The following is a review of our recent sailing aboard Eurodam (17-24 December), our first time with Holland America Line. Our photos are at http://globaltraveller.smugmug.com/Ships/Eurodam.

We really wanted to like HAL. Celebrity is our preferred cruise line, but we tend to alternate between Celebrity and other lines (and between cruising and land vacations). Our most recent cruises have been on Celebrity Summit (Bermuda), Celebrity Solstice (E. Caribbean), and Disney Magic (Mediterranean). We did our best to check our previous experiences at the gangway and go about this cruise with open minds. Long story short, however, is that the comparisons to Celebrity and other lines were inevitable, and often not in a favourable light for HAL (which we'd hoped could become a regular line for us).

But let me be clear in saying that we had a good time overall. Being on a ship beats being at home, and being in warmer climes this time of year is always a plus. HAL does a number of things well. They started us off on a great note by upgrading our VH guarantee booking to a VA aft-facing balcony, a great surprise two weeks before sailing, and that was the biggest highlight of our trip. Beyond this, however, the potential for greatness was there, but the execution left us with a rather mixed experience (and take it as just that, what we experienced and how we saw things -- some on this and recent cruises have voiced similar thoughts, while many others have enjoyed themselves immensely... 'different strokes' and all that). There wasn't one thing that went horribly wrong. Ours was an experience more of subtleties and intangibles, some things that worked and some that didn't, adding up to an average week with no 'wow' factor or much that was 'above and beyond.' Read more