Holland America (Koningsdam) with kids/teens vs DCL - my thoughts

[lilsonicfan]

Hi all!

We just got off our 7 night Alaska cruise with HAL on the Koningsdam (Vancouver round trip, ports of Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, and sailing to Glacier Bay) and because of the itinerary similarity to DCL in Alaska, I wanted to share some brief thoughts. Caveat, we have not sailed DCL to Alaska. Our last two DCL cruises were eastbound Transatlantic (2019 on the Magic) and westbound Panama Canal (2022 on the Wonder). We have previously done a 7 night Alaskan cruise with NCL and a 4 night with Princess.

In a nutshell, I would definitely sail with HAL again, especially to Alaska (which is one of its main itineraries).

Ship and Food/Drink:

• Koningsdam is a little bigger than Wonder or Magic, but not by much
• It's very well suited to cruising in Alaska as there is the indoor Crows Nest on deck 12 with 270 degree views, as well as a retractable roof over the Lido deck main pool area. That roof meant we could go swimming at all hours of the day; the pools were generally open 9am to 10pm. There is also an outdoor pool on the Lido deck, aft.
• The buffet is open for longer and better hours than Cabanas, and with more variety. Plus, HAL serves you at the buffet, something they have always done even before covid. EDIT: I have been informed that HAL has not "always" served you at the buffet but that that is relatively new - still before Covid as I understand it - but just to be clear, not since the beginning of time!
• The MDR is of course not as well themed as Disney, and we found the service to be quite slow, but I think all cruise lines are struggling with staffing right now. Food was generally quite good.
• We constantly saw people cleaning around the ship and dishes were bussed quickly on the pool/buffet deck.
• There are more and better fast food options on the Koningsdam, including: a full cafe serving a variety of lunch/dinner food from 11:30am-8pm (and far more pastries in the am than Cove Cafe), the NY Deli/Pizza (way better pizza, sorry DCL but those premade crusts are not good at all), and a burger joint with, again, better burgers than DCL's fast food service.
• Also more specialty dining than Magic/Wonder.
• Lots of bars. HAL offers a drink package, we didn't buy it. Pop is not free, but I do not drink pop generally so I am not sure how much it cost. You can also buy wine packages.
• Koningsdam has a casino, and it was largely smoke-free - very much appreciated. It's close to the front of the ship and you really don't need to walk by it if you don't want.
• Koningsdam has its promenade deck similar to deck 4 on the Magic/Wonder; but, the lifeboats do block a lot of the view from the side due to their placement. You can walk all the way around though, similar to Magic/Wonder. There is also a separate jogging track upstairs on deck 11 though it's much smaller, so 7 laps of that = 1 mile.
• Sports court was well used for either basketball or pickleball - SO many pickleball players, every day.
• The Thermal Suite (similar to Rainforest room) is huge, with a big hydrotherapy pool. Weekly passes were similarly priced to Rainforest.

Alaska Experience:

• OMG, the beauty of Glacier Bay - I cannot emphasize enough what an amazing day we had here. Park rangers board the ship in the morning and provide scenic narration all morning, then they led an afternoon program for kids and had a seminar for adults too. Not every cruise line is permitted to sail in Glacier Bay, but if you are inclined to choose a line other than DCL, definitely find one that sails here!
• They also opened the bow area on deck 5 on Glacier Bay day - not everyone knew about this so it wasn't crowded. And on deck they served dutch pea soup to keep you warm - yum.
• We did have a delay getting into Juneau, from what I heard this was very unusual and due to high winds that day.
• We rented a vehicle in Skagway and had the BEST experience (aside from some fog in the White Pass area) driving to Yukon.

Kids Club:

• Kids are divided into two groups - age 3-6 and age 7-12. There were certainly kids on board, I think the 7-12 group had about 40 in attendance at popular times (eg Glacier Bay Junior Ranger program).
• The programming is not all day. It goes from 9am-12pm, 1pm-4pm, and 7pm-10pm. Kids must be signed in and out by parents/guardians, even the 12yos are not allowed to leave on their own.
• It is also not a free-for-all. Video games were limited to approx 1-1.5 hours per day after dinner. Otherwise there were more structured activities. I think this was quite good for the kids, even mine. At DCL clubs they spent a TON of time on video games and ipads, so I thought HAL did a great job encouraging them to participate in other activities.
• I saw the counsellors interacting with the kids more so than I ever observed on DCL. Sometimes when picking up we had to wait a few min till a counsellor saw us because they were busy playing with the kids.
• My two younger ones (9 and 10) had a great time when they went to the club.

Teens Club:

• Teens could drop in and out, but their club was only open when an activity was scheduled, which was usually 8pm and onward in the evenings, with some afternoon stuff scheduled on sea days.
• There weren't a ton of teens on board so it did take some convincing for my oldest to go, even though he had a friend with him.
• Their activities included: teen casino night, scavenger hunt, cornhole tournament, trivia night, etc.

Adult entertainment:

• Mostly music-based, as that is the theme on Koningsdam - lots of live music, some comedy shows
• They had some cool evening shows - dance/orchestral music based, or BBC Planet Earth with orchestral music. Maybe not Broadway production style, but still very good. I also watched movies on the pool deck (they should turn on subtitles like DCL!) and in the big theatre one night.

Random:

• No self-serve laundry on board but you could pay $20 for a bag, or do what we did, which was get the unlimited package - $49 for a week. Well worth it as we sent out laundry every day (handy, with a family of 5)
• Specialty dining lunch at Pinnacle Grill was one of our best meals and only costs $15 upcharge.
• HAL offered a spa promo, $50-70 to spend at the spa on port days. I used mine for a pedicure. Was not 'upsold' anything at all, which was excellent.
• Was it as "magical" as Disney - well - probably not. But to give you an idea, it was going to cost $12,000 CAD for us to sail to Alaska on DCL for approx the same week. We paid $4,200 CAD on Holland. Candidly, the price difference is more significant as there are 5 of us, therefore fewer options to book only one room.

Hope this assists anyone who might be thinking of venturing out beyond DCL!

 

[lklgoodman]

Thanks for sharing. We sailed on DCL to Alaska in 2014 and enjoyed it. We are doing another Alaskan cruise in 2023, but are going on NCL's Encore. We got a family club balcony for less than an inside would be on DCL. My dd is now a teen, so we're interested in trying some ships with more attractions. We'll be going to Glacier Bay also, the videos I've seen of it are beautiful.

 

[SailingScout]

Thank you for sharing! I am becoming increasingly disappointed with the kids clubs on DCL. We just returned from a European cruise, which was port intensive so not a lot of club time which was great because I don’t like all the screens in the clubs. They wanted to draw one day and either the club or lab didn’t even have the materials, which to me seems like a basic kid activity that should always be available. If we continue to cruise with DCL, I think we need port intensive itineraries because my kids are bored in the clubs. We have done three PC cruises and I can’t imagine doing another with the current state of the kids clubs. (Sorry this turned into a big diatribe about clubs! )

 

[Cdavishb1]

Glad to read your HAL review. We have read similar reviews. Price is so high on DCL. We canceled our 9 night in favor of HAL. Felt somewhat sad at first but now realize it was best for us. Saved a boat load of money.

 

[darnheather]

Thank you. I'm always curious about other lines that I might sail once youngest DD ages out of the DCL clubs.

 

[Ellajoan]

We sailed HAL w/ that same itinerary that you had, and we absolutely loved it. We have a DCL Magic trip planned for winter, and I do hope it's worth the extra cost over HAL. The only drawback we found at HAL was how it was hard for our teenagers to find things to do. Not sure if they'll prefer the "older/quieter" crowd from HAL or be more annoyed with the "littles" at DCL.

 

[disneyholic family]

Hi all!

We just got off our 7 night Alaska cruise with HAL on the Koningsdam (Vancouver round trip, ports of Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, and sailing to Glacier Bay) and because of the itinerary similarity to DCL in Alaska, I wanted to share some brief thoughts. Caveat, we have not sailed DCL to Alaska. Our last two DCL cruises were eastbound Transatlantic (2019 on the Magic) and westbound Panama Canal (2022 on the Wonder). We have previously done a 7 night Alaskan cruise with NCL and a 4 night with Princess.

In a nutshell, I would definitely sail with HAL again, especially to Alaska (which is one of its main itineraries).

Ship and Food/Drink:

• Koningsdam is a little bigger than Wonder or Magic, but not by much
• It's very well suited to cruising in Alaska as there is the indoor Crows Nest on deck 12 with 270 degree views, as well as a retractable roof over the Lido deck main pool area. That roof meant we could go swimming at all hours of the day; the pools were generally open 9am to 10pm. There is also an outdoor pool on the Lido deck, aft.
• The buffet is open for longer and better hours than Cabanas, and with more variety. Plus, HAL serves you at the buffet, something they have always done even before covid.
• The MDR is of course not as well themed as Disney, and we found the service to be quite slow, but I think all cruise lines are struggling with staffing right now. Food was generally quite good.
• We constantly saw people cleaning around the ship and dishes were bussed quickly on the pool/buffet deck.
• There are more and better fast food options on the Koningsdam, including: a full cafe serving a variety of lunch/dinner food from 11:30am-8pm (and far more pastries in the am than Cove Cafe), the NY Deli/Pizza (way better pizza, sorry DCL but those premade crusts are not good at all), and a burger joint with, again, better burgers than DCL's fast food service.
• Also more specialty dining than Magic/Wonder.
• Lots of bars. HAL offers a drink package, we didn't buy it. Pop is not free, but I do not drink pop generally so I am not sure how much it cost. You can also buy wine packages.
• Koningsdam has a casino, and it was largely smoke-free - very much appreciated. It's close to the front of the ship and you really don't need to walk by it if you don't want.
• Koningsdam has its promenade deck similar to deck 4 on the Magic/Wonder; but, the lifeboats do block a lot of the view from the side due to their placement. You can walk all the way around though, similar to Magic/Wonder. There is also a separate jogging track upstairs on deck 11 though it's much smaller, so 7 laps of that = 1 mile.
• Sports court was well used for either basketball or pickleball - SO many pickleball players, every day.
• The Thermal Suite (similar to Rainforest room) is huge, with a big hydrotherapy pool. Weekly passes were similarly priced to Rainforest.

Alaska Experience:

• OMG, the beauty of Glacier Bay - I cannot emphasize enough what an amazing day we had here. Park rangers board the ship in the morning and provide scenic narration all morning, then they led an afternoon program for kids and had a seminar for adults too. Not every cruise line is permitted to sail in Glacier Bay, but if you are inclined to choose a line other than DCL, definitely find one that sails here!
• They also opened the bow area on deck 5 on Glacier Bay day - not everyone knew about this so it wasn't crowded. And on deck they served dutch pea soup to keep you warm - yum.
• We did have a delay getting into Juneau, from what I heard this was very unusual and due to high winds that day.
• We rented a vehicle in Skagway and had the BEST experience (aside from some fog in the White Pass area) driving to Yukon.

Kids Club:

• Kids are divided into two groups - age 3-6 and age 7-12. There were certainly kids on board, I think the 7-12 group had about 40 in attendance at popular times (eg Glacier Bay Junior Ranger program).
• The programming is not all day. It goes from 9am-12pm, 1pm-4pm, and 7pm-10pm. Kids must be signed in and out by parents/guardians, even the 12yos are not allowed to leave on their own.
• It is also not a free-for-all. Video games were limited to approx 1-1.5 hours per day after dinner. Otherwise there were more structured activities. I think this was quite good for the kids, even mine. At DCL clubs they spent a TON of time on video games and ipads, so I thought HAL did a great job encouraging them to participate in other activities.
• I saw the counsellors interacting with the kids more so than I ever observed on DCL. Sometimes when picking up we had to wait a few min till a counsellor saw us because they were busy playing with the kids.
• My two younger ones (9 and 10) had a great time when they went to the club.

Teens Club:

• Teens could drop in and out, but their club was only open when an activity was scheduled, which was usually 8pm and onward in the evenings, with some afternoon stuff scheduled on sea days.
• There weren't a ton of teens on board so it did take some convincing for my oldest to go, even though he had a friend with him.
• Their activities included: teen casino night, scavenger hunt, cornhole tournament, trivia night, etc.

Adult entertainment:

• Mostly music-based, as that is the theme on Koningsdam - lots of live music, some comedy shows
• They had some cool evening shows - dance/orchestral music based, or BBC Planet Earth with orchestral music. Maybe not Broadway production style, but still very good. I also watched movies on the pool deck (they should turn on subtitles like DCL!) and in the big theatre one night.

Random:

• No self-serve laundry on board but you could pay $20 for a bag, or do what we did, which was get the unlimited package - $49 for a week. Well worth it as we sent out laundry every day (handy, with a family of 5)
• Specialty dining lunch at Pinnacle Grill was one of our best meals and only costs $15 upcharge.
• HAL offered a spa promo, $50-70 to spend at the spa on port days. I used mine for a pedicure. Was not 'upsold' anything at all, which was excellent.
• Was it as "magical" as Disney - well - probably not. But to give you an idea, it was going to cost $12,000 CAD for us to sail to Alaska on DCL for approx the same week. We paid $4,200 CAD on Holland. Candidly, the price difference is more significant as there are 5 of us, therefore fewer options to book only one room.

Hope this assists anyone who might be thinking of venturing out beyond DCL!

thanks for that very detailed comparison.
I found your comments about the kids club especially interesting.
After our 2 most recent DCL cruises, we've decided to try some of the other cruise lines.
It's not that the DCL cruises were bad, but the differential doesn't seem to be there anymore.
Certainly not significant enough to warrant the HUGE upcharge.
My one concern in trying other companies has been the kids clubs.
I actually hadn't even thought about HAL as they have the reputation of having much older passengers.
I wonder if it's just on their Alaska cruises that they're so set up for kids.
In any case, i'll add HAL to the cruises that we may consider in the future.

Our first trial will be Royal Caribbean next summer in the Mediterranean.
For a 7 night cruise on Symphony of the Seas, which is a ship with lots of bells and whistles, the cost will be 1/3 of the cost on the Disney ship.
Yes, DCL is 3 times the price of the cruise on one of the nicer Royal ships.
There is no way i can justify spending 3 times more for a disney cruise, especially after our disappointments on the past 2 disney cruises.

 

[hrhdhd]

"Plus, HAL serves you at the buffet, something they have always done even before covid."

This isn't exactly true. When we first cruised on HAL (8/2005 and several following cruises), the buffet was self serve. Then they moved to a strategy called "Code Orange," where the buffet was served by crew for the first two days in an attempt to forestall noro virus. I assume it worked (and also saved on food costs), so they expanded to the entire cruise. (They also got rid of trays, which caused a big hullabaloo!)

Anyway, thanks for the review. We have moved on from HAL, but sailed enough to be three-star Mariners. I'd cruise them again for the right price and itinerary.

 

[ahain]

Dinner Dress code - did you have to dress more formally each night compared to DCL? or was it pretty casual? Thank you!

 

[ahain]

One more question... I heard/read that HAL allows smoking on verandahs. I really dislike smelling cigarette/cigar smoke. Did you find this to be an issue?

 

[lilsonicfan]

Thanks for the clarification on the buffet, hrhdhd!

Dinner Dress code - did you have to dress more formally each night compared to DCL? or was it pretty casual? Thank you!

Maybe very slightly more. My BIL wore shorts one night and was quietly spoken to at the door. Apparently pants are expected

One more question... I heard/read that HAL allows smoking on verandahs. I really dislike smelling cigarette/cigar smoke. Did you find this to be an issue?

I did not think this was allowed, but in any event I did not smell anything from our verandah.

I wonder if it's just on their Alaska cruises that they're so set up for kids.
In any case, i'll add HAL to the cruises that we may consider in the future.

Our first trial will be Royal Caribbean next summer in the Mediterranean.
For a 7 night cruise on Symphony of the Seas, which is a ship with lots of bells and whistles, the cost will be 1/3 of the cost on the Disney ship.
Yes, DCL is 3 times the price of the cruise on one of the nicer Royal ships.
There is no way i can justify spending 3 times more for a disney cruise, especially after our disappointments on the past 2 disney cruises.

Entirely possible re: being more set up on Alaska cruises. Alaska is a huge draw for HAL.
We are thinking of sailing on Symphony next year, on their transatlantic, actually! I got a quote for two balconies on that 12 night cruise - around $8,000 CAD. I am pretty sure DCL was around $14,000 CAD for two oceanviews for our eastbound transatlantic, and that was with a placeholder discount!

 

[tvguy]

• It's very well suited to cruising in Alaska as there is the indoor Crows Nest on deck 12 with 270 degree views, as well as a retractable roof over the Lido deck main pool area. That roof meant we could go swimming at all hours of the day; the pools were generally open 9am to 10pm. There is also an outdoor pool on the Lido deck, aft.
• The buffet is open for longer and better hours than Cabanas, and with more variety. Plus, HAL serves you at the buffet, something they have always done even before covid.

We cruised on the Amsterdam and Westerdam, both to Alaska. The retractable roof is a hallmark of a HAL ship.
And on our cruises, the buffet was self serve, so them serving you is new since 2012, our last HAL cruise.

 

[hrhdhd]

One more question... I heard/read that HAL allows smoking on verandahs. I really dislike smelling cigarette/cigar smoke. Did you find this to be an issue?

No longer.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/faq.shipboard-life.is-smoking-allowed-on-board.html

 

[KashasMom]

Thank you for your review! It sounds like it was a great cruise. Two things that I LOVE - dinner buffet and retractable roof over the pool. Better food is also awesome!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Was it as "magical" as Disney - well - probably not. But to give you an idea, it was going to cost $12,000 CAD for us to sail to Alaska on DCL for approx the same week. We paid $4,200 CAD on Holland. Candidly, the price difference is more significant as there are 5 of us, therefore fewer options to book only one room.

I'll say saving that much is pretty magical.

 

[auntlynne]

Thanks for this. Not only its being a review of HAL, but the specific ship.

We started cruising AK with DCL (2011), but even then it was on the expensive side. Three times on Princess, then last year, I went solo on NCL Encore during the restart. (my niece did her honeymoon on DCL to AK - but the price jump in even one year for the same cabin, same week was about $3K to $10K). Other than DCL, we have gotten to cruise in Glacier Bay each time.

I found College Fjord really spectacular on the last day of a North-bound journey. And Icy Strait Point last year was a wonderful port day of whale watching and Ziplining (seated).

I‘m trying to be patient and wait until my 65th birthday to return - but 4 years seems s long. (I celebrated my 50th in our first cruise through Tracy Arm). I’d like to try something new for this one. HAL is sounding like a front-runner.

And nice run-down of kids’ programs if we need a reference for posters in the future.

 

[disneyholic family]

We are thinking of sailing on Symphony next year, on their transatlantic, actually! I got a quote for two balconies on that 12 night cruise - around $8,000 CAD. I am pretty sure DCL was around $14,000 CAD for two oceanviews for our eastbound transatlantic, and that was with a placeholder discount!

and that's with DCL being "cheap" on their transatlantics.

 

[WxKristin]

Thank you so much for this thorough review. We have never done a cruise (the idea of being trapped on a boat in the middle of open ocean doesn't generally appeal to me), but we were thinking about renting our DVC points and instead doing an Alaska DCL trip in August 2023. My main concern on doing something other than Disney was if the kids would be entertained/attended to. My husband's main concern w/DCL was the price tag.

With 5 people did you do 2 adjoining rooms or was there a family suite or other option?

 

[lilsonicfan]

Thank you so much for this thorough review. We have never done a cruise (the idea of being trapped on a boat in the middle of open ocean doesn't generally appeal to me), but we were thinking about renting our DVC points and instead doing an Alaska DCL trip in August 2023. My main concern on doing something other than Disney was if the kids would be entertained/attended to. My husband's main concern w/DCL was the price tag.

With 5 people did you do 2 adjoining rooms or was there a family suite or other option?

The nice thing about Alaska there isn't a TON of "open ocean" time. Land isn't too far!

On DCL we usually do 2 connecting rooms where possible. On this HAL cruise, we booked a bit late - plus the connecting rooms on other cruise lines seem more difficult to get anyway, I am not sure why, maybe fewer of them. We also wanted to do this trip on the cheap. So we booked one inside room that held two people and one obstructed verandah that held 3. They were just across the hall. At guest services, I obtained a couple of extra "access only" keys so that we could get into the rooms we weren't assigned to. My older two stayed in the inside room, and DH, youngest DS and I stayed in the obstructed verandah.

 

[dmunsil]

A great overview! We agree - Holland America and Princess are pretty hard to beat for Alaska. One other thing we like about Holland America is that their embarkation and disembarkation are super smooth. Generally when you get on the ship, the staterooms are ready! You don't have to wait until 1:30 - you just go to your room. And on disembarkation morning, the buffet and MDR are serving a full hot breakfast and you don't have to exit your room until your disembarkation group is called. No need to get everything out of your room by 8 am!

On HAL, we tend to get packed up, leave our bags in the center of the room so they're not in the way, then go get a pleasant breakfast, head back to the room (where sometimes they've started resetting the room for the next guests), get our bags, and walk off.