on the top deck and the bow (great for bird watching)
The Neptune lounge had a dedicated concierge all day. On our boat we had the lovely Kristine from the Phillipines
And the smart, delightful Saskia, from Germany
In the lounge, one could eat, chat, use the internet (not free, sadly) or library, or watch the TV. The concierges could handle any query, problem or booking.
Although the staff at the front desk, handling everyone else’s enquiries, were just as kind and helpful
The ship was decorated in a musical theme, and had ‘artefacts’ like signed guitars and so on around the place. There was also a three storey high organ in the centre of the boat
Which was the centrepiece for things like the Xmas tree lighting, Xmas party and New Year’s Eve Party.
There were a number of bars, offering drinks and evening musical entertainment
and twice a night there was a show in the main Mondrian lounge
Doug went to those most evenings and enjoyed almost all of them. I only went to a few. The standard was much better than on the Zuiderdam.
There was a lovely Xmas Eve concert with the international crew performing carols for us (having rehearsed in their extremely limited free time – everyone on board works seven days a week for at least 7 months at a time!), and on New Year’s Eve, there was a show featuring the cruise entertainers (and free sparkling wine). On both nights, there was food available afterwards if you fancied a midnight party (and it was great food too!)
Ice sculptures to greet us as we left the NYE concert looking for food and champagne 🙂
We will never do this trip again, but if we never go anywhere else, I am forever glad we did this one. Trip of a lifetime.