nickel-and-dime-me

On 12/20/2021 at 8:59 AM, *Miss G* said:

 

Oh!  I am surprised to see this comment because people are reporting that the steaks are now better quality at the Pinnacle Grill since the restart.  Yours is the first post otherwise.  Darn it.  I am sad to read that.

Thanks for the detailed response to my original post.  As hal first timers it's difficult to tell what might be an ongoing issue vs a one time thing

10 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Thanks for your review.   On of the Club Orange features used to be that you could order the nighty special from Rudi's.   Don't know if this is still an option.  

 

While concierge  service is nice in the Neptune lounge, I found that the lounge itself was not much of an attraction.   It has no natural light and always feels a little dark.   I would just end up going to the Lido for snacks.     

 

It sounds like you phoned in  your breakfast order.   Did you try using the special breakfast hang tag?

 

 

We initially phoned in our orders since the breakfast tag didn't have what we wanted on it.  The staff seemed confused by this and we always had to explain why we were doing it.  Also tried writing it down on the tag but with similar results.

This was where we felt NCL shined in comparison with the suite butler always making sure the breakfast order was right.  With room service on hal we were always dealing with a different person each time.

A small detail for sure, but something that definitely stood out for us.

Just got off the Nieuw Statendam southern Caribbean 12-12 to 12-19 sailing and thought I would summarize my experience for the benefit of those cruising in the near future.  We're newbies to HAL with our last cruise being a 2019 NCL cruise to Hawaii.

Overall we had a nice time but did see room for some improvements.  Below is a summary of our experience.

Embarkation - This went quite smoothly in port everglades, we were through pretty quickly and we were seated in a main waiting area.  Only issue was that, as suite guests, we were never told we could wait in an expedited boarding area on the second floor until we asked.

The ship

We thought the ship was really quite beautiful both inside and out and had a sort of understated elegance about it - a callback to the way I imagine cruising could have been in the past.  With the ship being only about half full we had expected it to feel empty, but the more popular areas like the buffet and music walk areas still felt crowded to us.

Our stateroom - Neptune suite 7090.  The suite was very nice, though it somehow seemed smaller than in the pictures.  Had a wonderful bathroom with large shower and big tub and a really nice balcony that we often had breakfast and afternoon tea service on.  Bed was comfortable and it had a large pull out couch. TV placement was odd being behind the couch.  Overall, we really enjoyed the suite.  We wished it had a real dining room table like our suite on NCL had, but we made due with our coffee table and a serving table the staff got for us.

Dining 

Club Orange - This one was a big miss for us.  The venue seemed like kind of an afterthought thrown in at the back of the ship.  It completely lacked any sort of exclusive feeling that we've gotten from suite restaurants on other lines.  We went there on the first night and it was absolutely packed - min 30 minutes for a table, so we left.  Tried again on gala night and found the place only half full.  After we ate there, we figured people realized it wasn't anything special and didn't come back.  No fuss was made on gala night at all, despite a special five course meal being mentioned by staff.  We didn't go back again.

Tamarind - We found this place lived up to the great reputation it has and we had a really nice meal here.  Fantastic desert "cloud passion" ( mango custard with a macaroon in center) which I highly recommend getting if you go there.

pinnacle grill - Nice steak dinner that I would say rivals that of a good steak house on land.  We both had fillets and manager gave us free drinks as the wait was a bit long.

buffet - This was kind of a mixed bag - the food was decent but it never seemed to change much day to day.  A few popular areas like the stir fry station were always very crowded.  Sweets were generally good but a few baked goods like the croissants were disappointing.

room service - We had a lot of service issues with our room service - we like to order breakfast to our room and they never seemed to be able to get the orders right.  Something was always missing in the order.  And as suite guests, we always had to explain to whoever we talked to that we were allowed to order from the main menu.  That became a little tiresome over time.

Neptune lounge

Nice area but a bit small. You couldn't fit more than a few people in here without it feeling pretty crowded.  The concierges did the best they could, but still didn't quite feel like the exclusive experience you'd expect at this level.  On debarkation day it was supposed to open early for breakfast but it didn't which seemed to irritate some fellow passengers quite a bit.

Entertainment

We actually really enjoyed the entertainment despite that being noted as a negative by many.  No big stage shows but the step one dance co shows were nicely done and incorporated the big screen effects well. 

Only issue is that, with the music walk areas all being congregated together, it was sometimes difficult to focus in on one show.  We went to see a comic perform at bb king's but couldn't hear him due to loud music from rolling stone room next door.  Also, even with a half capacity ship there didn't seem to be enough seats in music walk area.  I imagine with a full ship it would be extremely difficult to get a seat.

COVID protocol

The cruise was fully vaccinated and was supposed to require masks.in public areas when not eating or drinking, however a lot of people took liberties with that, especially in the music walk and theater areas.

Overall impression

We have to say we enjoyed the cruise quite a bit despite some service shortfalls.  We feel the staff was excellent and really went the extra mile to help where they could.  Not sure if some service shortfalls were related to the long COVID pause or inexperienced staff but hopefully they iron those out over time.  

Nice review.  I'm curious how full the ship was, since we'll be on it next week.  Did it feel crowded?

I would not send any more money to the cruise lines right now.  Just too many unknowns, imo.

Just received our refund today from a June Alaska cruise we cancelled on March 30th. 

We're at a little over 30 days now since cancelling.  I personally wouldn't have a big problem waiting another 30-60 days if i had any confidence that anything would change in that timeframe.  Right now it seems like we're waiting just so we can say we waited the prescribed timeframe without any real expectations of something happening.

If the cruise lines don't have the cash on hand to make refunds today, what is likely to change about that situation in the next 60 days?

47 minutes ago, Ine said:

Koningsdam arrived in Puerto Vallarta today. No passengers, just crew. 

Ah, the ship we were supposed to be on for our Alaska cruise in just a few short weeks.  Makes me both happy and a bit sad to see her.  Very nice looking ship, though.

We have a bit of fcc from a recently cancelled cruise and not thinking of booking anything just yet.  Need to see how this situation shakes out a bit more first.

It should cancel the flight ease fares too.  You may want to check whether there are any cancellation fees tho.  We got charged $900 on our flight even though we were within the deposit refund period.  They did refund it as fcc,  though.

42 minutes ago, dave34 said:

I understand there’s a lot going on, but they no the cruise’s That are going to be canceled. For instance my June cruise leaving Vancouver. It would be easy to just announce these cruise’s cancelled. I think they are trying to wait and hope people cancel on their own so they won’t have to give 100% refunds. 

We're in the same position with a june Alaska cruise and i agree with you.  There seems to be a strange rush to defend HAL for a lack of communication here which i find....puzzling.

How much work does it take to send out an email on this?  It would certainly help with the flood of calls they're likely receiving on this situation.  It seems like they're hoping either ppl cancel on their own out of frustration or hoping they can find some other way to still make the cruises happen....

They certainty are trying to downplay it as much as possible arent they?

"We have no reason to suspect your information is being misused".  How in the world could they provide any assurance of that?

2 hours ago, kazu said:

 

OBC will be applied to your HSC, no worries 🙂 

Thanks for confirming that for me.

Thats what we did.  I would have rather used for dining, but im sure we'll find another use for it.  

Maybe use it to towards the hsc? Not sure the policy on that with hal. 

Nami sushi appears to he the only specialty dining option with a la carte pricing, at least on the k.

8 hours ago, DivotMaker said:

 

We're sailing Eurodam to Alaska on June 13th but we still can't make reservations online.  Each time I select a date for the restaurant a screen opens with the following weird message

 

 

Our sailing is one week before yours and the specialty dining reservations just opened up for us a few days ago.  I'd keep checking on it as it seems to be somewhat random when it shows up for any given cruise date.

Thanks for the responses all.  I decided to go ahead and book the specialty dining in advance and pay now.  One less thing to worry about when boarding.  I'll find something else to spend the rest of the OBC on.

3 hours ago, lcand1923 said:

If you definitely want to eat in one of the Specialty Restaurants on a particular date and time, I would book in Advance.  When I tried to book onboard, the only times I could get were 9pm, nothing before then.

 

That is a heavy OBC.  Is any portion refundable?  It can go towards the HSC and for laundry so you go home with clean clothes.

 

It sounds goofy, I know, but I needed to buy some wine to take home in my suitcase one time to use up my OBC.  I gave it as gifts later in the year

Its promotional OBC so i dont believe its refundable.  Looks like the better bet is just book in advance.  

4 hours ago, catl331 said:

You can probably spend more of it if you go to Sel de Mer instead of the PG. 😀 Also, since SdM is ala carte I think you don't have to pay in advance.  Pretty sure that's how it was when we were on K'dam in 2016 anyway.

You're right.  Sel de mer is still a la carte so maybe we just splurge a little there.

2 hours ago, Krazy Kruizers said:

One time I forgot to book specialty restaurants before we left home.  When we got on the ship -- among the first since we were in the PS, no reservations left -- even our concierges couldn't get us a reservation.

Thats kind of what I'm afraid of happening.  I'm tempted to just book and pay now, but we have a $600 obc and i don't know how we'll use it all if i don't put it towards dining.  Pretty much everything else is already paid for.

38 minutes ago, Cruising-along said:

It would depend on the cruise, (and length of the cruise) and number of specialty restaurants.  On longer cruises we've never had any problem getting specialty dining reservations for the times we want.  Of course there are more days so more choices.  I imagine on shorter cruises there may be more trouble, but I would be willing to bet that if you call the first day you can get what you want.  

 

What ship?  The smaller ships have fewer specialty restaurants.

Thanks for the information.  We'll be on the koningsdam in june for an alaska cruise for 7 days.

So, we're cruising with HAL in June and just had specialty dining open for reservations online.  We were hoping to use our OBC to pay for the specialty dining, however it looks like you're charged online immediately upon booking a reservation.

We called cusromer service about this and were told that HAL keeps a certain number of reservations open for those who want to book upon boarding the ship.  For those who may have done it this way, did you have any luck getting the dining times you wanted? I'm imagining fighting through a mad rush of people boarding the ship only to find out all the reservations are already taken.  

Does anyone have a pic of the new CO bags they're giving out now? Just curious since we'll be on the k in a ns later this year

For us, it's nothing.  We get decent medical coverage with our saphire reserve, including the evac reimbursement.  So, we haven't felt the need to buy additional insurance on top of that.

Im on the k in June and as a fellow germaphobe, i hope thats not the case