Written by Chillie Falls for AccessAdveture.net, August 28, 2023
Unlike my friend Kristy Durso’s recent cruise on Holland America’s Konningsdam, which was wonderful, I had a complete mixed bag on the Noordam as far as accessibility is concerned.
My first opinions were so positive. From the Vancouver airport, Holland America arranged an accessible taxi for my transfer to the ship. I was in shock.
First embarkation, and then disembarkation at the end of the cruise were well organized, and very smooth. I didn’t have to wait more than a minute at any of the stations thru the process.
As soon as I was aboard, I rolled my chair to Accessible Cabin 1074 to switch to my Scootaround Scooter. I was pleased to find an automatic door for my cabin, only it did not work. After opening with the keycard, I went inside to find an automatic door on the bathroom that worked. Yay! I immediately reported the matter to guest services and my room steward. It was actually the next day before maintenance could get to me, and they found that the unit needed to be replaced but they had none in inventory. They offered to take one from another cabin, but I declined thinking the next cruise someone might need that door opener more than I did. They promised to order the part ASAP. Everything else in the ADA cabin was acceptable.
As I surveyed the ship, I found ADA restrooms on every public deck, not as many as I would like, but enough. However, at the World Stage on Deck 2, both the Men’s ADA Restroom and the ladies’ ADA Restroom had no automatic doors but were marked compliant. Also, on Deck 10, the ladies ADA Restroom had an automatic door, but it did not work. The other restrooms were fine.
Deck 3 is the Promenade Deck where you can walk the entire ship. There are six doorways from the interior to the exterior walking track and out door seating. All had automatic door openers, none worked. And these were the big, heavy wooden doors that I could not get through from my scooter so Deck 3 Promenade was plainly inaccessible to me.
On the Deck 10 entrance to the sports courts, the doorway is blocked by a 3″ lip. So that part of the ship became off limits too.
There was a similar block when Noordam opened the bow for glacier viewing. So that area is inaccessible as well.
There is one chair lift for the aft Seaview pool (outdoors), but neither of the hot tubs. When I asked what procedures were in place if I wanted to go for a cold swim, I was told to find a bartender. They are the personnel designated to operated the lift chair. There is no lift chair on the main pool, or any of the hot tubs.
At my table in the Main Dining Room, one of the guests had severe food disabilities. The staff from waiter to chef, bent over backwards to see she was taken care of. She even commented this was one of the best cruises for her dietary comfort. Well done, food services.
If there are other things we watch for not mentioned here, just assume they were fine.
Finally, in an effort to meet with the special needs coordinator, I was she did not have any time for me and to write down anything on the Hotel Managers suggestion form, and it would be handled. I received a “canned” reply thanking me for the correspondence.
I did get a call from one of the guest services folks who told me there is a dry dock scheduled for sometime next year and he thought surely these things would be fixed.
Until then, the Noordam must not care about the disabled community because they are not going to fix anything. It might be at least helpful if they had some type of maintenance schedule to even see if these doors , and other things, worked. Holland America, on this ship, you need to do better.