My husband and I are experienced cruisers who have cruised almost exclusively on Princess for the past 8 years. We thought we would conduct a little experiment (while having a wonderful three weeks at sea) and do a back to back to back on three different ships. We have been to the Caribbean many times, so we are not focused on the destinations and don't usually do shore excursions to places we've already been many times. We are 62 and 63 years old and like many baby boomers, we enjoy an active but refined cruise experience. We like the production shows and other entertainment in the theater as well as interesting activities during the day. We do social ballroom dancing so we are very interested in the live music on the ship and the dancing venues. We also enjoy fine dining - that includes good food as well as good service from waiters with whom you can develop a rapport. We also appreciate a ship with many sitting or lounging areas -- around the pool, quiet shaded areas, different lounges at night, etc.

For this experiment, we started out on Liberty of the Seas (Royal Caribbean for a 5 day Eastern Caribbean Feb. 11, 2013), then moved to the Caribbean Princess for a 7 day Western Caribbean (Feb. 16, 2013) and finished with a 7 day Eastern Caribbean on Holland America's Eurodam (Feb. 23, 2013). I've written reviews of each of them and you can find them under my id: lovetocruisenow. It was very interesting to compare the three different cruise lines and ships in such close proximity. Here's the Eurodam review.

My husband and I had not sailed on Holland America for about 8 years so we were anxious to see how today's HAL experience compared to what we remembered. The good news is most of the "finer" things we remembered about HAL are still there. It's still a refined way to cruise. There were some changes of course. The average age of the passengers (on this 7 day Caribbean) was younger than some of the HAL cruise -- probably around 60-65. Here's the good and bad from the cruise: Read more