Background: We're 57 and 62, cruised mostly on Celebrity and sometimes Princess. We've done the partial Panama Canal transit on Princess a few times and love the Canal experience. Schedule conflicts meant we couldn't cruise Celebrity this January, so we decided to try Holland America.

Pre-cruise: stayed one night at the Embassy Suites 17th St. using HHonors points. This is our usual pre-cruise hotel; love the nearby shops and restaurants and the ability to walk down to the 17th St bridge to view the harbor. The Embassy has consistently excellent service and is kept very clean; the suite furnishings are getting shop-worn and need replacement. For us the good outweighs the bad, since it's a free night with points, but I probably would choose another property if we couldn't use points. This was a Sunday departure and the hotel was very busy both Saturday and Sunday. We used the port transfer service for $9 each; you can charge it to the room or pay in cash. Took about 45 minutes from the time we checked out to the time we arrived at the terminal, around 11:30 AM.

Embarkation: Zuiderdam was at terminal 21 since Eurodam was at 26. This area of the port is a lot less congested at the moment due to terminals 22/24 and 25 being empty space (eventually to be a new terminal 25.) Dropping the bags and getting through security on the street level went quickly; check-in desks are on the second floor. At 11:30 embarkation hadn't yet started and the main waiting area was almost full; they did have coffee, water and pastries available. Check-in took about 20 minutes; we got a boarding group number and by that time they'd started moving people onboard. We waited only another 10 minutes and were informed on boarding that cabins were already available so we could drop the luggage right away, which made us happy. We went to make a 1st-night reservation at Canaletto and found it was 25% off. Pinnacle would also have been 25% off the first night. Read more