Preface
Although we have cruised quite often, this was our first cruise with Holland America. We had always heard so many wonderful things about HAL so that we decided to sail with them when we realized that HAL was one of the cruise lines sailing the ports of call we were interested in visiting. BUT due to a prevailing CLICHÉ about Holland America's demographics we were a bit worried that we would be surrounded by a sea of blue hair and a prevailing odor of moth balls FALSE,FALSE, FALSE! A diverse group of passengers, the greatest majority middle-age. There were also some teens and twenty-somethings, as well as a few teetering-tottering elderly passengers (my mother included)
Due to scheduling conflicts, our friends, with whom we normally cruise could not join us therefore it was just me, my wife JoAnn and my mother. Since she can't vacation on her own due to mobility issues this was a nice way of getting her to go somewhere without her worrying about flights, transfers etc.