I went into this cruise with two questions. 

Would we like back to back collector cruises as much as we like the longer world cruises?  And.

How appropriate is HAL cruising for our multi-generational family ranging in age from 7 to 79? (and soon to be even younger and older).

Suzi and I enjoy Grand Voyages because, as I have written in several past cruise codas, we like the sense of community that develops among the passengers and between passengers and crew.  We thought we would miss that.  It was hard to judge on this cruise because we were traveling with an extended family so we really didn’t get to test building relationships with other passengers.  We were able to connect with crew, and having kids aided and sped that process.  The staff seem to love kids. 

And we did meet people on these cruises who we had met on other HAL cruises just not our regular grand voyage friends.  Many of the staff remembered us and where we were from, which surprised me because of the thousands of people who cross the gangway during the course of a contract.  As I was walking down a hallway on a deck not my own one of the stewards called out “Hi Rich, Remember me?”  The receptionist in the dining room and some of the waiters also remembered, as did a nurse and several of the officers.  That was a nice feeling.

When we started this cruise, I wondered if we might replace a grand voyage with collector cruises.  One advantage of the grand voyage is the number of sea days to process the experience and I would miss that.  But one of the advantages of collectors is that you go back to places after a short time.  In Alicante and Barcelona, we missed things that we caught the second time around.  How many times have I heard from friends “we did this and it was really cool”?  On collectors you get the opportunity for a redux.  While on shore I felt free to take it easy knowing that I would be back in a week or two.  I looked at where Oosterdam was going in the next two weeks, a mixture of new ports, ports where I had interest in seeing more of, as well as ports where I could stay on board and create an extra “sea day.”  The collectors seem nicely planned for that mix.  Our next outing on HAL will be two segments of next year’s world.  I have been to 18 of the ports and 13 are new so I have the same type of choice of seeing more in a port or skipping it although the time between visits is greater than on a collector.  One difference is that when I returned to Oosterdam I didn’t get the feeling of “welcome home” that I get on the grands. 

I suspect we will continue to choose grand voyages because of the friendships we’ve formed over past grand voyages and that feeling of “welcome home”.  But I will give more consideration to a set of collectors, especially in areas where we have not cruised, like China, Taiwan and Korea or the Baltics.  Or more of the Med for that matter, if we do it in a cooler season.

We made one decision, no more Med in the summer.  It was too hot.  We did not do as much in ports as we had wanted.  This should not have been a surprise.  We spent a good part of 7 summers working in Kotor, Montenegro and it was hot then, but not AS hot as it was this summer. Friends tell me it is getting worse each year.  We’re not as accustomed to heat as we once were.  To be fair the future cruise consultant warned us when we booked.  We had been considering the eclipse cruise off Tunesia’s coast next year but decided against it.

The question of traveling with extended family on HAL is more difficult to judge. Two of our grandkids were in quarantine for several days because of influenza so we didn’t have a fair test.  If the kids had been on the week before, when we got on, they may have had a better time because there were more kids on board then.  The eclipse had more eclipse chasers and fewer kids.  One son says he would like to try a Pinnacle Class ship before making a definitive decision because they have family rooms and seem to have more kid activities. 

There were some things that didn’t work with family.  The county fair game night started after bedtime for our youngest grandkid.  Club HAL was closed earlier that evening because staff were preparing for the main event.  At 7 when my grandson wanted to play skee ball Club HAL was closed. 

And of course, the chaos of embarkation, standing in line for three hours with a 7 year old or having a “for exercise” drill pull the medical staff from attending to my 11 year old granddaughter who was running a fever did not make good first impressions for HAL.

Overall, the kids enjoyed themselves.  We certainly enjoyed having them with us so we may give it another try.

I would love to hear from others who do multigenerational cruising on HAL and on other lines about your experiences and recommendations.  I would also like to hear thoughts from friends who do both collector and grand voyages about the two types of cruising.  You can comment below or send me an email at rich at mcclear dot net.

Thanks to Kevin for the evening shots.