Oosterdam in Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
We’ve taken quite a few cruises on Holland America, mainly on some of the directional ships (Westerdam, Oosterdam, & Noordam, but not Zuiderdam). Of the compass directions, Oosterdam is east. Oosterdam was one of the first few ships I ever sailed on, long before starting this blog, and again later so it was nice to be back onboard again.
casino
Thankfully Oosterdam still had no indoor smoking during this cruise, but according to the future cruise guy onboard as each ship goes into drydock throughout 2025 it’s getting converted to having smoking casinos and Oosterdam’s time is coming soon. I can only hope he was wrong, but since that information is losing future cruise bookings for him he probably wouldn’t say so without knowing the facts.
life ring
Oosterdam was the second of the directional ships, which are Holland America’s Vista class ships. It launched in 2002 and was last refurbished in 2023. It is 936 feet long, 105.8 feet wide, and holds 1964 guests and a crew of over 800. Stateroom categories include inside, ocean view, balcony, and suites with subclasses among those, particularly in the suite category.
strange art
Typical of most cruise ships, the Oosterdam has some ugly, odd, and just plain weird art. Some of it hasn’t changed since the last time we were on the ship. It does have some nice art too, like the paintings of older renditions of Holland America ships on the front staircase and some traditional Dutch flower paintings and other old-world scenes.
stairway art
The middle stairway has some sort of giant round plaques in hexagonal frames and the back one random artworks that vary from one level to the next. Hallways by the rooms have different art depending on which deck it is. Some have Dutch flower paintings, others old world scenes, black and white photos of earlier Holland America ships, or other things.
Lego model of the ship
The giant lego model of the Oosterdam in the Crow’s Nest lounge is new. There’s also a set of shelves made of little cubicles filled with games people can use whenever they want. Shore excursions has moved from down near guest services where it is on most cruise ships up into the Crow’s nest. The Crow’s nest also has the only all-day coffee bar onboard for fancy coffee, tea, or hot chocolate drinks. It also serves regular bar drinks. The main purpose of the Crow’s Nest is an observation lounge with floor to ceiling windows spanning the front of the ship and beyond. One corner of the room is sort of separated and used for scheduled art activities during the cruise.
library
There’s a new library on board down on the promenade deck on deck 3. It’s just a library with different sections for books depending on whether they are fiction, non-fiction, romance novels, or a variety of other options including a book exchange shelf where people can leave a book they have finished and pick up a different one someone else left there. The Noordam had a nicer set-up with the library and explorer’s lounge together along with a coffee bar so people had a second option for buying specialty coffee and other hot drinks at any time during the day. The line in the Crow’s Nest can get very long, especially if there is scenic sailing in the morning.
view from the heated ceramic bench in the thermal suite
The thermal suite at the spa was in need of some maintenance. One of the heated ceramic benches was out of order for the entire cruise. There’s only 6 of them so that left just 5 that were usable. Heated ceramic benches are nice, cold ones not so much.
water volcano in the spa pool
The rack area where people sit in the thermal pool to enjoy the bubbles also needed some help. It had water a volcano at one end of the rack and barley any bubbles at the other instead of being more even all across like they normally are. At some point during the cruise it sprouted a second much smaller bubble volcano near the middle of the rack, which was the goldilocks zone of just right with the big volcano being too much and the other end not enough.
view of shipping containers in the port in San Antonio, Chile from obstructed view balcony
We tried a different sort of cabin than we have had before. An obstructed balcony cabin. It’s like a normal balcony cabin except the balcony has a metal wall where there’s usually plexiglass. The balcony is nearly twice the size of what standard balcony cabins have so if you don’t mind the metal wall you get a bigger balcony in a cheaper cabin. From inside the cabin you can see over the wall just fine, or if you stand up on the balcony you can easily see over it. When sitting in the deck chairs you can see anything you could see above the railing on a regular balcony, just not what you would see through the plexiglass under the railing. In exchange you have lots of room to stretch out rather than being cramped against the plexiglass like on standard balconies.
pastry squares
For the most part the food was good, as it usually is on Holland America. They had different little pastries at breakfast though. They were almost square with a dollop of filling on top instead of a filled center inside of the pastry. The new ones are much denser and not so soft and flakey as the ones they usually have with the filling on the inside. They did still have regular little croissants and pains au chocolat though. It could be that the usual pastries just aren’t readily available in South America rather than having changed them on the entire cruiseline. I suspect that may be the case since a few of the usual sort appeared at the very end of the cruise after a port stop where they loaded new supplies.
Lido pool and hot tubs
Since this was a cold-weather cruise to Antartica, the cover was closed over the Lido pool most of the time. It’s nice to have that option because who wants to use an outdoor pool when it’s cold and sometimes rainy or windy. There was also a lift chair by the pool for anyone who could not get in and out on their own. The pool in the thermal suite and outdoor pool on the back deck each had one too. I think those are relatively new as I don’t remember seeing them on previous Oosterdam cruises.
back deck
There is an outdoor pool on the back deck without a cover, but that’s a lot more likely to get used in warmer climates. The cover also makes it a lot warmer and drier for people who like to sit in deck chairs around the pool or even for just passing through that area to get from one end of the ship to the other. They did use the outdoor pool for a polar plunge event one day. The pool itself might be heated, but the air around it was freezing.
promenade deck
All of the top-deck chairs were stacked and stowed under a tarp because nobody wants to sit out there in the cold. When the weather was too cold or windy the ones on the promenade deck were stacked away too, though they did put them out sometimes. There are a couple shuffleboard games painted on the top deck, but again something that sees more use in better weather, though there were sometimes shuffleboard tournaments on the schedule as well as pickleball because there’s a court for that too. Those activities would of course be weather permitting. People did make use of the ping-pong tables in the enclosed area by the Lido pool. There were also lots of indoor daily activities listed in the daily program. The most popular choices tended to get crowded.
upper level of the dining room
Dress codes have relaxed from what they once were on Holland America. There was a time when jeans weren’t allowed in the dining room, but now they are on casual nights so long as they aren’t full of holes. They still turn people away for wearing shorts to the dining room at dinner though.
piano show
Besides the production shows from the ship’s cast that performed some evenings, on other nights there were guest entertainers instead. These included singers and instrumental musicians as well as other entertainers. There was a comedian on a couple nights and once a juggler who did a lot more balancing stuff than juggling anything.
Chilean Fjords from the promenade deck
The captain did a good job of avoiding bad weather even when it meant rescheduling a port stop to a different day and finding new fjords to explore for glacier watching rather than the scheduled ones to avoid a hurricane-force gale that hit the day we were supposed to go to Punta Arenas. We went a day early. Ships that did not reschedule had to skip that port.
Crow’s Nest bar
Our favorite hang-outs on the ship were the thermal suite and the Crow’s nest. It’s a popular place due to the floor to ceiling windows around the front of the ship and a variety of places to sit and enjoy the view or play games. And of course the coffee bar. The thermal suite is only an option for people who buy one of the passes, which is limited to 40, so not where most people go. Some like to hang out by the Lido pool, or in some of the bars and lounges around the ship, all of which have lots of seating, some near windows. People like to sit by windows.
gallery bar
The gallery bar besides having all sorts of artworks that give it its name also has a chest full of games as well as several big wooden sort of mini shuffleboard type games. That might all be gone soon if the future cruise guy was right because he said that’s going to be where they put the casino. The current casino is just outside of the gallery bar so whether they are moving it into that bar or adding a separate smoking casino in what’s now that bar I have no idea. He said it would be enclosed, but they will have to add walls or doors to do that.
Ocean Bar
Besides shows and games, nightly activities onboard include music at Billboard Onboard, The Rolling Stone Lounge, and the Ocean Bar. During the daytime there are movies and other activities at the Rolling Stone and sometimes trivia or other games at Billboard Onboard or other locations. There were also some one-time activities throughout the cruise like the polar plunge in the back pool and a carnival games day by the Lido pool.
penguin duck
People can go to the ship’s scheduled activities or not as they choose. They can also do their own thing or schedule their own activities. We enjoy hiding ducks. There weren’t a lot of duck hiders or even people who knew about cruise ducks on this cruise, but the crew are always thrilled to find one and there were some passengers who enjoyed them too even if they hadn’t heard of them before. We ran into one passenger actively hunting them.
cabin crawl
One person scheduled a cabin crawl through cruise critic. Quite a few people attended. It was fun to get to see a variety of different cabins from the people who volunteered theirs to be part of the tour. Most didn’t even know the obstructed balcony cabins like we had on this cruise even existed before the tour.
viewing a penguin rookery from the bow in Antarctica
The Oosterdam has an outside promenade deck that goes all the way around the ship which is always a nice thing to have. When the weather is decent it’s a nice place to take a walk. It used to be a good place for a run, but now it says no jogging. It’s a handy place to dart out and get quick photos of the scenery. They also had the big front bow open sometimes when sailing through scenic areas. Usually the smaller bows on the 3 decks above the big one are also open whenever the big one is.
lower dining room
There were too many formal nights for our liking, but at least they aren’t so formal as they once were. Nobody wears tuxedos or evening gowns anymore. Not everyone even wears suits or dresses. Nicer pants and shirts than worn on casual nights are perfectly acceptable these days.
atrium centerpiece
The atrium on the Oosterdam is small with just a bit of seating at the bottom and a giant globe hanging at the top. On deck 1 guest services and future cruises are near there, but not in the part that opens up 3 decks high. There’s no longer a loyalty person onboard which is unfortunate because they were generally the most helpful for a lot of things. Holland America’s app is fairly functional, though it does have a few glitches sometimes. It’s also pretty useful, though it would be nice if it showed the dinner menus for the entire cruise and not just the current day. Excursion tickets are all in the app now. They don’t send paper tickets anymore. You can just have your room card scanned to check into an excursion so people who don’t have the app or are going on the sort of excursion where they don’t want to bring a phone aren’t left out. When bringing a phone it’s a good idea to screen shot the excursion ticket so you have it available to show if there is no service for using the app.
ship’s shop
There are a few shops onboard and some rooms for holding different events, some of which are ship-sponsored and others used by private groups who request space for their activities. There are 2 premium restaurants besides the included food and lots of bars around the ship. People still have the option for 2 cabin cleanings daily if they want, or can choose just one. There is a kid’s club area though there were not many kids on this cruise. There are more on shorter cruises, especially in warmer places, Holland America is a line that attracts more older people than young families. It’s a mid-sized ship. Big enough to have room to move around and things to do, but small enough to go places the enormous ones can’t.
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