Good cruise on Holland America which we'd sail again but never in an inside cabin again. We were disappointed by the upcharges at the specialty restaurants and that the items that used to be included are no longer included and you need to pay for. They need more bar/wait staff, took over 30 minutes each time for drink orders.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
super easy and fast to get onboard. Only downer was they've changed policy on bringing personal fan and extension cord onboard. They confiscated our luggage and never notified us. We found out when we inquired with guest services to check where our 1 missing bag was. Seems they would have notified us before the 3-4 hours had passed.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
While we've always had extremely good food onboard HAL ships, they quality and quantity seems to have went down across the board. We had the Have It All Program which included a free speciality dining which we went to the Pinaccle Grill. Usually anything on the menu is included. However now they're doing upcharges for items that used to be included, such as the lobster or larger size steaks. We do not like being charged for the specialty dining AND having an upcharge for additional items that used to be included. No reason to do the specialty if you can't get the "special" items!
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
The entertainment onboard was just so so. On prior cruises, the dueling piano players were excellent! The ones on this ship while good piano players should NEVER have been signing! They sang awful, I'm sorry! The dance shows were actually pretty boring. The comedian was also just so/so along with the magician. We played bingo and played in the casino. We also went to the spa which was excellent!
Entertainment
2 out of 5
Already shared above
Children's Programs
no children
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Our stateroom stewards, Yardo and Yogi were outstanding! Always brought us extra ice as asked, room was always clean and they always remembered our names whenever they saw us in the hallway. They did bring us a fan to use in our cabin since ours was confiscated. Still not sure why we can't just use our own as long as they're still allowed in the room!
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Ship was very well maintained and clean
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
We had asked 3 times with our agent before booking that we wanted a large interior stateroom with an L shaped couch (only reason we'd do inside cabin). While she assured us the cabin we booked did have this and stated she had checked with HAL, this was not the case. Cabin #4072 was a standard interior room but very small, especially for 2 people of size. We did not have any other cabins on either side of us (there was a cool storage/ice thing maybe on one side) and some crew service on the other. We never heard any noise at all from either side. We were in the exact middle if the ship so it wasn't far to either end.
We did luggage direct which takes your luggage night before disembarkation directly to the airlines and checks you in for your flight. I'd highly recommend this! No luggage to take to airport at all or check in! I called an uber while still inboard and we were off and in the car 7 minutes later! Extremely easy and fast disembarkation!
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HeavySeas 23 hours ago
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