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Holland America Line

MS Oosterdam

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Paul R.
# previous cruises: 9
Date of Trip: August 3, 2003
Itinerary: Baltic/Black Sea/Russia

It was a great cruise and a lot of fun. Although it was the maiden voyage, things went as smooth as I expected. The ship is beautiful and you do not feel confined due to the open spaces. The ports of call give a general overview of the Baltic and you can form your own opinion of your likes and dislikes.

There are a lot of open spaces. The promenade is walk-around. The two pools are defined, as adult only at the outdoor pool and the indoor poll is open to everyone.

The Queens lounge is where the movies are shown and it is an extremely poor set-up for movie viewing, unless you like looking at the back of heads.

Great selection and quality. The Lido has two sandwich stations, a salad bar, a pasta/pizza station, an oriental station, and two general serving lines. For breakfast the small stations are used for omelets.

They need to use a little less oil/butter in the their cooking of vegetables and other items. The formal room is superb. Beautiful decorations and presentation.

The Verandah cabins are 30 sq. ft. smaller than the same on other smaller HAL ships. The bathrooms are the same. The bottom of the smaller sofa has to drawers to assist in storage.

They were quiet and they had excellent ventilation.

I found most of the shows to be fun and entertaining. The Tommy Tune production was overrated, in my opinion. The ships cast did an excellent job in there presentations. The other onboard entertainers were great.

There is a lot to do onboard this ship. I did too much. I need a vacation from my vacation.

We stopped in Oslo--Excellent
- Arhus--Excellent
- Warnemunde/Rostock--Excellent
- Visby--OK, there was not a lot to do here.
- Tallinn--Excellent
- St. Petersburg--The highlights are beautiful, but the city is depressed. It was also very crowded
- Helsinki--Excellent
- Stockholm--Above excellent. More time needs to be spent at this location.
- Copenhagen - I would have liked to spend some time here.

Our dinner tablemates were a lot of fun. There were a lot of demanding and rude passengers onboard. I guess they expected the maiden voyage to be perfect! I was amazed with the fact that all they wanted to do is SHOP.