Celebrity cruises vs Holland America

[Joyce]

Just returned from my first cruise. It was wonderful and very relaxing. We had booked on the 7th level but for some reason we were bumped up to level 9, concierge service. What a deal! While in the airport, we met people who had been on Celebrity cruises and liked them but prefered the Holland cruise line more. Any comments out there?

 

[Wonka]

We've been on both, and are on 10-day with Celebrity this January. In my opinion, Holland America seems to attract the older crowd, Celebrity has a better mix. Both are very good.

 

[grest]

My two favorite lines...always a hard choice, I choose either based on the itinerary at the time I wish to sail...can't lose!
Connie

 

[pedro47]

We've been on both, and are on 10-day with Celebrity this January. In my opinion, Holland America seems to attract the older crowd, Celebrity has a better mix. Both are very good.

We are sailing Celebrity Solstice this month and I thought Celebrity attracted the more mature cruiser.

Both are great cruise lines. Our vote is for Celebrity.

 

[Sandy VDH]

I like both as well. They are my top 2 for large cruise lines.

Celebrity has a slightly younger mix of ages. HAL tends a bit older. But it does depend on the cruise. Summer cruises and alaska change the ages a bit, and HAL ends up a bit younger. HAL had great food, and would have to give it a slight edge over Celebrity. But as far as decor and staterooms I would have to give the edge to Celebrity. More to my personal taste.

 

[Wonka]

We are sailing Celebrity Solstice this month and I thought Celebrity attracted the more mature cruiser.

Both are great cruise lines. All vote is for Celebrity.

There you go...who knows the right answer? Maybe it depends on the mix of the ship at any given time.

 

[Jaybee]

Funny how so many equate both lines. We like HAL, too, and have sailed on them 3X, but Celebrity has our vote for the best. There are fancier lines, of course; Crystal, Oceania, etc, but for the money, the ambience and service on Celebrity beats them all. We have sailed on Carnival, and NCL, also, but still prefer Celebrity.

 

[Glynda]

Age

Just returned from my first cruise. It was wonderful and very relaxing. We had booked on the 7th level but for some reason we were bumped up to level 9, concierge service. What a deal! While in the airport, we met people who had been on Celebrity cruises and liked them but prefered the Holland cruise line more. Any comments out there?

I've never sailed Celebrity but after sailing for 12 days on Holland America, Barcelona to Venice, I'm going to look for a line with a younger mix next time. It was a lovely cruise but just not age appropriate for us and we're no youngsters.

 

[davhu1]

Carnival tend to have a younger crowd and kids/teenagers also seem to prefer it. We tried NCL earlier this year and we did not see more than a couple of dozen kids all week.

Do not mean to steal this thread, but any one knows of a site with good price. Searching for Alaska next August. So far best rate is cruise.com and icruise (same). All other I tried are ~$50 to ~$500 more for. I tired cruise411, vacationstogo, cruisesonly, orbtiz, travelocity, cruiseperks, aa airlines, insightcruises, and yahoo. Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[riverside]

Carnival tend to have a younger crowd and kids/teenagers also seem to prefer it. We tried NCL earlier this year and we did not see more than a couple of dozen kids all week.

Do not mean to steal this thread, but any one knows of a site with good price. Searching for Alaska next August. So far best rate is cruise.com and icruise (same). All other I tried are ~$50 to ~$500 more for. I tired cruise411, vacationstogo, cruisesonly, orbtiz, travelocity, cruiseperks, aa airlines, insightcruises, and yahoo. Any suggestions? Thanks

Just a warning about icruise. We used them and had problems. NO customer service at all. Several of us booked with them for the same cruise and we all had problems.

Are you looking at Royal Caribbean? They do not allow other agencies to book at a lower price. Sometimes the agencies will throw in a freebie, however. We usually just book directly with the cruise line. If the price goes down before you pay your final payment, you can ask for the lower price and they will give it to you. (at least Royal Caribbean did) We had ours lowered twice and got our bill reduced both times. You have to keep track of it yourself though.

 

[Joyce]

Celebrity did have a mix of age groups. Now I am wondering just how "older" the groups are on Holland. We are active 65 year olds. Glad to hear that both lines are great. We sure did have a relaxing time and will probably cruise again. We enjoyed walking everyday.

 

[Glynda]

Holland America

Celebrity did have a mix of age groups. Now I am wondering just how "older" the groups are on Holland. We are active 65 year olds. Glad to hear that both lines are great. We sure did have a relaxing time and will probably cruise again. We enjoyed walking everyday.

I think it depends upon the destination, length of cruise and time of year. I would say that the average age was 70 on our 12 day Holland America Med cruise this fall. Next time I'm going to check out Celebrity or go back to Princess or RC. Carnival NEVER again.

 

[davhu1]

Just a warning about icruise. We used them and had problems. NO customer service at all. Several of us booked with them for the same cruise and we all had problems.

Are you looking at Royal Caribbean? They do not allow other agencies to book at a lower price. Sometimes the agencies will throw in a freebie, however. We usually just book directly with the cruise line. If the price goes down before you pay your final payment, you can ask for the lower price and they will give it to you. (at least Royal Caribbean did) We had ours lowered twice and got our bill reduced both times. You have to keep track of it yourself though.

Riverside. Thanks for the warning. I guess I go back to cruise.com. They are several hundred less than the Norwegian website and we were happy with thier services. When we took the cruise earlier this year, we pretty much had the lowerst rate. We were given several catagory upgrade after booking on line, and found a bottle of wine, a plate of chocolate coated strawberries, and $20 on board credit coupon for each person with a note saying "complementary from your travel agency"

 

[Dave M]

Be very careful about using online travel agencies, especially in these tough economic times. Their financial stability is probably a mystery....

Last spring I searched 14 different online agencies for the lowest fares on two Holland America ("HAL") cruises, New Zealand-Australia in 01/09 and Scandinavia/Baltics in 07/09. I booked both cruises with Cruise Value Center ("CVC"), one of the largest online agencies, which had the lowest fares for both, meaning they were sharing more of their sales commission with customers than other agencies do.

In about August, CVC started keeping credit card payments from customers instead of promptly passing the payments on to cruise lines or (as most agencies do) charging the card in such a manner that the credit card company immediately pays the cruise line. The extreme discounting had apparently caught up to CVC and ultimately, they went out of business last month, leaving well over 1,000 customers without fully paid cruises, even though they had sent customers (as they did for my 01/09 cruise) a "paid in full" receipt.

I was lucky. I saw a thread on Cruise Critic about CVC's demise, checked with HAL ("Sorry. We haven't received final payment"), paid HAL $$$ and filed a complaint with my credit card company, fairly quickly getting a permanent credit for the amount in dispute, but only because I caught it within the 60-day limit after the company mailed the credit card statement with the charge on it.

So, the moral of the story is that, if you decide to use a travel agency, please be sure to check with the cruise line to ensure that they receive full payment. For HAL and many other cruise lines, there is an easy way to confirm the final payment. The online check-in option offered by many cruise lines (including HAL) usually isn't available until final payment has been made to the cruise line. That might uncover a missing final payment but wouldn't uncover a missing deposit.

In my first 18 months of retirement, I'll spend 107 days on eight cruises. Two of those cruises almost turned out to be much more expensive than I planned! Both are still somewhat more expensive than I planned, because HAL didn’t know how much the steeply discounted CVC prices were and, not surprisingly, wouldn’t honor those prices.

P.S. HAL is my favorite cruise line, but I'll also cruise on Princess, RCI and NCL in this 18-month period. Four of the eight cruises are on HAL.

 

[SpikeMauler]

I've cruised Royal Caribbean, Princess and Holland America. Holland America had the best food and service. Holland America definitely has an older crowd but that doesn't bother me(I'm 43).