We chose this cruise because we wanted to take our children and grandchildren on their first cruise. The timing and price were right. I should add that this was our 4th cruise on HAL and we have also cruised on Princess, Celebrity, Azamara and Hutigrutin. This cruise was by far the worse of any of our HAL cruises and may be the worse cruise we have ever taken.
I understand that holiday cruises and especially 7 day cruises can be different but this one was different in only bad ways.
The service in the MDR varied between slow and glacial. Menu choices were very limited. We cruised with our 5 and 8 year old grand children and 2 to 3 hour dinners do not work well with small children. It took more than 3 hours to complete our Thanksgiving dinner which consisted of a slice of turkey roll, a dab of stuffing, an almost invisible bit of cranberry sauce and some vegetables. I could have gotten a better Thanksgiving dinner at Mimi's for $15. Our waited said that the fact that we ordered items from the children's menu slowed things up. Didn't HAL have some inkling that there might be a lot of kids on a Thanksgiving week cruise.
Our cabin was excellent. However, we had selected 2 cabins that were next to each other so we could be next to our children's cabins. HAL moved us without asking us in spite of the fact that our TA put do-not-move on our reservations. The 2 cabins were close to each other but not next to each other.
Could not find anything interesting
The kids wanted to go to the beach