Without having been there with you, it's not possible to calibrate your descriptions of the problems with the stateroom as you described them. Having been on a number of cruises, intermittent fan noise and intermittent water gushing through a pipe in the wall are expected compromises associated with being aboard a ship on the sea rather than in a hotel room on land. My spouse even makes a special point to bring ear plugs on cruises since things are different from our comfortable home.

So just based on our experience as frequent cruisers, I can confirm that the cruise line's response, "unable to offer any compensation," is what we would personally expect in such a situation.

We just had a wonderful cruise in an aft wraparound suite. It was such a different experience than a cruise years ago in a much lower level cabin. So even aboard the same ship, stateroom categories separate the "good" cabins from the "not so good" cabins. Steps are taken to ensure that more expensive cabins are more comfortable.

You didn't indicate in your post what category you booked, and you didn't indicate what your frequent cruiser elite level is on Holland America. Frequent cruisers know that those are essential pieces of information for assessing what kind of response we can expect to get from a cruise line. It would also help to know what ship and cabin you were assigned; if there really was a cabin that was afflicted with problems beyond that which would be expected for cabins in that category, there would be enough warnings about it on the Internet that it could be Googled. That could change the complexion of the issue a bit.

Beyond all that: I believe the expectation for compensation is also compromised by the fact that they did offer you an alternative stateroom - a remarkable and rather rare option to be offered. Aboard a ship, turning down a cabin because of the motion of the sea doesn't hold much water (pardon the pun), especially with many stateroom categories. For example, if you were in a Category J cabin aboard Konigsdam, and were offered a Category N cabin as a courtesy, that alone would cap the reasonable amount of compensation by $20 per passenger (the difference in fare between those two cabins). Turning down the alternative offered would assuredly have capped any compensation you might have been reasonable to expect by that much.

Given the circumstances, I would have accepted the $100, without a moment's hesitation. $800 compensation seems remarkably excessive for a 7-night cruise. We sometimes can purchase an entire 7-night cruise for only a couple of hundred dollars more than that. (Right now, I could book a "Glacier Discovery Northbound" cruise on ms Westerdam for $499 per person.) I'm wondering if you might have damaged your ability to secure some compensation (even the originally-offered $100) by leading with an ask so far out of proportion.

I would try one more time though, sticking to the fact that $100 was offered and you would now like to accept that offer. It cannot hurt to try. I suspect that at the very least you'll be offered a $100 credit (or perhaps even $200) toward your next booking.