ms Ryndam, Holland America Line

Our first cruise was the eleven night ‘Ancient Discoveries’ at the end of August. After a trouble-free boarding process we were shown to our cabin, unpacked, explored and found the public apartments on the ship to be very nice, whereas our ‘FF’ cabin was a little ‘tired’. We sailed from Barcelona on a warm, sunny evening with a cocktail in hand and looked forward to what Holland America Line describe as ‘gracious, award-winning service that defines classic cruising’. For the next twelve days we were treated like royalty, ate terrific food, sampled exotic cocktails, visited Sicily, Malta, Corfu, Dubrovnik, Sardinia and braved Naples for some wonderful pizza. We ate early and cannot praise the whole dining experience highly enough the icing on the cake was our restaurant steward ‘Ashari’ who found the perfect balance between attentiveness and discretion. The choice and quality of food at dinner was first-class, in comparison breakfast and lunch were 'only' terrific. After dinner we would take in the show then have a nightcap and listen to the jazz trio followed by a promenade around the deck a few times. This was an exploratory cruise, it's our thirtieth wedding anniversary in 2012 and we now know how we'll celebrate it. We couldn't imagine cruising with any other line.

We sailed from Barcelona 0n 29th September 2011 and expected reasonable weather but what we got was truly amazing over 25 and sometimes 30 centigrade, this made the cruise all the more enjoyable. The ship MS Ryndam was in need of a refurbishment sooner rather than later and some of the public areas were extremely tired, especially around the windows of the main pool area. Having said that the cabins were well looked after and serviced, with the towel animal and chocolate on the bed every night. The towels could have been washed better when changed as they were more grey than white, but always clean. The crew were excellent and the Captain in particular was more available than on any of the cruises that we had been, his staff right from the lowest cleaner to himself spoke to you every time you passed even if it was only to wish you good day. Our cabin boys were excellent and they deserve every penny they get from the gratuities. The food in all the restaurants was well presented and hot and the choice was very good. The self service restaurant "The Lido" was exceptional in that you could get virtually the same meal as in the main dining room most evenings. Service in the dining room was very good but it is always a fact that if you choose freedom dining then you get to a table for eight or ten then expect to spend over 2 hours in the restaurant, it is much better if you want a quick turnaround to try for a table for two. There were cruisers from 32 different countries and that made dinnertime conversation sometimes very difficult but everybody seemed to get along. The ports of call were very good and I would suggest to anybody if they get the chance to go to Kotor in Montenegro then go not particularly for the place itself but for the wonderful exit from the port back to the sea, as it is located in some sort of river canyon and the cruise out is magnificent, especially the 360degree turn around two minute islands one of which has only a church on it and the other is to small for any bigger than a solitary house, congratulations to the crew for that experience. The captain was also to be congratulated for his keeping us in reasonably calm waters when he was informed about the Mistral wind coming down across France and causing winds of upto 65 MPH and seas in excess of 10 metres. We were supposed to visit Marseilles but had to visit Monaco and Nice so as to keep close to shore and miss the heavy seas. All in all it was a very good cruise and as this was our second Holland America cruise we will almost certainly be booking with them again.