VEENDAM - March 11, 2007 Cabin 220

DAY ONE - EMBARKATION A new adventure for us as we try a new cruise line - Holland America. We haven't tried a new cruise line in years. We wanted to sail for Spring Break again this year (we have for a number of years) but after our experience with a ship full of college students on Celebrity's Zenith last year, we were hesitant to return to our usual lines - Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Princess. We've wanted to try Holland America for quite some time so this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. I queried the Holland America boards on Cruise Critic to get a feel for the Spring Break mix on their fleet. We felt pretty comfortable that the situation we experienced on Zenith would not be repeated. Therefore, we booked Veendam for a 7-night Western Caribbean sailing on March 11 out of Tampa.

Several things about this ship and itinerary were appealing. Tampa is now a short drive from home (it's terrific to get up on the day of sailing and drive to a port in an hour!); the Veendam is a smaller vessel - just over 55,000 tons; and she was visiting a new port for us (Guatemala). Smaller ships, fewer people, short drive, new port - sounded like the perfect chance to give Holland America a try. Read more