There is a lot of unrest in the Middle East, needless to say. Our itinerary included: Athens (boarding), and it's general strikes a day before my arrival, Egypt (2 ports) just a few weeks after the American Embassy wall was breached, Israel (2 ports)ongoing skirmishes, one while in Jerusalem, and Turkey (3 ports) bordering Syria and skirmishes taking place at the border and in the air, Greece (3 ports) with their economy diving, and Italy (2 ports & cruising Mt. Etna). Now these places are not for the faint of heart, but I will tell you HAL and ultimately our Captain were gutsy to call on some of these ports, but that is why many of us had taken this itinerary, to see the holy sites.

I met some people online at Cruise Critic and Holland America's Facebook page and put together a Meet and Greet on the day after sailing. I made name tage for everyone and we had coffee and cookies, talked shore excursions & ports for quite some time. Many of us got together for shore excursions and dinner after that meeting, and I never felt alone after that. We met for cocktails and Trivia most nights at 6:00pm in the Crow's Nest, then headed for dinner in the Fontaine. With As You Wish dining, we were put at a large table with strangers, who by the end of the meal were delightful acquaintances that we shared shore tips and talked about our homes.

On boarding the Prinsendam, there is something so different about her, you can overlook some of the blemishes (she was headed to dry-dock in FLL soon after our trip). You don't have the long, confusing corridors of some of the larger ships, and I have tried most major cruise lines big ships. This is not the ship to choose if you hang in the Casino all night (it's very small), or you want to dance the night away (there is no nightclub). This is a ship with itineraries that are different from the usual, with full day shore excursions, leaving you too beat to even catch the early show most nights. Only 650 passengers makes it easy to meet people, and they had many solo lunches on sea days where I met a plethora of other singles traveling to have meals with and do some shore excursions. With the smaller sized ship, there were no long lines for disembarkation, shore excursions met in the showroom and even the tender produced only one boat waits, ever. The ports this ship can get into that most ships cannot meant tendering was only required in one of the 13 ports we saw in 16 nights. In Marmaris, Turkey, we were the first "large" ship they had seen all season. It was one of my favorite places on the itinerary for that very reason. The days at sea had all the usual activities, including the Culinary Arts Center, which I found interesting each and every time I went there. Read more