Let me begin by saying that this was my first cruise on a "big ship" cruise line. I chose Holland America because I liked their itinerary and I had heard good things about them on Cruise Critic and from friends.

Regrettably, my experience with Holland America is such that I will never travel with them again!

Stateroom accommodation: . The room was lovely, the bathroom was large, there was plenty of storage space and the verandah had two chairs, a table and a chaise. It also had a vibration that was so bad it made my husband constantly nauseous and caused our stateroom door to rattle so loudly that it kept us up at night. Customer service agreed the vibration was very strong in our room, but could do nothing about it, so my husband, the engineer, fashioned a door plug from a piece of cardboard and jammed it in the door each night. That helped the noise, but the vibration remained and was unchanged whether we were in port or at sea. When you stood in the shower you had to hold on at all times because the vibration actually caused the shower curtain to move! The first two nights there was no air conditioning and we left the door to our balcony open. Customer service came to the room to check the temperature and agreed it was hot. I explained about asthma and how important clean air was and on day three the a/c was finally fixed. On day four we were notified that there would be balcony maintenance between 1 and 4 p.m. I don't know what they did to the balcony but my chaise disappeared and the smell of varnish/lacquer was so strong I was unable to stay in the cabin for more than a few minutes at a time! Read more