Princess and Holland America Let's Compare - Would I Sail Holland America Again?

I can only compare Princess ships with the one Holland America cruise on the Zuiderdam.  

I have sailed on Princess for over 1,700 days in total (as guest and as lecturer), but only 14 days on Holland America.  I have also done five Carnival cruises, and two Celebrity and one Royal Caribbean.

For this blog I can only comment on the Zuiderdam.

I am sure things may be different on different Holland ships that are newer and bigger.  But I can only compare what I have experience with.

Ship

• Zuiderdam was launched in 2002.  She is 82,000 tons.  Only the second smallest ship we have been on.  Original Star Princess was smaller.
• I never felt the ship was too small at all.  
• Was easy to get around.
• She is ready for some updating.  Cabin corridors are sad looking and the old print artwork looks like something from my first apartment.  Oh and don't even get me started on these odd benches.
• She is a classy ship - with huge promenade with teak lounge chairs.

This category is a tie.  Although I loved the smaller ship I did miss the amenties of Princess.  But the state of the ship is needing work, but then again so are many Princess ships.  

Itineraries

• Hands down Holland has some special itineraries that are longer and leave and return to the United States.  
• The voyage we are on is called Voyage of the Vikings and it is 35 days round trip from Boston.
• So if you are looking for amazing itineraries Holland wins.  But if you are just looking for standard itineraries - Princess is great too.  

A tie.

Cabin

• I had an ocean view cabin with a full length window 4083.

• Cabin is well laid out with a small couch, desk, large bank of closets, fridge, coffee table (that raises up or down), and nice size bathroom with a tub (mind you a small tub but still a tub.  Note not every cabin had a tub apparently.

• We really missed the large walk in closet that most Princess ships has (minus the newest ship The Sun).  When we had to open a cupboard to get clothes the other person could not get by. You had to close one cupboard to open another cupboard. 
• We found a lack of drawers. Only two very small ones beside the bed.  Barely got underwear in it.  There are also two drawers at the foot of the bed (you can still store luggage at head of bed) but found them hard to get at and steward often used them for towels etc.  

• Lots of cupboards and shelves.
• We are not heavy packers and we had plenty of room to store our items. 
• Lots of outlets and especially like the USB beside the bed.
• The lights in the cabin were totally weird.  One light switch turned on the lights at the door and at the window.  The other turned lights on above bed and by the couch.  So you couldn't discretly get dressed with a light on to see without waking the other.
• There was a motion sensor light by closet which was just right.  Not too bright and went out quickly.

• The bed was extremely comfortable.  But the two beds pushed together had a very bad gap.  We probably could of asked for a topper.  But we have never had to ask on Princess, should be automatic.
• Bathroom had a medicine cabinet to hide away your items which we prefered.  Lots of towel bars too!
• TV in the cabin had similar movies/shows as Princess and like Princess they are all free (not all lines provide free movies).
• We did find it very annoying that the recorded port talks kept buffering.  No matter what we did we couldn't prevent it.  Others had similar issues.  
• I liked that they had a bow camera, but also an aft camera.
• Cabins are cleaned by two stewards - one main guy and his assistant.  They were very quick too.  Loved that they did not have those annoying housekeeping carts blocking the corridors and which are noisy if they are placed outside your door.  
• One thing we found annoying is they evening turn down is way too early.  Often they were knocking on our door around 6 pm with our pillow chocolates (yes HAL is still giving out chocolates).  

Overall I found the cabin to be very nice and comfortable.  Really again it is a tie.

Entertainment 

• This is sadly where things disappoint.  I found the evening entertainment was 80% music.  I do enjoy listening to music but every night, all night is too much for us.  
• There are no production shows on this ship.
• Two commedians, which were funny.
• One magician that was good too.
• Breton Thunder was amazing and they are on for the entire Canada/New England season.
• Some trivia.  But really really missed the game type shows Princess does.  Yes/No, variety of trivias, musical bingo, etc etc.  HAL did do a marriage match game and a majority rules but they were not well put together and quite disappointing.
• We found every evening we wander the ship with nothing to do.
• During the day there were crafts, bridge, two trivias, lectures, and movies.  

My vote goes to Princess here.

Food

• Food is very subjective.  But when it came down to it the food was good.  Not great, and certainly not bad.  It was just good.  Although I find Princess' food to be just good now too.  
• I did notice that the dining room menus to be minimal with not nearly as many options as Princess.
• Items that we love on Princess like their French Onion soup were so bad on HAL that I was skimming off the layer of oil that had formed on the top.  Many dishes were obviously sitting under heat lamps for a very long time.
• Very repetitive dishes.  I think in my 13 days I saw corn soup on the menu five times.  Salads repeated often.  And the salmon bowl was on the menu every night but with a different way of serving (which was usually my go to dish) and very good.
• Absolutely loved the breakfast served in the buffet because the items were freshly made.   Like eggs bennedict!  Amazing!  
• We had tons of fresh fruit.  But really the best part was the fresh berries - throughout the voyage - that was available for your yoghurt or cereal.  LOVED this.
• In the buffet we really enjoyed the Asian section and often ate there.  Small variations each day.  But stay away from the sushi.  Both times we tried they were dried out and chewy.  
• Selection in the buffet was adequate but we found it very repetitive.  However I certainly wasn't going to go hungry.  I think if it would of been a shorter cruise (like a week) the buffet would of been fine.
• Although I love that HAL serves us in the buffet I hated that because of this it took a while to get your food.  Queues were common.  So you would queue up for certain hot foods but then have to queue up again if say you wanted something else from a different station.
• Since they serve you, that keeps the germs down; however they don't encourage guest to wash their hands - and rarely did I see anyone wash their hands.  There are lots of self serve sections.  Like the breads, butter, dessert self serve station, pickles, cold cuts, fruits - where you had to use tongs.  Defeated the purpose of them serving us.
• When we did dine in the Dining room service was very very good - and two times just ok.  They obviously have a good set up here with adequate staffing.  Waiters seems able to do their job and even get us wine before our first course.  With Princess this area has gone down hill.  Service is not what it use to be with staff so overworked they can't do the job they want to.
• HAL still does complimentary room service (however some late times do come with a fee).  Menu was fair and similar to Princess.  Breakfast room service did have the option for hot items.
• The burger bar called The Dive was very popular.  Although I don't eat burgers and fries often I knew I wanted to try one here.  One afternoon I ordered one and it was about a 20 minute wait.  It was a good burger and fries, but for the wait I am not sure.  I find Princess' burgers to be just as good and their menu is much bigger.  Also the burger bar closed every day at 6 pm.  Way too early.
• I really missed the International Cafe that you find on Princess as another food option.  Also missed the pizza bar on Lido - pizza in the buffet was not appetizing at all and looked like frozen pizza.

My vote for the best food goes to Princess - but I enjoyed HAL too.

Ship Amenities

• I found the ship to be well laid out.  I really enjoyed the Crow's nest; however it was very hard to find a good seat there.  But the coffee bar up there was lovely and they had cookies and muffins available too.  And great staff.

• The full libary was outstanding.  And even though I read most of books via my tablet I do enjoy a nice library at times.  
• Casino was a good size and non smoking!  I did not gamble but anyone who does you will find all the regular tables here to meet your needs.
• The size of the ship was so easy to get around and no time to get from one area to the next.
• There were 16 public elevators on this ship!  Heck that is what you will find on a big Princess Ship with a heck of a lot more people.  We rarely had to wait for an elevator (expect when the show got out).  Also loved the day of the week in the carpet in each elevator.
• So many quiet spaces.  On Princess I find it difficult to find a quiet spot.  Yes if the ship has skywalkers that is a good spot but even that gets loud.  Here I found tons of quiet spots to sit and read.
• Guest services was on deck 1 in the Atrium and was easy to talk to them without loud music coming from the Atrium.  Rarely were their lines either and the staff were top notch.
• Lots of public bathrooms and I loved that they had face clothes to dry your hands with.  

• I did not like the layout of the World Stage.  Yes it was comfortable; but there were so many blind spots.  Also many of the seats are banquette style and this meant many people took up a lot of space when they could of easily sat more people if in individual chairs.  Also the screen was so far back on the stage that it was impossible to see it entirely unless you were sitting directly in front of stage.
• I really like the enclosed pool concept but found it very noisy with sound reverberating off the ceilings and walls.  
• There is another aft pool and bar which I also enjoyed but the smoking section is on the port side and the smoke even when sitting on complete opposide side was bothersome.  I didn't find any other smoking section but then again I didn't look for it.
• Zuiderdam has a full promenade that you can walk around - note the front (bow) of the promenade is enclosed - and very wide.  
• I really missed the medallion capabilities.  Even the fact the medallion opens my cabin door was missed.  The ability to press a button to tell steward to clean room or to give me privacy.  Or for steward to know we are in the cabin.  
• HAL has the navigator app - which is basic and ok it is not nearly as good as Princess Medallion app.  

Although I like the Zuiderdam ship, my vote goes to Princess for more venues, better layout, more pools and open air spots and medallion.

So overall I am still a big Princess fan.  I would have no issue recommending HAL.

If I had to pick between the two I would choose Princess for a similar itinerary/costs.

Although I would definately look at HAL for a cruise, but only for a shorter itinerary.  I think I would just get too bored and tired of the food on a longer itinerary.

S