Holland America Review

I am a busy person and find myself with little spare time. Therefore, I really don't want to waste my time and that includes on the telephone. That is the great thing about the Internet; it lets me do things on my schedule. I can order items after midnight look up directions, keep in touch with relatives' countries away and normally, book travel.

I have booked multiple cruises online and so when I saw the Holland America was offering the 3rd and 4th passenger in each cabin to sail for FREE so I figured we should jump on that! And I head over to the Holland America website: hollandamerica.com

I start out stating what region and country I am in and then move onto where, when and how long I want to cruise. I know the dates of the promotion so I start looking in September and find the cruises in that month that leave from Seattle and stop in Sitka. No problem there.

I am allowed to see the itinerary but FIRST STRIKE I must login to go any further. I do not like being forced to give out information just to see what is available! Since I assume, this will move me along and I will be able to get this thing quickly booked, I register and login in.

I am now given the choice to "proceed to booking" which has me choose a date to sail and how many people will be in the cabin. I can only do one cabin at a time. I am then given a large list of the different options ranging from Penthouse to the least expensive inside cabin along with a closed or available status. The only price I am shown is the cruise fare of the 1st passenger minus all taxes and port charges. But, I do see a little clickable on the bottom stating fare details and click on it. FIRST PLUS The fare is broken down showing the cost of $0 for passengers 3 and 4 as well as the different taxes and port charges.

I had to keep going on the booking (accepting the category) before I was given a cabin number. SECOND PLUS I was able to click on deck plans (on the top) and bring up the deck so I was able to see the cabin offered.

I was able to zip through two of the three ships and check a couple dates on each but as soon as I tried the third ship I got a little warning saying they may be busy and I may need to try again later. SECOND STRIKE I attempted to continue and got internal problem warnings after that. I moved on and came back later.

THIRD STRIKE When I came back later in the afternoon, I was unable to get information on the total fare prices and was forced to push the need to talk button. FOURTH STRIKE This had me putting in my phone number and stating when they could call me. I hate that but clicked right now which caused my phone to immediately ring! It told me to hold while they connected me. I was now booking over the phone, which was what I was hoping to avoid by going to the Holland America website!

Kristy's Final Viewpoint:

I went to the Holland America.com to book an Alaskan cruise without having to get on the phone. While their website did provide me the information for awhile, it did stop doing so and was still not allowing me to book later on in the day. I also do not like having to register and/or login in just to get prices. Even though a nice guy named Shaun did help me go through the different options and worked hard to find me the best deal on the best date, I could have saved time if the website had allowed me to do it on my own.

This is the second time I have had to bail on booking online at their site. If Holland America doesn't want us to book online then they need to remove that option and if they do want us to, they need to fix their booking programs. My suggestion is to skip the website and either book through a third party (you may get extra bonuses on other sites) or simply call Shaun and let him book it for you.