Over the years a friend and I have organized many cruise groups for a hospital based group from Indiana. We are nurses not travel agents. We always end up with some additional participants made up of friends and family or others who have heard about our group. I look for specific criteria for each trip based on ports of call, size of the ship and cruiseline. Many of our participants are Mariners so Holland America was on the top of the list. When making the ship selection I focus heavily on keeping the bottom line price affordable for our participants on a budget yet the Holland America Line offers the luxury and amenities we all enjoy. Sailing out of Seattle also allowed for more competitive flight prices and allowed those with sky miles the opportunity to use them. I will also add that a few years ago several of us had already sailed the inside passage with HAL so I was looking for some variation. The Amsterdam met all of our needs.
Our group of 28 was made up of 18 people traveling as couples and 10 solo travelers. There were 10 nurses in this group.
Most of us flew in from Chicago Midway with group rates on ATA. We met up with some others coming in on other flights from Atlanta, California, Iowa and South Dakota. Our Grayline charter bus took us to The Paramount Hotel on Pine Street in downtown Seattle for a one day visit of the city prior to embarkation. All were pleased with the hotel location and accommodations.