Holland America Line
Reviews and Complaints

me and my wife just suffered thru a week on the nieu amsterdam, this was also a cruise from hell they had the main dining room closed 3 times for lunch. forcing you to go to there buffet which has very long lines filled with the help, getting there food ahead of us.finding a seat was also a problem.we waited hours for room service, who finaly came with cold food and no silverware to eat it wit h said he be right back and we never heard from him again. never mind the fact the food was not what we ordered.this happened every time we called for room service.we asked the crew for directions on the ship seven times we were told i dont know.this was our 11th cruise and i wish we had stopped with ten.

I 100% believe you, & feel your pain as I also had the cruise from hell on Holland America. From the second my husband & I stepped foot on the Oosterdam, I was shocked at the well worn patio furniture, the inability to find anyone on the Lido Deck who would point you in the right direction to get a cool drink, & the unbelievably sad, even remorse look on the crews faces. Where were the people holding the trays of tropical cocktails, as on every other cruise I've been on? Why was I corraled, like a cow to slaughter, in an enormous building to sit & sweat with the hundreds of other people, dodging walkers, wheelchairs, canes, & scooters...& no tray of drinks?
Obviously I am trying to make light of the WORSE vacation of my life, & being a child of two pilots, I've been on quite a few thru the years! But while on the cruise & after contacting them, I was made to feel as if I had just crawled out from a rock & had never been out of my county before.
Our story is full of how awful the entire experience played out. From having a dilapidated in bad need of repair, life boat blocking the entire floor to ceiling window, then finding a worker inside the boat looking inside our room as I was putting on a shirt. This room was smelly, very warn, & also desperately needed to be either deep cleaned or the drapery/carpets/sofa/bedspread replaced. But we figured we'd be busy & we'd live with it.
After waiting until almost 8pm, my luggage appears & Im able to put on my own clothes. Off to a HORRIBLE dinner at the Pinnacle Grill, raw filet mignon returned to me burnt on the outside, raw in the middle. The hollandaise sauce had separated, ruining the asparagus, & the potato was ice cold. We left hungry & unaware the Lido Deck does not serve food after 8pm, so then began our roomservice cruise from hell!
Sitting in the room one thing kept going off in my head. It's 10:30pm, where is everyone? This is a Mexican Riveria cruise & yes the average age was around 65, but does the entire ship board up when the sun goes down? I read the itenary, as the next two days were at sea & realized we were in big trouble. We are in our late 30s, celebrating our five year anniversary on a ship which had activities, such as beginners computer classes, Bridge, Friends of Bill W, & how to play canasta.
I'm writing too much & should stick to the major concerns! I ended up paying to upgrade our room, due to the fact that we spent all of our time sitting watching tv & complaining about how awful this truly was. Then, after packing up all of our things, which were scattered everywhere, we moved to room 5025 which had a deck, & a toilet which didn't function.
I called information, which by the way, we probably spent a total of one day of our cruise on the phone, on hold. A plumber came, said It was fixed, but never was. I called information again, after being on hold about 20min & explained how the toilet still would not flush. The woman said, "Please ma'am, we would appreciate it if you did not call unless the contents have went over the rim." This was an hour & a half after my husband had waded thru my fecal matter!
After that experience I used the Lido Decks bathroom, & only recently found out my husband was urinating in the shower!
The crew lied to us over & over, we were turned away from the dinning rm due to not having a jacket, then was placed into a three sizes too small one. I counted eleven men, eleven white men, as I walked to use the restroom, all without ties or jackets. Mind you, I called HA, as well as Mother, twice asking if he needed to bring a dinner jacket. My husband is a quarter Filipino, & was horribly embarrassed by the dinning room manager, & was treated just as bad as all the lower ranking Filipino crew were treated by the higher ranking non Filipino crew members. We witnessed multiple incidents of scoldings of such crew, & honestly I feel as if they were over worked, treated terribly, & did not want to be on the Oosterdam. Just imagine how wonderful it felt, from the second we arrived? Not good at all!
I lost six pounds on this cruise, as the food was awful, that is if you could get to any of it. The lines were long & when you include the canes, walkers, scooters, & wheelchairs...good luck! I felt sorry for all of them as well, because they were just as hungry as us. That is why I stated this was our room service cruise from hell!

everything i have read about this company pales in comparison to the dirty truth. i have first hand experience with what REALY goes on behind the closed doors on these ships. the hair on your neck would stand stiff if you knew truths such as what you were really eating, and who prepared it. what about where the deceased body were really kept and what the continual offender hotel manager was up to.

your friend, The dirty door keeper.