Holland America (Koningsdam) with kids/teens vs DCL - my thoughts

[lilsonicfan]

A great overview! We agree - Holland America and Princess are pretty hard to beat for Alaska. One other thing we like about Holland America is that their embarkation and disembarkation are super smooth. Generally when you get on the ship, the staterooms are ready! You don't have to wait until 1:30 - you just go to your room. And on disembarkation morning, the buffet and MDR are serving a full hot breakfast and you don't have to exit your room until your disembarkation group is called. No need to get everything out of your room by 8 am!

On HAL, we tend to get packed up, leave our bags in the center of the room so they're not in the way, then go get a pleasant breakfast, head back to the room (where sometimes they've started resetting the room for the next guests), get our bags, and walk off.

These are excellent points I should have touched on! It was super nice to be able to go to our staterooms right away on embarkation. And on disembarkation we weren't in a rush so we chose to self-disembark, which is open from about 7:30-9:15 or so. We had a great last breakfast, and then got off at our leisure. You can also have them take your bags, and my tip there if you don't want to be rushed is to get your disembarkation luggage tags early - the ones with the late time slot go fast!