Overall a great cruise. Ship was in wonderful condition, service was outstanding and food was good. Love the glassed in shower! Tendering in some ports was a bit rough (lines and delays) but that was due mostly to the weather. HAL's strength is in their staff. Never encountered any staff who were grumpy or said no! They all seemed happy to be back to work. Captain is entertaining and runs a tight ship.

The only negative was a lack of entertainment options. Unless you want to listen to music or go to the casino (slots are terrible by the way) very little is offered in regards to on board activities. We traveled with two children, 12 and 9, and if the itinerary wasn't so port intensive we would have had bored children on our hands. The HAL kids club grouped kids 3-12 which didn't go over well with our two, so they just went for the very limited free time. That being said we all know that HAL isn't geared towards children.

Three of our five person party had club orange. It was worth it for priority tendering and the Club Orange dining (but we paid for it as it was cheaper to upgrade the room that way than outright as we had two rooms, one with a single traveler). Although its best if all travelers in your party have it, we couldn't use it as much as we would have liked with 2 of our party not having Orange. Read more