Mary229

I will let you reread your own responses as I just did.

I have sailed HaL for years and I have never seen any special group use the crow’s nest for more than 2 hours - ONCE, or twice during a very long sailing. It is not a daily occurrence. The Crow’s Nest has gone to any iterations but it has always been probably the most popular venue on HAL. The original post has been called into question as to the complete facts, that I accept is a greater possibility than HAL using the Crow’s Nest as a reserved venue for special groups.

HAL went quite a few years without auctions, it is disheartening to see their reappearance. They had instead an untyped art gallery. you make a good point however one could get quite an art education on the ship just by downloading their art guide and walking around the ship and see the many incredible works of art which adorn the walls of the ship

Yes, that is right. I have stayed with HaL a number of times in various locations. A little known part of booking with them is early checkin even extremely early plus breakfast and transfers are included. Transfers are from airport and to cruise ship. If you arrive early enough for breakfast on the first day that is included too. If the hotel has quit serving breakfast then of course there would not be breakfast.

Well truth be told I have never met anyone on Cruise Critic defend Park West so fervently. You do them a great service. Now back to why you think it is ok for a contractor to commandeer a popular space for the entire length of a cruise. I don’t think anyone would complain about a single evening but not for the entire cruise. PS 30+ day cruises are fairly normal for HAL

On my35 day voyage they were set up on the first floor for several events, their studio was next to photography on the 3 and one special event for one evening in the Rock room

All of the cruise lines ALL, regardless how big or small provide any agency with marketing materials. This includes mailings, website “brochures” , etc…. Each agency then decides who they want to work with and that will be based more on who their customer base is than on other variables

For example on Holland’s notoriously bad website all last week many people using different operating systems could not get past the first step of booking. One could not even get a price. The website is cluttered with links that result in an error message dead end.

Now I have a face to the name! also it should be mentioned geologically they are two different type of glaciers. Actually more as in glacier bay there are at least two kinds😉

Here is the dry dock schedule. Usually ships are dry docked every 2 years but that doesn’t mean they will be completely refurbished. HAL is pretty f good about continuous maintenance

All fares are a total of perks and base rates plus taxes and fees. If you change a good agent will give a bullet point chart of what you gain and what you lose.

That is a well known clause and the only thing that keeps them in check is the power of the purse. For a most recent example go to the Oceania boards when they tried just such a cruise when the Middle East conflict began. There are many examples. For the people on the initial cruise it is a terrible event but going forward the line starts losing business as people do become very vocal. I just warned someone away from NCL because of news articles published about this same topic. Turns out publicly shaming does work

I simply hit cancel and voila turns out I am still logged in. I am on Apple

Make sure you select the refundable deposit. There are two published fares, the base rate and the with Have It all. Most often HIA comes with refundable deposits. There is a third non published fare call Advantage fare. It is slightly higher than the base fare but it is refundable. One gotcha that occurs sometimes. If you pay for the cruise in full that could be considered final payment and penalties begin even if it is before the overall cruise final payment date. if your TA is familiar with Princess they probably know Holland very well too

Actually this is not even a situation about complaining, it is commentary on how to properly execute a change of policy especially when it is a very longstanding policy

The AARP example was CC. But yes and I advocate all forms of communication when you complain. My response was to someone who was being dismissive of complaining here

There have been examples of HAL responding quickly because of Cruise Critic threads. The one that I recall most recently was the introduction of the AARP OBC. The language changed two or three times in one day in response to comments on these boards

I think HAL does read this forum. I also think we need to speak up. Many businesses go happily along because no one speaks up. it is not because we work for HAL which saying so is just plain snarky. It is because I meet so many people who have been manhandled by agencies, tour companies or cruise lines and sit quietly stewing. If you speak up effectively you might be surprised. Sitting back and saying nothing gets you absolutely nothing

But that should be stated during booking process. And it should be stated with a popup or other deterrent.

The lunch menu changes daily now.

If an agency agrees to “contract” her and she gets credentialed and pays her fees she will get something. Of course anything that she gets will have to be split with the agency then pay income taxes. She would do better to buy the AARP gift cards and get the 10% off along with any shareholder benefits she might get by purchasing shares

I didn’t know there were enough people to justify a special sailings, as PT Barnum said…… after seeing the art recently on the K I realized many people have never visited an art museum

There is contractual obligations and then there is the fact that consumers will leave them if they stick them in a bad room after they carefully selected a particular placement particularly in light of the fact that they charge extra to make that choice. I think they are only left with selling everyone a guarantee then doing a bidding/upsell near sailing to profit from those who want better placement.

I have been told numerous times that all of the CCL brands outsource to the same company. I do not understand why you would not change companies after the 7 year of poor performance. However there do seem to be operational differences among the brands

My DH and my brother in law both said of the Antarctica cruise, “best cruise ever”