To start off with, I do not plan on bashing everything that went wrong. That isn't my style. I intend to merely provide a comparison of Holland for those that are frequent Carnival cruisers. This was my sister's wedding cruise so much of my family is in Holland's 60+ demographic. We had my aunt, aunt/uncle, parents, groom's mother, the bride and groom (37)...and on the young side my cousin and her husband (22) and my husband and I (29). It was my first HAL cruise and this is their newest and largest ship. Overall I'd rate HAL a C+. It wasn't to the level that I'd never cruise with them b/c I'd probably cruise again with them when I'm old. My brief summary is that this is not a ship for those that like a drink every now and then. It's a wine and beer only ship.

PRECRUISE: We drove down from NC. I forgot how much further Fort Lauderdale is past Port Canaveral. We stayed the night at the Hampton Inn- FL Airport North. It was very nice. The room was there when we crashed into it about 2 am. My family had arrived earlier. The front staff was very helpful with last minute shopping suggestions (it's not far from mall) and the complimentary breakfast is average. The Hampton coffee as always is amazing. The shuttle drivers are friendly and helpful. It's a free shuttle to airport or cruise port. DH & I were on the 1:30 shuttle (the rest of my family took the 10:30 shuttle). It's $30 to leave your car there for the week.

EMBARKING/DISEMBARKING: Lower than average. For those that normally cruise Carnival, it's big open terminals that I can barely walk through fast enough as I've never seen a line. HAL is a bit different. Old run down place, wooden yard sale tables. No real direction once you got up there to figure out the US citizens line vs non. Luckily everyone on board was non and I was able to check in fast. As we got on board around 2:30 (the latest we've ever done due to last minute shopping), the rooms were ready which was nice. Disembarking was total chaos. We got off the ship, found the luggage, and had to get into custom lines. These were so wide people thought it was 3 people wide. No one was directing you to the additional lanes or regulating the chaos at all the Holland assigned people were in charge of watching the luggage. Read more