This trip was planned as my elderly mother's last "big one" before retiring from travel completely. We actually hadn't heard of Holland America before but decided to take this cruise as it ended up in Auckland our home port. Before finalizing I read many reviews most of which were to our liking.

We found the ship wonderful with like minded passengers and plenty of activities to suit everyone. Being a long cruise, there was plenty of time to try everything on offer without having to rush around a ship as you do on shorter cruises. However, nothing is perfect.

Being Kiwis our dollar was getting thrashed and therefore we were careful in what we spent. We took several bottles of wine onboard and were very grateful to HAL for allowing us to do so. However, we did purchase bottled wine for dinner at the Rotterdam - big mistake - a few days into the cruise a fellow passenger gave us the heads up on THE WINE CARD - a great saving over buying by the glass or the bottle. However, it is not advertised as such by the ship. Read more