This 35 day Hawaii/French Polynesia cruise was our longest ever and our 19th cruise overall on many different lines (Carnival, Celebrity, Cunard, NCL, Princess and Royal Caribbean).
We flew from Ontario to San Diego 3 days before the cruise and stayed at the Old Town Inn which was a great location to tour the city. We walked to historic Old Town and took the trolly tour to all the popular ...
We chose this cruise for the itinerary. We had sailed HAL once previously for a Sea of Cortez cruise which we thoroughly enjoyed.
The entire cruise was a repositioning cruise from Vancouver, BC to Auckland, NZ however, because we are not yet retired and the entire itinerary would have stretched our time off too much, we decided to pick it up for the Honolulu to Sydney segment. So when we got ...
We needed a cruise to return home to Sydney & the Noordam was leaving at the right time.
We have never sailed on a HAL ship before, it was not our first cruise.
Found the ship very nice, inside cabin very roomy & great service from our room stewards,
The Buffett section was very nice & a good variety of food with exceptional service, the dinning room was also very good, liked the bit you ...
This was a terrific cruise! We need an accessible cabin and ours was great! Our stewards were polite, kind, and very attentive. The dining room staff were great...always remembering our names and our drinks! Food was terrific, both in the dining room and in the buffet. Service all over the ship was beyond. The staff was always friendly, smiling, ready at all times to help out. Our captain ...
As usual, I had a great time on the cruise. We had some problems but I felt that most were handled very well.
Problems first....
Probably the very worst was the embarkation in San Diego. Getting checked in was awful. First there was a line to go through security (took me 30 minutes), then a line to register your wine if you were bringing any on (15 minutes), and then the worst - checking ...
We had planned this cruise before my husband died, but he had made me promise to go even without him. I had mixed feelings but continued on with the cruise.
I arrived in San Diego two days before the cruise and was able to tour the city before the cruise. I was also able to go to a pre-cruise dinner with some of my new Cruise Critic friends.
Embarkation went smoothly for me but from what ...
We just returned from a 35 day cruise of the South Pacific and were left with mixed feelings about the overall experience. This was our first cruise on Holland America and we selected it based on its South Pacific itinerary.
Embarkation: Boarding in San Diego was efficient and uneventful with the exception of a noticeably high number of over 70 guests - some with walkers or scooters. ...
After having to postpone this wonderful itinerary for almost 3 years due to health issues, we finally boarded the beautiful Westerdam on Oct. 4 for our 30 day cruise to Hawaii and the South Pacific.
Stayed at the Best Western Yacht Harbor Hotel in San Diego for 2 nights prior. Nice room overlooking the bay -- staff was very accommodating. DH traveled with his scooter and the hotel arranged for ...
BACKGROUND: After flying to San Diego the day before our cruise, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Harborside. This is conveniently across the street from the dock. In fact, we watched the Westerdam arrive early that morning from our hotel balcony.
EMBARKATION: We walked our bags across the street at 10:30 and checked them in outside the terminal. Inside the terminal there was just a 5 minute ...