annnrl

That is very true. If you have a good cruise, you tell a few people. If you have a bad cruise, you tell everyone. We love to cruise (we just got back from our 40th cruise). However, we won’t ever cruise on HAL again. While we are grateful that my husband was eventually able to get back onboard. HAL’s offer of $100 off his next cruise is absolutely ridiculous. Unless someone knows of a way to take a 21 day cruise for two people for $100.

They stayed in two different hotels. During the day they were put on a bus for two hours each way, to get their passports (HAL found a way to get them to the passengers). They also had to go to customs, they also spent a lot of time waiting to see where they were going next. My husband had to be in the lobby at 3:00 a.m. to be taken to the airport. On the third day when they arrived in Panama they were driven on a bus around Panama for 8 hours waiting to be allowed back on the ship.

Thank you to those who welcomed me for posting my first post. In answer to where they stayed - They spent a few hours sleeping in a hotel each night. They had to put the same gross clothes back on after they showered. HAL did make sure they were fed. However, to those who think I am lying, here are a few pictures of the so called “paved road”. HAL should have cancelled the excursion. When HAL made the decision to leave 41 people behind, they should have been compensated and not just given a token.

In October my husband and I took a 21 day Panama Canal cruise from Vancouver to Ft. Lauderdale on the Nieuw Amsterdam. My husband and 40 other passengers booked a ship excursion to go zip lining in Costa Rica. A rain storm came through and Holland America cancelled all of the excursions except theirs (they didn’t know this at the time). In order to get out of the rain forest they had to zip line on medal cables in thunder and lightning and pouring rain, walk almost 4 miles in calf high mud, and be shuffled all around for three days wearing the same gross smelly clothes. Three days later (after the canal) they were flown to Panama to rejoin the ship. (Three people actually were flown to 5 countries before they could get back onboard.) Holland’s idea of compensation for this fiasco was a refund for the excursion, $150 OBC, and a $100 off of my husband’s next cruise. They also offered to show them a movie of the Panama Canal. We put in a claim to the insurance company who just told us yesterday that they are only going to refund us $111 because he technically didn’t miss a port because the canal passage isn’t a port. Holland’s reasoning behind not waiting was purely financial. The captain stated that they would have lost the $300k that they already paid and they would have to pay that amount again for the new spot. We have been on over 35 cruises and we never thought something like this would happen. It’s amazing that no one was killed. (Other passengers have tried to post their story on Holland’s Facebook page, but it keeps getting taken down.)

We are currently on our second cruise of our b2b Equinox cruises. The process of switching from one to another was ridiculous. After completing the first cruise they told us to meet at 9:15 in one of the lounges. We waited there for 45 minutes. We were then marched down the hall where we waited another 20 minutes to leave the ship. We then had to take the long ramp walk into the cruise building. We had to get our pictures taken again. Afterwards we had to take the long trek on the ramps again to get back on the ship. The entire process took almost 1 1/2 hours. Once we were back onboard we were told we could check into our muster station. When we got there, no one was there. We had another hour wait (we wouldn’t have waited, but, we were told someone was on their way several times.) From all of the chaos, you would have thought that this was the first time they had ever had passengers do a b2b. Epic fail Celebrity.

My husband went on a ship sponsored excursion in Costa Rica. The tour bus was unable to get the 41 passengers back to the ship (all the other buses were smart enough to cancel the excursions) because the roads were closed because of landslides caused by rainfall. They ended up spending three days in Costa Rica. They had to walk almost four miles in calf high deep mud to get out. They spent three days in the same smelly disgusting clothes. It was a Holland America Panama Canal Cruise. The passengers missed the entire canal. What Holland gave them in return was a joke.