Holland America’s Noordam:

Purpose Built For Excellence

By Marilyn Green

On the second day at sea the woman next to me on the elevator said it for us all: “Usually, I can’t wait to get off a ship after a couple of days at sea, but I could stay on this one for a month.”
She was talking about Holland America Line’s new Noordam, the line’s first ship constructed with the whole range of Signature of Excellence features built in.
The elegance of it all was a topic of conversation among passengers throughout the cruise. Soft individual cloth towels, orchids absolutely everywhere, luxurious seating in all public spaces and careful attention to human comforts were received with great enthusiasm. Passengers were equally pleased with the Elemis line of aromatherapy products, normally only offered in the spa, now presented as stateroom amenities.
Two public areas attract passengers like powerful magnets from early morning until bedtime. The Explorations Café, everyone’s dream library/Internet café/coffee shop/music center, boasts butter-soft leather sofas and chairs, shelves and racks of hardcover books, magazines, cards, chess and board games, not to mention a counter serving specialty coffees, luscious scones, muffins and treats.
The Internet stations are beautiful and extremely comfortable, leading a lawyer on board to comment that if offices were designed the same way nobody would ever go home.
Seating arrangements cluster around stationary iPods with huge playlists of every conceivable kind of music. It’s not unusual to find headphoned passengers softly crooning along, to the amusement of fellow guests, and the furniture is so comfortable that several succumbed each day to the temptation to doze in them.
A second library room has more books and Internet stations and huge tables for jigsaw puzzle aficionados. It helps enormously that the library is open from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. Extensive DVD titles supply guests with in-room entertainment.
A paperback exchange was very popular with those who wanted something new to read on the trip home. Within a month, the Café will also lead passengers on guided tours of the striking art works on board, similar to the programs art museums have available.
The other popular gathering place is the Lido Pool area, with a retractable dome that can be closed when the weather is chilly or rainy. Guests on my cruise boarded shivering during a surprise New York City snow shower. In no time, they reappeared in swimsuits on the pool deck to relax or swim and eat at the attractive poolside tables. Some gathered at the bar where the brass stools were formed by enormous fish extending their broad tails. The large Lido pool is set aside every morning for an hour for lap swimmers only. The rest of the time adults and children play, lounge and paddle, luxuriate in whirlpools and read in the shade or sun.
Many passengers bought day or full cruise passes for the spa’s adjoining thermal suite and giant hydrotherapy pool.
The Greenhouse Spa & Salon is worlds away from the cramped quarters of a decade ago. It is now a serene sweep of space, with rooms filled with light, a serene sweep of space and treatments to rival land based spas. Two pedicure thrones face the panoramic windows, the chair backs provide gentle massage as the therapist gives the conventional pedicure, plus a deep and wonderful foot massage by hand.
Manicure tables and hairdressing stations are dotted through the space. Sessions with a makeup artist are offered. The new men’s barbershop with signature products acts as a bridge for men unaccustomed to spa experiences.
The gym has a collection of Cybex machines, plenty of treadmills and stair steppers with flat screen entertainment, falong with bikes. Walkers and joggers of all ages used the track, while the children’s program siphoned off much of the younger generation for most of the day, into the evening.
Younger cruisers have colorful, spacious quarters at Club HAL, which was filled with children painting at 8 p.m. The same children came as a group to enjoy the afternoon lull in the Lido and make creative sundaes.
Older kids ages 8-12 have arcade games, air hockey, foosball, karaoke, Internet access and Sony playstations. The teens-only area, The Loft, is modeled after a New York artist’s loft and has technology far beyond the reach of most New York artists.
Onboard activities include volleyball, basketball, tennis, trivia, bingo, seminars on anti-aging, slot tournaments, cards, a piano bar taking requests, a well used disco, a pet lovers’ get together, dancing and shows, small and large. The casino was very lively at night and during the day on the four sea days of the Caribbean itinerary, with poker, blackjack and slot machines primary favorites.
Staterooms are very attractive, with warm gold and bronze tones and fresh, attractive artwork. Standard inside cabins range from 170 to 200 square feet; standard outside cabins are 185 square feet; deluxe veranda, 254 square feet; and suites from 398 to 1,318 square feet
The Mariners’ Dream beds are so comfortable that they were an ongoing subject of breakfast conversation among the guests. Flat screen TVs with DVD players create a dilemma for passengers torn between going to dinner and a show or staying in, selecting a good movie and ordering room service from the dining room. Stateroom amenities are far beyond the norm, with the spa experience moving into the bathrooms in the shape of constantly replenished Elemis body lotion, bath and shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, top of the line hair dryers, etc.
Holland America has a genius for providing nooks where passengers on a large ship can enjoy a peaceful, intimate experience. One of the nicest nooks on the Norrdam is adjacent to the Sports Bar, where a number of flat screens bring the latest games from throughout the U.S. In the very comfortable area just behind, there is one huge screen and a very small, intense set of sports fans in residence daily, shouting as teams raised or dashed their hopes,
Entertainment ranges from an elaborate $1 million show in the really lovely Vista Show Lounge, where guests dubbed the suspended boxes “flying saucers” and enjoyed production shows, comedy and magic. The piano bar was crowded each night to make requests and hear old favorites, and dancing in the Ocean Bar competed with the band in the Crow’s Nest and the DJ in the Northern Lights disco.
To fuel all this activity, the Vista dining room offered superlative dining, particularly in the evenings. The food is beautifully prepared and presented, with a wide variety of dishes, from roast beef to spicy fish and standard nightly options for sirloin steak or chicken.
Many passengers also tended to choose the dining room for breakfast when they had time, although the Lido offered mountains of smoked salmon, custom cooked egg dishes and cereals, fruits and waffles (whose scent caused resolutions to crumble), along with a few touches from the Netherlands: cold meats, cheeses, flatbreads and rusks. Both the Lido and the dining room sent people to the treadmills after indulging in the plates of freshly baked muffins, doughnuts and pastries urged on them by the staff.
Lunchtime honors belong to the Lido. Most passengers flung themselves into the huge cornucopia of midday choices: burgers and hot dogs, yes, but beef, chicken and veggie burger choices, plus Polish sausages and more. The varied salad bar is available throughout the afternoon, as is the burger grill, and pizza is a 24-hour temptation.
Guests at the Asian counter are offered heaping plates with Mandarin beef, pasta with several sauce choices, sushi, crisply fresh stir fry and high quality soups. Passengers also settled enthusiastically on tacos, barbecue, roast beef, chicken and fish, not to mention potatoes cooked any way imaginable.
The sandwich bar was besieged for its wonderfully stuffed deli fare. Desserts included ice cream well beyond the usual chocolate and vanilla, with lavish syrup and topping choices, sugar-free concoctions so delicious that guests who had no sugar restrictions helped themselves, too, and freshly baked pies, cakes and cookies galore.
The grill, salad bar and ice cream bar saw a steady flow of customers all afternoon, and pizza that pleased even some die-hard New Jersey connoisseurs was available at all hours.
At night the Lido becomes a bistro, with passengers choosing their starters and desserts in the buffet and entrees, beers and wines served at the tables.
Most past guests immediately made reservations for evening meals at The Pinnacle Grill ($20/pp), with its superb beef, chicken and salmon dishes, but few realized that the restaurant also offered lunch on sea days ($10/pp), a really delightful experience, as the waves were reflected on the ceiling along the outside windows and the delicious selections were presented to leisurely diners. Now that the Pinnacle is on every ship in Holland America’s fleet, there will be some changes in the menu, but the premium beef will still be the centerpiece.
Somewhere between food passion and entertainment is the Culinary Arts Center with its show kitchen. If you have only read about this, be assured that the reality is even more impressive than the descriptions. This is a beautiful curved theater space with wonderful leather seats and a kitchen that draws raves from celebrity chefs who come on board to demonstrate and give seminars. (Surcharge is $10 for lunch; $20 dinner.)
The show begins with a lively video introduction contrasting the peaceful and elegant dining room experience with the intense frenzy back of the house with chefs intent on achieving perfection. The huge screens complement the live demonstration with close-up views of the preparation and cooking. Attendees can taste the dishes and take home recipes. Portable cooking stations will allow groups of up to 16 guests to participate in hands-on classes and programs have been created for children.
Sessions are packed well ahead of starting time, so warn your clients to come early. Upcoming guest chefs include John Howie, owner/chef of Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar in Seattle on the July 30 10-day Europe sailing, Charles Dale, founder of Aspen’s Range and Rustique restaurants on a Sept. 18 10-day Europe cruise and Anthony Giglio, wine author and sommelier aboard the Nov. 25 11-day Caribbean itinerary.
The space is so beautiful and so technically well planned that HAL is using it between cooking sessions for movies (with popcorn) and more intimate entertainment.
The Noordam has completed her initial 10- and 11-day cruises to the Caribbean roundtrip New York City, and is sailing 15, 10-day Mediterranean cruises during the summer before returning to New York in the fall.

Tips for Clients:
The Internet Café offers 30-minute bonuses with 100-minute packages at least twice on the cruise.
A phone call from the Caribbean to the U.S. is $7.95 per minute from the ship, but guests can cut the cost to $2 per minute by buying $25 phone cards from the front desk to be used in the staterooms.

Grand Turk Is a Winner
Although the shops were not yet all open on the Noordam’s call, the new port in Grand Turk is clearly a home run. Beautiful tour buses were brought in, trained horses flown in from Jamaica to take riders along the beach and then for a horseback swim; the tour guides got superlative ratings from the guests, and the island was rated very interesting.
Right off the ship is a long stretch of gorgeous white beach coupled with an organically shaped huge saltwater pool. A very generous number of elegant lounge chairs (no jockeying for seats) are arranged around both and the restaurants and shopping area are lovely and very handy. The island is beautiful, the people exceptionally friendly and, at least for now, the exclusivity of use means uncrowded shore experiences, especially in comparison with similar excursions on islands with more cruise calls.