Review HAL Zuiderdam - 12 Day Barcelona to Venice Sep 5-17 This was our fifth cruise, second with HAL, having cruised twice before with Carnival and once with Norwegian. We had a VE category balcony.

We flew to Paris and then to Barcelona. An HAL rep met us while we were waiting for our luggage in Barcelona... we got four pieces but were missing one big suitcase... MINE! which contained DH's suit jacket and all my clothes. Luckily I had thrown a pair of comfortable capris into one of DH's suitcases at the last moment, because all I had on was a pair of long pants, high heels and a blouse. Unfortunately, all the shops on the ship were closed while in port, but I was able to buy some crocs (shoes) and a cotton top for 30 Euros at the duty free shop at the port. My suitcase arrived on the second day just before the fire drill. Note to Self: Pack each suitcase with half DH clothes and half my clothes!!

After extensive research on the boards, I couldn't decide which excursions to take and only booked one HAL excursion from home - the 4 hour one in Monaco for Nice & Eze and we were waitlisted for the Dubrovnik Riviera. I figured we'd wing it once we had the ship info for each port. Read more