My huband, myself and my two girls (4yrs and 10yrs) decided to go on a cruise with my parents. We had cruised before several times but only on Royal Carribean. My parents talked us into trying Holland America. We were skeptical because of the lack of information regarding the kids' club. We boarded the ship on a Saturday. The first thing we noticed that the main population of the ship was people over the age of 70yrs. We did not notice any young couples or families with children. It started to go down hill from there. Later in the day, we went to the kids' club (Club HAL), to enroll our children. We were saddened and frustrated to see that there was only one other children in each of their classrooms. When we asked the kids' counselor what happens in the event of an emergency and how do they contact us, this is what she replied to me. She stated that one time they had a little girl break her femur bone and the parents were on shore in Rome for 8hrs and there was NOTHING they could do for the child. Not even give pain medicine. So now tell me how does this put a parent at ease when already having issues leaving their kids behind. I was mortified. Why would anyone want to share this story with a parent? Well, with that news we rarely put our children into Club HAL..besides all they did with handful of kids that were there was plop them in front of a TV and pop a movie in! Now to move onto excursions. My husband and I had tried a couple of times to book excursions such as snorkeling while we were onboard. The sad truth was there was NOT ENOUGH people booked to hold the excursion. Well no wonder if everyone on the boat was over the age of 70yrs. We were very disappointed. Then the dining experience. This was probably the worst of all. Holland America advertises this "open dining" where you can come any time and not be tied down by fixed dining. Well this was a joke. They recommended that you make reservations and half the time you could only get reservations at 5pm or 8pm. Another negative was the dining staff. One observations that I noticed was that there was NO women wait staff...in fact NO women at all in the staff. I'm glad I'm not a feminist because I actually did find this rather disturbing. Ok, now with open dining, you never have the same waiter or any staff for that matter. So how do you tip someone that you only have for one day? The tips are managed very poorly. It is "recommended" that you give $11 a day to each staff, however, what if one staff member is awesome and the other gives horrible service? The sad answer is that both staff members receives the same amount of money. We experienced this first hand when one morning we went to the Lido restaurant (which is buffet style) for breakfast. We got to a table that didn't have any silverware. My husband asked one of the staff members for silverware. When we returned to the table with our breakfast we still didn't have silverware. I stopped a dining room attendant and asked him for silverware and stated that my husband had already asked. He muttered under his breath that I was "asking the wrong person". I was furious. I asked him to repeat what he just said and he just looked at me. I went and got my own silverware. Unfortunately the bad service just continued. Now to talk about the food. The food was HORRIBLE. The dining room food was horrible and had little selection. We ended up eating ALOT of steak. The Lido restaurant which is buffet style, had very salty food and the portions were ridiculous. We encountered staff members on line in front of us that received bigger portions! As far as room service, well I hope you like waiting. We waiting 45min for a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. I could have ordered Dominoes and waited less. We have been on Royal and never waited that long and this was a smaller ship! By the third day of this cruise, we had enough and decided to take our concerns to Guest Relations. We explained our concerns to the staff (which happened to be women, the only female staff members) and they took note. Later in the day when we returned to our stateroom, we had a book on how to make towel animals wrapped in bow on our bed. I thought, "Are you kidding me?". It was a gift from Guest Relations as an apology for the bad service. The next night at dining, we went to the main dining room. Well, our stateroom had been flagged. The wait staff were just oozing with kindness and charm over myself, my husband and my children. It was nice but we were disappointed that it took a complaint to get the service we should have been getting since day one. And the sad part is that the crew member who was horrible to us would be splitting the tip with the awesome waiter we had that night! Bad management on Holland America's part. One more point to add. If you are looking for a cruise that has plenty of activities forget this one. If you like playing bridge or bingo then this is for you. The majority of the bars closed at 10pm and as for the "nightclub", there were 2 (YES I SAID 2) couples dancing. The shows were a waste and well if you like gambling, well then you can fight one of the "older" passengers for a slot machine. To put an end to this lengthy review, my family and I will NEVER EVER said another Holland American cruise again. If you are retired and like to sit around then go for it. Otherwise stick to another cruise line that has family things and activities for younger people.