Impressions of Holland-America

Overall I give Holland good marks as a cruising experience. It was everything you would expect on a middle quality cruise line. (same as Princess)  Now, admittedly, we can only compare to Princess and I’ll try to be fair in my comparison.  You can see our balcony stateroom on the left.  They do some nice things like having the current day of the week on every elevator mat as you can see on the right.

But I’ve highlighted a few detailed items below.   If you are not interested in a commentary like this, feel free to stop reading. 

The dining room service and food was very good. I did miss the everyday menu items (e.g. Fettuccini Alfredo)  on Princess when the main entrees do not appeal.  But there was only 1 dinner where that happened for me and I did find an entree for that meal.  My one complaint is the hours on the buffet.  On most days it was closed between 10:30 and 11:30 am as well as from 8:00 pm until 10:30 pm.  This is quite a change from Princess where the buffet is open between 6am and 10 pm and the International Cafe is open all night.  Admittedly this put a dent in our nightly chocolate chip cookie run, but we adapted. LOL

We had anytime dining.  They have 2 dining rooms on this ship, one for anytime and one for fixed seating.  I thought I had reserved a table for 2 at 5pm using the Navigator app before the cruise, but when I checked on day 1, they could not find it so I made the reservation.  As long we we arrived by 5:15, we would get our table for 2.  We did get the same table and wait staff each night which was very good.  In general, dining in the Princess app is a bit better. as it offers more options.  We had one premium restaurant night included in our package and we enjoyed the Pinnacle Grill very much.

Speaking of the Navigator app, it's a pretty good app.  You must to use it for all excursion tickets (no paper tickets available).  It takes a while to get used to it, but once you learn a few things, it works OK. You can view all ship activities using it and add some to My Itinerary which was nice.  You can also view your billing statement and other common activities.  

The internet is quite different.   No staffed internet cafeteria to help users.  I had no issues with the login process as the steps are well documented. The basic internet package only lets you get to common webmail and social media sites.  To view any other sites you need to upgrade to Premium (only cost $40 each for our 7 day cruise since we had the 1 device basic plan as a part of our package). It uses Starlink and I found performance to be pretty good.  I just ran an internet speed test and got 30 Mbps down and 2 up. Quite acceptable for a cruise ship.

The evening entertainment shows are quite different from Princess.  While Princess employs their own singers and dancers to put on a number of Production shows, I suspect Holland contracts with people for this service.  We had a 6 person dance company on our cruise.  We did enjoy the music a lot on this cruise as they had a pair of piano players who we listened to most nights. We had heard that most Holland ships have very good music programs.   We have not attended various bar performers on Princess, but did enjoy hearing the Princess band, pianists, or other classical performers in the Atrium area during the day.  Speaking of the atrium, that is the center of activity on a Princess ship, but on this one, it was hardly used.  

They had a very good presentation about the behind the scenes activities it takes to run a ship like this called "City on the Sea".  It was a very informative presentation about everything from electricity generation, to food prep, water and waste management, and internet.  It was very lively and entertaining and Mary and I enjoyed it a lot.  At the end, they had nearly the entire crew come out on stage!  If you take a Holland cruise, I highly recommend seeing this presentation.

In summary, we enjoyed our cruise and will consider Holland-America again if it offers an itinerary we would like to take.   We do like the size of their ships (1500 -2200 passengers) as opposed to Princess ships running from 2800 to 4300 people unless you can get on the Island or the Coral.   So we shall see what cruises we pick.

Tomorrow we leave the ship around 8:15 am to head to the airport for our direct flight home.   Hopefully nothing happens that triggers another blog post!   Our next scheduled trip is a road trip to upstate New York in October.

Cruise Day 6 - Ketchikan Excursion

We had a VERY early morning today, with the ship arriving at Ketchikan at 7am, and we had to be ashore by 7:15 am for our excursion.  Overall our excursion went well, but was quite wet; it varied between light and moderate rain all morning.  We did see 5 bears taking salmon out of the river and, in addition to many pictures, I got a few videos showing a bear picking a salmon from the stream and taking it to the shore to eat it.  Here is a short video showing this.

On the left are two pictures of a bear consuming a salmon. 

On the top right is a marking a large male bear puts on a tree to mark his territory.

The bottom right is another bear who just finished eating a salmon and dropped the remains into the stream.

Tomorrow is basically a sea day as we sail for Victoria, arriving around 6pm and staying for a few hours, before sailing on to Seattle. 

Cruise Day 5 - Sitka

As you can see in this picture, we arrived in Sitka early this morning, for another rainy and chilly day.  We took our time getting off the ship as we had no schedule to follow.  The Sitka cruise terminal is quite a ways from town and they have a very nice retail building here.  But they run a free shuttle bus into town for all the cruise passengers.  Our bus driver mentioned that the cost of living is pretty high here, with bread costing $10/loaf.  He also mentioned how all the high school athletic teams have to fly to any out of town matches!  

We walked around town, visiting a few gift shops.  Sitka has strong Russian heritage and was the regional capital before it was purchased by the USA in 1867.  The Lutheran church on the left was founded in 1840 by the Finnish Lutheran church. The Russian Orthodox church was not open when we were in town so you only get an outside picture.

After spending too much time in the rain, we headed back to the ship  for lunch.  Sail away is at 4pm today so we can get to Ketchikan by 7am tomorrow. 

Cruise Day 4 - Glacier Viewing

 

Well, today was supposed to be a pretty scenery and glacier-viewing day, but the weather had other ideas. It was cold (52 degrees), rainy and foggy for most of the day as you can see from the picture of a hanging glacier on the left. It cleared up for a while, but when we got to Dawes Glacier, the rain picked up and fog settled in.  We had one short window where we could kinda make out the glacier, but that was it.  You can just make out the glacier in this picture (click to make it larger). 

Besides that, I went wild taking pictures of waterfalls.  There were too many to count.  I saw one mountain that had 6 slender waterfalls coming down its face.  Here are 3 of my pictures plus one of a dark blue floating chunk of ice.  

As you can see, sometimes the weather cleared a bit, but later closed in again.   The ship sat for 30 minutes with our balcony to the barely visible glacier, then turned around so the other side could see it.  

Of course by dinner time when we had left the area, it cleared up and the sun came out!  But that's how it goes sometimes. 

Tomorrow we are in Sitka until early afternoon when we sail for Ketchikan. 

Cruise Day 3 - Juneau

 

We had a quiet morning as we sailed between various islands on our way to Juneau.  We started out with nice (but chilly) weather, but a few minutes after this picture was taken, we entered a fog bank.  That put a damper on the whale and seal sightings we were supposed to be able to see as we sailed this morning.   We docked on schedule around 1 pm after passing 2 other large cruise ships. Shortly after we arrived, the huge Odyssey of the Seas arrived.

We enjoyed burgers for lunch before heading ashore for some shopping.  As could be expected with over 16,000 cruise passengers in this small town, it was a bit crowded.   But we accomplished everything we wanted to do. 

Tonight was our special dinner in the Pinnacle Grill, courtesy of our travel agent.  We both enjoyed filets and a chocolate soufflé and it was delicious!  Unfortunately we both forgot to take a picture before we dug into the filet.    

The service was excellent, as one would expect at a special restaurant.  

That's about it for today.  We plan to watch a movie tonight then get some sleep as the sightseeing starts early tomorrow morning as we head to Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier.  

  

Sea Day - Cruise Day 2

 Today was a full sea day as we headed to Juneau.  We attended a number of presentations, but I admit I do miss the daily Sudoku and golf putting events that I enjoyed on Princess cruises.  

I realized I had not shown you our cabin yet.  It's a bit small,  but seems to be comparable to a Princess balcony cabin. It took a while to figure out the storage space, but we got that all worked out. 

We we surprised this evening by a towel bear sitting on our bed!  Very cute. 

In the morning we attended a talk about Alaska.  I found it interesting that Holland-America was the first line to cruise there. After lunch I went to a Q&A session with the head engineer on board.  The audience had quite a few interesting questions about the logistics of operating this ship.  It was a bit surprising that they take care of nearly 2000 guests with a crew of about 700.   In the evening was a Captain's Welcome where he talked for a bit then introduced the senior staff.  Overall, cruising on Holland-America is growing on us. 

Dinner was Alaska Sole with a prosciutto appetizer and flowerless chocolate cake for dessert.  It was very tasty.  We enjoyed it so much we neglected to take a picture of the dessert. Our dinner table had a beautiful view of the ship's wake.

The evening entertainment was a six person dance company.  The show was a bit exotic (just lights and modern dance) for our taste, but was intriguing to watch.  

Tomorrow we have some scenic cruising as we approach Juneau.  We are scheduled to dock around 1 pm.  The weather is cool (high of 55) and a chance of showers.  

Cruise Day 1

 Well, today was everything the last two days were not.  Warm, sunny, and dry!

After a quiet morning, we headed to our ship and went through the embarkation process.  They said to arrive after noon and we got there at 12:25.  Overall it went OK,  but they had no luggage porters like we are used to.  It must be a Seattle port thing since people arriving for the Majestic Princess (docked next to us) had the same issue.  Beyond that, it was fairly smooth, but we had to stop 4 times so it was a lilttle less efficient than being Green Line on Princess which has only 1 stop. 

Once on board, we found our cabin and were surprised at how quickly our luggage came.  After lunch in a very crowded buffet, we did a brief ship tour (it's very pretty!).  Mary unpacked while I headed out to confirm our dinner reservations and figure out the internet issues. It turns out that the basic internet only lets you do email and a few social media sites.  I had to upgrade to premium to be able to get to this page to make blog posts and upload pictures.  But  once I got that figured out, all has gone well.  

Dinner had a very nice menu. Mary and I both chose a New York strip steak, but neither of us could finish it!  But we did leave room for dessert. My warm blueberry crumb a la mode is on the right. 

After dinner we walked around and found a pair of pianists who were just starting a set of "Top 100".  They did a great job of playing familiar tunes (Monkees, Billy Joel, Elton John, Beatles, etc) and we stayed for the entire 45 minute set.  Just might hear them another time or two!  Mary had heard that Holland ships had a lot of music on them and this sure proves that point. 

This evening we entered a fog bank with the ships horn sounding every few minutes and tomorrow is a sea day and could be a bit wet.  We've already noticed the temperature dropping quite a bit as we head north.  

Seattle Day 2

 We spent our second day in Seattle by visiting Bainbridge Island and later getting ready for our cruise tomorrow.  Walking in Seattle is a bit of a challenge since there are very few level streets.  We had a half mile walk to the Seattle ferry terminal, so with that round trip and walking on the island itself, we had another 10,000 step day. 

We took a late morning ferry to Bainbridge Island, enjoyed lunch there, and walked around.   This is an island in the middIe of Puget Sound and is a 35 minute ferry ride from Seattle.  It's known to be a bedroom community for Seattle as many people commute to Seattle from there, as well as an artistic haven (this picture is of a sister ferry)

Bainbridge island has a nice collection of stores and a few restaurants. We enjoyed omelets for lunch in a pleasant diner, visited a farmers market, a bookstore, and a number of other shops.  Overall it made for a relaxing day.   Here are a couple of scenic shots of the island.

On the return trip, Mary got this nice picture of the Seattle Skyline.

Tomorrow we leave for our cruise ship at noon, then head north to Juneau, arriving on Tuesday. 

Day 1 in Seattle

 

We had a quiet morning today, walking around Pike's Market.  The only thing we bought was some blackberry apple cider.  But we did enjoy seeing the fish-tossing; in the picture the fish has just left his hands.  Then the rain started when we were about done walking around so we picked out a place for lunch and headed back to the hotel.

Our afternoon adventure was a boat ride from Union Lake through the locks to Puget Sound.  We saw some interesting things, including the floating house that was used when filming Sleepless in Seattle.  As you can see, the weather left a bit to be desired (high of 61 today), but the rain stayed light and did not interfere with seeing the sights. 

It was neat passing thought the lock, going from fresh water to salt and dropping about 17 feet, as you can see in the picture on the right.  

We also saw several Deadliest Catch boats (a reality show about crab-fishing in the Bering Sea) but it was hard to get good pictures, except for the Botany Bay that the show uses to film the other boats. 

The trip ended up at Pier 54, right next to Ivars so we went there for dinner.  Mary enjoy a clams, while I had fish & chips. We walked back go the hotel in the rain, but fortunately they had loaned us an umbrella.

Tomorrow we are planning to take a ferry to Bremerton, but might not if the weather does not cooperate. 

Traveling to Seattle

We flew to Seattle today and are staying here until Sunday when we head to our 7 day cruise on the Westerdam, our first cruise on Holland-America.  Our flight was routine, and after an issue with our Lyft driver, we got to The Inn on the Market, our hotel.   Unfortunately the hotel is having an issue with their internet so we are using my phone as a hot spot, which is rather slow. After settling in, we headed out for dinner at Ivar’s Seafood Cafe. We both had clam chowder (mine was in a bread bowl) which was delicious!  

   

Not too much else to write.  Tomorrow we are walking around Pike's Market, then heading to Union Lake for a boat tour of the lake (famous for the site of Sleepless in Seattle house) and then through the locks into Puget Sound.