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Cruise

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We went on a 7 day cruise from Vancouver to Alaska with Holland America Volendam. Our Staterooms were located on the 3rd floor of Holland America Volendam. The ship was built in 1999, so there is some age to the ship and you can tell from the interior too. The room is pretty standard and not fancy at all. We didn’t spend that much time here as we were walking around the ship or in town.

Features:

  • Daily housekeeping & turndown service
  • Power outlets for 110v (North American) and 220v (Continental Europe)
  • Hair dryer
  • Elemis Aromapure bath amenities
  • Safe

Complimentary:

  • DVD library of 1,000 titles
  • Fresh fruit on request
  • 24 hour in-room dining
  • Shoeshine service
  • Ice service

The staff are all very nice and if something isn’t satisfactory, feel free to speak up without feeling ashamed. Our bed was configured as a queen bed but if you want to, they can split the bed up into 2 twin-sized beds. The night are a hit and miss if you’re a light sleeper. Some days, the boat is very rocky, other nights, the engine is loud.

Every night, they fold our towels into cute animal shapes and give us next days itinerary and 2 pieces of chocolates.

They tidy up our room twice a day, which we found a bit excessive as we are pretty clean to begin with.  Either way, they staff work really hard to make sure we are comfortable.

They also deliver you chocolates and itinerary every night.

Final Thoughts

It was my first cruise so it’s hard for me to compare to other cruises out there. I was still able to get plenty of sleep each night and I really only need the basics.

Websitehttps://www.hollandamerica.com/

Once per cruise, the Pinnacle Grill is transformed into the legendary Le Cirque of New York City. Ranked among the best restaurants in the world by food experts, and famous for its celebrity clientele, Le Cirque brings its French Continental Cuisine to Holland America Line. It’s a way to taste Sirio Maccioniis world famous dishes at a much cheaper price of $49 per person. It is the most expensive meal enhancement of the boat, but it is something you should consider trying if you’re tired of Lido Market or The Dining Room.

We made a reservation at 6:30pm for 10 people and it wasn’t busy at all. Which isn’t a bad thing since their staff aren’t stressed getting everything done. They were attentive and had lots of time to chat with us.

Amuse Bouche

The chef brought us an amuse bouche to get our taste buds ready. This was whipped foie gras with a rhubarb chutney.

Beer and Drinks

We ordered some beers that were extra, but having a beer during dinner with grandpa with mandatory.

Appetizers

Lobster Salad Le Cirque has poached lobster with haricots vert and citrus. The half lobster tail was beautiful and was cooked perfectly. There was a bit of bounce and freshness to it.

Wild Burgundy Escargot with gruyere gnocchi, pickled enoki and bottarga. A big difference in quality compared to the escargot that we got in the Dining Room. It had a better balance of flavours. The escargot itself is chewy and flavourless, but they were able to enchance it a bit more.

Soups

Garden Pea soup is served warm with cheese dumplings and idiazabal crisp. It was really good and definitely the winner out of the 2 different soup options.

Chilled yogurt and melon soup with shrimp. This was an interesting dish as it is served cold. It was refreshing but didn’t hit the spot compared to the garden pea soup.

Mains

Seabass with peaches, capers, bourbon vanilla and chicken oysters.

Rack of Colorado Lamb with goat cheese panisse, artichokes and arugula. Everyone got this medium rare but it seemed crazy tender but it had a bit of tough connective tissue inside. A bit hard to cut through.

Chateaubrian is a beef dish and everyone at the table didn’t realize this. It comes with horseradish flan and sweet and sour baby beets. It is wheeled out in a cart and they carve it infront of you before they serve you. A little nice bit of show before you dig in. This was definitely the winning dish of the night.

Spaghetti Primavera with cream, garlic and parmesan is the meatless dish.

Dessert

They brought us a tower of sweets before all the regular dessert arrived. We had so much food already but it kept coming.

Chocolate soufflé with traditional chocolate soufflé with vanilla gelato. This was good and I really enjoyed it. One thing I didn’t like was how the vanilla gelato was pre-scooped and then went back in the freezer. I’m sure this wasn’t up to their standards.

Crème Brulee Le Crique looked similar to the crème brulee served in the Dining Room. This wasn’t as exquisite since there wasn’t much difference to it.

 

Strawberry Pavlova with earl grey Chantilly, strawberry consume, and basil.

Pineapple with Malibu rum, coconut and bourbon vanilla. A delicious sweet

Final Thought

Overall, the food quality is much better than The Dining Room. When we compared the lobster tail to the one we had at Gala Night, this was exceptionally better quality. There was a few hit and misses compared to our lunch at Pinnacle Grill. Is it worth the $49 extra? I would say yes.

When we got back to the room, a box of truffles were waiting for us. A nice touch.

We Rate Le Cirque

Location:
Holland America Cruise

Website: https://www.hollandamerica.com/

 

Pinnacle Grill is a refined and luxurious dining experience aboard the Holland America Volendam 7 days to Alaska. It is open for lunch and dinner, but we opted for lunch as it is only $10 extra. It has a condensed version of the dinner menu compared to $35 per person. They are best known for their steak and seafood.

We were able to order 2 appetizers if we wanted. No limits at all.

Crab Cakes

It comes with 2 pieces and has spiral shaved cucumber and a sweet chili-mustard sauce.

Spinach Arugula Salad

It has avocado, orange, organic seeds, creamy lemon dressing, gorgonzola and air dried apples.

Beef Carpaccio

The quality and quantity is a lot better than at the Dining Room. Really delicious and worth it to get.

Roasted Jidori Chicken with Porcini Mushrooms

It has a cider vinegar jus with quinoa-forbidden rice cake, mache salad, and toasted nuts.

Broiled Alaskan King Salmon

This piece of salmon is huge and you need to order this if you love salmon. It has a lemon garlic herb splash to balance out the taste. Highly recommended.

West Coast-Style Seafood Cioppino

It has clams, mussels, shrimp, Alaskan crab, halibut and a tomato broth. Recommended too, but you might want another entree if you want to really indulge.

Beef Tenderloin with Oregon Blue Cheese

It comes with grilled asparagus and scalloped potatoes.We got this done to medium rare and it was spot on.

Fresh Berries with Sabayon Sauce

A nice break from the heavier dessert. Refreshing and sweet with the sabayon sauce on the bottom.

Coconut Trifle

It is topped with lime and pistachio to finish this off.

Ice Cream

There are premium ice creams on the menu that are better than the other options around the cruise.

Warm Fudge Brownie

The decadent brownie has coffee gelato, popcorn crunch and a piece of chocolate.

Strawberry Pavlova

This also have strawberry consommé and some basil to accompany all the fresh strawberries.

Happy Anniversary Celebration

After all that food, we got a huge slab of cake to celebrate my aunt and uncle’s wedding anniversary. If you are celebrating something special, make sure you tell the staff when you make reservations.

Final Thoughts

The meal also comes with french press coffee, espresso beverages and tea. Overall, it was a good price for $10 extra for lunch. We saw a huge improvement in quality of each dish. Highly recommended restaurant to visit on the Holland America cruise.

We Rate Pinnacle Grill

Location:
Holland America Cruise

Website: https://www.hollandamerica.com/

Here are a few things I learned about before boarding my cruise at Canada Place. It was my first cruise so I didn’t know what to expect. Hopefully, this will help you mentally prepare you for where to go. Our boarding began at 12pm, so we made sure to arrive earlier so we could settle down and not wait in large lines to get on board.

Head to Cruise Ship Level of Canada Place

You can either drive to this area or you can walk to this level from the Convention Centre East. Just follow the signs.

Baggage Drop off

Fill in your luggage tag and give them to the staff and they will make sure it gets to your room. It’s easier to do this as they will need to scan your bag for any prohibited items.

Cruise Check in

This is where you grab your cruise map and room keys. It’s best to check in with your cabin mates.

Security and US Customs and Border Protection

This is where you will be officially passing the border so you don’t have to do it at another port. It’s very efficient. As a Canadian, we put our passport and information into the computers, pass it to a border guard and then we were done.

Boarding

Have you room key in hand as this is your primary card to get around. It is your room key, ID and also your credit card. As we got on board, they greeted us and showed us to our rooms.

It was an easy process to go through and there are tons of people helping us get where we needed to go. As there were 2 cruise ships leaving that day, I was impressed by how organized they were. I hope this has helped you demystify how to board a cruise at Canada Place.

More information: http://www.portvancouver.com/cruise/passenger-information/

Day 1 on Holland America Volendam and we checked-in at noon and had a lot of spare time until the ship started leaving Canada Place in Vancouver. Our next 7 days, we would be embarking on a journey to Alaska.

Interior

We headed to Lido Market for a buffet lunch as some of us started getting hungry.

You seat yourself and find a table. Since we had 10 people in our party, we had to find a few tables close to each other.

Food Stations

As we walked through the different stations, there is a cheese station, salad station, sandwiches, different entrees, carvery, sushi, desserts, beverages and other things. There is really a little bit of everything here.

The staff are very friendly, but you’ll need a bit of patience waiting in like for them to serve you.

Buffet Style

I find this a nice place to chill at since you can basically wander in any time to get water, tea or coffee.

Depending on their hours, they may have a reduced amount of stations available to get food from. As this was the first restaurant we went to, we ate a lot to try to get a sense of this restaurant.

All of the food here was very so-so. Some items were salty, other were too sweet, but other wise, lots of food available.

It’s kinda what happens when food is made en mass.

We learned pretty quickly that we shouldn’t over indulge ourselves. There are other lunch options like Dive-In, The Dining Room, and Pinnacle Grill that I personally find better on the ship. On the contrary, if you love variety, Lido Market definitely has that. Dining here is complimentary and part of your cruise package, so you really aren’t losing out.

On our first dinner at The Dining Room on Holland America Volendam for our 7 day Alaskan Cruise, we were seated at 5:30pm for a group of 10. This dining experience is complimentary and included with the cruise.

We ended up being 15 minutes late for our seating since we got a bit confused on the boat.

We got to choose a starter, main and dessert. But nothing stops you from ordering as many dishes as you want. They can also cater to food allergies if they know ahead of time. My sister has celiac disease and they were able to recommend some gluten-free dishes and had gluten-free bread available. Our server – Edy would be the same server for us the entire time here until the end of the cruise.

Bread and Butter

Appetizers

Prosciutto and Caponata with smoked olive oil and sundried tomato bread stick. This is a nice start and well balanced.

My relatives had the French Onion Soup “Les Halles” with Gruyere cheese crouton, but all of them said it was too salty.

Seared Scallops was a recommended dish and the most popular ordered item. It also has bacon, tomato, avocado puree and vanilla-scented vinaigrette.

Mains

Chicken, Papaya and Avocado salad with lime juice, walnut oil vinaigrette, watercress and walnuts. A pretty basic salad, but one of the healthier options.

Smoked Chicken Breast Ballotine with Orange Bourbon sauce with celeriac and roasted brussel sprouts. The chicken breast ballotine was so gross. Very dry and not appetizing at all. After eating half of the dish, I found a hair in the dish. I was very disgusted, so I told the server and asked for a new one.

Beef Short Rib Stroganoff with egg parsley noodles, turnips and carrots was great. This was my second entrée as the first one was pretty damn bad.

Grilled Steelhead Salmon with Ginger-cilantro Pesto with basmati rice, sautéed swiss chard, and garlic cherry tomatoes. A good dish as per my sister.

Dessert

We put in our dessert order last and there are so many choices.

Sliced fruit is a healthy dessert option compared to the others.

Viennese apple strudel was what my mom ordered.

Crème Brulee was a gluten-free option. My sister said it was good but the portion was generous.

Chocolate Brownie Cheesecake was ok. A bit sweet and I didn’t like it topped with mini marshmallows.

Triple Berry Alaskan Tart comes as a small bite and some lime-scented diplomat cream.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the dishes can be hit or miss, but since there aren’t restrictions on how much you can order, you can keep on ordering until you find something you like. Just try not to over order and waste too much food. A few extra items like alcohol and coffee costs extra but they make it known that its extra.