We decided to book this 38-night Holland America (HAL) cruise because it made multiple stops in Greenland and Iceland - two destinations on our bucket list. Other interesting new ports for us were Douglas (the Isle of Man,) Portree ( Isle of Skye) plus Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Liverpool, UK. Ports previously visited by us included ones in New England, Canada and Europe. Even more importantly, the Rotterdam's extended stop in Liverpool permitted my daughter & our grandsons to visit the ship for the day. Canadians & Americans made up the vast majority of the passengers. Most of the passengers were four and five star members in HALs loyalty program. Although there were a handful of youngsters on board, we rarely saw them.

We flew to the departure city of Boston, on August 1, 2017 a day early in order to do some pre-cruise sightseeing and meet a friend for dinner in the North End. The following day, we were picked up at the Langham Hotel and transported to the ship by coach. Unfortunately, the ship was undergoing a surprise Coast Guard Inspection so there was a delay in boarding. Later, we heard that the ship scored well. Our stateroom was ready on our arrival and our luggage arrived later in the afternoon. The safety drill was well-organized and proceeded smoothly.

We chose Open Seating Dining and arranged with our servers to keep our table for the entire cruise. We never needed, therefore, to wait on a line for seating. There was always a small vase of fresh flowers on our linen dressed table. Food in the Main Dining Room (MDR) was consistently good. My husband's Special Request Meals arrived in a timely fashion and fit his dietary restrictions. Only once was there a problem with his meal. His order of a steak cooked rare arrived well-done. The meat was quickly replaced with apologies from everyone. Read more