Jumping Ship

Thursday, February 12, 2026

In looking over my travel history spreadsheet, I see that we have completed 249 days at sea. Over 60% of those days have been spent sailing with Holland America Line (HAL). In fact, they are the only cruise line that we have booked in the last eight years. The numbers attest to how much we have enjoyed their product. 

But...we are going to be unfaithful. On our upcoming 27-day cruise (our longest stretch of cruising to date) we will be sailing on the Ruby Princess. Veering away from the norm has me experiencing mixed feelings. I already know that there will be aspects of our HAL cruises that I will miss but certain features on Princess cruises have me looking forward to the cruise with anticipation. I thought it might be fun to record the positives and negatives (in my opinion) of each cruise line in advance and then re-visit the topic at the end of our cruise and see how legitimate my thoughts and concerns actually were.

For the past several years we have booked mid-winter cruises with the main goal of escaping the harsh Minnesota winters. Just having that break from the cold makes all the difference in my mental well-being. My criteria? Avoid any international flights and try and get the best bang for my buck. An added bonus is always finding back-to-back cruises with different itineraries on the same ship. 

This year I narrowed it down to two choices...one on Holland America and one on Princess. 

The Holland America cruise was on the Zuiderdam and combined a Mexican Riviera cruise with a Panama Canal cruise for a total of 27 days. Not counting the turnover day in San Diego, there would be 15 ports. The journey could be booked as two separate itineraries or as a single cruise.

The Princess cruise was also 27 days made up of a 16-day cruise to Hawaii followed by an 11-day cruise to Mexico, both on the Ruby Princess. This itinerary would have a total of only 9 port days.

 

I like to do my own travel research and have rarely used the services of a travel planner. But navigating Holland America's website is frustrating at best. In order to check a cruise fare with a refundable deposit (which is what I want) I must make a phone call...the pricing information is not available online. Princess was much more straightforward and I could easily see the price I was looking for. Also searching for a cabin on Princess was easy. HAL, on the other hand, had some cabins available for the individual legs of the cruise and others available for the two combined...what they call a "collector's cruise." Trying to see exactly what was available on HAL meant constantly switching back and forth between the different options.

Unlike many travelers, I was actually drawn towards the Princess option with fewer port stops. After my recent knee surgery, I wasn't sure how mobile I would be. I love sea days and am perfectly happy being on the ship as opposed to exploring the ports with my feeble leg. 

The final decision came down to price. For several hundreds of dollars LESS we booked a cabin on the Ruby Princess with an extended balcony compared to an obstructed ocean view cabin on the Zuiderdam. My main regret by not booking HAL is that we are only 8 points away from being 4-Star Mariners...and that is when the FREE laundry perk begins. 

So what do I anticipate missing by not sailing on Holland America? 

1. A couch in the cabin. The only seating in our Princess balcony cabin will be the desk chair. To get a couch in a Princess cabin would mean upgrading to at least a mini-suite.
2. A buffet where food is served by staff. It is easy enough to get sick on any ship, but having everyone touching the same serving spoons just ups the chances.
3. A retractable pool cover. The pools on the Ruby Princess are open and are only useable in nice weather.
4. Adjustable shower heads. I am short and like to lower the level of the shower head, but they appear to be fixed on the Ruby.
5. Nice pickleball courts (Bob). The Ruby's pickleball court is extremely small. 
6. Access to NY Times. Even without internet access, HAL passengers can access the NY Times website. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit on the promenade deck and work the NY Times puzzles in the morning! 
7. Onboard credits. Educator credits, AARP credits, and often other credits and free gratuities are included in our HAL bookings. Fortunately, both HAL and Princess are part of the Carnival Corporation so we will enjoy shareholder credits on either line.
8. Free room service all day. Princess has a limited free breakfast menu for room service but otherwise there is a charge. HAL also lets you order room service all day long and you can even order from the main dining room during scheduled meal times. We rarely do room service (other than breakfast) but it was nice to have the option when we were a little under the weather on our last cruise.
9. Extra days in Hawaii. We did a very similar cruise to Hawaii in 2024 on HAL but it was an 18-day itinerary rather than the 16-days on Princess. The HAL cruise included an overnight in Honolulu and also a stop in Hilo (which Bob loves so he can go to Volcanoes National Park.)

And what am I looking forward to on Princess? 

1. New entertainment & activity options. After so many HAL cruises, we are tired of the familiar entertainment and activities. 
2. Self-serve laundry. As much as I love having laundry service on HAL, the luxury gets expensive. Princess has laundry rooms on most every deck and for $3/wash and $3/dry I can do multiple loads of laundry for less than the single small bag cost on HAL.
3. Bedtime snacks! On HAL, the buffet closes for the day at 8 pm. Unless you are on one of the newer ships that has NY Pizza, there is nothing to eat until the 10:30 pm late night buffet begins. The buffet on Princess is open all day long until around 9 pm at night and the International Cafe is open 24 hours a day! Sometimes a person just wants a little something before bed! I anticipate that we will take advantage of the pizza and ice cream in the evening following our card games!

As the weeks and months passed by after making the first deposit, I was constantly checking the price of our cruises online. Anytime I noticed a special sale or price drop, I was on the phone with our Princess Vacation Planner (PVP) asking to have our cruise re-fared. This happened at least 8 times before the final payment was due and resulted in a savings of over $1700 (compared to the initial bookings) plus an additional $200 in onboard credit. Add to that the $350 of Carnival Cruise Corporation shareholder credit and $60 "goodwill credit" from our PVP which will go a long way to cover our gratuities. 

Our good friends, Jon and Michelle, will once again be joining us on this adventure and have booked the adjacent balcony cabin to ours. I have my fingers crossed that we will be able to open the divider between our two balconies. I know it isn't the same as having one "double sized" balcony, but it does make it easier to go back and forth between our two cabins. Also, by being on the Caribe deck, the balconies are much larger so it might even be possible for all four of us to sit together on one balcony.

So I mentioned that this trip was to be our annual escape from winter, but this year there is very little to escape from! At this point, there is no snow on the ground and our forecasted temps for the next few days are to be in the mid to upper 50's! Totally unheard of for February in Minnesota! I have started monitoring the long range forecast for San Francisco and even Honolulu and it looks like I may get some use from the rain jacket that I have packed. 😒 But even if I'm not happy about a rainy forecast, at least we aren't stressing over an in-coming blizzard that would hinder our travel!

As always, you are invited to come along and travel with us via my daily blog posts! I love to share our experiences and love it even more when I know others are reading! 

(NOTE: My posts were composed on a daily basis during the trip, but will not be posted until we return. We will not be purchasing a Wi-Fi package on the cruise AND I like to have time to edit my photos before adding them to the blog.)