.. but for sure not the last. We chose HAL due to time constraints - our travel partners needed to go earlier in 2014 than we planned. It turned out to be no problem and we were told we beat some of the larger crowds that show up later.

This was our 9th cruise overall. We have tried Princess, RC, Carnival, and NCL . When not traveling with our family, we enjoy Princess, but the kids and grand kids like Carnival. We found HAL very similar to Princess, though we were told by other passengers that this cruise had a younger than average crowd for HAL. The ship was a nice size - it had multiple options for food and entertainment, but was small enough to walk. Our room was fine, but the dark woods made it seem a little small. Deck 5 is just above the lifeboats, so you loose a little balcony space. I knew this up front, but our travel mates were new to cruises and worried about seasickness on higher decks.

We used HAL for hotel transfers and airport transfers. At embarkation it was great. They picked us up and dropped us right at the entrance. It was the fastest check in I ever experienced. The disembarkation was not well done. We were the first group off since our flight was around noon. Due to this fact alone, we were expected to carry al our bags off the ship. We struggled down the stairwells and finally made it off the ship. Arrival was suppose to be 7:00, but was pushed back to 8:00, even though we were at the dock at 6:00. The bus left around 8:30 and we made it to the airport in time to stand in other lines for 1-2 hours. We did make our flight, but there was not much time to spare. Read more