Cruise costs

The ms Prinsendam is run by Holland America Line (HAL), an American corporation, therefore everything on the cruise must be paid for in US currency. One of the reasons that I (and a lot of the Canadians onboard) took this trip was because the Canadian dollar was nearly on par with it’s US counterpart. By the time the credit card company finally got around to posting the entry, the exchange had slipped to approximately $1.06 Cdn to $1 USD. That means my $15,890 trip actually cost me $16,928.97 Cdn (so roughly $17.000). For a 70 day trip, that works out to $242 per day or $1694 per week.

This price included:
- transportation
- accommodation
- breakfast, lunch and dinner in a fine dining restaurant
- tea at 4 pm plus any meals you wanted to sneak in while the Lido
(cafeteria) was open
- nightly entertainment
- use of the fitness area, pool, steam room and sauna
- daily lectures and talks by guest speakers
- daily dance classes, art classes, bridge classes etc
- daily sporting activities with a change to win free HAL merchandise
- daily recent movies in the theatre

Not too bad for $1694 a week.
Please note – this is the SINGLE price.
I would have paid much less if I had shared a room with someone.

So how does this trip compare to my first cruise on the QE2?

Well, for starters, this ship was more relaxed and casual than the QE2.
There were only a few formal nights and half of those got cancelled for one reason or another. As far as I could see, there were no lords or ladies on the passenger manifest and few people were looking down their noses at anybody. Most of the people were working class individuals who were just there to have a good time. Even some of the well heeled people who stayed in the most expensive suites were sociable and mixed with everybody.

Because the ship was only half the size of the QE2, it was easier to find your way around and within a week, I practically knew most of the people. (Just about everyone onboard knew me because I was the only single black person on the entire ship!) Personal service is an HAL trademark and HAL policy requires all employees to greet passengers within 10 feet of them. This means all the crew members are constantly saying hello to you and asking if they can get you anything. This never happened on the QE2.

The food onboard both ships was very good, but the Prinsendam did not have daily midnight buffets (which I’m sure saved me from gaining even more weight).

The lecturers onboard the QE2 were more high profile (ie. former ambassadors and famous people). I had never heard of any of the people who gave talks on the Prinsendam, but nonetheless, I still enjoyed all their lectures.

The nightly entertainment was the same on both ships. In fact, several of the performers that I had seen on the QE2 came onboard the Prinsendam with their shows.

My cabin on the QE2 was not much more than a glorified closet. My cabin on the Prinsendam was much bigger, but that room came with a price (see the section Word to the wise).

Both ships charged ridiculous amounts of money to use their internet services.