Selected this cruise to celebrate my wife's retirement. She wanted to sail to/through French Polynesia. First HA cruise. Despite the warnings about HA appealing to an older demographic (average age is 70), that has not been a problem at all. But after many cruises on Princess & Celebrity, the level of service particularly in the restaurant has been disappointing. The menu descriptions bear no ...
We did this same cruise on Volendam 14 years ago with kids and friends. It was our first cruise ever. But goes to show you can’t relive things twice….
What worked?
-great weather and scenery
-calm seas
-overall very friendly crew
-consistently clean cabin, cabin steward made silk from a sows ear
-performers and dancers entertained with passion and enthusiasm. Grace in the piano ...
When looking at Alaska cruising, everyone we spoke to said there was really just one option: Holland America. We found an itinerary that looked promising and we really enjoyed the itinerary. We arrived in Vancouver the day before embarkation and stayed at a hotel in Richmond, and took a ride share app to the terminal in Canada Place.
Embarkation was an extremely easy process; although two in ...
Our choice of Holland America was based on their reputation, itinerary, park rangers on board, age of passengers and size of ship. Alaska was amazing and the excursions in each port added to our overall enjoyment of Alaska. We wanted to experience a smaller ship with passengers that were seniors. Because it was a June sailing, we expected some children and multi generational families. ...
We took this cruise to Alaska because it was an outlier in price. The exact same cruise was 2x the price the rest of the year... so heck, why not? We went in with this in mind.
First off, ship is smallest one we have ever been on. It's still bigger than all heck, but keep that in mind. It has less stuff to do. It has nothing fancy. The TV didn't even have a kids channel, only news, History ...
We chose this cruise because it ended at our home port of Vancouver BC .
It was also our first cruise with the Holland America line.
Prior to boarding we had to sit on rows of chairs the were so close together that gave us a feeling of clostaphobia.
Upon embarking we were informed that our suites had not been made available due to cleaning etc, so we had to find a spot to sit untill ...
In the past 27 years, we’ve spent over 300 days on cruise ships, and this was definitely our worst experience. And that’s including a cruise to Alaska on the Radiance of the Seas when the entire crew had walked out two weeks before… If we had not previously sailed Holland America, there’s no way we ever would again.
We are low maintenance and have always enjoyed friendly relationships with ...
This was our 6th cruise but first on HA. They had to be short-staffed or something. However, if it weren't for good experiences in port, it would have been a pretty miserable vacation. I am not looking forward to cruising again for a long time.
Our first port day we set the card out for breakfast in the room the night before. We've done this on 5 previous cruises and have had no issues. ...
As always, the ship, crew and food were great!
The biggest issue was that more modern venues for entertainment have been shut down on the smaller boats. In the Ocean bar, the trio band (think older standards for ballroom dancing) played every night till 10pm and then at 11pm the cruise entertainment person took on the additional duty of DJ for the only dance floor left on the boat. Since it was ...
One star for Lincoln Center Stage and One more for our waiters and cabin steward, I'm behind generous.
We chose this 30 day itinerary, round trip Fort Lauderdale, because we were anxious to sail on the Amazon River in Brazil and see the towns and villages that were scheduled. As always I'll try to indicate the good points and not so good experiences so you can make your own decisions as to ...