The Case of the Mismatched Ship - ms Konginsdam

The Case of the Mismatched Ship

Should the ms Koningsdam be sailing as a Princess Cruise Line ship?

The Royal and Regal entered service for Princess Cruises in the last few years to much acclaim, and scorn.  While the new design is the largest and perhaps best expression of what Princess strives to be, both ships have been similarly panned for their seemingly obvious design flaws.  Are they really design flaws?  Well, it depends on who you ask.  For many Princess loyalists, the fact that the midship stair tower ends on deck 7 is bad history repeating itself as the Grand Princess was brought into the fleet with a similar omission.  Many had hoped that the Regal would rectify this but it was not so when the Regal debuted.

So what else then - well the the Promenade deck was removed in favor of a handful of "lanai" style outdoor areas.  As a side note, the author shakes his head after seeing what Carnival, NCL, and others have done to monetize their promenade deck, and Princess "missed the boat" on this one.  There are some sources which indicate that the newer SOLAS requirements just require too much space on the promenade deck around escape crafts to make it worthwhile to put a walking deck.  I guess if Princess had made it a small deck, people would complain about that as well - sort of a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't situation.

And we could of course go into the aft pool situation, which Princess DID adjust for the Regal and will provide during a refit of the Royal.  But that's not what this post is about - this post is about the Princess ship that cruises in navy blue that is the ms Koningsdam.

There is a lot of positive posts and reviews of the ms Koningsdam - from the travel media - many whom had a free junket cruise.  And while the blog author personally thinks that the ship sounds great, there are many MANY HAL loyalists that are opposed to many aspects of the Koningsdam.  So lets take a look.

• Promenade Deck - There are a lot of frustrated HAL Mariners that have indicated the Promenade deck is too narrow in places to make their way around.  YouTube user "sensorthree" provides a video that you can view here https://youtu.be/PxxUxIhC4kg.  Now take a look at YouTube user "hpiv3" for a stroll on the Grand Princess promenade, which is almost identical to the Golden, Star, Caribbean, Emerald, Crown, and Ruby https://youtu.be/dVRWpt5b1vg.  Well if the biggest issue is the narrow squeeze around the aft of the Koningsdam, it looks almost identical on the Grand class ships.
• Passenger Capacity - HAL loyalists have always been spoiled with ships that are well laid out with ample space per passenger.  While the Koningsdam is a seemingly significant departure from that past with a passenger/space ratio of around 37 - which is very close to that of the larger Grand siblings.  However, there has been a good deal of agreement that the Kdam handles crowds well.
• No Dedicated Onboard Library - Ok, I read when I cruise, and when I've gone on Princess I'll grab the book and read outside somewhere.  A dedicated space won't make it or break it for me, and nor has it for any cruisers of the Grand class on Princess.  Sure, the Crown, Ruby, and Emerald have a reading nook, I would hardly call it a library on par with previous HAL ships.

There are many other reasons HAL Mariners have raised, but these seem to be the biggest three.  So as Princess fans pan the Royal and Regal, a trip on the Koningsdam might be more of the same that they are used to, just with a dutch twist to things.