We decided to take this cruise because Holland America was reported as a premium line and we were going to visit the Panama Canal. My DW and I are in our mid 50's and were in stateroom 5104 mid ship. We did the partial transit because we had no interest in the cities on the Western side of Mexico and wanted to see Aruba and Curacao. I will attempt to break the review into destinations and specific areas on the ship itself. A little note about my shipmates. There was a large population of more mature individuals but everyone seemed to get around the ship fairly well. Last January we did a Princess cruise and the demographic seemed to be at least 25% in walkers and scooters. Another note to make now is that this ship rocked and rolled worse than any ship I have been on in my vast 5 cruise career. My DW used Dramamine quite a bit. Also the lifeboat drill was very unorganized especially considering the advanced age of us passengers.

The embarkation went as smooth as with other lines we have sailed on (Princess and Carnival). We arrived and filled out the paperwork stating we were not sick. We were directed into a line and once we had our cards we were let on the ship. We arrived about 1115 am. Once on the ship we were directed to the elevator to drop our gear off in our stateroom. I thought the welcome was a bit ho-hum compared to Princess where I felt truly welcome once on the ship. This was just an impression and did not impact my vacation.

The stateroom was as reported by other reviews. I had a few lights not working and the couch (hide a bed) was a bit thread bare but still nice. The pillow top mattress was not too hard but not soft either. My DW travels with an air mattress so we were very comfortable. Note that there is one outlet in the bathroom and one on the desk area. There are no more so plan accordingly. The AC worked perfect the entire trip and the toilet flushed every time as designed. No odd smells anywhere on the ship I was currently at. We had warm water in the bath but not any really hot water. It did the job so we did not complain. I have to admit that the TV channels were better than other lines and the ship had a video library that we could borrow from so we could have some alone time. The cabin stewards were awesome (if I can use that word), they seemed to know when we were in or out and when we stepped out they were in the room and cleaned it or set it up for night. It took several days before I even saw them in the hall to see what they looked like. My balcony overlooked one of the lifeboats that doubled as a tender, more on it later. Read more