The maitre’d greets us by name, escorts us to our table and recommends the daily special being prepared by chefs in the VIP dining room’s open kitchen. The space is quiet and welcoming and the service is unctuous.
Club Orange on Holland America Line is an experience of cruising on a private yacht, with a VIP dining room, dedicated staff, special access and priority perks. It’s not a secret, but it is exclusive and you need to know about it in advance, because you can’t become a member once you’re on board.
The Club has become so popular it’s just been expanded across HAL’s fleet. Does membership have its privileges? Let’s put it to the test.
What’s the deal?
Club Orange began as an experiment on Koningsdam when a glass-enclosed show kitchen for the Culinary Arts Center by Food & Wine Magazine proved too small for the popular program of cooking demonstrations.
Because it’s near the main dining room the cheery, glass-enclosed room was transformed into a restaurant for cruisers staying in the upscale Neptune and Pinnacle Suites. Guests in stateroom categories can purchase access to the privileges but must commit for the length of the cruise.
The capacity is limited and it’s always at capacity well in advance of a cruise. That means signing on when you book up for your cruise. Once on board, it’s too late to join the Club.
The menu comes with lots of extras
Each evening while most of the menu items are the same as offered in the main dining room, there are exclusive specials prepared by the chefs in Club Orange’s open kitchen. They include delicate and time-consuming items like risottos and local delicacies that aren’t likely to be offered in the dining room.
Holland America approach to setting up its menus lists starters, soups and salads together and you can order more than one from that list. Be aware, though that the portion sizes can be large. A seared tuna salad could easily be enough for two. And don’t overlook the soups. Standouts to look for include the squash soup with a dash of carrot and the chicken soup with orzo.
The Club’s daily specials prepared while you watch are identified in orange on the menu. I was in awe of the lemon shrimps with fettuccine the chef prepared one evening and the vegetable tempura udon another night, that was one of the daily vegetarian options. On the right hand side of the menu are a number of entrees that you can order every day and some of them are definite must-tries, like the garlic herb roasted chicken with avocado and, for comfort, the Beecher’s Mac and Cheese.
On gala nights, lobster and surf and turf are also offered in the main dining room, but in the Club they somehow seem more special.
Holland America now also offers a separate menu of vegan options, but because these have to be cooked in their own separate utensils, the galley asks that they be ordered in advance.
The service is almost too personal
While there are crush times that can require waits for the dine-anytime main dining room, there always seems to be a table available when we arrive at Club Orange.
You can’t beat the enthusiasm and charm of the staff here. The spark of the room is Andri, the charming maitre’d, who rolls his Rs. as he learned growing up in Indonesia: “The special today is a beautiful rrrack of lamb. Have a grrreat meal.”
Order a bottle of wine and the wine steward is back to top up the glasses virtually every time you take a sip. Her name is Flor de luz, and she truly is a bright flower.
My only caveat with all this personal service is that with so few tables to attend to, the wait staff can be a little too eager to please. On the first night in the club, the appetizers arrived before the wine. We let them know that we enjoy a leisurely meal and from then on the evenings, like the wine, flowed smoothly.
Breakfast is another perk of Club membership, with mimosas and items like superb eggs benedict on the menu. On the two Pinnacle class ships, breakfast is in the Club Orange restaurant and on other ships the special breakfasts are served in the Pinnacle Grill. There’s also an expanded room service breakfast menu with fees waived for extra-fee items.
More advantages in going Orange
Orange card holders get priority access at guest services and priority for shore excursions, tenders and embarkation and disembarkation. In addition there are invitations to exclusive events onboard, which could include a behind-the-scenes ship tour, or coffee chat with onboard performers or experts.
There’s also a Club Concierge hotline, a complimentary cabin upgrade (within the same general cabin category booked), a glass of sparkling wine at the embarkation day dinner, upgraded bathrobes for in-cabin use and a swanky souvenir tote bag.
The bottom line
Club Orange is included in the fare for guests in Neptune and Pinnacle suites, accommodations that tend to be so popular they often book up over a year in advance. For those in other cabin categories, the price is $35 per person, per day, on Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam, which have the dedicated Club Orange dining rooms, and $25 per person, per day on other Holland America ships.
It’s an incentive to book up to a suite because on a seven-day cruise the added price to join the Club might come to about half the difference in price between a balcony stateroom and a larger and more luxurious Neptune suite.
Club Orange privileges are conferred to all passengers sharing a cabin, but the charges only apply to the first and second passengers. Solo travelers only have to pay the fee once.
Have a grrreat cruise.
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