Holland America - Volendam Reviews

This was a surprisingly nice cruise. It exceeded my expectations. Each port was so unique and had its own endearing qualities. We loved the variety of the travel and our ship staff made us feel very comfortable and welcomed.

Had a wonderful time. Beautiful fall weather and excellent port excursions. Also, great service and environment on the Holland American Villendam.

Small older ship with limited balcony cabins. Slow tendering process. Good service, entertainment and culture. Ordinary dining room food.

Enjoyed trip, seeing the red leaves along the river in Quebec. Room and services were very good. Disappointed that many menu items no have extra charge.

Great trip! Very attentive and nice staff. Many delicious food choices. Beautifully decorated, well maintained, very clean cruise ship. Well chosen stage shows . Varied activities. Tour excursions had great tour guides, friendly and very knowledgeable. Mostly older folk on this cruise. Would travel with Holland America again in the future

This was our second USA/Canada cruise. We went in very early spring last year. We wanted to go again in warmer weather. We had a great time .

The itinerary provided places of beauty and interest.

All in all, we enjoyed the cruise, this being only our 2nd cruise. The area's we didn't prefer were #1 the smaller ship definitely felt smaller with a little less to do.(since we don't drink alcohol or gamble) #2 the ship's decor is definitely dated & worn out in our room. And as I mentioned on the slip I filled out while on the ship, our bathroom had the constant smell of mildew & I daily noticed water coming from somewhere & settling by the threshold of the bathroom before seeping in to the wall.(probably where the smell came from) On the other hand the food was good, the staff were stellar as ever, most of the entertainment was good as well. We'll be back but hopefully on a bigger newer ship.

Great cruise line with good size ship

This 18-day cruise ship voyage to the Hawaiian Islands was a really good one. It was my first time on this cruise line (I've only gone on the Carnival cruise line before). What a big difference. I was glad to see that they cater to so many "senior" passengers and treated everyone with patience, respect, pleasant manners, and such good service. The ship's crew members seem to really enjoy their jobs. Keep up the great work ethic. I would travel on Holland America again in the future.

The cruise to Alaska and back on the Volendam was everything H-P promised it would be, especially in terms of the visit to Glacier Bay - that was the highlight of the trip. The accomodations were fine, the food was uniformly good, the staff was friendly and attentive and the ambiance was, for the most part, peaceful and relaxing. The biggest down-side was H-A's corporate culture of trying to pry every last penny out of its passengers with fees and extra charges. We bought the one-device WiFi and the least expensive 4-bottle wine package, and still our bill when we completed the trip was $790 CAD...cheaper than the "Have it All" package at $960...but still a big shock. We also found the constant upselling by the crew and staff was tedious and tiresome and almost impossible to avoid. But individual crew members were excellent and I especially enjoyed their sharing the hot chilli oil in the buffet. It trendered the "haute motel" cuisine a little less bland. And that's likely an appropos metaphor for the trip.

It was wonderful! Loved every minute of it!

Outstanding

We found the ship to be tired. We did enjoy Alaska.

So many thanks to Renee and Avoya travel for making this an enjoyable trip. While we did not care for the ship itself, the overall trip was enjoyable. Avoya made it even nicer with the free laundry service!!! It was so nice to get clean clothes during the trip and especially coming home and not immediately doing laundry.

Holland America dropped the ball. Nothing at all was brought up on the cruise, except shore excursions, about the Amazon river

We had a wonderful time visiting all the ports and crossing the Atlantic to Florida.

Very nice port of call,nice weather.

Absolutely great itinerary! Such diversity of landscapes, cultures, temperatures. So much to see and do. It would have been perfect, if only the pandemic had not interrupted our cruise and caused us to lose three ports and two days. Kudos to HAL staff on the Volendam for keeping us healthy and safe and getting us back to Fort Lauderdale!

We were on the Buenos Aires to Ft. Lauderdale segment. We enjoyed Rio at Carnival and the Amazon experience. Could have bypassed Salvador and Belem which were reminiscent of India for poverty and filth.