Holland America

[jennyferraynor]

Just curious why Holland America seems to simultaneously be advertised as a 'premium' cruise line like P&O or a Cunard-lite but the prices are half other cruise lines? For reference I'm looking at South Pacific / New Zealand / Australia cruises and Holland America is consistently about 50% of the cost of Royal Carribbean, Princess, P&O, and Cunard. Only Carnival is close.

 

[Rick Brant]

HAL is not a premium line and I don't think they really market themselves as such. They are very comparable to RCI, Princess, and Carnival in both product and pricing. The only real difference I have seen is that HAL attracts a much older clientele and their food is somewhat better. If you are seeing 50% discounts vs. Carnival etc, that is a good deal.

 

[mac66]

Old post but I'll chime in.

I've been noticing cheaper HAL cruises this year. My parents sailed a lot on HAL were pretty high up the ladder in terms of status perks. One thing that might be influencing HAL prices is the (and all the other cruise lines) have been hit hard during the Covid thing and are trying to get customers back. Lower prices to get more customers.

HAL tends to attract older clientele and they tend to die off. My dad died at 93 a couple years ago and my mom's 95 and no longer sailing. So HAL might be cutting prices to get new customers.

And BTW, both Princess and HAL are owned by Carnival

My wife and I sail mostly Royal and Celebrity but have been looking at HAL recently just to try it.

 

[ROUS]

I just got off a Holland cruise to Alaska and they'll be taking me around the Eastern/Southern Caribe in January.

We actually like cruising in an "adult" atmosphere and don't mind missing some of the antics and shipboard attractions on the more youth-targeted lines. But, to each their own. We loved our HAL experience and I'm looking forward to the dives they'll take me to this winter.

 

[Tracerbullet]

When we were cruising, the Holland line was geared / promoted to upscale couples. Not families and certainly not children

 

[Altamira]

We just got off a 14 night HAL Nieuw Statendam cruise Boston-Quebec-Boston, and although we have a lot of cruise days on HAL from two long trips in 2014, this was our first HAL cruise since then. I will say, the cruise experience this time was light years better than 2014, with exceptionally good food, and the onboard entertainment was phenomenal. Yes, the passenger age/demographics are different than on Carnival, but that is a very good thing in my opinion. The Nieuw Statendam is one of their newest/largest ships, and likely not all of their ships have the same level of top notch food and entertainment, but we are no longer hesitant to do more trips in the future.

 

[drrich2]

When you compare cruises across lines, be careful to consider what class within a line a given ship is in.

For example, with Royal Caribbean, the Royal Promenade (like an indoor main street neighborhood) and flow riders are only on some of the larger classes of ships. Only the Oasis-class have the Central Park and Boardwalk 'neighborhoods.'

So, newer, larger ships with more 'bells and whistles' tend to cost more.

Cunard is on a different tier. If I were looking for a competitor to Holland America, I might look at Celebrity Cruises (a holding of Royal Caribbean International).

I've done mainly Royal Caribbean cruises; 1 Celebrity cruise.

Price-wise, Carnival seems to have the rep. for being amongst the cheapest (although MSC does, too). Royal Caribbean and NCL maybe a bit more? Move up a little bit and you're looking at Celebrity and Princess; I'm not sure where Holland America falls in the sequence. Jack the price way up and welcome to Disney cruises!

 

[Rob9876]

We've only been on 2 cruises a number of years apart -- one Holland America Line in the Mediterranean, and one Royal Caribbean in the Caribbean. I think the caveats above are well stated.

That said, in our limited experience Holland America seemed a step or two above Royal Caribbean overall, including food, service, etc. The crowd on Holland America was definitely older -- so not necessarily recommended for young singles. However, I will say that the older folks on our Holland America cruise were generally fun, well-traveled people with good conversation about travels and more.

My wife has been interested in doing another HAL cruise ever since, but for the areas we'd be interested in, HAL is usually priced a decent bit more than Royal Caribbean, and a lot more than Carnival.

 

[drrich2]

Oh, by the way, there's a big online forum for people interested in the cruise industry at www.CruiseCritic.com - in the upper righthand part of the page you should see Boards; click on that. You'll find many sections by category, including for each of the major cruise lines. Do a Search and you can bet they've got This Line vs. That Line threads, etc... And plenty of trip reports and advice posts. It's a good place to research.

Richard.

 

[ROUS]

Oh, by the way, there's a big online forum for people interested in the cruise industry at www.CruiseCritic.com -

There is also a dedicated scuba/snorkeling forum there.