Celebrity & Holland America?

[zebra]

We've cruised on both:

In the Holland America camp I would say the service is superior (not that X isn't excellent, we just found them going the extra mile on HAL). They memorized our names on the first day at the lunch buffet and greeted us every day by name!!

For Celebrity - I love their upstairs buffet dining area - the staff carry your tray for you and help you find a table, nice touch. On the Infinity & Millenium they have a second dining section towards the back of the ship with nice comfortable lounge chairs at the dinner tables.

[JoeyandDavid]

Oh i have to disagree here Zebra.....

By far I found the Celebrity service to be bounds above where HAL was when we last sailed with them....As a matter of fact that is why we went to Celebrity because of the Service..

But then again thats just my opinion..

Jackie,when was your last HAL cruise?

[Joanandjoe]

For us:

Rooms- HAL's are bigger (although much of the advantage is lost in Vista ships), and have bathtubs on all outside cabins. Both size and tubs are important to us.

Dining room food - About equal, although most CCers prefer X. We give HAL a slight edge.

Buffets - big advantage to HAL. In particular, th breakfast choices on HAL are better on the buffet (but the made to order omelots and waffles on X are great), lunches are about equal, sugar free desserts on HAL are better and more varied. (Usually only one choice on X, and that was mostly chocolate, which Joe is allergic to.)

Service - pretty much equal; although the old bad cabin attendant we've ever had was on X. We've never had a bad waiter on any cruise line.

Feeling of being pampered - about the same. Neither is in a class with Windstar or Regent.

Entertainment - so equal that we've had the same singer on the HAL Rotterdam and the X Zenith.

Public rooms - not a fair comparison, since we've sailed on both old and new HAL ships, only on old X ships. The artwork on HAL, though, is far superior to X.

Nickle and diming - both pretty bad. You can get unlimited soda on X, reduced price (but not unlimited) on HAL. On the other hand, it's pretty tacky of X to charge for espresso in the dining room at dinner. Wine lists are both a bit on the expensive side, similar to NY area restaurants (but not of as high quality as restaurants).

Overall, we think we prefer HAL: let's see if we still feel that way after our Noordam cruise in November.

[JoeyandDavid]

Wow Joanandjoe that suprised me ... :smiley: ..... I look forward to ur observations in November

[Joanandjoe]

Overall, we think we prefer HAL: let's see if we still feel that way after our Noordam cruise in November.

Wow Joanandjoe that suprised me ... :smiley: ..... I look forward to ur observations in November

See our review of the Zenith. We know it's an old ship; but our biggest problem was the room size, and standard non-balcony X rooms are about the same size on all ships, even the new ones. We spend more time in our room than most people. This was the only room we've had in the past few years that didn't have a VCR or DVD. (Usually we see two or three videos in a week, something we seldom have time for at home).

[JoeyandDavid]

I did that's why posted on OP about cabin size ..once you add that balcony It works..Zenith without having balconies is small to us

[zebra]

We cruised 4 years ago with HAL and couldn't fault anything on our entire cruise. In fact if weren't platinum members with Princess and because of their perks we receive, we would have cruised again with HAL (and are still planning to cruise with them again - hopefully it will be as good of an experience as our first.)

[KeithnRita]

Based on 6 HAL cruise versus two Celebrity, with number three booked; we rate Celebrity a notch higher. Our last HAL cruise was our only repeat ship, the ms Zaandam. We have a review posted on this site and that will explain why we now rate one slightly ahead of the other. Just remember it's only our opinion just like why people drive Chevys or Fords or other makes.

http://www.cruisecrazies.com/reviews/hal/z...am/review=1.php