cgolf1

No worries and agree it is always a personal choice. We are relatively new to Celebrity as well. Once on the Edge pre pandemic, Connie with like 600 guests post startup, and a full Edge this year. It is neat jumping into HAL now and thinking hey this is pretty nice. We also love the smaller ships too with a proper promenade so HAL wins there big time for us:) We could never do Disney again due to cost and cutbacks in 2016, no value for us, can't imagine now lol. So for Disney we are like the long time HAL cruisers that are saying its too many cuts.

Where are you going to sail, Celebrity, Disney, and many others are cutting back too? As a first timer I was pretty impressed with HAL. I guess it depends on what you ultimately sail for too.

Actually its not a comparison I expect you to agree with or really care about. Our number 1 cruise line to book is Celebrity , then HAL or RCCL. HAL seems to have more interesting itineraries than the others so we may book HAL over Celebrity. That is my personal lineup of cruise lines we would choose and where they rate for us, everyone's rating/comparison scale is different. My wife would never step foot on an oasis class, I have tried lol.

Yes for us they are, but we haven't sailed on RCCL this year. If I can convince my wife she has enough vaca time and we get the Galapagos paid off who knows. Would like to see how RCCL has changed this year, as we haven't sailed them since Feb 2020 before everything shutdown. Do you see HAL as a step above or below RCCL? Also the MDR food was well seasoned bordering on heavily seasoned. The spice rubbed prime rib with horseradish mustard stuff was a flavor bomb. The MDR impressed us.

We are new to HAL and got off the Zaandam about 1.5 weeks ago for the Canada New England Cruise. We loved the ship and the crew was fantastic. There were some misses I detailed in my trip report, like the MDR seating with a reservation not getting the same table and being really disorganized, Running out of gluten free buns in Dive in, lunch buffet lacking GF options and for my normal diet wife she felt the buffet was repetitive, and they ran out of amaretto. That said we won't hesitate to sail HAL again and want to see if a larger ship has more gluten free options in the buffet. I would say the food in the MDR was about even to some dishes being better with our Celebrity food on the Edge this year, but Celebrity blew HAL away with the lunch buffet. I do realize the Edge is a bigger ship, but it was the flavor of the food too. No team HAL glasses here, but we found a third line with Celebrity first, HAL and RCCL basically tied for second, but HAL would get the nod on itineraries.

It was quite rough and very windy. One evening the Captain let us know we would be listing slightly due to winds up to 60mph. Not sure if this is normal or not for this itinerary.

Yes it was, and nice way to end the cruise.

It might be a good idea to show up early for the activities. We did less than normal since we were traveling with our in laws, so I can't say all were like that. It is possible that is just a popular one. I know that doesn't really answer your question, but hope it helps a little. The lady that sings at the piano by the shops and the casino is amazing and worth a listen if you enjoy that type of entertainment. Thinking about it now, if an activity other than trivia is in a bar or smaller venue I for sure would show up early just in case. The events at the world stage we never had an issue with seating even getting there when it started due to dinner. This also being a port intensive cruise, the CD said they try to fit in some normal HAL activities at night, so maybe the fact that there aren't a ton of activities had a lot of people there. Enjoy your trip, it is an incredible itinerary:)

US immigration took maybe 2 minutes. They just looked at our passports and said welcome back. The line for non US citizens was pretty long so no clue how long that took. This was on Bar Harbor morning and they had time windows setup for excursions and then the deck you were on.

Wow, thank you to everyone. I made it to the end in record time while providing more information than normal. This has been a fun way to relive the cruise. Disembarkation We did the Holland transfer for our 11:20 am flights and probably sat at the gate for roughly an hour before the flight. I did put a lot of info in the Boston pre 11 am flight thread. I will say some people seemed to take there time disembarking, and TSA at Logan is unpredictable, if I am being charitable. Hopefully next flight we will have TSA Pre:) The Trip Overall despite some misses by Holland, I know there is never going to be a perfect cruise. Hopefully HAL listens to our comments, especially on the dinner seating and for sure on the gluten free. In the buffet, had I not sailed Celebrity I likely would not have been as frustrated, but for food allergens they have set the bar where it should be, I hope HAL follows there lead. The main dining room food was very good to excellent. I was pleasantly surprised. I saw no reason to try the specialty dining. The Ship The layout after day 1 felt logical and while we didn't use it much due to the weather, a proper promenade deck was a welcome addition that we have really missed. The ship was well maintained and the stateroom was great. Overall We are very lucky that in one year we will get to do 3 bucket list trips. In February we went through the panamax locks, anchored in lake Gatun, and went back out. We did this cruise and got to see some amazing stops in Canada and Bar Harbor. Next stop is the Galapagos:) We will definitely sail HAL again, but right now we have bookings out to 2025, but will of course look for last minute deals like this cruise. I would also like to try a larger ship to see if the buffet experience in general and the gluten free experience in the buffet is different. The weather Yes it was cold, but I mostly felt bad for the crew that is not used to it. With the exception of Sydney, which really wasn't that bad at all, the weather actually worked out for us and we stayed dry. So that about does it, but I will be glad to answer any more questions:) @coldinerie Have a wonderful trip and any last minute questions?

Last day activities and Supper So we actually did a show, Planet Earth 2 in concert. Typical of this series, the camera work was just amazing. The only disappointment was the live concert part. The Holland musicians played along with the original soundtrack, and in my opinion they weren't feature enough. Regardless the video was amazing. For supper I had the sushi roll trio, excellent and the Roasted Spice Crusted Prime Rib with wild mushrooms. I have never been a fan of prime rib, and to be honest this was only a decent cut of meat. But what likely made it my favorite main of the trip, was the combination of the horseradish mustard mousse and the spices that made for an amazing bite of food. May not be for everyone, but wow! My wife had the baby beets and baked rigatoni with italian sausage, which she really enjoyed. There could have been more baby beets though. We finsished off our cards game and the guys won the week, miracles do happen;) I also incuded the Dive In menu

Acadia So this tour was amazing. We had a great guide. We stopped a few times and there was ample time to take some pictures. We learned a lot which is the point of a good tour.

Bat Harbor We finally got spectacular weather and they even slightly opened the top over the pool. The Acadia small group tour was sold out prior to the cruise, but they added a tour in the afternoon and we were on that one. This was the first time in 19 cruise that we have tendered n a lifeboat. This town has a lot of money in it. The church pictured has Tiffaney stained glass window, because that person attended the church. One window is likely worth more than my house, substantially more lol. Beautiful area. Since our tender got ashore a little early we walked a bit alog the shoreline. The Acadia pictures will be in a separate post.

I thought someone found it to be around 28$PP, what you may be looking at is a transfer with a tour is my guess at that price. Leaving that late my guess is that either Holland transfer only would get you there too early.

I wish I watched my watch, because it felt like forever for the bus to leave, because people trickled out at the end. I can only assume that they left the ship a bit later than 8 am. In my opinion that was not the best move knowing some people may have had 11 am flights. One bus did leave early and left a group behind that we needed to drop off first, but it was on the way, so was only a 3 minute delay, not sure why they let the bus they were supposed to go on leave without them. I think our flight was around 11:20 and I think we had around an hour to hang out at the gate even with TSA taking longer. This was on a Saturday though, so if traffic is worse and TSA had longer lines, we may have had a much different experience.

The debarkation time is 8 am for the 11-2 group. After we got on the bus I can't say I looked at my watch again, so I don't know when we left or when we got to the airport.

Daily activities. Supper, Show, and and sadly some more complaints Well the activities were easy, we played cards and skipped the dance show after not liking the second one as much. I was more on the fence and would have went to the show, but my arm was pretty easily twisted. We did do happy hour again and the night before in Sydney they had run out of amaretto. Now running out of some food items I can understand because it has a shelf life. Booze there is no excuse in my eyes because it doesn't have a shelf life and there is no reason to run out. I highly doubt there was a crazy rush on amaretto. So we all had Brandy old fashioneds the rest of the trip. To get the other complaint out of the way, the buffet was pretty repetitive each day. Food was good and we didn't go hungry, but the repetition was surprising for us. For supper I had the shrimp cocktail and not the Escargot, but a small shrimp and scallop in a cheese sauce in the excargot plate and the cracked pepper tenderloin with grilled shrimp. Everything was excellent. The escargot was replace and I forgot my camera at dinner. The menu outside of the dining room when I went to grab a picture for the review still showed the escargot and not the delicious replacement. My wife had the cheese tortelloni and I don't remember the appetizer, but she enjoyed her food as well. Overall another great day despite a couple of hiccups:)

These were probably the best ciders to date that I have had, I was very impressed.

Peggy's Cove

Honestly I didn't notice it at all. We just ordered up the flight with the flavors we wanted. Good Catch

And we turned away from Oak Island:( We did not get eyes on the island at all. Sail out was very foggy.

Mahone Bay

Lunenburg

Day 6 Halifax My wife went to the maritime museum and I don't have those pictures and I did the iconic towns tour that covered Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, and Peggy's Cove. One comment is that the ship always seemed to dock a little late which was weird and it impacted our tour which was supposed to be 7 hours long. We docked at least 20-30 minutes late and that impacted our time at each stop, specifically Mahone Bay where our plan was to visit the Mug and Anchor. When we pulled into town we saw the Mug and Anchor and we drove past it for what seemed like forever to park. Once parked we had 31 minutes at the stop. Thankfully a very fast walk got us down there in 8 minutes and we were able to purchase some shirts and hats and make it back to the bus in plenty of time. My wife loved the maritime museum and the three towns we visited were nice, but most of the shops were closed, which ultimately was ok with us. Peggy's Cove was neat to see, but I would likely not go back. Our tour guide provided a ton of information which was really nice. We didn't see Oak Island, but saw a sign for the road that said it was 5 km away. We made it back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare. The rain held off and it just started to rain as we were boarding the ship.

My wife said it was under the book flights or transfers section or something similar. The Holland website wasn't the easiest to use, which is a common theme for most cruise sites. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/pre-post-travel-cruise.html I am not logged in, but it might be here.