VEENDAM Review -- Long

[Philip & Karen Selwyn]

Ship: VEENDAM, Holland America
Date: 3/23/97 -- 3/30/97
Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean (St. Kitts, St. Thomas, Nassau)

Submitted by: Karen Selwyn, pkse...@erols.com

BACKGROUND:

My husband and I are both full-time working professionals in our
early
fifties. He is a businessman and I am an English teacher. When we
cruise in
late March, we are both exhausted and stressed out. Therefore, superb
service
and a hassle-free week are very high in our list of priorities.

We have cruised on Holland American, Celebrity, and Princess in both
the
Caribbean and in Alaska. We have never been on a perfect cruise, but we
have
loved every single one of our cruises including this one. The pluses
always
strongly outweigh the minuses.

SHIP'S FACILITIES AND DECOR:

True to HAL form, the interiors on VEENDAM are exquisitely
beautiful.
Design elements like lattice wood ceilings, brass accents, sophisticated
juxtapositions of upholstery fabrics, and a king's ransom of art and
antiques
give the ship a class appearance. Even the red dining room which has
received
so much criticism from others seemed richly opulent and appealing to me.
Perhaps the simplicity of the chair designs and the fact that the
remaining
decoration was limited to beautiful inverted clear glass flowers in the
ceiling
and four gigantic coach lanterns along the upper level balcony balanced
the
intensity of all that redness. If lovely surroundings are a source of
pleasure
when you cruise, you will enjoy VEENDAM.

The facilities are predictable and predictably excellent.

Several additional points are worth noting:

There is only one ring of padded lounge chairs around the Lido Pool
in full
sun with only twelve additional lounge chairs in shade under the covered
walkway
along the sides of the pool. The remaining area under the covered
walkway is
devoted to circular tables with upright chairs. This abundance of tables
and
chairs in the shade makes the Lido pool a great place to bring your meals
from
the Lido buffet line, especially at lunch when the steel band plays.
However, it
makes competition ridiculous for lounge chairs in the shade.

Many more padded lounge chairs are available at the aft pool on the
navigation deck, but, again, these are in full sun. There are two groups
of
approximately twelve padded lounge chairs on the sports deck just aft of
the
Crow's Nest lounge. If the drone of some sort of machinery doesn't
bother you,
this is the ideal place for lounging since you can start in the sun and
retreat
to the shade created by the Crow's Nest when you've had enough.

There are two tracks for walking and jogging: one on the sports deck
and
the other is the covered promenade on the Lower Promenade deck. Four
laps
around the lower deck equals one mile. However, you need to circle more
times
to equal a mile on the upper track. We enjoyed the lower track with less
circling and no shuffleboard games to run through. Finally, the shade
from the
roof on the lower promenade deck was an added bonus. (If I sound
obsessed with
shade it's because I used SPF 15 lotion and I still got something beyond
a burn
on my legs.)

ITINERARY AND PORTS OF CALL:

We booked this cruise for the itinerary. Beginning the cruise with
two at-sea days in our frazzled state was absolutely perfect. In
addition, St. Kitts
was a new island for us. The only thing that can improve this itinerary
will be
the 1998 substitution of a full-day port call at HAL's new private island
for
the current half-day port call at Nassau.

St. Kitts is a great island. It is physically beautiful and the
people are
charming. The island reminded me of our trips to the Caribbean twenty to
twenty-five years ago before the arrival of McDonalds, KFC, and six
cruise ships
simultaneously. (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem.)

We took a half-day tour (3 1/2 hours) of the central and northwest
part of
the island in a van driven by Malcolm, a Canadian who returned to his
family
homeland ten years ago. The two destinations on this tour are Brimstone
Hill
Fort (an amazing structure which has been beautifully restored) and
Romney
Manor/Caribelle Batik (in the fringes of the rain forest with impressive
vegetation and intense rain alternating with gentle misting).

We arranged this tour privately, which is our inclination on most
cruises.
We chose to go and do at our own pace, so we paid the van price of $40
which was
for one-four occupants. There is a surcharge for additional passengers.
We
didn't save the shore excursion booklet, so I have no comparison to
ship-booked
excursion prices. (My husband has this vague feeling that the comparable
excursion was $39 per person through the ship.)

Interestingly, we learned that this island is so small and new to
the
cruise industry that there are no large busses for the ship-purchased
excursions. Therefore, the ship excursions simply load people into the
very
same fleet of taxis/vans that we had access to as independent travelers.
On the
ship that evening, every person we spoke to had a uniformly wonderful
experience
with their tour drivers.

In the afternoon, Malcolm picked us up at the ship and took us to
the
southeast part of the island, where the lovely coral sand beaches are
located
(in contrast to the black volcanic beaches on the north). Do not
hesitate to go
to these southeast beaches even if it is raining at the dock; the weather
on
this part of the island is sunny and dry. While the ship lecturer was
pushing
Frigate Bay Beach because of the availability of parasailing and Jet
Skis, we
went to Turtle Beach. You will love this beach with its powder soft
white sand,
gentle wave action, stunning views across the water to sister-island
Nevis,
shade trees, free lounge chairs (albeit somewhat rickety), and background
music
of steel drum.

The second port of call was St. Thomas. This island has been talked
about
so many times, I'll limit my remarks to a description of a beach I
haven't seen
discussed on the newsgroup.

Twenty-five years ago, we stayed at the Sapphire Bay Resort (then
just a
crescent of two-story units right on the beach) located reasonably close
to Red
Hook. At that time, we fell in love with the beach and this trip we went
back.
We took a cab from the ship for $10.00 and grabbed a taxi from the taxi
stand
stationed at the front driveway of the hotel for the return trip. The
return
ride cost $11.00.

(Note: We were worried about our ability to get a cab out to the beach.
Transportation in St. Thomas has increasingly gone from individual cabs
to large
vans as more and more people cruise to St. Thomas and people are moved
about
more as groups rather than individual visitors. Furthermore, we were
going to a
non-standard destination and, having been to St. Thomas five times in the
past,
we were uninterested in a tour. We solved our problem by walking away
from the
ship to a point on the dock where exiting vehicles pass. We figured an
empty
taxi would rather make a 15-20 minute run to the eastern end of the
island than
dead-head it back to town. Sure enough a van stopped moments after we
set our
stuff down on the curb and off we went.)

Although the Sapphire Bay Resort has been built up with additional
units,
the beach is every bit as wonderful as we remembered. The center of the
crescent beach is for swimmers, while snorkelers will enjoy the coral
formation
and rocks present on either end of the beach. The scene as you look out
across
the water is spectacular: several small islands dot the ocean. Lounge
chairs
are available at no charge (although the port lecturer said there would
be a
$1.00 fee for outsiders). We walked through the lobby of the hotel and
were
simply ignored. Leaving the beach we discovered there is a paved path to
the
right of the lobby (facing the ocean); therefore, cruisers can get to the
beach
without walking through the lobby. Since the beach is connected with a
resort,
the following equipment is available for rent: windsurfing boards, pedal
boats
and some other strange craft. Ski Jets were not available, but could be
seen
far off to the right, presumably originating from Red Hook.

Two aspects may not make the beach to everyone's taste: swimmers
must walk
through a ring of sea shells which is briefly uncomfortable and there is
a large
drop-off which makes getting out of the water an adventure in its own
right.
While I would have preferred wearing Aqua Sox to cope with the shells,
their
absence wasn't enough to keep me out of the incredible water. As for
exiting
the water, we learned to time our exits to coincide with the gentle
incoming
waves.

ENTERTAINMENT:

HAL had markedly upgraded its big theater entertainment since our
last HAL
cruise two years ago on the WESTERDAM. The choreography is more
interesting,
the costumes are all by Bob Mackie with his signature blend of
eye-popping
glitz, and the ten performers are strong singers and dancers. They look
like
they are putting their heart into all their numbers, determined to give
the
audience an engaging show.

The first production show "Could It Be Magic" weaves magic tricks
into song
and dance routines and an irrelevant plot about a girl from Peoria who
wants to
become a magician's assistant. The regular song/dance troupe has been
trained
to do illusions and pulls them off as successfully as any magician I've
ever
seen. In a particularly cute segment, the group shows the audience how
the
person-vanishing-from-a-box trick is done. The biggest flaw is that
portions of
the show, which move the plot along, are set to classical music. I'm
sure HAL
saved on royalties by using Beethoven's 5th and other classical pieces,
but it
is very jarring to hear banal lyrics about a would-be magician's
assistant set
to classical music in the middle of a high-energy splashy production
show.

The second production show is a strange, overdone tribute to Las
Vegas.
Segments of the show seem to be a history lesson about the city of Las
Vegas and
other segments of the show seem to be tributes to the theme/decor of the
hotels
which line the strip in Las Vegas today. For example, there is a segment
about
Caesar longing for his absent Cleopatra which went on for song after
song.
While the voices were great and the songs were delivered with energy and
style,
I couldn't figure out whether I was supposed to be getting a sugar coated
ancient history lesson or whether Caesar's Palace Hotel is building a new
branch
with a Cleopatra theme. The confusion mounts when you consider that the
show
also has segments about pirates (Treasure Island Hotel) and clowns
(Circus,
Circus Hotel) and Manhattan (NY, NY Hotel) and Elvis (the over-weight Las
Vegas
edition). Most inexplicably, HAL uses popular tunes for which they had
to pay
royalty, but changes the well-known, great lyrics to lame lyrics to fit
this
bewildering story line. (From my remarks you've probably decided you can
take
the English teacher out of classroom, but you can't take the classroom...
After
sharing what-I-did-on-vacation stories, one of my students commented,
"They
obviously needed to do a plot graph!") I'd advise people to abandon any
effort
to make sense of the strange mish-mash and focus on enjoying the
spectacle.

The best performer in the theater is singer/comedian Michael Eric
Hall. He
is billed as an impressionist and, although he does a credible job with
Lou
Rawls and Nat King Cole, he shines as Michael Eric Hall. What takes this
show
to the heights is Hall's skill working the audience. Stand up, or sit
down, or
sneeze, or turn to your partner and you become part of the act. Unless
you know
the "Why is everybody always picking on me" part of the Coaster's song,
"Charlie
Brown," plan on avoiding the front row. Our particular show (late show)
took
its flavor from Hall's on-going patter about a contingent of misbehaving
children. Hall's remarks were a witty way of expressing what a lot of
cruisers
were feeling about the children's behavior on this Spring Break cruise.

One very nice detail about the shows in the theater is that the room
never
seemed to fill up which relieves the pressure to hustle from the dining
room.
Our table at dinner was either very talkative (or our waiter was very
slow) and
we were one of the last tables to leave the dining room. We would go to
the
theater, arriving with only two-three minutes to spare. Despite our late
arrival, we were always able to get very reasonable seats in the center
section.

The seats in the theater are barrel-style chairs which can be moved
around.
This is a very convenient feature. If you are a couple but only one
chair is
available in prime territory, all you need to do is locate another free
chair
and slide it near your partner. The aisles between the sections tend to
disappear, but partners seemed to have no trouble sitting together even
when
entering the theater moments before show time. Similarly, if you are
short you
can slide your chair around until you have a better sight line.
Actually, sight
lines are no problem on VEENDAM since the stage is extremely high and
people in
front of you can't block the view of even the shortest individual.

The bands in the lounges ranged from acceptable (the Spangle Trio in
the
Ocean Bar) to overly syrupy (the Champagne Strings in the Explorer's
Lounge).
The Crow's Nest was a fun place with karoake, a 50's and 60's party and a
DJ
playing great songs until the wee hours. (Odd bit of information: Plan
on
dancing a lot or bringing sweater/jacket/shawl, since the room is kept
ice
cold.)

CABIN:

We booked on the Veranda Deck; we felt the private veranda would
give us
solitude to help us relax and revive. It turned out to be a fabulous
decision.

All through the week, we kept hearing grumbling about the number of
children on board and their unacceptable behavior. With the exception of
a
thirty-nine-member family group whose very young children acted up in the
late
show, we felt insulated from misbehaving children because the veranda
kept us
away from the pools. Also, we must have been lucky. We saw relatively
few
children, much less the fourteen-year-old rowdies who earned the adults'
displeasure by staging races in the Lido restaurant. We could only
listen with
relief that we had no stories of our own when we encountered cruiser
after
cruiser who complained about the children's behavior on their
end-of-the-cruise
surveys.

The only time the veranda was a drawback was when sun was shining
directly
on our side of the ship. While the wonderful side walls and deep
overhanging
roof supply delicious privacy, they effectively reduce wind to the point
that
the veranda got too hot for our taste when the sun was shining directly
in.
This was a problem only the last at-sea day and the at-sea morning before
Nassau, and we solved it by doing our sitting out on the Sports Deck
mentioned
earlier.

An earlier review of the VEENDAM by Ray and Donna Jensen (See Cruise
Review
Library) has done a fine job of describing the spacious and well laid
out
veranda cabin. VEENDAM veranda cabins sacrifice nothing in the way of
interior
space when adding the outside veranda. Still, several details not yet
covered
by the Jensen's review are worth sharing.

The safe is a balky and inconvenient system. Supposedly one sets
the
combination to the safe by swiping the magnetic strip of a credit card
through a
swipe channel. We tried three or four credit cards and never could get
the safe
to lock. Our tablemates told of trying credit card after credit card
until they
finally found one that would activate the safe. We were not so
persistent
because we couldn't see the attraction of the system. With this silly
system,
you have two unacceptable choices: carry around your wallet with the
necessary
credit card to unlock the safe or leave your wallet in the safe and carry
the
controlling credit card loose. Of course, this second solution defeats
the
purpose of the ship's ID card and the cashless charge system on board.
There
are two reasonable solutions: use the drawer in each of the two
nightstands
which have key locks or get a safe deposit boxes, available at the front
desk.

Although we never used the VCR in the cabin, we were impressed by
the
selection of cassettes which could be checked out from the Puzzle Corner.

FOOD:

VEENDAM's food met our expectations, which is to say one never,
never
chooses a HAL cruise specifically for the food. If you want a
food-centered
cruise, you must sail with Celebrity. But there is good food aboard HAL
ships -- and plenty of it.

During the course of a week, perhaps three dishes were downright
spectacular: the rack of lamb served on French night, the Zeeland seafood
stew
served at lunch on Friday in the Lido buffet, and the signature bread
pudding
every lunch in the Lido. With one exception, the remainder of the food
was
enjoyable -- especially the appetizers -- but hardly memorable.

The only dish we ate that was actively offensive was the New York
strip
loin served for dinner approximately Wednesday. Rather than grilling a
strip
loin steak, the meat appeared to have been roasted, sliced and then held
in a
bath of meat juice. The result was a semi-stewed piece of meat which was
simply
gross.

The only other oddity about the food was the chef's marked
preference for
root vegetables. After turnips, rutabagas, beets, and carrots appeared
in rapid
succession on the menu, I got the weird feeling that the ship had
traveled back
in time. With this type of food, we were no longer on a modern ship but
had
morphed into a tall-ship, wind-driven voyage with little or no hope of
new
provisions being brought on board during the long months at sea. I
solved the
problem by studying the menu to see what green vegetables were available
and
asking our waiter to substitute those for the root vegetables
accompanying my
entree.

We never went to any of the afternoon teas, although we did hear
from our
tablemates that they were elegant white-glove-service experiences.
Except for
the chocolate extravaganza where we ate chocolate-dipped strawberries, we
never
went to the midnight buffet. We were not being virtuous; we had eaten
well at
the regular meals and were never hungry for these extra eating events
(although
I know that hunger is not exactly the point of eating on most cruises!)

SERVICE:

The service was very good, but it lacked the magical quality of
prior
cruises.

For example, the afternoon before our first port call on WESTERDAM,
beach
towels were left in the cabin. Since they are the size of the bath
sheets we
normally use at home, we used them for routine showering that night.
Noting our
preference, our cabin steward made up the room with beach towels rather
than the
smaller bath towels for the remainder of the cruise and set out
additional beach
towels for port calls. In contrast, when I asked for beach towels on
this
cruise, our cabin steward said he was unable to supply them.
Furthermore, at
every port call we had to hunt down our cabin steward and ask him for
beach
towels. To be fair, at the first port call the cabin steward could not
have
known we are beach goers, but he should have left beach towels without
having to
be asked on the second and the third port calls. On the positive side,
our
cabin steward was attentive to our breakfast schedule and always made up
the
room immaculately in our absence, the fruit bowl and ice bucket were
replenished
regularly, and any request was executed efficiently and correctly.

Our waiter, Heru, was a strange mixture of minimal competence at the
beginning of the cruise and charming, professionalism at the end of the
cruise.
For a few days our table of six coped with silent, uninspired service,
frequent
mistakes getting people's orders wrong, and problems supplying people
with the
silverware they needed to get through the meal. On the third night, for
no
apparent reason, Heru changed into a relaxed, friendly individual who
went out
of his way to bring meat cooked to the degree of doneness as ordered and
bring
the right orders to the right individuals. Heru's warmth remained
intact, but
his level of service kept getting better, and by the end of the cruise
Heru was
paying careful attention to the silverware issue. (He even showed a bold
and
playful sense of humor when teasing our captain, the only non-Indonesian
employee in the dining room, when all-American Todd joined in the singing
of the
traditional Indonesian song of farewell.)

Everyone at our table was a positive individual -- even if we could
acknowledge the negatives -- and the silverware situation was a source of
some
comedy which may be of interest because of the identity of one of the
participants. Our table turned out to be appetizer enthusiasts. All six
of us
routinely ordered two appetizers and suppressed either the soup or salad
course
or both. Our waiter would take note of the lack of soup orders and would
attentively remove the soup spoon from each place setting. However, he
failed
to make the necessary additions to our place settings until five days
into the
cruise, and well after a request for help from our table captain. The
result
was that there was a bad match up of people's food orders with available
silverware.

A seventh member at our table stopped coming to dinner after the
first
night and his place setting became the communal cutlery supply for the
table.
While we missed Pete (the comptroller of Renaissance Cruises who was on
board
without wife for R and R) after the first night because his insider's
talk about
the industry was fascinating, we ultimately appreciated his absence. His
place
setting allowed us to enjoy our dinners without harassing
early-version-inexpert
Heru. (Pete's place setting was left at our table until day six of the
cruise
because he didn't switch tables; he simply took all his meals in his
cabin. Our
captain was reluctant to banish someone as important as the comptroller
of
another cruise line from the table until the evidence couldn't be
ignored.)

The over-all tone of service on the VEENDAM was that of competent
personnel
executing their jobs with commendable skill and some gaffes. However, on
WESTERDAM, there was an extra spirit to the service. That staff seemed
to
continually look for ways to exceed our expectations (to borrow Holland
America's favorite phrase). VEENDAM's service makes your cruise a
pleasurable
experience -- but it is not the flawless level of service Holland America
wants
you to think they deliver.

I wonder if our less-than-flawless service was related to new staff
coming
on board for this cruise. Chatting with the keyboard player from the
orchestra
while wandering the ship on embarkation day, we learned that the pianist
in the
piano bar, Mary Appleton, was reporting to VEENDAM for the first time
ever.
Furthermore, the cruise director, Tom Gentner, was beginning his rotation
on
VEENDAM with our cruise, after having been on RYNDAM. While none of my
earlier
comments are about either Mary or Tom, perhaps a similar rotation was
taking
place among the cabin stewards and waiters, and that is what we witnessed
in
early-version Heru versus later-version Heru.