We have cruised before with Royal Caribbean and we are Platinum members with Princess. We chose HAL for its itinerary. First hand the ship is impressive and user friendly. Both embarkation and disembarkation were flawless. But sail-a-way was ordinary and we missed the hoopla we have had on other cruises. Both pools were very nice and I like the movable roof at the midship pool. The aft pool was also good but I disliked that smoking was allowed here. No matter where you sat, the smell of smoke was present. I also noticed that no pool boys were seen and the cruise wide chair hogs were apparent everywhere with no discipline whatsoever.

We saw very little of the onboard entertainment and so cannot comment. But I did note that the cruise director did very little and seemed somewhat of a snob. We booked our own excursions with friends we made on cruise critics and found the onboard excursions pricey for what was offered. When tendered in Santorini, the ship let the pax who had ship excursions off before the rest resulting in our pre-booked excursion being shortened. Not nice HAL.

My biggest con is with the onboard dining. The Lido Market was chaotic at best. There were no specific lines and the service staff seemed unaware of what they were serving. I asked for oatmeal but was given a dry cold cereal. Many of the staff in the Lido were also curt & unresponsive to your needs. The main dining room somewhat much better. The courses more pizzazz than taste. The presentation may have competed with 5 star restaurants but the end results left less to the imagination. I'm also confused as to a wine steward who cannot make a wine suggestion. Most couldn't even pronounce the names of wines they served. In fact I brought 2 bottles onboard which I brought to the dining room, the wine steward looked at the bottle and mispronounced it's name; chianti. The assistant waiters also didn't seem to understand basic English. We ate in the Pinnacle Grill which I found ok but not great. I was looking forward to America's Test Kitchen but found our that the space was used by Club Orange, which was never full. I'm not to keen on having to book a suite to try out the fare in that restaurant. Read more