Review: Holland America Line - Ryndam - [November 23, 2003]

[Net Reviews]

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Reviewer Comments:

This is a review from the November 23, 2003 sailing of the Holland America
Ryndam. Our group included myself and my husband, my brother and his wife
and my mother. My mother participated in the HAL share program. This was my
sixth cruise, although the first one on HAL. We've sailed previously on
Carnival and Celebrity. Receiving our cruise documents in the nice
leatherette case was an indication that this cruise line was different.

EMBARKATION

We arrived at the San Diego cruise terminal about 11:20 a.m. There was no
traffic or lines to drop off our luggage. In fact, there wasn't any lines at
all. We walked right up to the check-in counters and received embarkation
number 3. We were on the ship at 11:45. Very easy!

Rooms were ready at 1:25, but until then we had lunch and toured the ship.

DEBARKATION

My husband and I received debarkation number 32 since we live locally. We
were off the ship at 10 a.m. The rest of my family had early flights and
were in group 2 and was called about 9 a.m. It was very relaxing to be able
to stay in the cabins until being called. We stayed in our cabin visiting
until my relatives left and then went up to the promenade deck to enjoy the
beautiful weather and watch others departing.

SHIP

I found the Ryndam to be very easy to navigate around and quickly learned my
way to all the public rooms. The rooms were very nicely decorated and
comfortable. I especially liked the many antiques and art pieces on display
throughout the ship. We all also enjoyed the beautiful flower arrangements.
We rarely experienced lines or crowds even though the ship was sold out and
had lots of kids on board. HAL takes good care of the ship. We even had the
hallways carpets totally replaced one day.

CABIN

Two of the cabins were booked as N guarantees. We received upgrades to L
category. Our mother booked a K guarantee share and was assigned a K cabin.
We all enjoyed the roominess of our cabins. Mom's was a sideways cabin
resulting in more floor space, but less closet space. I especially enjoyed
having a couch. This made it very convenient to have room service coffee and
Danish in the mornings! My husband and I weren't able to use all of the
storage space. My only complaint about the cabin is that there should a
medicine cabinet or more shelving in the bathroom. We also were disappointed
that the room key wasn't the same as our charge key as on all our previous
cruises. A nice HAL touch is delivering the News Digest to every cabin every
afternoon. It was greatly appreciated by my husband and I as we are avid
newspaper readers. Our excursion tickets and pinnacle grill voucher were in
our room when we embarked.

ROOM STEWARD

Our room steward did a great job and was very friendly. I think the fact
that my husband and I have different last names confused him somewhat as we
got two of everything, but that certainly wasn't a problem. We didn't really
have any special requests all week, but the room was always spotless, our
ice bucket filled and we had what we needed. My brother, next door, and mom,
a few doors down, had the same room steward who learned how we were related
and was always friendly and helpful.

PINNACLE GRILL

We ate here on the first night, which was half price. The Pinnacle Grill was
a deal at $10 and it was certainly worth the usual price of $20. All five in
our group ate here and loved the service. After being seated, we were
immediately offered a choice of bottled sparkling or still water. The
sparkling is Pellegrini and I think the still was Crystal Geyser. We were
brought menus and bread. The table was beautifully set. The silverware,
butter dishes, and salt/pepper shakers seemed to be made of solid silver and
they were very heavy! We were very surprised to have the meat trolley
wheeled over to our table and have each cut described. After ordering we
were each served a non-menu plate of appetizers including sushi as a chef's
surprise.

Then on to our starter courses. My husband had clam chowder and I had the
crab cakes. We both had the salad. Our filet mignons were cooked perfectly
as ordered and were extremely tender and tasty. We shared one order of
scalloped potatoes which we didn't really care for. Next time, we plan to
get the baked potato which my other family members enjoyed.

Lastly, for dessert I had the volcano cake and Steve had the baked Alaska.
Unfortunately, I couldn't finish my dessert which was fantastic! The team of
waiters taking care of us made sure we had everything we needed and checked
on us throughout the meal. The maitre'd (European) came by a couple of times
as well.

DINING ROOM

We were seated at a table for eight on the upper deck of the Rotterdam
dining room. Our table mates were my Mom's roommate and her parents. They
were enjoyable dining companions. They also ate at the Pinnacle the first
night so we all met our wait staff on Monday evening. Our waiter was
efficient and friendly, but I think he was overworked. The assistant waiter
never introduced himself to us, but took our coffee orders every night. The
headwaiter, Mr. K, was great. He helped out the waiters and took care of
special requests. Service was slow when it came to getting the flaming
desserts (cherries jubilee, bananas foster, and flambes).

This cruise had two informal nights. The second formal night was on
Thanksgiving night so the Farewell dinner became a second informal night.

The food was certainly good and at times excellent. I think Celebrity's food
is a notch above and Carnival's desserts are better.

The after dinner treats served by the Yum-yum man are a nice touch as well
as being summoned to dinner via chimes.

Our group tried breakfast the first morning of the cruise and agreed with
all previous posters. The food was cold and service was extremely slow. We
ate at the Lido deck from then on!

My husband and I had lunch one day in the dining room and enjoyed it very
much as the food was good, hot and we had quick, efficient service. The
formal tea was a pleasant experience as well.

LIDO RESTAURANT

As you might tell from above, I typically enjoy breakfast and some lunches
in the dining room on cruises. HAL's lido restaurant has won over a convert.
We never experienced long lines (except for dessert extravaganza) or had
trouble finding a table. The food was excellent, the staff was great and
there was a large variety of food. This was the first cruise I remember
staff coming by to refill our beverages. Also, I was impressed that there
are two daily breakfast specials to add even more variety to the menu. I
often selected these (breakfast burrito, blueberry pancakes, corned beef
hash, etc.).

At lunch the soup and salad bar was great for a light lunch. I visited the
taco bar one afternoon for a snack of nachos and had pizza once. I really
didn't care for the pizza, but others certainly seemed to! My entire family
visited the ice cream bar just about every day.

Jai manned the trays on the starboard side of the Lido every morning and was
a pleasure. He learned all of our names and greeted us by name from then on.
He was flying home to Indonesia for a well-deserved vacation at the end of
our sailing.

ROOM SERVICE

We had coffee and Danish delivered two mornings by placing the card on the
door the night before. This was always delivered pleasantly and on time.
However when we tried to use room service one afternoon after returning from
port, the wait for delivery was 45 minutes. Another time, I couldn't get an
answer and gave up.

AFTERNOON TEA

I went to afternoon tea several days and enjoyed it very much. The formal
tea, on the first formal night, was in the dining room and included an
expanded buffet line with tea being served at a table. The food was very
good and my favorite item was the chocolate covered strawberries. Other days
the tea was held in one of the lounges and was enjoyable. I wish HAL would
extend tea time to an hour.

LOUNGES

We developed the habit of visiting the Crow's Nest for cocktail hour most
evenings. I was impressed that the appetizer menu changed daily. I also took
advantage of the drink of the day specials which were always tasty and quite
a bargain. We went to the piano bar for cocktail hour one day, but didn't
receive very good service.

The Crow's Nest is also one of my husband's favorite places during the day.
If I didn't know where he was onboard, I found him up there reading a book
and viewing the sea. We did see several whales and many dolphins from this
vantage point. We saw more whales on this trip then we did on an Alaska
cruise several years ago.

MOVIES

We saw several movies in the Wajang Theatre and found it to be very
comfortable. The complimentary popcorn and cookies at the Java bar are a
great treat. We watched "Freaky Friday", "Uptown Girls", "Bruce Almighty",
and "Lara Croft 2".

POOLS

We spent one morning laying out by the aft pool on our way to Mexico. It was
very relaxing. Servers came by with glasses of lemonade which was very
refreshing. I wish they had lemonade in the Lido restaurant. Since we had
late dining, I visited the Jacuzzi several evenings and was impressed that
they were actually hot!

ENTERTAINMENT/ACTIVITIES

We went to most of the shows and enjoyed them. Our favorite was a woman
comedian (Chris something). She was hilarious. We found the theatre to be
comfortable and intimate. It was easy to get a close seat 5-10 minutes
before the show.

The library was very well-stocked and became a regular stop every morning to
pick up the daily trivia contest.

Didn't participate in many activities besides the kitchen tour. This was
very interesting.

PORTS

Loreto

We had booked a trip here from Las Parras tours for $35 per person. The ship
was cleared by eight and we headed to the showroom for tender tickets. There
was not any line at all. We met Las Parras at the pier where we were
outfitted with snorkel equipment. The four of us (Mom didn't go) were then
led to a boat which was to take us to the Coronado Island. The 45 minute
ride out to the island was calm and scenic. The island was volcanic and had
interesting formations. We saw lots of red crabs on the rocks. We also saw
sea lions and schools of tropical fish. The beach where we landed was
gorgeous and there were already about 40 people there from other boats
(including the ships excursion which was $89 I think.

Unfortunately, the water was infested with tons of small, nearly invisible
jellyfish that were stinging everyone like crazy. It was so frustrating to
be on a beautiful, isolated beach and not be able to go into the water. We
didn't want to stay long given this experience and asked our boat captain to
take us back early. He did and we met a boat on the way back that had our
cooler of lunch and drinks (included in the tour cost). We ate on the way
back and then headed back to the ship.

La Paz/Pichilingue

We booked a ship's excursion for this port as I could not find a comparable
tour in my research. The Los Islotes excursion is high-priced at $109. We
met on the pier at 8:30 and were loaded onto boats. They had multiple boats
for this excursion and had one problem in that they had planned on my
brother and his wife being on a different boat than my husband and I. They
did allow us to go on the same boat in the end. The shore excursion office
had a form for us to fill out earlier in the week asking for the fin sizes.
I was very impressed when they called our room to check on my husband since
we didn't include his size because he brought his own.

Unfortunately, the trip out the island and back was not very enjoyable. The
seas were very rough and scary. Everyone on the boat was soaked. The scenery
was beautiful. We anchored off a rocky islet where the sea lions roost. It
was amazing how they'd swim up to people. We also saw tropical fish,
starfish and coral in that area. After boarding the boat from snorkeling, we
were given beverages and snacks as we headed to a beach for lunch.

The beach was in a protected cove and the water was a most beautiful shade
of green. We anchored and a little boat took us to shore in groups of six
(there were about 15 of us onboard). The beach had lots of sea shells and
pelicans. The area looked like a beached Arizona landscape with large cacti
and red dirt.

A hermit crab walked onto my towel! Lunch consisted of a deli type sandwich
on delicious Mexican bread and more beverages. After a couple of hours we
headed back to the ship.

Cabo San Lucas

This was the third port in three days and we were kind of tired. We just
walked through the town browsing and did a little shopping. After enjoying a
waborita at Cabo Wabo, we headed back to the ship. This is a stop on our
trip in October and I definitely plan to take a water taxi to Lover's Beach.

TIPPING

We are used to tipping on the other lines and didn't hesitate to tip on HAL.
Our wait team and the room steward were very happy to receive our envelopes.
Sadly, many tables in the dining room were empty on the last night. I'll be
happy to see the tipping change come into place on HAL for our next cruise.

HAL

The HAL extras of documents in leatherette holders, fresh flowers,
complimentary coffee bar, complimentary cocktail hour appetizers,
after-dinner chocolates and cloth towels in the washrooms add up along with
everything else to make it a superior experience compared to lines of
comparable cost. We're anxiously looking forward to our next cruise on
Holland America in October.