Although we knew that a Thanksgiving cruise would have many children we choose to sail on Holland America Eurodam at this time due to my husband's work schedule and the wonderful price being offered for this cruise. We have sailed on other lines, usually Celebrity, but always wanted to try Holland America. For the most part, we were glad that we did.

We were told that there were over 400 children on this cruise, but except for a few times here and there, you would generally not know it. For the most part we found the children well behaved and were very happy about this. In fact the few problems we did encounter were with some fellow adult cruisers who have apparently not yet learned how to wait your turn in line, or be respectful of other people's personal space and desire to listen to the event they came to see instead of someone else's very loud and annoying personal conversations.

Boarding the ship was unorganized and confusing. Apparently it was their first day in this new terminal and the staff was not briefed or prepared. They did not even know where the bathrooms were. We requested and were granted priority boarding in advance due to our adult son's special needs, but it was just one big mess at the terminal. After taking matters into our own hands and finding the right person (finally) we were able to board a little earlier. Once on the ship we proceeded to the Lido buffet where we had a nice lunch and very shortly after that were told the rooms were ready. Having travelled mostly on Celebrity we found it very convenient to have the rooms ready for everyone so early. Our luggage also arrived at the room within about an hour. Celebrity needs to take a lesson from Hal on how to get both of these things done so quickly. Read more