PacificMountain2012

I'm hoping to get some thoughts from everyone. I have been put in charge of organizing a cruise to Alaska in July 2025 for approximately 45 people. The cruise is in honor of my father who passed away in February. We will be burying him at sea during the cruise, as we did for my mother a few years back. Here is my question, our party will range in age from 14 years to 84 years. Its pretty well distributed between the years. On Holland, I'm not particularly concerned about activities and things todo for the older guests, but more for the younger, 14 - 28 for example. My family has done Alaska before, so we know what to expect; heavy on excursions, etc.. but I want to make sure we don't have a bunch who are bored and frankly I wouldn't want to subject other guests to number of younger guests running around; not to suggest they aren't well behaved. Would you recommend Holland? Note, I'm posting similar questions on Princess and Celebrity's communities as well. Thank you for your help.

The time you enter the LA Area, that would be Sylmar coming south on the 5, will determine how bad it is for you traffic wise. Obviously the earlier the better. Anytime late afternoon on and you will run into your basic LA freeway gridlock. It won't really matter what freeway you're on or what direction you're are going. If you really want to go to the Santa Monica Pier, you can bite the bullet (you never know maybe no traffic!) and head straight there on the 405 (to the 10 west) and then plan to stay in Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey or the Airport area for the night. Lot's of hotels and restaurants. In the morning get up early and head down the 405 to the 710, traffic should be fairly light, just don't wait too late in the morning. If you can live without Santa Monica, I would stay on the 5 south and stay in the Glendale area, lots of hotels and eating options, not much sight seeing however. Then in the morning you'd have a 45 minute or so drive down to Long Beach (you'll hit some traffic going through downtown LA but that should be it). Sounds like a great car trip you have planned! Hope that helps

Did a 1:50 from Hobby a week an half ago and we were there early enough to make a 11:30 flight. This was during the week though, I don't know how crowded security lines are on the weekends, which could make a difference.

Stayed in the Hampton Inn, Webster probably a dozen times. Its a typical Hampton Inn, but it close to lots of restaurants (good bbq not far away), has the usual Hampton inn breakfast and is typically priced right.

The DoubleTree is a half mile from Hobby and they have a free shuttle from the airport. There is a restaurant on property as well as a bar. Its a nice hotel, not great, but for a night works great. We are using it again this week.