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Ship: Clean, elegant and smaller inside than I was used to (the RCI's 100K+ ship).
Crew: Friendly, motivated and very helpful, especially in the buffet area.
Sea: Rough on the way out. rough to calm on the way back.
Ports: Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay.
Likes: Excellent food, whether it's the buffet or the main dinning. Try out the Pinnacle grill once, it's very good according to my table mates, but I'm not a big fan of steak; for $20 it's more than worth it. Room is good size for a week. Lots of storage room (and under the bed). Quality and details: Bath rope, individual shampoo bottles etc.
Embarkation and disembarkation is pretty smooth, we went to pier around 2 pm. Port Everglade is abit chaos though.
We all agree on is the food quality, even the previous HALer in our party said it's better than their last HAL, way better than RCI.
Service in the dinning room is on par with RCI, much better in the buffet. There're also more individual cooking in the buffet, which make buffet food much better and also cause longer line up. Just go a little earlier to avoid the mass.
HAL has chilled towel and lemonade waiting for us before the gangway when we came back from shore, even the Queen Mary 2 (which we docked side by side) doesn't provide this! It's not much but the though counts a lot.
Covered pool area is a hit when it get too windy! It's actually warmer when it's closed! Dislikes: A few: fellow passenger is pretty 'mature', even the ashers inside the pier are 'mature' New ship teething: the mid elevators are not linked together for some reason, the fore and aft are. Pools are for adults, minimum 4 ft deep. not very kid friendly. Other than the pool there are too much things to do for kids. This is a totally different ship for us RCI. Funny deck design, never able to walk from one end of ship to other.
Despite very windy weather, we have a great week. Definitely consider HAL again when the kids are ready to stay home on their own. Keep up the good work HAL.
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