Background Information - Our 5th cruise, 4th in last 18 months on 3 lines (HAL, RCCL, and Carnival). 2/25/07 sailing to Southern Caribbean (The best itinerary of ports we've ever seen on a single cruise!)

Ship Info - Captain Peter Harris was wonderful. A real passenger's captain and true commander of all aspects of the ship! We met both the captain and his spouse on the deck; both were extremely friendly and personable. We saw him out and about on the ship several times! He rotates every 3 months, so he might not be on board when you travel.

Embarkation - From the greeters at the airport from HAL in baggage claim which arranged a bus for us stragglers running late to the crew which was waiting for us at the port... THEY WERE FANTASTIC. The crew... many of them officers / managers in the organization helped us pull / carry our luggage through the port right onto the ship. A heart felt thanks to you all! Thank you Captain Peter Harris and Holland America Cruise lines for saving our vacation (waiting for us). We went over 24hrs with little to no sleep getting to our cruise. We weathered a series of weather and airline related mishaps including 2 airlines (SWA, Air Tran), an ice storm, driving from 1 airport MDW to IND, multiple airline delays, and no gate once we landed. It seemed dismal as we waited for a gate for 45 minutes in FLL after arriving in the nick of time! We wanted to cry as we sat in the plane watching the clock tick by from 1533 to 1615. We literally ran from the plane to baggage claim, we were greeted by several HAL staff members, they saved the day! We arrived at port at 1700 exactly. Read more