SHIP LAYOUT: The ship was in good condition. Our cabin was on the 9th (upper Veranda) as such we were centrally located. I never had any issue finding a free place to sit. Holland like other cruises would tie up the chairs but it was easy to untie and they did not ever say anything to me for doing that. The front area on deck 13 was an excellent place to look at the stars as it was the darkest place on the ship. But, having 750- 850 people on the ship it never seemed that crowded.
HOLLAND ALCOHOL POLICY: They allowed BEER / WINE (TWO - glass wine bottles) to be brought on. They were not that good at checking your bags and I was able to get harder stuff on easily. Also, if you buy the plastic bottles with a plastic cap and keep it on your person you can just walk thru the metal detector. Soda was not an issue as we brought some on board at a few ports. I think this is another demographic aspect. With the average age so high they are not worried about wild booze parties ! Our bar tab TOTAL was $2.59 for a diet coke. we were really surprised at how little pressure to buy drinks they had on this ship. We would have taken advantage of the happy hour 'two for one deal' but they did not come around to ask you.
DRESS: We had three or four formal nights and it was really not enforced at all. I brought a bunch of long sleeve shirts and I really did not need them. No shorts but they did not seem to care about tee-shirts with no words on them. I won't make this mistake again.
CASINO: I played $10 on a penny machine one day and quickly lost. That was my only adventure. Others were not doing well either.
INTERNET: As usual because of pets at home we took advantage of the free included internet plans. It was the 250 minutes for $100. Other people said it was slow but I must say that I was very impressed with the speed. I was checking web cameras and accessing email and the speed was excellent. I would queue my mail then pop on for a few minutes to push email out and get new mail. I could easily move 8-12 meg in less than 7-9 minutes so I am not sure what others were doing. Also, it seemed to work everywhere that I tried (cabin, lido food area, main dining room, out sitting by the pool). I used my phone and a old android tablet. I will pick up a WIN-10 'two in one' for the next cruise as I had lots of downtime and I could have been working on the photos.
We were able to use our ATT cell phones on the USA networks in both San Juan, PR and St. Thomas, USVI. They worked like they were home with no gaps in coverage. The people that had Verizon were not as lucky. Oh well as that seems to happen everywhere.
SECURITY: No issues in bringing on plug strips / outlet expanders that I had hid across the bags. On the cruise groups, I have seen issues with these items being taken. Like I said in the port write-ups security is a joke but it looks secure so that's all that counts I guess. I picked up a USB powered fan that we used every night. They had no issue with it and it moved the air and provided some white-noise to help with sleeping.
ARRIVAL / DEPARTURE TIME: No problems at all at any port. Like I said it was easy on/off. In Ft. Lauderdale when we departed the ship, we used our Global Entry cards and were able to bypass a line that probably had 100-200 people in it. This is the only way to go. They did not ask us anything about where we were. Also, no more customs forms as we did not have to fill them out on this trip. I guess customs wised up as nobody ever told the truth on them anyway. Between TSA PRE-CHECK and Global Entry travel is much easier... Because we went thru customs so fast we actually got to the airport over 4 hours before the flight so we had to wait to check our bags. But, being early is a good thing.
FOOD: Ken does not worry about this as he could eat hot dogs and mac-cheese every night. Mary asked for a mango because we had seen it on the breakfast plates but only a single slice along with melon. The waiter said he would look and then he told me they were out. This was towards the end but I said maybe they will get some in Grenada or San Juan. Well we saw no more mango.
We often ordered several main dishes since we liked 2 things on the menu. They always obliged. This happened with appetizers and dessert as well.
They did seem to have lots of shrimp and we enjoyed shrimp cocktail most nights. They had butterflied shrimp grilled in the Pinnacle Grill very good. We had king crabs legs one night and they were good and we were given a double portion. Same as the lobster. They had sushi several times at the Lido, but we didn't try it. But, it was popular.
They had pizza, cookies & ice cream available most of the time and it was good and varied. Food was quite good. Can't compare it to the 1990s cruises because the cruise industry has cut costs and food quality has suffered. They do try to make you happy however.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Interesting and as usual on Holland America... The 70+ crowd ! A few kids but generally we did not see them.
PHOTOS: It's sad that I used my cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) for most of the photos with a 128gig card I had no issues with space. I continue to be amazed at the quality of the photos that the cell phone takes. I brought the Canon EOS-70D 20.2mp camera with three lenses with me (400mm, 55-255mm, EF-S17-55/2.8 IS USM) and used that where size & security was not an issue. I did not change the camera / phone times on this trip (most places were +1 hour) as it makes it a pain to put all the photos into the correct order when I get home and process. I used the go-pro from our balcony railing most days / nights and have yet to process those photos. The total for photos on this trip were 14,471 files using 61 gig of data. Again the high count is from the go-pro.
Visit my Camera Page where I talk about the cameras I am using on these trips.
For now I have it broken up into two pages. Hopefully it won't be too slow to load on the web. "Page 1 - 550 photos" & "Page 2 - 470 photos"
Photos