Thoughts about our HAL Noordam Mediterranean Cruise

This was our first HAL cruise after several with Royal Caribbean and one each with Carnival and Princess. After spending 20 days onboard, here are my observations about HAL and the Noordam—ship, services and crew:
- Servers clear and clean tables very fast in the Lido so this was superior to RCI and Carnival. We found the behind-the-buffet service to be nice but less efficient overall. IOW, we much prefer RCI’s food stations or islands and helping yourself to what you want in the portions you want.
- Dining room, room stewards and room service were comparable to RCI
- Lido and main dining food quality was very good overall but I personally would call it a draw with RCI. My wife liked HAL better because of the superior seafood, but my parents liked RCI because their beefs was better.
- HAL uniquely offers free freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast and cappuccino/espresso at dinner
- Excellent and quiet handling of turnaround day for B2B passengers with custom tours, spa service, lunches, etc.
- HAL has virtually no night life and mediocre entertainment. This was okay for a port-intensive Mediterranean cruise but we’re not sure about it for all the sea days of a Caribbean cruise.
- There are far fewer activities and things to do onboard the ship, especially for kids. Specifically, Noordam has no rock climbing, wave pool, water slides or fountains, bowling alley, or ice rink. On the plus side, Noordam has an excellent library/computer center in their Explorations Café.
- Can’t understand why with a near-new ship, HAL doesn’t offer on-demand movies and entertainment (not check-out DVDs from library), or on-line billing, on-line shore excursion booking, and other on-line features directly from your stateroom either via TV or wifi access.
- The three elevator banks midship on the Vista-class are not linked or coordinated so they are not efficiently utilized
- Love the silent disembarkation—much improved over Carnival or RCI’s noisy and stressful debarkation routines