OmarOak

5 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

I don't know their names, but I could not listen to the duo that was performing Dec 21 - Jan 6 on K'dam; I honestly don't know if the man was good or not because the female was painfully bad and I moved on as quickly as possible. I tried a couple times hoping maybe she was having an off night, but it was never good.

Solo, duo, or any number would be ok with me so long as they're good. I think HAL needs better interviewers in the entertainment department.

I had this same experience, but on Nieuw Statendam 12/27 - 1/7 itinerary. Neither of the Billboard performers were very good or enjoyable.

My thoughts after our recent Eastern Caribbean cruise:

This was a completely full ship and had a large Church group onboard. It never felt too crowded and HAL did a good job of setting up the Church group's activities so they did not interfere with other passengers. I had one minority annoying experience with a group member being invasively friendly and proselytizing. I eventually deflected them by telling the I was "not on their team" and am Wiccan (not true but remarkably effective). 

Cabin - The Cabin (6094) was in good condition and the stewards did a great job keeping it clean and working around our somewhat erratic schedule.

Lido - We had many of our Lunches and all of our Breakfasts in the Lido, plus Dinner on the night before disembarking. On a completely full ship we never had any difficulty getting a table of our choosing. Breakfast were mixed. HAL has definitely downgraded the quality of their sausages substantially. Service was ok. Behind the counter personnel were great. Lunch was good but the offerings were painfully repetitive. Dinner was good - many Lunch items plus most of the items on the Dining Room menu from that evening.

Dining Room - We had three Dinners in the dining and had two of the Morimoto dishes - the Black Cod was excellent and worth the tariff; the Lobster, not so much. The Lobster dish was so heavily sauced that you couldn't discern that the protein was Lobster. We had great service and as anytime dining walk-ins, we were able to get our preferred table (292 a 2 person table on the railing of the second level). Excellent service.

Sel de Mer - We ate in Sel de Mer 3 times, including New Years Eve. Consistently excellent food and strong service though one evening was slow and turned into a 3 hour meal.

Pinnacle Grill - We ate in Pinnacle twice. The food was quite good but the service was weak and perfunctory.

Tamarind - We ate there once and it was excellent as usual. We would have liked to return but they were consistently booked other than 5:00 and 9:00 seatings (too early; too late).

Nami Sushi - The low point of the cruise - the Sushi was terrible. It was waterlogged as if it had been defrosted improperly and all tasted the same. Mushy texture. YUCH.

We were disappointed that despite this being an 11 day cruise, neither the Rijstaffel nor a Morimoto Pop-up was offered.

Dive In and Dutch Cafe were great. The service team in the Dutch Cafe for early coffee was outstanding. 

Music on board was disappointing versus prior HAL Cruises. The BB King band was a few steps down from bands on prior cruises and the music selections were more of a mix of styles than than those on past cruises. The Rolling Stone band was good but sort of soul-less - more of a "live jukebox" than a performing band. It felt like they were going through the motions. The female singer was very good within her range but couldn't hit the high notes. The Billboard duo was awful. We very much missed having classical music (Lincoln Center Stage) on board.

The remodeled casino was nice and remarkably smoke free. 

Laundry service was great.

We had port days on 12/31 and 1/1 (Antigua and St. Lucia, respectively) which were a waste as the towns were effectively shut down due to the Holiday. Dominica was a wasted port day. One of the supposed highlights, a Botanical Garden, was very underwhelming. 

In sum, a great trip on a very nice ship but probably our first and last Holiday Cruise.

FLL is fairly painless. Last Sunday (1/7) we were through security at the airport less than 1 hour after stepping off the ship.

Last week on NS we brought on water purchased in a few of the ports we visited with no issue. We saw numerous plastic water bottles onboard.

Tropicana is a great spot.

https://sxmcooks.com/le-tropicana/

12 hours ago, Crew News said:

The only reason to book early is to get a specific stateroom/location . On a Pinnacle-class ship, using Club Orange for stateroom upgrades might be another.

Proving your point: I was hoping to use the "cheapest balcony cabin/Club Orange upgrade" strategy when I booked Nieuw Statendam for 12/27/23 - 1/7/24 last week. Unfortunately Club Orange was sold out on the sailing. 

Unfortunately, the Pop-Up does not seem to be available for the 12/27 Nieuw Statendam sailing.

FOPMan - sorry I brought back the bad memories!

Nickelpenny - thank you; looks like you had a great meal!

What a contrast.....and hard to determine what to do!

We'll be on Nieuw Statendam December 27 - January 7.

It looks like Pinnacle is having a special NY Eve Menu but there are no details other than a higher than usual price for that evening.

Does anyone have any insights about what to expect?

Not on Koningsdam in early December.

We were allowed to substitute wine and beer respectively on Koningsdam earlier this month.

This was our first cruise since December 2019; sticking our toes in the water post-Covid. Here are our impressions:

The Port: The San Diego Embarkation/Disembarkation experience was great; fast, organized and efficient. We had an 11:30 arrival time and were in our cabin by 11:55. Club Orange helped but things looked speedy regardless.

The Ship: in good condition throughout

The Itinerary: the Mexican Riviera didn't do it for us. We tend to be most interested in cultural sites and nothing we saw in any of the 3 ports was worth getting off the ship for. Still, the cruise was a great opportunity to get back to cruising

Entertainment: BB King and the Rolling Stone Rock Room were both great, as always. We didn't attend any of the production shows; no interest. 

Dining:

Pinnacle Grill - We went twice. On the first visit the service was fantastic but the food was very ordinary. On the second visit the food was fantastic but the service was amateur. The side dishes were notably smaller than times past and the menu was somewhat paired down.

Sel de Mer - The biggest disappointment was Sel de Mer. The food was fine but the service was off. We didn't receive our first course until an hour after our order was taken and the entrees arrived soon thereafter. My wife is a slow eater and this rushed service really messed up our evening. We also noticed that some of the dishes that used to involve table side service (deboning the Sole, the sauce poured over the Crepes Suzette) were done in the kitchen. The Crepes Suzette were cold.

Tamarind - Great! We were disappointed that the Rijstaffel pop-up was not offered on this cruise but the food and service from the regular menu was outstanding. If it were on land, Tamarind would be the bestAsian restaurant in our area!

The Lido - we had two dinners and a few other meals in the Lido. For Dinner, the menus were more repetitive than I recalled. Only two of the stations changed on a daily basis but the food quality was good. Lunches were very repetitive. Breakfast had the same breadth of options but I feel like food quality has suffered. Bacon was thinner and fattier than I recall; soggy as well. The Hash Browns were also different and seemed more processed.

Club Orange - We had a few breakfasts there which were good. Identical food to the Lido.

Coffee - We had morning Coffee from Explorations and the Dutch Cafe. I preferred the Explorations Coffee and Camille was the most outstanding crew member I interacted with.

Casual Food venues - The Dive In was better than I recalled and adding a grab and go burger selection was a good step forward. Grand Dutch Cafe's food remains good but the Pizza venue was very disappointing.

Curious what others on the same itinerary thought!

We boarded Konigsdam yesterday and it was incredibly easy compared to other Ports we've departed from (Seattle, Ft. Lauderdale)! Efficient and civilized.

We were Club Orange/Group A at 11:30.

Our taxi from the Embassy Suites had us at the B Street Pier at 11:20. Gave our luggage to the Handlers and walked into the Terminal. We were through Documents Check, Security and the Photo process by 11:35.

There was a brief boarding holdup due to traffic but we were in our Stateroom by 11:55. 

To the two folks who work the San Diego Cruiseport who have participated here: Bravo and Thank you!

2 hours ago, Sir PMP said:

I've never heard of a rijsttafel in the Tamarind, that's 18 courses, I hope they do, I'll sign up for that one:

Not 18 but it was 11 courses in December 2019

We've enjoyed this on Pinnacle Class ships on pre-Covid cruises. 

We'll be on Koningsdam departing December 3 and curious if anyone knows if HAL continues to offer this, and if so, if it is usually on a particular night of a 7 day cruise.

FWIW - I wish they were continuing the deLibrije pop-up event but know that's done. 

Service modifications and significant price increases are a fact of life.

All forms of travel have become far, far more costly since 2019. Most airlines and hotels have cut service levels and raised prices dramatically. Likewise Restaurants. The Cruise Industry is not immune to the broader issues driving the situation: energy, labor shortages, food commodity prices, etc.

At current prices, compared to most other types of travel, a HAL cruise is a phenomenal value.

Personally, I can't get too bent out of shape about cabin stewards servicing a cabin once rather than twice daily - I stayed at a 4 Seasons Hotel recently and despite crazy high pricing, maid service was only every third day.

Political division, "culture wars", and the breakdown of civil discourse have made the prospect of dining with strangers potentially unpleasant. We avoid it - the risk is not with the potential benefit.

Likewise, I wish passengers would leave behind their political t-shirts, hats, etc. 

E Mail is fine though probably not with large files attached.

Things like Zoom or Teams have not been very functional.

Well, I just logged into my HAL account to book specialty dining for an upcoming cruise and, there's suddenly nothing there! No cruise history, no booking, etc.

Anyone else having an issue?

I've brought as many as 12 bottles on board at embarkation. No problems though the "wine desk person" usually seems to think it is odd.

I have bought bottles in port and brought them on as well.

19 minutes ago, silversneakers said:

Interesting.  Maybe I'll give it a try!  Thanks.

Did it last week and it was no problem. Particularly valuable as we were moving from an obstructed veranda to and unobstructed veranda.

On 8/16/2022 at 10:35 PM, AFNavigator said:

You work the cabin upgrade at Club Orange purchase time.  The upgrades are "within meta category" upgrades.  So, if you are in a balcony cabin, your upgrade will be to another balcony cabin.  You can't use Club Orange to upgrade from an oceanview to a balcony or from a balcony to a suite.

 

Your best "bang for the buck" is, if you know that the specific cabin you want is available, is to contact HAL and book the lowest category cabin in your "meta category" which would be the lowest price verandah category.  Then tell the HAL agent you want to buy Club Orange and upgrade your cabin.  Have the agent upgrade you to the higher category verandah cabin you want...you're done.

 

We did that and got the specific V-class cabin we wanted all along and the booking came in $60 lower,  AFTER the Club Orange fee, compared to if we had just booked the V-class cabin from the start.  

We did the same and the total cost was $180 less than booking the preferred cabin for a week, plus we get the value of CO - the boarding and tender priority is a big perk IMO.

My first/only experience with my PCC was superb. The best customer service I've had from any business in years.

I wanted to book a "Free Casino" cruise, but our preferred type of cabin was not available via the website.

I sent an email detailing the situation to my PCC, had a response within 10 minutes and after a few quick emails (and the creativity of the PCC), we had booked exactly what we wanted.

4 hours ago, ldtr said:

Certainly I have been involved in such transactions, as well as cases of asset purchased to minimize liabilities.

 

The pointbi am making is that the way that a lot of the debt is set up, country loan guarantees tied to ship construction  other loans  secured bu ships, with the ships themselves residing in their own wholely owned subsidiaries. Pretty tight lean covenants on even the unsecured loans makes it unlikely that the associated debt would not go with the ships in case of a sale of a line.  You are more likely to see a line given away with its debt than to see a line sold without that debt going with the company.

 

The question is more about the potential revenue to debt ratio of the parent before and after the sale.

 

Again it is very unlikely that you would see a sale of a line without that li es associated debt being included.

I presume you've heard the term "cram down"?

You are possibly correct in the event of a line selling a single asset (one ship) but selling a company, not likely. 

The probable scenario would be the asset debt holder accepting an asset value cram down rather than wading through years of the morass of a bankruptcy.

From the buyer side, most ships and cruise lines are currently worth less than the underlying debt. For any transaction to happen, somethings got to give. The cruise line and debt holder are both stuck. The buyer is unconstrained - it's simply not their problem. 

20 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Keep in mind that a large portion of the debt is secured by the ships.  Unlikely that you would have any sale of a line without the secured debt being part of the transaction. 

 

Any sale involving those ships would either require the debt to stay with the ships or for the debt to be paid off first.

 

 

 

No way a line would be sold without offloading the associated portion. 

Not necessarily true. A "sale" could happen in many ways.

In thee event of the sale of the operating company, there is likely debt on the ships and an operating capital line of credit. A Cruise lines could be "sold" in a transaction where the seller receives $0 cash, the Buyer assumes the debt on the hard assets and the seller is left holding the operating line of credit. Essentially the business is "sold" but the seller's return is negative.

I brokered this type of transaction a few weeks ago in a different capital intensive industry. It can be ugly for the seller of a distressed business.