Our family of four (Mom, Dad, DD-20 and DD-15)chose this cruise on the Eurodam primarily for two reasons: its schedule (12/26 to 1/2) fit the school schedules and the ports were southern enough to assure that we would have warm sunny days that they wouldn't be having in our home in Pennsylvania. We had no prior experience with HAL; prior cruises having been with Royal Carribean and Celebrity. We used Cruise Critic to do background on the ship and the line and found that HAL has many loyal fans. Being a holiday cruise, the prices were definitely not low, but we used an internet tour service which offered significant on-board credit and also purchased 200 shares in CCL, HAL's parent company, and so received the $100 per cabin credit as shareholders.

We participated in the Roll Call for this cruise and gained additional information and tips. A special thank you to Tia Thomas and Meghan Mulholland, the events directors, who set up a Cruise Critic Meet and Greet less than three weeks before the sailing. They reserved us a large space in the Crow's Nest Lounge at sailaway - only the very GREATEST place on the ship! - with coffee, cookies and punch. The only thing I would have liked to improve the experience would have been to make the event better known, but there is no events bulletin board and we could not get on the daily events calendar (a policy thing, I think). Also, pier 29 where the Eurodam was berthed, was inconvenient for cab ingress and egress and we had some trouble finding the correct way in and depositing our luggage; luckily we corraled one of the HAL employees on her way somewhere else and she courteously helped us out.

We soon learned that the Eurodam's crew is primarily all Indonesian, trained by HAL abroad. They are helpful yet unobtrusive, and sometimes seem to be reading your mind, they are so quick to bring you what you need. Read more