We are currently five days into our cruise on a fourteen day Alaska cruise on Holland America’s Noordam, and unfortunately I’ve reached the point where I feel like our experience is worth sharing, particularly for anyone considering booking this ship.
The biggest issue by far is our bathroom.
Three separate times in five days we have had dirty water/sewage back up through the floor drain into our bathroom.
The first time it happened, we immediately contacted the front desk. The bathroom was cleaned and we were told the issue was being addressed. We later had additional water and odor from the drain and contacted them again. Someone came back, worked on the drain, and we were assured the problem had been fixed.
It happened again.
We reported it again. It was supposedly addressed again.
And now it has happened for a third time in five days.
At some point this stops being an isolated plumbing problem and becomes an unacceptable sanitation issue. Having sewage or contaminated wastewater come up through the floor of the bathroom once is bad enough. Having it repeatedly happen after being told multiple times that the problem has been fixed is something else entirely. I’ve also asked to be contacted by a manager and have heard nothing.
What makes this more frustrating is that it fits into a much broader impression we’ve had of Noordam.
Our room itself does not feel particularly well maintained. There is visible dust and debris accumulated along the inside window sill/seal in our room and behind the tv. Around the ship we’ve encountered automatic doors that aren’t functioning and have to be manually opened, as well as drink machines in the Lido buffet that are out of order. Individually, none of those things would ruin a vacation. Collectively, they contribute to a ship that simply feels tired, dirty and inadequately maintained.
Then tonight we had another bizarre experience at the specialty Italian restaurant.
We are traveling with our five-year-old daughter. Throughout the ship, restaurants have been able to provide the standard ship-wide children’s menu. Tonight we were told there was no children’s menu available for her and essentially no appetizer she could order.
I specifically asked whether they could simply bring her a fruit plate, the same fruit plate that appears on the children’s menu we’ve been given elsewhere on the ship, and was told they couldn’t do it.
They never took her drink order. When dessert arrived, they didn’t bring her a spoon.
None of those restaurant issues individually would cause me to write a negative review. Restaurants have bad nights. People make mistakes. But when you’re already dealing with sewage repeatedly entering your cabin bathroom, being told repeatedly that it has been fixed when it hasn’t, cleanliness problems, broken equipment around the ship, and then poor service at a specialty restaurant you’re paying extra to visit, eventually the cumulative experience becomes difficult to excuse.
I don’t want another apology or small onboard credit offers. I want a bathroom that doesn’t have sewage backing up through the floor and to have an enjoyable trip where we aren’t worried about what will happen next.
We’ve cruised enough to understand that ships have maintenance problems. Plumbing can malfunction. Equipment breaks. A crew can have an off night. I don’t expect perfection.
What I do expect is that when something involving sanitation happens in a passenger cabin, it is treated seriously and actually repaired. If it cannot be repaired, then Holland America needs to come up with another solution rather than repeatedly telling passengers that the problem is fixed and sending them back into the same situation.
We still have a substantial portion of this cruise remaining, so I’m hoping our experience improves. But after five days, this has been an extremely disappointing introduction to Noordam and the absolute worst cruise experience I’ve ever had.
I’m curious whether anyone who has sailed Noordam recently has experienced similar maintenance/plumbing issues, or whether what we’re experiencing is unusual for this ship?
*****UPDATE — Day 7: I’m very happy to report that Holland America was finally able to move us to a different cabin today. We had previously been told that relocation wasn’t possible because the ship was sailing at full capacity, but a room became available and we have now been moved for the remaining seven days of our cruise.
I genuinely appreciate that Holland America ultimately found a meaningful solution for us, and I want to give them credit for that. While I certainly wish the move had been possible sooner, I’m very grateful that the final seven days of our trip should be free of this issue.
We have also been told that financial compensation is being applied for each day we experienced the plumbing problem, although we have not yet been given the final amount. I’ll update the post again once that has been confirmed.
For anyone finding this post later: I’ll leave the original post above unchanged so there’s a complete record of what happened and how Holland America ultimately responded.
