Read below, one couple's experience aboard a 5(*****)luxury liner. June 18, 2006 Holland American Lines 300 Elliott Avenue West Seattle, WA 98119 Dear Sirs: We have just returned from Alaska, where we have spent the past two weeks. Prior to my going into the purpose of this letter, I would like to give you some background information about my wife and me. We had planned for the past five years to take a cruise to Alaska; I worked at Carrier Company in McMinnville Tennessee for over 27 years. My wife works at Calsonic's in McMinnville and has been there for 17 years. In September of 2005 we were notified that Sparkman Travel in McMinnville TN was planning a two-week excursion to Alaska in June of 2006. It was at that time that we signed up for the “trip of a lifetime”. We paid our down payment with the balance due in March 2006. You can't imagine our excitement over the coming months. It's obvious that we are working class people, by working overtime we were able to save enough money to pay for the trip, and to have enough to make sure we enjoyed the “Holland experience. We wanted to do as much as possible while in the state of Alaska. From the beginning, it seems that the trip was destined for disaster. We received our tickets 6 days prior to our scheduled departure. This was in spite of the fact that the trip had been confirmed for 10 months. At the meeting that Sparkman Travel held, they referred to some problems that Holland was having, and that was why there was a delay in the documents arriving. We were set to leave on Sunday June 4, 2006. We get to the airport and find out that 6 of us are flying separately from the other travelers. Of the six, not one had ever been on a cruise before. The first leg of the flight went without difficulty. We got to our transfer destination at Dallas-Fort Worth Texas. To our surprise, we did not have tickets for the continuing flight. The ticket agent kept telling me not to worry that they would try to figure something out, we were finally given seats on the flight and were the last people to board prior to departure. We arrive in Vancouver, BC where I was told by customs that neither my wife nor I were listed on the ship manifest. This resulted in us having to go through a different customs than the rest of the people arriving. Please keep in mind there is no one to ask about any of this, our travel agent was on an earlier flight. When we got to the ship, we were still rather excited, all we have heard about is the awesome food, games, entertainment and wonderful time to expect. We had been out of dock about 1:45 minutes when I began inquiring about my luggage, I was told not to worry, that the stewards were still delivering luggage to the staterooms. We went to find some of the “fabulous food” that was supposed to be everywhere. Instead what we found was ship employees instructing us not to touch anything. They would hand us what we wanted; I thought this rather strange, until they started talking about the “bad infection” on the ship. We returned to our room, still no luggage. Later on in the evening, I was told that my luggage was “unavailable”. I soon found out this was another term for “lost”. It was Tuesday evening when I returned to my cabin at 9:45 that my luggage was finally “available”. The ship was kind enough to loan me a tuxedo for the formal dining. My wife and I were totally unprepared for the following days aboard the Ryndam. We did hear from other travelers that a letter had been issued about the infection. We had not received anything informing us of this. We were unable to use any of the ship equipment such as shuffleboard, tennis etc due to the risk of infection. The only options available were the casino and the “Crow's Nest” lounge. Neither my wife nor me use alcoholic beverages, so this was not an option. For seven days this continued until we reached Seward, where we were to continue on a “wonderful seven day sight seeing tour, with the finest of accommodations”. You would not believe me if I told you about the flight. We were on the same plane, stopped three times at different locations prior to arriving at DeadHorse. Each time we stopped the entire plane had to change seats. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it is the absolute truth. For the next two days we traveled by coach over 480 miles on a road that was unbelievable. We bumped, jostled and slid over a dirt road that I would never have been on. My wife had a cervical fusion done three weeks prior to our departure to Alaska, she had all she could do to complete this trip. I've looked at the brochures we received, nowhere is it mentioned that the coach trip and accommodations would be as primitive as they were. I don't want you to think that there was nothing “right” about our two weeks in Alaska. We went on a bike ride that was spectacular. In addition the train ride is something we both will remember forever, and we made some wonderful friends along the way. I guess the final straw was when we were looking at our return flight. We were scheduled to fly at 7:00 p,m, to Detroit where we were to stay 8 hours and then fly to Nashville arriving the following day at 11:53. The six of us who endured this trip went to the service desk on the ship. We asked the hostess if there was anyway that we could get a simpler flight. She was able to book us on the flight that very minute. Oh but it cost us $100.00 more to fly on the same flight that the rest of our travel group was on. If there were six available seats on this flight why weren't we booked on it in the first place? I had heard such good things about Holland Cruise lines, If you could just tell us what we did wrong that brought about this course of events, maybe we would be “cruise smarter” in the event we try this again.