When I booked our cruise on Holland America, I knew they had a reputation for being the “old people” cruise line. But we were going on this cruise as our “babymoon,” one last relaxing vacation before traveling with kids and loads of stuff. We aren’t really into late night partying, so I figured it wouldn’t matter. Having spent a week on the cruise line, I can confirm that it is definitely the old people cruise line, and there were several other things that will keep us from cruising on them again. If there was an incredible deal, we would sail on it again, but I would rather pay a little more on one of the other cruise lines, and here’s why.
For the record, I have been on several Carnvial cruises and one Royal Caribbean cruise, so that is what I have to compare to.
There were a few things we liked about Holland:
Ship flicks - you can rent movies from the main desk, which Stephen really liked.
Quality of the food - pretty much the same as the other cruise lines, which is good.
You could bring sodas on board - you could buy cans of soda, water, even bottles of wine and bring them on board. You just couldn’t bring liquors. We actually went to a Wal Mart in Puerto Vallarta to get Stephen some sodas.
Now to the things we didn’t like:
Quality of shows - the theater was very small and the shows were not nearly as good as we expected. The first night was “preview” show, and it was like a variety show. We weren’t highly impressed, but we weren’t disappointed.
The next night there were singers and dancers, and they were good, but not amazingly good. The dance team at the high school could do everything the dancers did and the singers were pretty standard. The next night was the comedian, who was not funny. We only smiled a couple of times and never actually laughed. The cruise activity coordinator was more funny.
Another night there was an Olympic gymnast, Lance Ringnald, from the 90’s who did a routine using the silk ropes, and we enjoyed his show. He was entertaining and funny.
There was another night of singers and dancers (which we skipped) and a night of oldies music by some unknown musician (which we skipped). In fairness, there were people who raved about the shows. Maybe our expectations were just too high.
No unlimited soda card - there was no unlimited drink card (for sodas) like on the other cruise lines. You could buy $50 worth of soda for $25, but then you had to keep track of how much you’d spent and whether you’d reached the $50 or not. It doesn’t cost them much for soda, they could at least do an unlimited card.
No 24 hour food - There was 24 hour room service, or so they said. But we tried to call twice around 9:30pm both times and the call went straight to hold and after 10 minutes on hold, I hung up. The dinner buffet ended at 8 or 9 and there was a “late night snack buffet” at 11, but there was nothing to eat from 8 to 11. Being 17 weeks pregnant, I was hungry around 9:30, and there was no food. On a cruise ship, that’s crazy! All the other cruises I’ve been on have had somewhere you could get pizza or burgers, but not this one. I started grabbing mini boxes of cereal in the morning and leaving them in the room for night. I guess most old people don’t eat late in the evening, and they were the majority of the passengers.
Layout of the room - The size and shape was basically the same as Carnival, but instead of having the sitting area/couch and then the bed, the bed was first. It made the room feel smaller to me, and like the sitting space was just wasted.
Dinner arrangement - We did not have a specific time to go to dinner, it was “open seating.” However, the second floor of the dining room was people who had specific dining times and tables (for some reason it wasn’t an option for us). So it was only one floor of tables, which lead to long lines. You could make a reservation each morning starting at 8, but there were specific times you could make a reservation (like 5:30, 7, and 7:30 or something weird like that). There was a separate line for people with reservations from the people without. If you got lucky and came at a down time, there wasn’t a long wait. But sometimes there was a long line to get in.
You could go eat at the upstairs buffet, but the food is not as good and it doesn’t feel as nice. Why go to Hometown when you can get a formal 4 course meal for the same price?
Small ship - there were only 1400 passengers on the ship. And of those, between 15 and 20 were children. There were a few couples around our age and into their early to mid 30s. I felt bad for the 10 - 20 single men and women who were in their 20’s and 30’s and looking for fun activities because there weren’t really any. One of those single guys, probably in his early 30’s, was complaining quite a bit at the pool one day at the lack of single women. (I saw 4 or 5 single women). The majority of people were aged 65 and above. One guy even turned 100 on the cruise. And I have a theory that old people are generally either very nice, interesting people, or very grumpy and rude. And we met plenty of both.
We don’t tend to make a lot of friends on vacation anyway (we just like being together). We’re friendly, but don’t go out of our way to hang out with other people. So lack of people wasn’t that big a deal (just interesting). But the ship was much smaller than we were used to. Carnival and Royal have huge atriums that are beautiful. This ship’s atrium had a very tall pipe organ (which was never played) and it took up most of the space. No grandiose glass elevators or big beautiful staircases. There was a spiral staircase, but it was more practical than aesthetic.
Lack of activities - There was not a whole lot to do. This is where it really seemed geared toward older people. There was bingo everyday, the casino, things like towel folding, spa packages you could pay for, a culinary showcase (which I’ll get to in a minute), and art shows/auctions. There was no dancing, no free demonstrations for makeup or massages, no active activities. The culinary showcase sounded very interesting. But when I went, the “specialist” was just a girl on a microphone while one of the chefs, also on a mic, made the food. And they had very awkward battles for who got to be talking, even talking over each other. The chef was trying to explain what he was doing and she would interject “fun facts.” So then the chef would just talk over her. I only went to one, so maybe they were just having a bad day.
Lack of photographers - I’m used to having photographers all over taking all kinds of different poses and styles of pictures. There were only 2 or 3 photographers on the ship, and they only did pictures a couple of the nights. There was a “formal” photographer you made an appointment with and could do a photo shoot with. We did and the photo shoot was fun, but it was kind of weird. You went into his “studio” and he played soft music in the back to inspire and make you comfortable. Then you had to go back to see the pictures on his computer slide show and sit there while he tried to sell you the photo package. The pictures turned out nice, but a single picture was over $100. For one picture. And the packages went over $1000. I guess old people usually have more money, too.
Some bad crew experiences - Overall the crew was very nice. But we had multiple poor encounters. The first was a casino manager. Stephen wanted to play in a poker tournament, but it had filled up before we got there. A few nights later there was another tournament on the daily program for the next day. So when I went to get hot chocolate (the only semi-filling thing available at 9:30), I went to pay and enter to make sure he had a spot the next day. The manager said there was no tournament. I insisted i had just looked at the program and there was one. He insisted there was not. He showed me their board with upcoming tournaments as proof. So I went down to the lobby desk to get a program. By the time I got back, he was gone and the girl behind the counter (who had been there for the whole original conversation) already knew that I had been right, but said it was a misprint and they weren’t going to do it. Even though all 1400 people had already received a schedule saying they would. In the end, both the manager and I were right, but he did not handle it well. He should have offered to check on it with me, instead of just insisting I was wrong.
The second bad experience was in the dining room. We got seated at a table for 8 and were told we had to wait for the table to fill up to order so it might be a while. There were 2 empty 2 person tables right next to us and we had the photo appointment we were trying to make, so we asked if we could move to one of those. They had to go check and then had us stand to the side while they set the tables. Which took much longer than it should have. The manager in charge of the section definitely took his time drying off all the silverware before setting ours on the table. Then he gave us a head nod to tell us we could sit. And the service was so slow the table of 8 filled up, ordered, and ate at about the same time as us.
We ordered room service the last morning and it never came. We tried to call, no one answered.
And one of the more disconcerting issues was the last morning. There was a knock on the door and Stephen immediately stood up to go get it because we were waiting for the room service breakfast. Before he could even make it a step from the bed, the door opened! Some guy who wanted to check the mini bar. But he didn’t say that, just shut the door. And came back in (he’d knock, put in his key, and walk in the room) multiple times. Stephen finally locked the door so he could come in anymore. We think a couple of the knocks were crew members trying to make sure everyone was awake, too. And our room steward did the same thing with the knocking and then entering before we could even get to the door. Luckily we were always dressed!
We didn’t spend the cruise unhappy. We enjoyed ourselves, the food (when available) was good, the ship was clean and well kept, and we relaxed and read by the pool and in the lounges everyday. But we both agree 100% that we would never choose Holland as the cruise line again unless it was an unbeatable deal.
