SumoCitrus

7 hours ago, DFWGUYZ said:

If the Explorations Cafe is located in the Crows Nest then I would assume the only place to get the good coffee is all the way fwd. Nothing mid-ship or aft?

Neptune Lounge has one of those nice machines.

5 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

 

It was not what he said, it was the way he said it.  

Thanks for the chuckle. Adults shouldn't need coddling.

We had some staffing related issues on our recent Eurodam cruise. Nothing crazy but definitely noticable. Not once did I ever consider cancelling gratuities.

I really enjoy the Jewels of the Sea.

You should be given the option to disembark and to receive a pro-rated refund.

Yes.

Food better on HAL.

HAL ships nicer, more elegant

Princess better for kids.

Princess better for shows.

Princess crew amazing (HAL too).

Princess more generous with certain perks.

Princess onboard tech better (medallions, etc.)

They are very close. My personal preference is HAL. I'd sail Princess again though. Ports usually guide my choice.

From their Terms of Service:

By using the Service, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold us, our affiliates, partners, App Providers, officers, members, directors and employees harmless from any and all claims, liabilities, costs and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising in any way from your use of the Service or the creation, placement or transmission of any message, information, software or other materials through the Service by you or related to any violation of these Terms by you (collectively, “Indemnified Matters”). We shall control the defense of any Indemnified Matters through counsel of our choice.

No thanks. Not worth $100.

8 minutes ago, Langoustine said:

The OP asled about weddings ON BOARD the ship. Only SYMBOLIC weddings or vow renewals take place on board.

What's the difference?

Adding news story for context:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-15/maersk-tells-all-its-container-ships-to-pause-red-sea-voyages

Have any HAL cruises been affected by the situation in Yemen and in or near the Red Sea?

Good strong toots!

On Eurodam 11/18/2023 sailing (Caribbean) - Covid was not mentioned at all. No health Qs, no vaccine questions, nothing. No one was sick on board either or at least no one that we knew of.

>> We've burned ours and choose to forget about the recent unpleasantness.

I love that.

On Eurodam recently we were surprised by a cake event set up in the lido. They had 10-15 full size cakes and they were cutting slices and handing them out. The cakes were huge and looked very professional. They tasted amazing. The black forest and carrot cake were my favorites. It was a pleasant surprise that I hadn't seen advertised.

Had decent prime rib on Eurodam recently in the MDR but they ruined it by serving it slopped with Arby's style BBQ Sauce. Gross.

ask for no sauce!

17 minutes ago, doone said:

I am sorry your Neptune Suite experience wasn't what you were expecting.  My initial thought is to think that they were understaffed, but it seems you had many issues.  Unfortunately there have been so many cutback on cruising on all lines.

 

In my 30+ years of sailing on HAL I have never found any of my cabin stewards, dining room stewards, bar tenders or servers "lazy", perhaps there were sick stewards for your area and they were running understaffed or perhaps they were new, however I understood the Neptune Suite stewards are seasoned stewards.  Not making excuses, but suggesting possible other explanations........

 

 

I also thought they would assign seasoned stewards to the neptune suites. But it didn't seem that way. Maybe they were seasoned but just very overextended.

Summary: Fun Caribbean cruise on an obviously aging and understaffed ship. Food and internet were excellent. All the rest left room for improvement. Still, HAL is my favorite cruise line so far and we will be back.

Check In & Embarkation

As others have noticed, the Holland America Navigator App can be pretty moody. Ours was not working properly in the days leading up to the sailing so we printed our boarding passes. Turns out, we didn't need them. We boarded in a snap with just our faces (facial recognition is used) and our passports. I brought two bottles of champagne aboard but they were apparently missed as we were never charged a fee. The room key cards were in the mailbox outside the room. Boarding took maybe 5-10 minutes with no wait.

Cabin

We had a neptune suite directly across from the Neptune Lounge. The suite was fine in terms of dimensions, but when we checked in the room was not clean. We found used bar soap and dirt in the tub, clipped fingernails on the bathroom counter, and a stain on the comforter. I figured I would bring these to the attention of the cabin stewards when they made their introduction - except they never showed up! I have never been on a cruise where I did not meet my cabin stewards on day one. Our luggage was dropped off outside our cabin without notice. We unpacked and I attempted to find someone to ask about the room condition. Unfortunately, no one was available. The Neptune Lounge concierge was busy with a dozen or so people with various questions and no one answered the phone when I tried to call guest services. We went up to the Lido for lunch.

Overall Low Staffing and Ship Condition

The Eurodam is a fine ship but it is showing its age. There is rust everywhere. The ship has very stark hot and cold zones. Thankfully our cabin was cold (as we like it) the entire cruise. We received several notices during the cruise that staff would need to enter our balcony to do repair work. It was to chip and grind away corrosion. This was being done all over the ship. At times, it was loud or resulted in portions of the promenade deck being closed.

Lines at the Lido were often long and we found that recently abandoned tables were left dirty a little longer than usual - again, likely due to low staffing levels.

When we finally met our cabin stewards the next day, they seemed new and unsure of themselves. Not what I was expecting in a Neptune Suite. We rarely got towel animals or chocolate. One day the stewards accidentally left a stack of folded sheets in our cabin. The next day they left a door stopper in the middle of the floor. I wrote a complaint using the app and the response I got was ..... frankly, inappropriate. Some supervisory employee in a white shirt knocked on the cabin door and presented both cabin stewards and asked in front of them, "are they performing to your satisfaction?" While they waited for my answer I swore I saw the female cabin steward shaking. When I told the supervisor they were great and our issues had been resolved, one let out a sigh of relief as if they had been granted some kind of stay of execution. It was bizarre.

Here's what the hallway looked like at 9am one day.

Food and Internet

I heard rumors that HAL cutback on food quantity and/or quality post-COVID. I did not experience this at all. In fact, the food on Eurodam is the best I've had on any ship. Portions were excellent and the food delicious. I bit the bullet and bought the internet package. I was very impressed. This ship must have been upgraded to Starlink because the internet was very fast. We were able to Facetime with no issues.

Entertainment

There isn't much to say here except that HAL ships are bascially entertainment free. The comedian they had was so bad we walked out. She treated her set like a therapy session telling people how fat, single, and miserable she was. It was awful. The rest of the entertainment consisted of some pretty generic dancers, a steel drum band, and a magician who pulled rabbits from hats. Don't cruise HAL for the entertainment. You will be disappointed.

More Ship Issues

Toward the end of the cruise, more than half of the midship elevators were broken. This made getting around tricky and made disembarkation a nightmare. I was stuck in this particular elevator for 2-3 minutes before it reset and the doors opened. They then disabled it. Again, I suspect this can be blamed on low staffing - no engineers to repair them. I was disappointed with the Neptune Lounge's limited hours. On Princess, the lounge is open 24 hours which is nice if you like late or early coffee. Our water pressure in the showers was never more than a trickle. The water pressure was better on Koningsdam.

Conclusion

We had some beautiful ports, excursions, and weather so I think this cruise was a good one. Even with all the headaches, HAL is still a fine line that I will recommend. Very few kids on this cruise but a lot of people with mobility issues so pick your poison. While you won't be tripped up by some zooming whipper snapper, you will likely be blocked by someone walking with a cane or other assistance. If HAL made cutbacks post-COVID they aren't too obvious with the actual product which remains fine. Instead, you may notice service decline and delays relating to understaffed ships.

I'm very sorry to hear about your dad. I will read his reviews. Sounds like he loved to travel.

37 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

I never heard of every other day service. Cut to once a day, maybe, but not every other day.

Since you are onboard, why not ask?

I tried to ask the concierge in the neptune lounge but the line to speak with her is about 10 deep with people needing tutorial on how to use the navigator app.

We are currently on Eurodam in  Neptune Suite and having trouble getting the room stewards to show up. Is this a change post-covid? Also lots of cleanliness issues (or lack of) but I will save those for my post-cruise review.

We are moving on Eurodam. Underway toots. Hearing protection recommended.

Apex lines away.... finally!

No closer to leaving. They need to push Apex out of the way...

Long toots from NA. Lines away.

Captain of Eurodam just advised that port would not permit us to go around Apex.