RagnarDanneskjold

Thank you very much!

To be honest, I talked with HAL and in the end, they granted me and my wife some features in our cruise to make up for the inconvenience. It is expected that any company may have some bad apples and that may or may not be representative of the company itself. Despite all the problems, so far(I hope I don't change my mind after the cruise itself), they ended up making an effort to please us and after some negotiation, make up for the trouble and inconvenience caused by some people in their costumer service.

I see many people here like to assume a lot without knowing what they are talking about, so if the people assuming all those things are actually interested in what is going on, I'll make things clear in this post. But, first of all, I would like to thank every person that actually took the time to try to post something actually helpful, specially to @Flatbush Flyer. Thank you very much, I'm checking Elliot's website and it is very interesting. I think I'll be able to use that indeed. So, if anyone is interested: What happened is that HAL sent me an e-mail denying the early disembarkation with the justification that the Port of Dover "reached its capacity in allowing guests to disembarkation on that date". I then personally called the Port of Dover, specifically the Cruise Sector of the Port of Dover and explained the situation. I was told that there would be no problems or impediments for us to disembark in the Port of Dover, as long as our Passports are valid(which they are, obviously) and we did not need a Visa(which we don't, since we're brazilians and brazilians do not need a Visa to get in the UK). So essentially, the person from HAL lied We never booked any flights until this point. I obvisouly wanted to make sure that this was possible before booking any flights. In the e-mail which contained the denial of the early disembarkation, it said that if I has any other inquiries about the subject, I should reply to hal_reservations@hollandamerica.com. So what I did was to confront HAL with the above mentioned information, politely, obviously. Unfortunately I never got an answer. I called them and they told me to wait a few days to get a reply to the e-mail I sent. I waited until the day they told me to and no reply came. I called again and this time the representative kept me on hold for a very long time aledgedly because she was talking to her supervisor whose name I was never told. She then told me that the so called supervisor told her that they refused to answer my e-mail in writing because I had already gotten their first e-mail and that the reason was not the Port of Dover, but a fee that HAL had to pay for each guest that disembarks there. So I asked what that fee was, because depending on the value, I would happily pay it for me and my wife. Another long time waiting and I was told that "they had no way of knowing what that fee was and threatened me with fines of "thousands of dollars"(their words) if we disembarked without HAL's consent(which I never said I would do). All this, specially the constant changing of story, shows that indeed someone or everyone there is lying. After all this, we bought our tickets to Vienna from the Netherlands on the 21st with plenty of time to spare, even though this was not what we wanted to do, because we don't want any trouble. But, neverthless, I was suprised with the unpoliteness and lack of respect I got from a company that is supposed to be an "upper end" Cruise Line, as I was told. So essentially, what I want is actually alert others about the kind of treatment they can get from HAL and see if the people enganging in this kind of behavior in the company are held accountable for doing this.

Hello all, could someone point me to consumer complaint websites that cruise lines pay more attention to? I booked a cruise, it didn't even start and it is already turning into a nightmare. Consumer service is horrible, unpolite, with only boilerplate answers, no effort at all to solve anything and even worse: I was straight out lied to by the cruise line and they simply won't take responsability for it and even threatened me with fines after I questioned them about those lies with evidence of it. Very disappointed and I wanted to find the best possible places to make others aware of this. Thank you in advance.

Hello all. We decided to get off in Dover. I contacted HAL about this. They said they would fill out a "Deviation Form" for me and see if they would allow disembarkation in Dover or not... I found this very strange... How can they eventually forbid us from getting off the ship? As far as I know, a cruise is not a prison. And we don't need any visa to get in the UK. Their answer was the following: "Dear Guests, Thank you for contacting HOLLAND AMERICA LINE regarding XXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXX upcoming cruise aboard the NIEUW STATENDAM sailing 07 APRIL 2024 on booking XXXXX We are following up with you on the itinerary deviation request for DISEMBARKATION in DOVER (LONDON), ENGLAND, UK on 20 APRIL 2024. Unfortunately, the request has been denied as the port has reached its capacity in allowing guests to DISEMBARKATION on that date." I found this completely absurd. Did anyone else went through this? Any suggestions on how to fix this? I'm already regretting having booked this Cruise.

I don't know if anybody has seen my post above. For some reason the Moderators took a very long time to clear this message of mine and several other responses to my first post appeared after... But how hard is it get off the ship on an earlier port? Is it possible to disembark on Dover the day before, instead of Rotterdam? We saw that there are great flights from London to Vienna and we think that, if possible, it would be great to disembark there and catch one of those flights directly to Vienna.

Thank you Very much for all the kind responses... I think that I have enough evidence to dissuade my wife now... 🙂 We thought of an alternative which is getting of the ship on the day before on Dover, which is the last port before arrival in Rotterdam. I don't think will miss much by doing this and we could get a direct flight to Vienna from Heathrow or Gatwick. We just don't know how hard it would be to do this.

Hello all. I booked a cruise with Holland America that is scheduled to arrive in Rotterdam on April 21st, 2024, a Sunday at 07:00 am. From there, we will fly to Vienna, AT. There is a flight to Vienna leaving from Amsterdam at 11:50 am local time. Essentially, we would have a 4 hour interval to get off the ship on Rotterdam, get to the railway station (550m from the Cruise Port of Rotterdam), than get to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (about 1 hour) and get the 11:50 am flight to Vienna. We will have 2 handbags and one 20kg suitcase with us. If HAL is extremely punctual and we get off the ship a little after 07:00 am, I think that this is doable, but I normally prefer to be on the safe side and get a later flight. My wife thinks it'll be OK and that we will easily get the 11:50 flight in Amsterdam. To all the experienced cruisers here, preferably the ones with the most experience with HAL and the Rotterdam Cruise Port, which one of us is right?

Sorry, just to make it clear, because I think I did not understand it very well... So, even if she uses a "public computer in the ship", we would have to buy the wifi package to use it? Because if this is the Casey there would not be much sense in it, since she could simply use the wifi on her phone... And about Navigator being free of charge, does this mean that she could.use Navigator to communicate with out daughter somehow? Or simply that one does not need a wifi package to get navigator to work?

John Galt would be an option for a username too, but Ragnar Danneskjold (the good pirate) seemed a more suitable choice for a cruise forum...🤭 I thank you all for the answers and tips... I don't know if I should open a new thread for this, but I would like to know if there are any computers with internet access in HAL ships... We're Brazilians, my wife has never cruised before and my experience with cruising is not that extensive either... I cruised with carnival when I was little and those computers were available, but I don't know if they are an option nowadays(this was more than 20 years ago)... My wife thinks that the price for Wi-fi is not worth it, but she would like to have some way to contact our daughter while cruising from time to time... If those computers are available, that would be a cheaper option than getting the wifi package.

Thank you very much for the quick response!

I would like to know if getting out on your own during port days is allowed when cruising with Holland America.