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We had a great time sailing on the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam in the spring of 2018,
following its refurbishment in late 2017.
If you follow these ten tips, you’ll likely enjoy sailing on her as much as we did.
Our first tip is to climb up to Deck 12 if you’d like to avoid the crowds while sunbathing.
We only saw a handful of people every time we ventured up to Deck 12, which isn’t displayed
on any of the deck plans we saw online or on the ship.
Deck 12 is actually two separate sun decks.
One Sun Deck is located midship and can be accessed by taking the two flights of stairs
from deck 10 near the ships funnel.
A second Sun deck, which also had showers available, is located at the front of the
ship and can be accessed by taking the staircase that leads up from the Retreat on Deck 11.
You can also get there using the hidden staircase from the Crow's Nest on Deck 11.
The door has an “Emergency Exit” sign on it, but don’t worry.
It’s not an “Emergency Exit Only” and a sign on the Deck 12 side of the staircase
indicates it’s okay for passengers to use.
Although the glass partitions around the Deck 12 sun decks were not great for photography,
it was still a great place to get a towering view of the ports.
If you prefer a tranquil space inside the ship, we recommend the Tamarind Bar -- which
some people refer to as the Silk Den -- located on Deck 11 midship.
We rarely saw passengers here during the day and those we did see were typically reading,
knitting, or enjoying the view of the sea and the Lido pool.
The area can be accessed from the midship elevators or via a set of stairs on deck 10
toward the back of the pool roof.
Our next tip is to be mindful of raised door steps you may not notice when exploring the
ship, especially when transitioning between the outside and inside of the ship.
Despite the occasional raised door step, we found the Nieuw Amsterdam’s layout very easy
to navigate.
Directional signage is plentiful so we never felt lost.
Our third tip is to use the forward or aft elevators if time is an issue.
Both the front and back of the ship each have four elevators,
but the mid-ship area has six elevators.
While that’s obviously more elevators and seems like it would be faster, the six elevators
are actually three separate groups and each call button only calls two elevators at a
time, instead of four.
For this reason, we typically avoided the mid ship elevators unless we were going to
the kids club located on the top deck midship.
Speaking of elevators, our next tip is to choose your balcony carefully if you’re
getting one near the midship elevators.
The balconies adjacent to the glass elevators at midship are easily visible from the elevators,
so you might want to choose a different room if you prefer a balcony with privacy.
Our fifth tip is to enjoy the complimentary afternoon tea in the Pinnacle Grill at least
once on your cruise.
The sandwiches, sweets, scones with clotted cream and preserves, and a cup (or two) of
tea are top notch.
Afternoon Tea was served every day at 3 during our cruise.
Classic Afternoon Tea, featuring pre-plated foods on a three-tier curate stand, was
served on Sea Days.
A second tea service, which was simply called “tea time," was provided on port days.
For the “tea time” service, the wait staff presented trays of each course for guests
to choose from.
For both services, the tea is brewed and poured by the staff.
On our cruise, we were able to choose between sitting alone or with other passengers.
Our next tip is to head to the casino area for the Chocolate Surprise Parade on the last
gala evening of your cruise.
While waiters did travel throughout the Promenade Deck with trays of complimentary chocolate
confections, the event was very popular and the treats vanished quickly.
On our cruise, a door near the Casino area is where the waiters went to replenish their
trays, so waiting in that area increased our chances of being able to try all of the different
treats they had to offer.
Our seventh tip is to check your TV for the Lido Buffet menus before heading to the buffet
for lunch or dinner.
The menus not only provide a list of the daily offerings, but also indicate which buffet
station has each item and where each station is located.
With this information accessible in our room, we could easily decide if we wanted to go
to the buffet or a different venue for food.
And if we did go to the buffet, we knew exactly where to go to get the items we wanted without
having to walk the entire buffet to make our decisions.
Our next tip is to visit the late night buffet at the Lido buffet area.
Holland America is known for its food and the late night buffet is no exception.
The food was available starting at 10:30 every night.
Early in our cruise, very few people knew about the buffet, but word spread fairly quickly
and the line was longer by the middle of our cruise.
Thankfully, the line moved quickly.
The menu changed each night and was posted outside of the Lido buffet area, near the
midship elevators.
Selections included chilled options of fruits and salads, sandwiches, hot entrees and sides,
and desserts, including a create your own sundae bar.
Our ninth tip is to make sure you put your hand behind your cup if you want to quickly
and easily fill it with ice or water in the Lido Buffet area.
While there were signs with photos showing how to correctly operate the machines, we
saw many people struggle because of how awkward it is to hold your cup just right to activate
the machine’s sensors.
Remember to turn your glass so your hand is between the glass and the sensor and you won’t
have any problems!
Our 10th tip is to take advantage of the easily accessible additional information Holland
America provides throughout the ship.
Emergency Contact information for each port is available on the stateroom TV’s . Take
a photo of the information with your phone and you’ll have it with you if you need
it while in port.
Daily newspapers in a variety of languages are available at the Guest Services desk and
other public areas, like the Lido Buffet.
And be sure to check the Holland America Welcome Book in your stateroom, which provides answers
for a variety of questions you may have.
Finally, a bonus tip!
If you want a bit of a challenge on board the Nieuw Amsterdam, try to locate the coins
from the ship’s 2009 Coin Ceremony.
Many cruisers consider the finding of the ships coins to be like a scavenger hunt, so we won’t
reveal the exact location.
But, we can confirm the coins do exist and the photo may give you an idea of where to
begin looking.