jcarruthers

Hi felicityd 

That’s great. Thanks very much.

Compared to the Mediterranean and Asian cruises we are finding the Pride of America excursions very expensive. Can anybody recommend a shore excursion company in Hawaii that provides reasonably priced excursions for the seven day Hawaiian Island cruise?

Finally received a response from HAL. They have acknowledged and apologised for the experience we and other passengers had on that particular cruise. We appreciate that the problems have been acknowledged, and hope that others may be spared similar experiences. For our part we will research and choose even more carefully our next cruise.

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1. Yes the safes still require a magnetic strip card to operate. 2. Can’t comment unfortunately.

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We were on the Volendam in December - see my review “Volendam Dec 6 to 20 Disapointed”. We certainly hope, for the sake of current and future passengers, that the issues I raised have been overcome. Despite a number of requests for comment from HAL they have not responded. Not surprising I suppose - they have our money (but not our future custom I’m afraid).

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Hi Barbara

The Library is just where you said. My wife is a big reader and she seemed happy with it.

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Although we are experienced cruisers, the fact that we (luckily) have not had a “bad” one made us a little ignorant of the “dry dock” issue. Now we know! Thanks to freestyling for the thread link to ships dry dock schedule. We will definitely make use of that in future.

We have contacted Guest Relations at HAL but have (unsurprisingly) not heard back. Will send them a reminder, not that we expect much. Will update folk here if we do. In hindsight we should have lodged a written complaint on board prior to disembarking but we were in a hurry to get off.

Princess_blue - we have been to Bangkok (Laem Chabang) and Saigon (Phu My) a few times. For Laem Chabang we can thoroughly recommend Oriental Escape - https://www.orientalescape.com/thailand/transfer/bangkok.html . We booked a private car for a return trip to Bangkok city. Well organised system at the port and nice clean cars/ drivers. Takes about two hours each way. Some of our fellow passengers we found got ripped off by the taxi drivers at the port - they have a captive customer base! Good drop off and pick up point in Bangkok is the Shangri La hotel - on the river close to most things and you can use their facilities as a base. At Phu My we simply used the HAL transfer excursion. Reasonable cost and hassle free.

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Thanks to all for clarifying some things. I just re-read the “Express Docs” we were provided with by HAL for boarding. The Gala night dress requirements there-in were a little ambiguous and unclear but we will certainly take the advice of RuthC - anything to save space in the luggage ! And the advice re food celebrations does make sense. As some have mentioned we have learnt not to be loyal to any one cruise line. As four star “Mariners” (and similar on other lines) we noticed no benefit at all.

Regards and happy cruising to you all.

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PS And HAL needs to do away with “formal” nights. During our cruise, although my wife and I were dressed appropriately (gown for my wife and dinner suit/ bow tie for me) a great number were allowed in with polo shirts/ jeans and, in a couple of cases, flip flops! So we gave up after the first night and wore smart/ casual, like most. Either HAL needs to enforce dress requirements or do away with “formal” nights altogether and make them all, strictly, “smart/casual” (a la Oceania cruise ships).

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Hi Barbara

No the self service laundry has been done away with. Something we wanted to use!

The improvements we did enjoy were the much upgraded shower recesses in the cabins and one or two lounge areas. A big contrast between the new and old parts of the ship.

The food, in the MDR at least, as I said is still quite good. And the staff all very cheerful.

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We cruised from Singapore to Hong Kong on the Volendam on a similar cruise in 2013. Unfortunately our experience this time was most definitely not up the HAL standards we have been used to.

Firstly we boarded the ship just after it had dry docked for further refurbishment. Had we known that the refurb work was to continue DURING the cruise we would not have taken it. There were paint smells in our cabin and drilling on one sea day nearby to our cabin. Fortunately we were not as badly off as some others. Some went without water, or hot water for three days. Some were inconvenienced by leaks (wet carpets) while others also had no air-con for a few days. Passengers we spoke with in Hong Kong after disembarking were glad to get off. Overall we felt that we were “test passengers” during the cruise to identify refurb faults, prior to the Christmas cruise.

Other issues we were disappointed with were the absence of “sail-away” celebrations and poolside food celebrations. Food though (in the MDR) was still very good.

Cannot recommend this ship again, as we have before to our fellow travellers.

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Hi

Whilst I’m waiting on a reply from HAL does anybody know if HAL arranges a shuttle service from Laem Chabang port into Bangkok? May have to arrange private transport if not. We have made private arrangements in Bangkok.

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Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere. My wife and I are cruising on Solstice in January 2017 - Sydney to New Zealand. As part of our booking we have an included Classic Beverage package, which for the most part might be fine. I however like my craft beers which generally are only available on the Premium package. Our TA has said that for me (only) to upgrade would cost $A377! Is it possible for me to simply order the beers I like and charge the difference (between Classic limit and actual cost) to my pass card?

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Oceania Nautica

This was our first cruise with Oceania. Despite some weather (fog) problems that disrupted our itinerary from Tokyo to Hong Kong we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise. To state the obvious - the food and wine was magnificent. The best we have encountered in our many travels. As was the the level of service from the friendly staff. The Nautica is the smallest ship we have been on but was truly well furnished and fitted out throughout. Travel on Nautica is a rather sedate affair. No skylarking or boisterous activities. And this is the type of clientele that are attracted to the line we understand. Would we travel on Oceania again? Yes, if the pricing deal was good and we were in the mood for a "relaxing" cruise. If you are after fun and games, and a party time cruise then perhaps not. Horses for courses!

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Electronic cruise documents now received, and printed. Phew!

No luggage tags though. Oh well, I'm sure their staff will provide at Tokyo when we board.

PS and we must add that to their credit the people we spoke with at Oceania in Sydney were very helpful, understanding and apologetic over the issue.

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The issue was Travelcat2 that Oceania told our TA that they had not sent our cruise documents because we had not completed the Guest Registration Form. The reason we had not is because of Oceanias IT problem with this cruise segment - ie we could not access anything on- line other than our profile. And Oceania have acknowledged that problem. I learnt this morning that we are not the only ones. Others booked on this segment have had the same problem. Oceanias IT people need to get their act together. We have booked dining by email with Oceanias office because we could not access that part My Account either. Our TA has just received electronic copies of our cruise documents so all should be good. I was not aware you could board without cruise documents? I also learnt that somebody room Oceania should have been in contact with our TA at the time of booking - Nov 2015 to alert him to the problem. That did not happen so he and we were left a little in the dark.

Maybe our TA should have followed up when we alerted him to the problem but at that time Oceania had told us that they expected the IT problem to be fixed. And that did not happen. This could all have been avoided if a) Oceania had fixed its IT issue as it said it would, and b) a little more communication all round.

We are now hoping that our experience with Oceania from here on will be BRILLIANT!

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All seems resolved! Apparently we were not the only ones with the problem of accessing the Guest Registration Form for this "segment" cruise. Hope to have documents before we fly out next week. Oceania (Sydney) have apparently be speaking with Miami based IT people for some time. Obviously still a problem. Will need to think twice before booking similar "segment" cruises with Oceania in future.

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Thanks for comments. Yes we have purchased the March 14 segment as Cruseforme suggests, and yes we meant to say accessing the Guest Registration. Oceania have acknowledged when we first registered the My Account that they had an IT problem with this segment last year, and now the same again this year. You would think they would have fixed it! We have had to deal by email with a lady in their Sydney office in order to book special dining etc. hoping our TA will get it sorted but as I say, based on our many cruises with the likes of HAL we are not impressed so far.

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Yes thankfully we do. Hope he will get it sorted. We hope it's not an indicator of further issues though. We normally cruise HAL where things have always run smoothly so this has been a bit of a shock to the system!

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We are booked on the Nautica for the Tokyo to Hong Kong sector in March and have been unable to check-in on-line. Oceania have acknowledged that there is an IT problem for bookings on this sector but still won't issue documents. Quite concerning and not to the high standards we have been used to with other cruise lines. Anybody else having the same problem?

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