Veteran cruisers but never on HAL - seeking input

[jeh10641]

On 9/10/2022 at 2:55 PM, judatt said:

Greetings everyone. We have been on several cruises on Celebrity (20+) and almost as many on Royal Caribbean. Several on Carnival (with kids and grandkids). One each in NCL and Princess but never on HAL and honestly don’t know why. HAL has some longer itineraries that look very interesting to us but before we sign up for a 30+ night cruise we thought we’d try a shorter one to see how we like it. We’re thinking of the Eurodam to Alaska Oct 1. 
I realize this is the HAL board so we expect most if not all replies to be positive and frankly I’ve heard nothing but good things about HAL.  only negative I’ve heard is that it tends to be an older crowd but hey - that’s us - we are 69 and 70. For those of you who have sailed Celebrity or RCCL as well as HAL I’d be interested in any comparisons you might have. 
thanks for any and all input you might give us. 

Hi, judatt,

My wife and I were on Navigator of the Seas 2008 (transatlantic, Nov.). I was 67, she was 65. Since then, we have done HAL cruises in 2012, 2016 and 2021 (80 and 78). We are doing Anthem of the Seas next October (2023, price/itinerary). We enjoyed all of them. The food tends to be better on HAL. We like HAL's longer trips. Although AOTS next year is 15 nights. We like the "calm" of HAL. We love the Music Walk on HAL but are looking forward to AOTS's theatrical shows. We are not pool sitters. We like to be busy or not (our choice). I hope this helps a little bit.

 

Jim

[curmudgeon98]

We all have different tastes that affect how well a cruiseline suits us, as well as different price points we are looking for.  We did Celebrity and HAL cruises to Alaska a few years ago.  For us, Celebrity had pretty good MDR food (and rather poor buffet food), good entertainment, and didn't handle the itinerary quite as well.  HAL seemed pretty average all around, without any particular high or low points.  

 

Our takeaway was that we'd probably lean towards Celebrity over HAL in the future, but neither really grabbed us.  After those we did a NCL cruise to fit a specific date/itinerary (was fairly poor all around), and then gravitated towards smaller ships of Azamara, Oceania, and Seabourn which all have better food/service than HAL (though at a higher price).

 

We got sucked back onto HAL this fall with some "free" casino offers, so we're giving them another try.