I am looking at HAL Zaandam, Celebrity Mercury, Golden Princess, RCL Radiance and Serenade. Which is preferred and why? We are in our 50's, not physically active, like good service, shows and relaxing!! My concern with the Zaandam is you have to get a suite to get a balcony...a lot of money! Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
I'm partial to Celebrity but what do I know. I haven't been to Hawaii. Wish Rick was around. The man is a cruise genius and with recent sailing to Hawaii on Princess would be a good resource. Plus his high praise of HAL from his recent Baltic cruise would add to the perspective.
I sure hope he wasn't driven away by some killjoy. Well IB going now.
You might want to check this on our recent cruise on the Zandam. She is a beautiful ship, but with the problems we had I would not want to go on her again. We do plan to try HAL again, just a different ship.
BTW we are looking into a Hawaii Cruise and this Zaandam thing has changed our plans, we were going to take her.
dr, I have just returned from a cruise in Alaska on Celebrity's Mercury. We found her to be in great shape (recently renovated) with great food the dining room, very wonderful service, and nice size cabins. We had a low-deck ocean view which had more storage space than I've seen on recent cruises.
I've never sailed her to Hawaii, but you seem to be the perfect demographic for Celebrity. All your choices are good ones, however, so I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.
We have not been on Mercury. However, we were on the Celebrity Summit and really liked Celebrity. I think it is a more relaxing experience, if that is what you are looking for. The Summit had a Thalasotherpy pool, which my husband loved. Not sure if Mercury has that or not.
Guess I'm not a fountain of knowledge, but just wanted to let you know that we had been on Celebrity and enjoyed it very much.
We were on the Radiance last November and she is a great ship. We agreed that the food on the Radiance was much tastier, in our opinion, than on the Summit. However, food, entertainment, etc. is a matter of personal preference and you might feel entirely different! We will definitely try to cruise on each of those ships at some future date.
Have fun making your decision. Planning a cruise is so much fun!
The only ship of those you mention that I am familiar with is Golden Princess, which I would highly recommend. I think Princess would be the best value for the money with no compromise in quality.
I would also suggest a mini-suite for a 14 day trip; you get a lot more room for only about $400 more pp. We did and were very glad we did.
I think another thing you might like to consider is the time you have in each place in Hawaii....for me the longer I have to enjoy a particular place the better,but some cruisers are happy just visiting a port for 3 or 4 hours and then getting back to the ship.
I cruised with princess for the first time nearly 3 months ago ( in the med ) and had a really enjoyable cruise.
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