This was my 4th cruise, the first 3 were with NCL, and bigger ships than the Westerdam. My last cruise with NCL was a disappointment, so I was looking for a change, with the attractive prices on this xmas cruise, I was happy to give HAL a try.

I liked the free style food options on NCL and I missed that on the Westerdam, if you are looking to just kick back and eat when you want,like you might with NCL, you could go hungry on HAL, I did twice.

I also found the Westerdam to roll a lot more than either the NCL Pearl or Gem, a lot more! We had great weather and little wave action and you can feel that boat rock around. Likely because it is a smaller ship than what I have been on before. The entertainment is also not as good as on a NCL ship, only 3 of the 7 nights had "great" acts, one act was so bad, it was awful. Read more