Back to HAL!!

[avalon1025]

After 11 days on the Crystal Symphony, paying 2-3X the HAL price for a basic outside cabin/balcony, though we had a great time and the ship was lovely, HAL does just as good of a job in many areas. All I kept thinking onboard was that I would of rather had a cate S on the Westerdam on the same itinerary (for close to the same price).

 

We paid a high price to realize how nice HAL is.

[chimera]

We get our chance to do our comparing next week. we wanted a summer cruise, but not to Alaska or europe. HAL has nothing in the Caribbean, so we opted for the Radisson Navigator to Bermuda. The ship and amenities look nice, but will have to go far to surpass a full suite on Holland America. :cool:

[doone]

Avalon, thanks for posting your experience, sometimes we don't know how good we have it til we try something else. Welcome back to HAL.

[Mariner05]

We were on the same Baltic Cruise on the Symphony and can compare HAL to Crystal. As 300 plus days on HAL I can say the experience was very close. In fact. in some cases HAL surpassed Crystal. The service on Crsytal was above that on HAL but hardly worth the price differential. There were many helpers available on the Symphony to assist you when you carried hand luggage and the embarkataion and disembarkation was very smooth. I mentioned some shortcomings on the Crystal thread and was almost devoured by their loyal fans,. It was a grand cruise but HAL be proud! We will be on the Veendam next month after disembarking the world Cruise in May.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Lou

Do report back and tell us what Linda and you think of the Radisson line.

[avalon1025]

Radisson is a great casual all suite cruise experience, more of what I expected on Crystal. The cabins on Radisson, even the cheapest one is a lovely suite.