As a 3 star mariner we have used HAL numerous times as well as Celebrity and RCCL. This ship is older but as attractive features like it's size (1200 passengers). The crew is constantly painting and maintaining outside areas and I did not see the disrepair other travelers complain about here. This cruise did miss one port due to excessive icebergs in the vicinity of Cartwright, Newfoundland and this was fine with me after watching Titanic many times. We saw plenty of icebergs around Greenland and on our way to Iceland. I have to admit that the voyage was nicer than most as we had great weather for viewing scenery both on ship and ashore. The one exception was the fog around the Faroe Islands.

All the excursions we took were HAL purchases and reviews of these can be found on HAL website I posted. There was a significant outbreak of respiratory problems starting the first week out of Boston. Symptoms were a dry cough primarily which was not debilitating. A large number of passengers were observed with these symptoms and I still had them after flying back to Boston (3 weeks). My wife never was not infected and we are always very careful with disciplined hand washing as well as antibacterial wipes, etc.

There has been a reduction of crew that I observed so things did take a little longer (wine steward, etc.) Food was a good as any other cruise lines with menu not as varied as my experience in the past. Read more