Colorado Klutch

It would be impossible to figure out how HAL targets such offers. Likely demographics have a lot to do with it. Their marketing people might want to focus on a certain geographic region and people in a particular age and income bracket. The hope is they will tell all their friends and family which encourages them to book a cruise. From our point of view, there is no rhyme or reason. TV shows are similar. A series with high ratings can easily get the axe because advertisers aren't interested in the rural boomers who watch the show. The network will replace that show with something else intended to pull in young, upscale urbanites. Fans of the show will be dumbfounded as why it got cancelled.

It's what we do. We drink and we speculate.

Obviously I disagree. And all ships should be smoke free! 😀 When Disney opens a new theme park, it doesn't fragment the brand.

Christmas cruises seem to get the most complaints about children. I would assume a Christmas cruise is going to have a lot of younglings, but apparently many people are not expecting it and they get pretty peeved. I don't see offering adult-only cruises at fragmenting the brand. If HAL spun off another cruise line focusing on adults, that would be fragmenting the brand. But individual cruises or one or two ships designated for adults only is simply a different offering within the existing HAL brand.

It's not always that people aren't willing to open their purse strings, but rather they are simply not able to do so. That's the primary reason Carnival Cruise Line has been so successful. Those cruises are at a price point which many people can afford. The higher the cost, the fewer the number of people who can afford it. I think it would be great if HAL offered specific, adult-only cruises. That would be a win-win. Families with children could still enjoy HAL cruises and adults who would rather not cruise with children could also enjoy HAL cruises. HAL could adjust the numbers to fit demand. Cruises with children would have more staff in the kids club to handle demand. Cruises without children could send those HAL staff to plus up the cruises with children. Club HAL could simply go dark on adults-only cruises. If a specific ship was identified for adults-only cruises, Club HAL could be repurposed.

Yes. Yes I do, because that's the kind of thing oil rich countries do all the time. 😀 (I'm aware a few cruise ships actually do dock in Saudi Arabia.)

I sure hope Saudi Arabia doesn't buy HAL. They have allowed some changes recently, but women are still regarded as far below livestock. And Saudi Arabia recently announced they will reduce oil production hoping to boost global crude prices. Thanks. Although the Saudis have deep pockets, that doesn't mean they can run a cruise line. Consider Dubai. They also have deep pockets. They have spent tens of billions of dollars on efforts to diversify their economy and, thus far, it has gone pretty much nowhere. I recently travelled through Dubai International Airport and it's really spiffy. But they have another, brand new Al Maktoum International Airport nearby. So far they have spent around $85 billion on that airport and almost nobody uses it. Why it was actually built is somewhat of a mystery. Dubai also has many man-made islands offshore; most of which remain empty. The islands which are occupied are sinking and suffer from stagnant water issues. Grand plans for "Dubailand" have mostly evaporated. The recession killed most of it, but the Dubai government is slowly starting to accept that not many people want to travel to Dubai for a vacation no matter how many resorts and water parks they have. Money can't always buy success.

It's inevitable that when a business puts so much emphasis on reviews, people will attempt to game the review system. Reviews are now a big industry and fake reviews are a big part of that industry. On my recent HAL Alaska cruise, nobody asked me for a positive review. I also would been put off if someone had. My son and daughter used to work at California Pizza Kitchen. Every day they had a staff meeting and got berated about negative reviews. The staff were puzzled because, typically, they didn't have any negative experiences with customers which would have warranted such negative reviews. The online review was extremely long and someone figured out that when people lost interest and simply closed the web page, it automatically gave a "1" for every category. Nice. After leaving Pizza Kitchen, my son was the beverage manager at a Seattle wine bar. He would regularly get calls from Yelp. The Yelp rep would say, "Hey, you got a lot of positive reviews here. If you sign up for our monthly service, we can post those for you. And for an extra fee, we can make those bad reviews go away." Nice. Many people have told me Yelp absolutely does not do this, but my son is not lying. During my HAL cruise, my mom and I chatted with the Activities Director. She was great and we told her how much we were enjoying the cruise. She politely asked if we could please make sure to complete the HAL survey and share our experience. I thought that was fine. But asking for a positive review definitely falls in the category of "Not Cool".

I do like the idea of booking another HAL cruise. Would really like to do Norway. But it will be a while before that's in the budget. I will check e-Pray and other sources.

My mom and dad are in their 70s. They booked the Duck Boat excursion in Ketchikan and were surprised at how much they enjoyed it. Mrs. Klutch and I went on an independent excursion through Wild Wolf Tours in Ketchikan. We were two of six people and rode in a van to the end of the road in Ketchikan. (Ketchikan roads don't connect to the outside world.) We walked a well-improved trail down to a waterfall, through the rainforest and then onto a beach. We then stopped to visit a Totem Pole museum. It was great! There is very little risk of missing the ship on this excursion. Ketchikan is small and you're never that far from the pier.

I recently completed my first cruise aboard Koningsdam. On the ship I bought a metal coffee mug I really liked. Unfortunately, I dropped it and broke the lid. I would like to order another mug like this, but I can't find it anywhere online. (I tried to order a replacement lid, but it didn't fit.) I would also like to buy some other HAL merch, but I can't find much. I did find this web site, but it has only a few items: https://store.ecompanystore.com/shophollandamerica/Shop/#/ I can't find any merch on the actual Holland America web site. Does HAL limit most purchases to only onboard? Thanks.

I was on Koningsdam second week of May. Everywhere on the ship was always always comfortable for short sleeves or long sleeves; depends on how thin-blooded one is. Occasionally some of the doors to weather decks would be open, such as while we were in Glacier Bay. The areas around those open doors would get cold. I live in Colorado where we are all about layering. Layering works very well in Alaska as well. Aboard the ship, I typically wore jeans, and a long-sleeved T-shirt over a short sleeved T-shirt. If I got worm, I would just peel off the long sleeved shirt. If I was on my balcony, I would put on a fleece and that was perfect. I would recommend the same thing ashore. Wear a long sleeved shirt over a short sleeved shirt. Bring a rain jacket or a fleece and an umbrella and you'll be good. In Glacier Bay I was up on the bow for a long while. Sometimes it got windy up there and that's a whole different ball game. In the wind I wore my rain jacket over my fleece and a hat. This worked well for the cool wind. Have fun!

One of the Step One Shows was "Humanity" which is brand new. The other was "Move" which I think is also pretty new. Yeah, if the Music Walk venues are too loud for you, there's not much for entertainment. I saw a brief video clip of the Four Vocalists show and it appeared to be just four people on stage singing Karaoke style. I don't think I missed much.

The World Stage had two different shows by the Step One Dance Company. Those were outstanding! There were also at least two shows listed only as "Four Vocalists" on the schedule for World Stage, but I didn't catch those. The three Music Walk venues had three shows each on most days. A standup comedian also did one show at the BB King Blues Club and another at the World Stage. I never saw any live music anywhere during the day.

No classical music aboard Koningdam May 6-13. I never saw any jazz musicians anywhere.