I fully understand you - we too loved the Prinsendam and sailed on her several times even though during the last few cruises renovations/dry dock became really urgent in some spaces . One of my fondest memories is the last cruise which was really special before she was sold.
Now , being German and thus having no language problems, we sailed on her a few weeks ago - she is called Amera now.
Some of her best features are still there, of course the space on her decks, the comfortable cabins with lots of space ( one minus is that the bathrooms have not been renovated yet and you have to choose between a clingy curtain or a bathtub to stumble in...) , a lot of the original furniture is still there, the lounges and bars, the Lido buffet partly with new furniture, the restaurants unchanged. In that Phoenixreisen, the new owner, has done a good job. Internet and TV is working fast and efficiently, but not even Sky news or another English-speaking programme on sight - sigh... And the service is still fantastic - most of them come from the Philippines and Indonesia and quite a lot have sailed on one of the HAL ship before. That was a lovely experience! But to be honest - in some other aspects we found the ship too "German" - the food was really good but not at all with an international touch, the lecturers spoke only German of course as there were only a handful of international guests, the shows - let's not talk about them... . Most of them we found really awful in regard to professionalism.
We enjoyed the experience on Amera, though, and to bekind of re-aquainted with Prinsendam but won't go again.
We're very much looking forward to sailing HAL again in February!