This was our first cruise with Holland America, and could end up being our last.

This particular cruise departed on Friday, May 6th from Seattle- spending Saturday in Victoria, B.C. - and docking at Vancouver, B.C. on Sunday morning. It was billed as a "Mother's Day cruise", a fun weekend getaway, and an introduction to Holland America.

I should preface at this point by saying that we discovered once onboard that we were joining up with the last segment of a 22 day transit cruise that started in Tampa, through the Panama Canal, and ended in Vancouver. Many people had been onboard for 20 days already. We also discovered that this Seattle-Vancouver portion is a apparently a "maintenance" cruise for most of the public areas. During our cruise - the carpeting was pulled out, the chairs were removed and reupholstered, the ship was being washed with solvents and repainted, etc. Read more