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Holland America Maasdam Review

On our recent round the world trip we decided to take a cruise ship from Oceania to Hawaii! The ship we did this on was the MS Maasdam! Taking such a long journey means I got really well acquainted with the ship, its crew and overall feel so here is my honest Holland America Maasdam Review!

Our room on Holland America

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We had a mini suite. It was a good size and we loved the large balcony. We just wishes there was some sort of divide of the living room and bedroom for those nights spent in the cabin.

Entertainment on Holland America Maasdam

Pianist

Violin

The food on Holland America Maasdam Review 

I am a foodie at heart and one of the things I was looking forward to was trying the renowned food on board Holland America Maasdam! We found that the food was generally of a very high standard and there were options for a five course meal every night though we usually opted for only two or three! If I had one complaint about the food in the main dining room it was the food was a little safe with a lot of staples and with items like curry lacked spice! But again this might be clientele based! On a shorter length trip however this probably would not have concerned me so much!

However my biggest complaint was the lack of local ingredients! The menu really had no relation to where we sailing! I understand that perhaps getting local ingredients may have been a struggle in some points however we did see resupplies, but even if the ingredients weren’t local it would have been nice to have at least some local flavours -serving Artic Char when you are docked in Bora Bora was a real disappointment and something I would love to see Holland America address in future!

One thing I loved about Holland America is that they have Just started any time dining. This is great for families who aren’t always ready at the prescribed two seating times!

There is a children’s menu in both main dining room and room service which is great! In the dining room because so few children it took longer to get kids meals than adults. Our little one however preferred items on the adult menu – in particular the salmon so we just ordered this. Once we found a table and waiter we liked we stuck with them and they were always prepared for our little one which was great.

The menu itself has some activities for kids but they don’t stock crayons so remember to bring your own!

We loved that the chef came out every night to talk to guests about dinner and he always made an effort with the toddler and brought her out a chefs hat!

My one complaint about children’s food on Holland America is that the Room service children’s menu starts at 530 which perhaps a tad late. When we were tired after a long day out we could have done with this starting perhaps at 5!

The selection on the children’s menu was quite good with starters like crudités, and dumplings dumplings and mains such as pasta.

In room children’s menu was slightly more restricted with items like quesadillas, chicken tenders and pasta with sauces.

The one place we felt where the food excelled was in the Buffet! I loved that there were live cooking stations and I could get a steak cooked to my preference on the Lido Deck!

Holland America Maasdam family friendly?

Having an Unpotty trained toddler under three we knew we would find any ship limiting in terms of what she could do and were more than prepared for that!

Sailing on the Holland America Maasdam one of the oldest and smallest ships in their fleet we found that there were very few families on board with us!

There was a kids club, but obviously it wasn’t very busy for those old enough to use. However it looked like they did a good range of activities from using the sports deck to food related activities on the lido deck.

While there was no specific children’s pool the main pool was a good size and surrounded by games such as connect four and chess.

While most activities and evening entertainments were aimed at the older clientele, staff did make an effort with the children on board especially with things like the ping pong tournaments.

We spent a lot of time of the sports deck running around with our little one and found that this was hardly ever used!

If you are travelling with a toddler like us check out our post on how to entertain children on sea days with lots of tips for the unpotty trained and under 3s in mind!

We also really enjoyed the DVD library onboard which had 100s of DVDs and lots in the family friendly category!

Is there babysitting on Holland America?

There is some in room babysitting but we didn’t use. I imagine it might be difficult though not impossible to get during the main dinner hours!

 

Overall: Did we find Holland America family friendly?

Overall I would say that this really depends on what you want and expect of a family friendly ship and itinerary.

Holland America, especially the smaller ships, don’t have the amenity of the super ships like those of Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival. However we were very happy on board our trip with Holland  America. I think the most important thing when booking Holland America is to pick the right itinerary. If I were doing a week around the Caribbean I probably wouldn’t choose Holland America however as Holland America cruises to all the continents I would say that they are great for traveling with children to more exotic destinations!