This was our 14th cruise, the first with Holland America Line and first since the pandemic. We chose it to try out HAL since we have a Mediterranean cruise booked with them for June 2022. We usually base our cruise line decisions on who has the most desirable itinerary.

Overall, we were very impressed with HAL. The ship was virtually brand new and immaculate. Due to the pandemic HAL was reserving parts of some floors for potential quarantining, so we were given a free upgrade to a Verandah Spa room on deck 10. It was a wonderful room. One word of advice here, if you choose these rooms, do not pick one too close to where the big screen is by the pool on deck 10 because that thing is loud, and it is on even at 5am. Our room was 10025 farther down the hall.

The boat can carry 2666 passengers, we had maybe 1000 on board. On the cruise prior to ours there were only 500 passengers on board. For us, it was great, like having your own boat. The clientele is older, and we saw no children on board. Read more