Princess Fan tries Holland America--Zaandam Mexican Riviera & Copper Canyon

[nreeder]

I have posted this review on the "reviews" section but was asked to also post on the boards, so here goes!

 

This will be a long review of our Holland America Zaandam 10 day cruise from San Diego to Mexico and the Copper Canyon. We chose this cruise because of the itinerary. No one else does this particular route. Besides the usual Cabo San Lucas, Matazalan, and Puerto Vallarta, that everyone does, this cruise adds Loreto, Guymas, and Topolobango (port for Copper Canyon.)

 

Personal Background Information

 

We are Princess Cruise fans and it’s been over 20 years since we were on a Holland American ship (the old Westerdam, no longer in the fleet). So there will be a number of comparisons as we kind of viewed Holland America with fresh eyes. We both retired last year and while we worked we were both librarians so that’s our background.

 

Travel To Port of Embarkation

 

We live in a suburb of Los Angeles (Torrance) and traveled via Amtrak train to San Diego from LA’s Union Station. The great thing about doing this is that instead of 4 inches of legroom, you get 4 feet between rows and coffee served at your seat in business class. But the best thing is that when you arrive at San Diego’s Union Station, you are just across the street from the cruise ship. So we just wheeled our bags over there and dropped them off in no time.

 

Embarkation

 

Embarkation went relatively smoothly except that the checkin computers went dead just before we walked in so we had to wait about 20 minutes before they got those working again.

 

We had a CruiseCritic Meet and Greet that I contacted Holland America to arrange. As usual great people. You learn so much talking to them. They reserved the Piano Lounge and had the bar open and music. They didn’t provide the coffee and cookies they promised, but everyone was happy to have a reserved space and to order their own drinks.

 

The Ship

 

The Zaandam was built in 2000 and just came out of dry-dock after two weeks of refurbishment. They did a 14 day Hawaii cruise right after that, just before our Mexico cruise. During the Hawaii cruise, they ran into a giant storm and the ship was really banged about from what we heard from some passengers who continued on after the Hawaii cruise to our Mexico one. The ship’s crew said the same thing. They lost the use of 5 elevators during this storm. They were able to fix three of them with spare parts on board, but 2 remained out of service during our cruise because they needed more parts which they will get in San Diego.

 

The dry-dock was not a major remodel. The dining room got all new chairs (quite comfortable). The verandas got new loungers and chairs too. At a focus group meeting that we were invited to at the end of the cruise, the hotel manager reflected on the fact that the dining room chairs were one inch wider, so he could now only get 7 chairs at a table that used to hold 8. Additionally, the lounge chairs on the verandah are 10 inches longer than before. They now span the entire depth of the verandah from the glass railing to the glass doors. It’s difficult to move them as they are so tight a fit. But they sure are comfortable!

 

So here’s our personal take on the ship. We don’t expect that everyone will agree with us, but it’s our experience this time.

 

Nice HAL touches

 

You can have hot items on the room service breakfast like scrambled eggs (even with egg beaters if you wanted) or a ham and cheese omelet and a choice of ham, bacon, or sausage. Princess doesn’t offer anything hot for breakfast on the room service menu. Holland America prints a 4 page folded mini version of the daily New York Times and this is distributed to every room. I think Princess may do this but there’s a charge if they do. Holland America serves appetizers in the lounges prior to dinner, Princess doesn’t. We didn’t actually see what was offered because we usually had “happy hour” out on our balcony each night. There were nice canapés in the Exploration Café stand where they do the fresh coffees. Princess offers something similar on the new ships in their atriums and that feature is being brought to their older ships as they go into dry-dock.

That’s the good news for Holland America.

 

Essentially we were not impressed with the design of the Zaandam. This is a ship built in 2000 the year Grand Princess was built and we’ve been on her a number of times. So we couldn’t help making comparisons. They are very different ships. Grand Princess is of course much bigger—2,600 passengers versus 1,400 on Zaandam. Many Holland America cruisers prefer these smaller ships. They are more compact and easier to get around for mobility impaired passengers.

 

Stateroom

 

But we kind of felt cramped both in the cabin and in the public areas. The Verandah Suite we stayed in is comparable to the mini-suites on Grand Princess and her sisters. There was a Jacuzzi tub which in not on the Princess ships, but these cabins are considerably smaller than Princess mini-suites. They run about 295 sq. ft versus around 325 sq. ft. on Princess. This was OK for this cruise for the two of us. However, I love to SCUBA dive (not on this trip), and in the future there would really be no room for my diving gear in these type cabins whereas there is plenty of room on the Princess ships. Part of this is the design of the “living room” area where the couch is. On Holland America the desk and mirror is directly across from the couch so this narrows the room for that section. On Princess the desk is angled out between the bedroom areas and living area so the living room has nothing across from the couch but a l chair. There’s more a feeling of open space and more storage space because of the two dividing partitions on the Princess ships which have lots of shelves, TV’s and the refrigerator.

 

We weren’t too impressed with the public spaces on this ship, but I think this relates to what the interior designers chose to do with this particular version. The three story atrium is completely filled with a giant white ornate pipe organ. It goes from floor to ceiling and is so wide that it really fills up the atrium. You gain no sense of open space on any of the three floors of the atrium. Princess atriums are all spectacular spaces with most of the public rooms connected around them.

 

That’s the other weird thing in the Zaandam design (shared by the smaller Holland ships), the real “promenade” deck where you can walk completely around the ship is not a public deck. It is filled with passenger cabins. There are lots of outside cabins whose picture windows look out to this deck. They have a mirrored covering so you can’t see in during the day but you have to be sure to close your drapes at night because you would be able to see in then. The good news for Holland is that this design gave them more outside rooms with unobstructed views as the two public decks are above this is where the life boats hang and block any possible views. To make things even more confusing they called all three of these “promenade—upper, lower and main.

 

There are relatively few cabins with balconies in this design. Grand Princess has four and a half decks of balcony, mini-suite, and suites with balconies. There are two decks on Zaandam with either full suites, or “verandah suites”. There are no standard balcony cabins. Holland is trying to fix this in a kind of strange way. On the four smaller 1,200 passenger versions of this design, they are taking out the picture windows on the promenade deck outside cabins and putting in a single glass door. They are trying to give the effect of a balcony cabin, except that your “balcony” is really the promenade deck which is public and everyone walks around it. The deck chairs outside your room wouldn’t be “yours” either because they are the public ones. We don’t think we would like this lack of privacy but its’ a kind of desperate attempt to update these older ships with more balcony type cabins.

 

Many of the public corridors on the two public decks are paneled in a kind of grey weathered wood effect. We found this a little dark and depressing. We are used to lighter and brighter colors on Princess ships. Their lounges are very nice but some of them open up to the casino where they permit smoking. This drifts into the piano bar and we aren’t fans of breathing other peoples smoke. They are doing a survey of current passengers on smoking on board so they may change their policy in the future.

 

The gym was perfect. It was up top and in front so had great views. Precor treadmills and Cybex weight machines were great. We spent a lot of time up there trying to work off all of the food.

 

Dining

 

Food is my next comparison. The food overall was very good, we never had a bad meal. But we do think Princess has an edge here. The quality and presentation are nicer on Princess and the extra cost Pinnacle Grill on Zaandam (and all other Holland ships) is blown away by the Crown Grill on the newer Princess ships. The biggest disappointment was the Canaletto Lido restaurant just installed on Zaandam. There is no cost to this one unlike Pinnacle, but the extra cost Sabatini’s on board most Princess ships put the Holland version to shame. It’s kind of heavy pasta in Canaletto not the wonderful quality and presentation that Princess does.

 

This brings me to my worst grade for Holland America. It’s their wine list. They get a big fat “F” for outrageously overpricing. Princess markup is around 3 to 4 times from retail. Holland was 5 or 6 times markup. Example, our house chardonnay at home is Chateau St. Michelle. It’s a very nice chardonnay and not that expensive for everyday. We bought 4 bottles of it at Ralph’s supermarket in downtown San Diego (we actually live in LA and took the train down to San Diego). It was on special for $7.77 a bottle. They don’t have it on the regular wine list on the ship, but it’s on the Pinnacle Grill wine list for $59 a bottle. That’s almost insulting. Eighty percent of the Holland wine list would cost $8 to $11 per bottle in the supermarket, but costs roughly $49 to $59 on the wine list. The result is that despite their very high corkage fee ($18) far more people bring their own wine bottles into the dining room than any Princess ship we’ve ever been on. In desperation, I purchased four $25 bottles of great quality California cabernet and chardonnay and brought them into the dining room too. Adding the corkage fee of $18 made that come to $43. If they would have had those particular wines on their wine list, they would have charge me $100 plus 15% tip for the wine steward. What’s really bad is that Holland America doesn’t pay retail prices for wine, they buy in bulk wholesale so the markup is really huge. So it’s really a big rip off.

 

Holland has a “coke” card that’s cheaper than the Princess one but here you get what you pay for. Holland’s version is a punch card setup where they punch the coke card each time you have one and you are maxed out at 20. You are also limited in the size glasses as they won’t give you really large glasses of Coke but kind of regular iced tea size. On Princess you pay more for the card, but the Coke is unlimited with it for the cruise. They also have much bigger glasses than Holland. When we are in the hot and humid Caribbean I can down three of the large Princess ones at lunch alone. While we didn’t need that much drink on this cruise because it wasn’t very hot, I would be in big trouble in the Caribbean on Holland.

 

Holland also has a wine card which Princess does not. I did buy one of these to use in the public lounges. It works out roughly to $4 per glass which is cheaper than the regular list price of glasses of wine. However as other Holland passenger have recently pointed out, most of what you are limited to is really not very good. The cabernet is “red” I’ll admit, but it doesn’t taste much like cabernet. Many people have stopped buying the wine card since they changed whatever brand they are now using. The only decent wine is the Pinot Grigio which is imported from Italy so it’s relatively light and drinkable.

 

Staff & Service

 

The staff was outstanding from top to bottom. The Indonesian and Phillippino crew were just wonderful and cheerful. When we were on Holland American about 25 years ago, we found them to be very polite and give wonderful service, but they were a little more formal and reserved that we were used to on Princess. That is no longer the case. They always said hello and bartenders and waiters quickly learned your name even after going for just one night. The shore excursion people were great even accompanying us on the buses and train to Copper Canyon to ensure things went OK. At the end of the cruise, we were randomly selected for a focus group session with the Cruise Director , Hotel Manager, and Shore Excursion Manager. There were a couple of travel agents there that had a few complaints about the condition of the cabins (due for refurbishment next year) and the good old “what happened to the trays in the Lido buffet?” thread. The Hotel Manager gave a good account of the tray thing. This was deliberate decision by Holland America after much study.

 

What happens when the trays are used is that passengers get into the “cafeteria” mentality—I must take my tray, and start at the beginning and run it along every station serving food whether I want food from that area or not! What this does is clog the Lido buffet to extreme. Also people tend to pile up lots of food this way, and then leave lots unfinished on their plates after they have eaten and leave. The elimination of the trays has altered this pattern. People go to the specific station they want i.e. salad bar, sandwich station, Italian or entrée station and get specifically what they want. They then sit down and eat it. If they are still hungry, they come back for more. This allows people for example to get a salad and eat that, and then go to the buffet for their hot entrée and the entrée is hot when they eat it. If they do the “cafeteria” thing, then they get everything on the tray, eat the salad first, and their entrée is almost cold by the time they get to it. Finally, Holland discovered there has been a lot less wasted food left on the tables (that was an inadvertent consequence that they actually hadn’t planned on). So the trays are definitely not coming back!

 

Entertainment

 

We didn’t hit any of the shows as we had late seating and just felt like listening to the string quartet in the lounge or the last few nights the woman at the Piano Bar who was excellent. No one commented at our table on the shows, so we don’t have any feedback there.

 

Shore Excursions

 

We did the following things at each port (all booked through Holland):

 

Cabo San Lucas

 

We did the deluxe whale watch tour on a large catamaran. It was great. Just by luck we sat up front and that’s where the whales appeared. We saw them swim, dive and later followed a mother whale and her calf. The calf just loved to jump up out of the water repeatedly so he/she put on quite a show. I got great photographs.

 

Loreto

 

We did a van tour way up into the mountains to see the best preserved Spanish mission church in Baja. It is not the earliest, but it is still almost like it was in the 1600’s and yet in a great state of preservation. Had a great ride up to the town. The first 10 miles were paved, but the next 10 miles were gravel road and a little bumpy. But we had great views from the top of the canyons. We had lunch at a local restaurant in the little village at the top. We also walked through some local gardens. They were healthy and used a well designed hand built, gravity reclaimed water irrigation system.

 

Guymas

 

We hadn’t booked anything here and planned just to walk around the downtown area. When we docked, we were kind of outside the downtown area in an industrial port area. The surprise was that there were free shuttles into downtown. When we got downtown, there were a number of teenagers with T-shirts that said in big letters “May I help you”. They were great. They spoke perfect English. I had forgotten our map of the downtown area from the ship and they gave me a new one. Guymas is famous as a fishing port especially for shrimp. I asked them for a recommendation for a restaurant for lunch with shrimp and they gave me a color flyer for what turned out to be a giant shrimp fiesta out on the plaza facing the bay. They had craft booths set up, tented areas for you to sit down and have lunch too. On one side were individual food vendors where for a “tasting fee” of $2 you could have shrimp any of about six or seven ways. I OD’d on not just large, not just giant, but colossal shrimp (2 plus some nice rice). Beers were a $1. So for about $12 Maureen and I had some great shrimp and two beers each. They also had folklorico dancers who put on a show for everyone there. The town really celebrated. We heard later that we were the first cruise ship of the year so I guess we were special. I don’t know whether they will do that for later ones (they only get about 6 cruise ships per year).

 

Topolobango

 

This is the port for Copper Canyon. We chose this cruise primarily because it had this trip. The only other way to see Copper Canyon is to drive or take a bus tour from Texas south to the inland end of the Copper Canyon.

 

On Holland, this was an almost 16 hour trip in total and was over $400 per person. It’s a pretty expensive tour. We had to get off the ship at 4:30 am. We then boarded very nice clean and newer Greyhound type buses which were very comfortable. There was an hour and a half bus ride to the El Fuerte where we picked up the train. The reason they don’t board the train in Topolbango is that the section of track between Topolobango and Las Fuerte where we boarded hasn’t been improved. It took an hour and a half by bus, but it would take 4 hours on the train making it impossible to do this trip in one day. So they use the buses.

 

The train cars are restored 1950’s and the seats were wide and probably three to four feet between rows. They were very comfortable. There was a tour guide on each train car who narrated the trip as you went up the canyon. The route is very scenic as you climb up the canyon. There are 86 tunnels and lots of bridges as you climb up the sides of the canyon. At one point there are three switchbacks up the side of a canyon wall that climb 1,000 feet in elevation. The turnaround points for each level are the tunnels so you kind of never see yourself turning around. At the end of 6 hours on the train, we reached the top. They took us to an overlook where we could see the Copper Canyon proper and a lot of other canyons too. It is not as big, nor quite as colorful as Grand Canyon in Arizona. There’s more white rock than Grand Canyon although there’s lots of red rock too. There’s more vegetation in the Mexico version too. There were native Indians selling handmade baskets as you walked up to see the view. Next we went to lunch at a hotel nearby. The dining room had a spectacular view of the canyon while you had your buffet. Holland has also given up a box breakfast on board the train up, and a box snack coming down. The local Indians gave us a short program of their native dances with music from rustic handmade instruments.

 

It was then time to take the train and bus back to the ship. That’s another 6 hour train ride and one and a half hour bus ride. The fun thing we did was to go back one train car to the bar car. They had a Mariachi singer who sang songs and they provided fresh popcorn and peanuts while you sipped your beer or margarita. That made some of the time fly. We got back to the ship at 10 pm and the Captain and senior officers were all out on the tarmac to welcome us back. They gave us all a glass of champagne and announced there was a prime rib buffet up in the Lido for the returning passengers if you wanted it. It really tasted great after a long trip!

 

Matzalan

 

We did a walking tour of the old historic Colonial city here. Had a great time and learned a lot. Stopped by a restored old mansion, the opera house, an art gallery being restored, the Melville Hotel and we started with the cliff divers. We also stopped at a wonderful old panderia for baker items. Tthe guide took us out to the plaza in front where there were a lot of restaurants facing the central square. He treated us to a beer while we sat outside on the patio. Finished with a tour of the cathedral. Matzalan was ready to start Carnival that evening. We were tempted to jump ship!

 

Puerto Vallarta

 

We did a van tour which took us downtown to see the older part of town. After doing some shopping and walking we stopped for lunch and had a cooking school at a local restaurant which has an open front wall facing the bay. We made salsa by chopping up fresh tomato, onion, cilantro, and serano peppers and tasted our creation with some chips provided. They told us to save most of our salsa and then gave us a half avocado to chop and mash into the salsa. That made great guacamole! We also made a chicken tostada. Finally we made mole chicken enchiladas. I’m not a big fan of “mole” which is a dark brown chocolate sauce that the Mexican’s love. It’s not sticky sweet as it’s more like dark chocolate and it was OK. There was a spectacular sunset here while we relaxed out on our balcony as we didn’t sail until 10 pm.

 

Finally we had two days at sea returning to San Diego.

 

Disembarkation

 

Disembarkation went very smoothly. They asked that you vacate your cabin by 8 they planned to start at 8:15. Customs delayed that a little so they didn’t start until 8:45 but we were off the ship by 9:30 am.

 

Summary

 

All in all we had a wonderful time. But we have come to the conclusion that we do prefer Princess to Holland America. We would consider Holland again if the price and itinerary were really great, but we’d had to make some adjustments to our normal cruising experience on Princess. We would go again, but our first choice would be a Princess ship if the routes were the same. I’m sure others would disagree, and I’m only expressing our view. Other people have different priorities than we do and that’s great. It’s “whatever floats your boat”!!!

Thanks

Norm

[DrivesLikeMario]

Fantastic review! Loved to live the experience of Copper Canyon along with you. Thank you! :)

[mek]

I have posted this review on the "reviews" section but was asked to also post on the boards, so here goes!

 

This will be a long review of our Holland America Zaandam 10 day cruise from San Diego to Mexico and the Copper Canyon. We chose this cruise because of the itinerary. No one else does this particular route. Besides the usual Cabo San Lucas, Matazalan, and Puerto Vallarta, that everyone does, this cruise adds Loreto, Guymas, and Topolobango (port for Copper Canyon.)

 

Personal Background Information

 

We are Princess Cruise fans and it’s been over 20 years since we were on a Holland American ship (the old Westerdam, no longer in the fleet). So there will be a number of comparisons as we kind of viewed Holland America with fresh eyes. We both retired last year and while we worked we were both librarians so that’s our background.

 

Travel To Port of Embarkation

 

We live in a suburb of Los Angeles (Torrance) and traveled via Amtrak train to San Diego from LA’s Union Station. The great thing about doing this is that instead of 4 inches of legroom, you get 4 feet between rows and coffee served at your seat in business class. But the best thing is that when you arrive at San Diego’s Union Station, you are just across the street from the cruise ship. So we just wheeled our bags over there and dropped them off in no time.

 

Embarkation

 

Embarkation went relatively smoothly except that the checkin computers went dead just before we walked in so we had to wait about 20 minutes before they got those working again.

 

We had a CruiseCritic Meet and Greet that I contacted Holland America to arrange. As usual great people. You learn so much talking to them. They reserved the Piano Lounge and had the bar open and music. They didn’t provide the coffee and cookies they promised, but everyone was happy to have a reserved space and to order their own drinks.

 

The Ship

 

The Zaandam was built in 2000 and just came out of dry-dock after two weeks of refurbishment. They did a 14 day Hawaii cruise right after that, just before our Mexico cruise. During the Hawaii cruise, they ran into a giant storm and the ship was really banged about from what we heard from some passengers who continued on after the Hawaii cruise to our Mexico one. The ship’s crew said the same thing. They lost the use of 5 elevators during this storm. They were able to fix three of them with spare parts on board, but 2 remained out of service during our cruise because they needed more parts which they will get in San Diego.

 

The dry-dock was not a major remodel. The dining room got all new chairs (quite comfortable). The verandas got new loungers and chairs too. At a focus group meeting that we were invited to at the end of the cruise, the hotel manager reflected on the fact that the dining room chairs were one inch wider, so he could now only get 7 chairs at a table that used to hold 8. Additionally, the lounge chairs on the verandah are 10 inches longer than before. They now span the entire depth of the verandah from the glass railing to the glass doors. It’s difficult to move them as they are so tight a fit. But they sure are comfortable!

 

So here’s our personal take on the ship. We don’t expect that everyone will agree with us, but it’s our experience this time.

 

Nice HAL touches

 

You can have hot items on the room service breakfast like scrambled eggs (even with egg beaters if you wanted) or a ham and cheese omelet and a choice of ham, bacon, or sausage. Princess doesn’t offer anything hot for breakfast on the room service menu. Holland America prints a 4 page folded mini version of the daily New York Times and this is distributed to every room. I think Princess may do this but there’s a charge if they do. Holland America serves appetizers in the lounges prior to dinner, Princess doesn’t. We didn’t actually see what was offered because we usually had “happy hour” out on our balcony each night. There were nice canapés in the Exploration Café stand where they do the fresh coffees. Princess offers something similar on the new ships in their atriums and that feature is being brought to their older ships as they go into dry-dock.

That’s the good news for Holland America.

 

Essentially we were not impressed with the design of the Zaandam. This is a ship built in 2000 the year Grand Princess was built and we’ve been on her a number of times. So we couldn’t help making comparisons. They are very different ships. Grand Princess is of course much bigger—2,600 passengers versus 1,400 on Zaandam. Many Holland America cruisers prefer these smaller ships. They are more compact and easier to get around for mobility impaired passengers.

 

Stateroom

 

But we kind of felt cramped both in the cabin and in the public areas. The Verandah Suite we stayed in is comparable to the mini-suites on Grand Princess and her sisters. There was a Jacuzzi tub which in not on the Princess ships, but these cabins are considerably smaller than Princess mini-suites. They run about 295 sq. ft versus around 325 sq. ft. on Princess. This was OK for this cruise for the two of us. However, I love to SCUBA dive (not on this trip), and in the future there would really be no room for my diving gear in these type cabins whereas there is plenty of room on the Princess ships. Part of this is the design of the “living room” area where the couch is. On Holland America the desk and mirror is directly across from the couch so this narrows the room for that section. On Princess the desk is angled out between the bedroom areas and living area so the living room has nothing across from the couch but a l chair. There’s more a feeling of open space and more storage space because of the two dividing partitions on the Princess ships which have lots of shelves, TV’s and the refrigerator.

 

We weren’t too impressed with the public spaces on this ship, but I think this relates to what the interior designers chose to do with this particular version. The three story atrium is completely filled with a giant white ornate pipe organ. It goes from floor to ceiling and is so wide that it really fills up the atrium. You gain no sense of open space on any of the three floors of the atrium. Princess atriums are all spectacular spaces with most of the public rooms connected around them.

 

That’s the other weird thing in the Zaandam design (shared by the smaller Holland ships), the real “promenade” deck where you can walk completely around the ship is not a public deck. It is filled with passenger cabins. There are lots of outside cabins whose picture windows look out to this deck. They have a mirrored covering so you can’t see in during the day but you have to be sure to close your drapes at night because you would be able to see in then. The good news for Holland is that this design gave them more outside rooms with unobstructed views as the two public decks are above this is where the life boats hang and block any possible views. To make things even more confusing they called all three of these “promenade—upper, lower and main.

 

There are relatively few cabins with balconies in this design. Grand Princess has four and a half decks of balcony, mini-suite, and suites with balconies. There are two decks on Zaandam with either full suites, or “verandah suites”. There are no standard balcony cabins. Holland is trying to fix this in a kind of strange way. On the four smaller 1,200 passenger versions of this design, they are taking out the picture windows on the promenade deck outside cabins and putting in a single glass door. They are trying to give the effect of a balcony cabin, except that your “balcony” is really the promenade deck which is public and everyone walks around it. The deck chairs outside your room wouldn’t be “yours” either because they are the public ones. We don’t think we would like this lack of privacy but its’ a kind of desperate attempt to update these older ships with more balcony type cabins.

 

Many of the public corridors on the two public decks are paneled in a kind of grey weathered wood effect. We found this a little dark and depressing. We are used to lighter and brighter colors on Princess ships. Their lounges are very nice but some of them open up to the casino where they permit smoking. This drifts into the piano bar and we aren’t fans of breathing other peoples smoke. They are doing a survey of current passengers on smoking on board so they may change their policy in the future.

 

The gym was perfect. It was up top and in front so had great views. Precor treadmills and Cybex weight machines were great. We spent a lot of time up there trying to work off all of the food.

 

Dining

 

Food is my next comparison. The food overall was very good, we never had a bad meal. But we do think Princess has an edge here. The quality and presentation are nicer on Princess and the extra cost Pinnacle Grill on Zaandam (and all other Holland ships) is blown away by the Crown Grill on the newer Princess ships. The biggest disappointment was the Canaletto Lido restaurant just installed on Zaandam. There is no cost to this one unlike Pinnacle, but the extra cost Sabatini’s on board most Princess ships put the Holland version to shame. It’s kind of heavy pasta in Canaletto not the wonderful quality and presentation that Princess does.

 

This brings me to my worst grade for Holland America. It’s their wine list. They get a big fat “F” for outrageously overpricing. Princess markup is around 3 to 4 times from retail. Holland was 5 or 6 times markup. Example, our house chardonnay at home is Chateau St. Michelle. It’s a very nice chardonnay and not that expensive for everyday. We bought 4 bottles of it at Ralph’s supermarket in downtown San Diego (we actually live in LA and took the train down to San Diego). It was on special for $7.77 a bottle. They don’t have it on the regular wine list on the ship, but it’s on the Pinnacle Grill wine list for $59 a bottle. That’s almost insulting. Eighty percent of the Holland wine list would cost $8 to $11 per bottle in the supermarket, but costs roughly $49 to $59 on the wine list. The result is that despite their very high corkage fee ($18) far more people bring their own wine bottles into the dining room than any Princess ship we’ve ever been on. In desperation, I purchased four $25 bottles of great quality California cabernet and chardonnay and brought them into the dining room too. Adding the corkage fee of $18 made that come to $43. If they would have had those particular wines on their wine list, they would have charge me $100 plus 15% tip for the wine steward. What’s really bad is that Holland America doesn’t pay retail prices for wine, they buy in bulk wholesale so the markup is really huge. So it’s really a big rip off.

 

Holland has a “coke” card that’s cheaper than the Princess one but here you get what you pay for. Holland’s version is a punch card setup where they punch the coke card each time you have one and you are maxed out at 20. You are also limited in the size glasses as they won’t give you really large glasses of Coke but kind of regular iced tea size. On Princess you pay more for the card, but the Coke is unlimited with it for the cruise. They also have much bigger glasses than Holland. When we are in the hot and humid Caribbean I can down three of the large Princess ones at lunch alone. While we didn’t need that much drink on this cruise because it wasn’t very hot, I would be in big trouble in the Caribbean on Holland.

 

Holland also has a wine card which Princess does not. I did buy one of these to use in the public lounges. It works out roughly to $4 per glass which is cheaper than the regular list price of glasses of wine. However as other Holland passenger have recently pointed out, most of what you are limited to is really not very good. The cabernet is “red” I’ll admit, but it doesn’t taste much like cabernet. Many people have stopped buying the wine card since they changed whatever brand they are now using. The only decent wine is the Pinot Grigio which is imported from Italy so it’s relatively light and drinkable.

 

Staff & Service

 

The staff was outstanding from top to bottom. The Indonesian and Phillippino crew were just wonderful and cheerful. When we were on Holland American about 25 years ago, we found them to be very polite and give wonderful service, but they were a little more formal and reserved that we were used to on Princess. That is no longer the case. They always said hello and bartenders and waiters quickly learned your name even after going for just one night. The shore excursion people were great even accompanying us on the buses and train to Copper Canyon to ensure things went OK. At the end of the cruise, we were randomly selected for a focus group session with the Cruise Director , Hotel Manager, and Shore Excursion Manager. There were a couple of travel agents there that had a few complaints about the condition of the cabins (due for refurbishment next year) and the good old “what happened to the trays in the Lido buffet?” thread. The Hotel Manager gave a good account of the tray thing. This was deliberate decision by Holland America after much study.

 

What happens when the trays are used is that passengers get into the “cafeteria” mentality—I must take my tray, and start at the beginning and run it along every station serving food whether I want food from that area or not! What this does is clog the Lido buffet to extreme. Also people tend to pile up lots of food this way, and then leave lots unfinished on their plates after they have eaten and leave. The elimination of the trays has altered this pattern. People go to the specific station they want i.e. salad bar, sandwich station, Italian or entrée station and get specifically what they want. They then sit down and eat it. If they are still hungry, they come back for more. This allows people for example to get a salad and eat that, and then go to the buffet for their hot entrée and the entrée is hot when they eat it. If they do the “cafeteria” thing, then they get everything on the tray, eat the salad first, and their entrée is almost cold by the time they get to it. Finally, Holland discovered there has been a lot less wasted food left on the tables (that was an inadvertent consequence that they actually hadn’t planned on). So the trays are definitely not coming back!

 

Entertainment

 

We didn’t hit any of the shows as we had late seating and just felt like listening to the string quartet in the lounge or the last few nights the woman at the Piano Bar who was excellent. No one commented at our table on the shows, so we don’t have any feedback there.

 

Shore Excursions

 

We did the following things at each port (all booked through Holland):

 

Cabo San Lucas

 

We did the deluxe whale watch tour on a large catamaran. It was great. Just by luck we sat up front and that’s where the whales appeared. We saw them swim, dive and later followed a mother whale and her calf. The calf just loved to jump up out of the water repeatedly so he/she put on quite a show. I got great photographs.

 

Loreto

 

We did a van tour way up into the mountains to see the best preserved Spanish mission church in Baja. It is not the earliest, but it is still almost like it was in the 1600’s and yet in a great state of preservation. Had a great ride up to the town. The first 10 miles were paved, but the next 10 miles were gravel road and a little bumpy. But we had great views from the top of the canyons. We had lunch at a local restaurant in the little village at the top. We also walked through some local gardens. They were healthy and used a well designed hand built, gravity reclaimed water irrigation system.

 

Guymas

 

We hadn’t booked anything here and planned just to walk around the downtown area. When we docked, we were kind of outside the downtown area in an industrial port area. The surprise was that there were free shuttles into downtown. When we got downtown, there were a number of teenagers with T-shirts that said in big letters “May I help you”. They were great. They spoke perfect English. I had forgotten our map of the downtown area from the ship and they gave me a new one. Guymas is famous as a fishing port especially for shrimp. I asked them for a recommendation for a restaurant for lunch with shrimp and they gave me a color flyer for what turned out to be a giant shrimp fiesta out on the plaza facing the bay. They had craft booths set up, tented areas for you to sit down and have lunch too. On one side were individual food vendors where for a “tasting fee” of $2 you could have shrimp any of about six or seven ways. I OD’d on not just large, not just giant, but colossal shrimp (2 plus some nice rice). Beers were a $1. So for about $12 Maureen and I had some great shrimp and two beers each. They also had folklorico dancers who put on a show for everyone there. The town really celebrated. We heard later that we were the first cruise ship of the year so I guess we were special. I don’t know whether they will do that for later ones (they only get about 6 cruise ships per year).

 

Topolobango

 

This is the port for Copper Canyon. We chose this cruise primarily because it had this trip. The only other way to see Copper Canyon is to drive or take a bus tour from Texas south to the inland end of the Copper Canyon.

 

On Holland, this was an almost 16 hour trip in total and was over $400 per person. It’s a pretty expensive tour. We had to get off the ship at 4:30 am. We then boarded very nice clean and newer Greyhound type buses which were very comfortable. There was an hour and a half bus ride to the El Fuerte where we picked up the train. The reason they don’t board the train in Topolbango is that the section of track between Topolobango and Las Fuerte where we boarded hasn’t been improved. It took an hour and a half by bus, but it would take 4 hours on the train making it impossible to do this trip in one day. So they use the buses.

 

The train cars are restored 1950’s and the seats were wide and probably three to four feet between rows. They were very comfortable. There was a tour guide on each train car who narrated the trip as you went up the canyon. The route is very scenic as you climb up the canyon. There are 86 tunnels and lots of bridges as you climb up the sides of the canyon. At one point there are three switchbacks up the side of a canyon wall that climb 1,000 feet in elevation. The turnaround points for each level are the tunnels so you kind of never see yourself turning around. At the end of 6 hours on the train, we reached the top. They took us to an overlook where we could see the Copper Canyon proper and a lot of other canyons too. It is not as big, nor quite as colorful as Grand Canyon in Arizona. There’s more white rock than Grand Canyon although there’s lots of red rock too. There’s more vegetation in the Mexico version too. There were native Indians selling handmade baskets as you walked up to see the view. Next we went to lunch at a hotel nearby. The dining room had a spectacular view of the canyon while you had your buffet. Holland has also given up a box breakfast on board the train up, and a box snack coming down. The local Indians gave us a short program of their native dances with music from rustic handmade instruments.

 

It was then time to take the train and bus back to the ship. That’s another 6 hour train ride and one and a half hour bus ride. The fun thing we did was to go back one train car to the bar car. They had a Mariachi singer who sang songs and they provided fresh popcorn and peanuts while you sipped your beer or margarita. That made some of the time fly. We got back to the ship at 10 pm and the Captain and senior officers were all out on the tarmac to welcome us back. They gave us all a glass of champagne and announced there was a prime rib buffet up in the Lido for the returning passengers if you wanted it. It really tasted great after a long trip!

 

Matzalan

 

We did a walking tour of the old historic Colonial city here. Had a great time and learned a lot. Stopped by a restored old mansion, the opera house, an art gallery being restored, the Melville Hotel and we started with the cliff divers. We also stopped at a wonderful old panderia for baker items. Tthe guide took us out to the plaza in front where there were a lot of restaurants facing the central square. He treated us to a beer while we sat outside on the patio. Finished with a tour of the cathedral. Matzalan was ready to start Carnival that evening. We were tempted to jump ship!

 

Puerto Vallarta

 

We did a van tour which took us downtown to see the older part of town. After doing some shopping and walking we stopped for lunch and had a cooking school at a local restaurant which has an open front wall facing the bay. We made salsa by chopping up fresh tomato, onion, cilantro, and serano peppers and tasted our creation with some chips provided. They told us to save most of our salsa and then gave us a half avocado to chop and mash into the salsa. That made great guacamole! We also made a chicken tostada. Finally we made mole chicken enchiladas. I’m not a big fan of “mole” which is a dark brown chocolate sauce that the Mexican’s love. It’s not sticky sweet as it’s more like dark chocolate and it was OK. There was a spectacular sunset here while we relaxed out on our balcony as we didn’t sail until 10 pm.

 

Finally we had two days at sea returning to San Diego.

 

Disembarkation

 

Disembarkation went very smoothly. They asked that you vacate your cabin by 8 they planned to start at 8:15. Customs delayed that a little so they didn’t start until 8:45 but we were off the ship by 9:30 am.

 

Summary

 

All in all we had a wonderful time. But we have come to the conclusion that we do prefer Princess to Holland America. We would consider Holland again if the price and itinerary were really great, but we’d had to make some adjustments to our normal cruising experience on Princess. We would go again, but our first choice would be a Princess ship if the routes were the same. I’m sure others would disagree, and I’m only expressing our view. Other people have different priorities than we do and that’s great. It’s “whatever floats your boat”!!!

Thanks

Norm

 

Thanks so much for your review. Princess is our favorite line as well, but we enjoy HAL and are sailing next Tuesday on the Zaandam and doing the Copper Canyon train ride. A couple of questions - are restrooms available on the bus, and can you give me some idea what is served in the box breakfast and snack and is there anything besides Mexican food for lunch? I ask because my husband is very picky and we figured he will just have to take a supply of granola bars for the day - but he will love the prime rib buffet!

[mek]

Oh, I have one more question - what was the weather like at the top? Warm, cool, cold? Just trying to figure out if we will need jackets and I have no idea what to expect because of the altitude.

 

Thanks!

[nreeder]

The breakfast box had a granola bar, banana, apple juice and a good sticky cinnamon roll. The evening box ham and cheese crossant sandwich, chips, fruit, candy bar, and apple juice.

 

The buffet lunch both fish and chicken served in the chafing dishes, excellent mixed crisp vegetables, and rice. On the tables there were cheese quesidilla (locally made cheese), a bowl with refried black beans, and dessert was a flan. Served regular and decaf coffee, as well as bottles of water. There was plenty of food and it was tasty.

 

Thanks

Norm

[nreeder]

Weather at Copper Canyon

 

Ok, guys, it's February, and the top of the canyon where you get off for lunch and the view is 7,000 feet of altitude. It was cold so bring warm jackets (and we had mittens too). We even brought silk longies to wear under our jeans and we weren't sorry. It was probably high 40's or low 50's and cloudy that day.

 

Some people were in shorts. I guess they thought that all of Mexico is warm now. The ship recommends "layers" for this trip and we would agree.

 

Puerto Vallarta was in the 80's so it was a nice change!

 

 

Thanks

Norm

[cruisemom42]

Thanks for the detailed review. I'm sailing on HAL this fall after quite a few Princess cruises, so I appreciate all your comparisons -- some things I'd already stumbled across but others I didn't know.

 

Could you clarify if the Pinot Grigio you mentioned is available with the wine card? If so, I'd be happy to use the card at least for my white wine. I do agree HAL's wine prices seem steep compared with Princess. Just don't know if I'll be able to locate and purchase wine in Athens before the cruise...

 

Also, can you give a little more detail about the Pinnacle Grill? I haven't eaten at the Crown Grill, but as part of my booking I get a free dinner at Pinnacle Grill, so I'm curious about your experience.

 

thanks!

[nreeder]

The wine card does entitle you to choose the Pinot Grigio. I think they have chardonnay, cab and merlot (but I shure wouldn't recommed the cab) and I'm not a merlot fan.

 

The Pinnacle Grill specializes in steaks with some seafood. We had filet fixed "Steak Diane" style and it was very good (saw it recommended on CruiseCritic threads). The service as is typical of speciality restaurants was excellent and there's a separate pricy wine list just for the Grill that has a "northwest" tinge to it, i.e. wines from Oregon and Washington. We had an excellent Chateau St. Michele Cold Creek Cab ($79). Again, this wine probably would be low $20 in the supermarket.

 

There is also lobster on the menu. We overheard a group next to us up in the Lido complaining about the lobster but there were kind of complaining about everything at that time ("Holland America just isn't what it used to be" etc).

 

Thanks

Norm

[sunsetbeachgal]

HI Norm,

 

What a wonderfully comprehensive review-thank you! We haven't sailed HAL for about five years now-Princess just seems to "fit" us better-I always look at/compare their itineraries, price, etc when we book a cruise, and Princess has been beating them out. One of these days, we will be back on HAL!

[mek]

Thanks, I had a feeling it would be cool or cold at the top. What about toilets on the bus?

[pmpkn1957]

I too, have sailed Princess a few times, then took the Holland America Westerdam to Alaska last July.

DH and I found that the food on Holland America didnt compare at all to that of Princess...(previously have done Grand and Emerald Princess and doing Ruby in March)..the service was nowhere near that of Princess, either.

We enjoyed the shows and were comparable to that of Princess..

Unfortunately for Holland America, I believe that the Alaska cruise is quite different from any other cruise you might take, so I do need to take that into consideration.

We had several issues on Holland America that we never had on Princess....lipstick from previous people on water glasses, waiting up to 45 minutes for an iced tea in the dining room, a bug in our salad.....

We understand that things happen, but feel that it was a message to us to only sail on Princess. A cruise is only what you make of it, so we did have a great time..

I was very much expecting a "higher scale" class in cruising on Holland America, but didnt find that at all....

Thank you for your review, it was well done and much appreciated...

[nreeder]

I believe there were toilets on the bus in the back of the bus. Everyone was very sleepy at that time (4:30 am) and we didn't use them. Did use the restrooms on the train which were kept up by the Holland America crewmembers so they stayed clean and sanitary the whole way up and down.

 

Thanks

Norm

[mek]

Thanks, Norm for all of the information. BTW, we were all wondering on our Roll Call about the best side to sit on the train - is it the right side going up?

[nreeder]

Yes, the right side has the view on the way up which is the time frame when there is more daylight. Coming down, they ask everyone to change sides so that everyone gets a chance to look down in the canyon from their seats. However, on the way down, it gets dark so picture taking isn't as good.

 

Thanks

Norm

[Travelrd]

OP

Thanks for a great review. I'm taking the same cruse interary you did but on the larger Oosterdam in April 2011. I have gone on both Princess and HAL in the last couple of years and I have to give the edge to HAL. Their rooms, room service menu, crew and excellent food really do it for me. I traveled on the Westerdam to Alaska last September and thought it was one of the best cruise's I have every been, mainly because of the crew and the tour guides who made us all more aware of the great Alaska scenery and ecological issues. Everything about HAL is better than Princess IMHO and that's just my opinion only. We all have our own expectations and how they are met completely individual. I am sailing again on Princess in two months and looking forward to it very much.

 

Thanks.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Thanks for a wonderful review. We are definitely looking at HAL for a cruise in the next year or so. Good friends of ours (previously only Princess cruisers) just took their first HAL cruise in Hawaii in January, and loved it. They said that, yes, the passenger demographic tended to be older, but then they were getting older too. I'm especially curious about sailing on the smaller ships (but not as small as Princess's small ships...that might be culture shock).

 

Regarding Copper Canyon...it's also on my bucket list. Sounds like an awfully long day, but what a great way to see it in one day. After all, most people only spend an hour or two at the Grand Canyon too (amazing to me, but everyone's different).