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OP: In spite of all the great info on Cruise Critic, it is still hard to get the feel for a different line until you are on board and experience it for yourself. I do hope you find the perfect cruise line.

I see you have cruised on Seabourn: how did that work out with children?

It was ok but obviously not set up for children. I wrote a review where I suggested folks with children carefully consider Seabourn. But like the HAL cruise, we had fun.

Did you ask for a children's menu? We had 200 kids on our recent Alaska cruise on the Noordam and many of them were eating in the dining room. I saw the children's menu in the serving area. I would not expect the Lido to have the children's menu since the food is buffet style.

 

Sorry to hear that Club Hal didn't meet your expectations. On our cruise a lot of the children were being supervised by their parents and I couldn't figure out why more parents weren't using Club Hal.

Yes we did ask at each premium restaurant and main dining room. No kids menus.

Also there was not a children's menu available anywhere except room service.

Concerning your second bullet-point * . If everyone was allowed to "sneak in line for mashed potatoes", you can imagine the chaos. You would have fist-fights, pushing, shoving and some nasty words spoken. Also, I have seen totally open ship buffets where guests grab a spoon of mashed potatoes or sour cream, and LICK THE SPOON, and put it back in the food. The line system and servers are there to prevent you from spending the remainder of your cruise either sitting on the porcelain or kissing it. When food on a cruise ship is concerned, play by the rules, wait your turn in line, and everyone will stay healthy. It's all done to keep your food, and everyone else's, sanitary and healthy.

Wow! I have never seen that and I hope if thats true you reported the person to the staff immediately so they could be properly reprimanded and educated. I also have never seen shoving or fighting on the cruise lines that have a more "help yourself" buffet. Seems to work fine on RCCL and NCL and Disney and MSC.

So we just finished a spectacular Alaska cruise on the Eurodam however I have learned Holland America is not for us. We are too young and we have children. After many cruises on various lines we were really disappointed with the Holland America format. I don't want to come across too negative because we enjoyed the cruise but I hope this review will help future cruisers decide.

* The HAL Club for Kids.. No GPS tracking bracelet for the child. Also our 10 year old was lumped in with 6 year olds. The big activity for one night was watching a movie. Twice we went to collect our child and there was no attendant at the desk. She was in back doing something. That is very poor security.

* The Lido Buffet.. Lines, Lines and more lines. You have to wait to be served the buffet items and handed your plate at that time. So if you just want to sneak in and get some mashed potatoes... no can do. You must wait in the line with everyone picking and choosing their food. Can take 10 minutes to get an item with this silly system. Seating is limited. When everyone hits the buffet between 5 and 7 good luck finding a table. Some folks "staked out" a table at 4:45pm before the buffet opened. Sad to waste vacation time to get a table to eat. Also the "Canaletto" pay restaurant is just a section of the Lido buffet area that has some glass partitions. No ambiance at all and you can see it is an afterthought. Food was good but atmosphere is the same as Lido buffet.

* Neptune Lounge. No free alcoholic beverages and appetizers straight from the Lido buffet. I am trying to figure out what is the function of the Neptune lounge? On Other cruise lines they have cocktail hours and nice food. Not here. But staff was very helpful when needed.

* On/Off ship at ports" ONE Gangway! Are you kidding? ONE gangway for both departing and boarding guests! Use your imagination how well that system works. Especially near departure time!

* Very limited food after 9pm. You must rely on room service. Almost all bars are closed after 9 pm. The typical demographics of Holland must be in bed at 9pm.

* Specialty Food: Excellent!

* Entertainment: Excellent

* Kids Activities: Little to none.

* Internet: Think 1990's 56k telephone modem speed.

* Staff: No longer Philippine only. Mostly Indonesian and Chinese but very friendly and helpful. A++

Thats about it for now but I am sure I will remember more later. In summary, Holland is a senior cruiser line. They need to just own that and market it and stop with the "we have gotten more family friendly" Let their other Carnaval Corp lines market to the family crowd. If I had no kids and was retired I would love HA!

Unfortunately due to non refundable air fare and scheduled vacation time it would be impossible for us to change dates. I would think that would be the case for most folks.

Our TA contacted us today and said the Alaska cruise we are book on is oversold in our suite class and they are offering some incentives to move to a different sailing? Why would they oversell a cruise? Its not like they don't know the inventory ahead of time?

So sad to lose a fellow diver. I have been certified for 20+ years and I have seen a lot in the dive business. On a side note and nothing to do with this tragedy, I think the whole business of "certifying" cruise ship guests just to make money off them is criminal. They offer these "get certified during your cruise" diving programs and then turn the tourists loose on a dive adventure. Its a joke and a disaster waiting to happen and death does happen all he time. Diving is serious business and a few days prep on a cruise ship is not even close to preparing someone.

I agree it is extremely unlikely it was an accident that could not have been prevented. I am 6'1" and I have never been on any cruise ship where I felt the railings were too low. Unfortunately people do stupid things and then bad things happen. And this costs us all one way or another.

I assume he will get a bill for the rescue costs?

It is *GT' date=' where the * stands for I (inside), O (Oceanview), or V (verandah). It is a restricted fare were you choose your cabin type but not the specific cabin and accept certain other written restrictions in exchange for a markedly decreased fare. They are usually offered on cruises that have not filled after the penalty date. Most of the time the sale price is comparable to the day 1 rate, but I've seen some cruises that were far less than a day 1. For example, on one cruise that was not filling (based on the availability showing on line), we were able to cancel an oceanview before the penalty date. A week later we purchased a VGT (balcony) cabin for $1000 less than the porthole cabin price![/quote']

Nice! I assume you have to use a travel agent to find these fares? Or call the line directly?

Most of the price differences I've looked at have been even more dramatic' date=' but those were all in non-concierge cabins. The most difference was on a British Isles cruise. 32 nights in a Princess balcony was $4000 less than 28 nights in an inside on DCL. Both were B2B cruises. An inside on Princess was 1/4 the cost of an inside on DCL. In fairness, that cruise on DCL was initially full but so many people canceled (as we did) that it went to *GT status before sailing.[/quote']

What is GT status?

One example:

CostComparison of Norwegian Cruise Lines vs. Disney Cruise Lines.

Pricing an actual cruise on September 2, 2017. Disney Fantasy which is the newest Disney ship and the NCL Escape, the newest NCL ship. Both trips are the same Western Caribbean itinerary for two adults and one child.

Disney: 1 Bedroom Concierge Suite $11,961.

NCL: 2 Bedroom Concierge Haven Suite $8,277.

DiningOptions: D=7 NCL=25

PrivateConcierge Pool: D=No NCL=Yes

PrivateConcierge Restaurant D=No NCL=YES

PrivateConcierge Bar: Yes* Yes

* Disney only serves drinks a few hours each day. The NCL bar is open all day and evening.

PrivateWorkout room: D=No NCL=Yes

PrivateDeck Chair Area: Yes Yes

We have done many cruises with our daughter on several lines. RCCL, NCL, Disney, Princess, Holland and now at age 10 she has decided that NCL is her favorite line. I completely agree. Disney was fun for a while but now that the characters are not important to her I would not even consider DCL anymore. Too much money compared the the competition. And NCL has the Haven which is a must have for us now. Disney and most other lines do not have anything as nice as the Haven.

or is it natures way of natural selection? If these idiots fall overboard and perish then they cannot reproduce which over time weeds out low IQ humans. Darwin would agree......

Very disappointed to hear this. The seas are their bread and butter. Makes me wonder too, have other lines tried to do the same thing?

Exactly. Its time the USA adds another penalty... if your cruise line is found guilty of pollution discharge into the ocean, your line will be banned forever from doing business in the USA as well as banned from ALL US ports. Also step up funding for the Coast Guard to do more random inspections and surveillance. I would like to see part of the billions that go to drug interdiction be funneled to protecting the sea.

So we just got off the Dream today. Did the 3 night Halloween cruise and while this was number 7 on Disney, it was our first time at Palo. I have to say it was amazing. It gets my highest rating for food and service. The only drawback is the noise from the sports deck right above. These ship designers must start putting the loud bars and night clubs under the sports deck and put the high end dining experience venues in a more isolated part of the ship. But this was a minor issue that keeps me from giving Palo a 10 but it gets a solid 9 from me!

This is why we will never cruise on the Magic or Wonder again. We always get a 1BR Concierge and the noise on the Magic was unacceptable. Never again.

Just an FYI... I read elsewhere a little while ago that the Member cruise is already 100% booked.

 

Not for me - - WAYYYYYY too expen$ive.

It is. I can;t believe it sold out in one day even with the premium price! I guess they really miscalculated that one. They could have added $1,000 "special" fee to every cabin and it would still be sold out. The missed a lot of revenue.

and based on the 2017 members cruise, they may also charge you 15% more than the going rate! LOL

It's always a tough call on if the value is there or not with DCL. We have to weight the higher cost vs. the overall greater vacation enjoyment for us on DCL. I am willing to pay a premium for what we consider a higher quality experience on DCL, but there is of course a tipping point where there price is not worth paying (especially as our kids get older). We tend to do DCL every other cruise and do other lines in between. I guess the fact that we keep going back to DCL says something about our preference.

Agreed. We did many Disney cruises because of our youngest. Now that she is older and burned out on Disney I suspect we will not do any more. Other than the Disney theme which is awesome for those who want that, the ships themselves have far less to offer than say the NCL Escape or RCCL Oasis. Our kids find far more to appeal to them on those ships than on Disney such as ropes course, multiple water slides, etc. Buy when your kids want to see the Disney characters there is not much choice.

But .... DCL has free soda. :D

LOL! Or perhaps they have the most expensive soda on the planet priced in the cruise...

My understanding is you can book the cruise but you can;t use points, only cash. But why would you want too? I just called to get a 1 BR concierge for the members cruise and it was $15,000 for 3 of us. No DVC discounts, no deals and full payment due immediately up front. I hung up on them. For $15k I can do an actual high end cruise such as Seabourn. Disney is not a high end cruise line. And be aware that most of the upper Disney travel management go on these cruises and demand the attention of the staff at the cost of the customers. I saw this first hand on the last two member cruises. Disney Cruise Lines has lost my business but there are 100 people in line behind me that are ready to hand over their cash. This is why I own Disney stock. They have done an exceptional job "selling the magic". Except for ESPN. That is a huge problem for the company.

There is no question that Disney is not a good value. In fact they are extremely overpriced. However the beauty of capitalism is that people will mortgage the house and max out the credit cards for the Disney experience. Thus their ships fill up with no problem and they rake in the money to offset the losses from the Albatross around their neck called ESPN. Disney has successfully been able to get the masses to drink the cool aid and just hand over their money. That is the reason I own Disney stock and love the brand. They do it better than anyone. Until the next recession....

I'm going to disagree.....

• time based internet has peak usage where everything just crawls when everyone wants to use it. Midnight to early morning offers the best performance. Super slow when everyone is back from port in the evening.
  
• quantity based means I can have my smartphone on all time throughout the trip. I can even use email another cruiser on where and when to meet.
  

Be careful with that. If you are using an iPhone for example it can download a lot of data in the background without you even knowing about it. For example if you forget to close your stock market app and let it run in the background.

Also I have found on every ship, regardless of the billing methods, when everyone gets back on the ship the internet grinds to a glacial pace.