Iggysue

On 1/4/2024 at 4:13 PM, WVU_Neal said:

After returning from an October cruise, I noticed an overcharge on my statement of $11. Following the information on the HAL website, I sent an email explaining the problem and requesting a refund. The response was a "form letter" stating that it might take 10-12 weeks for them to respond. After about 6 weeks, I sent a follow-up email, same form response. After that nothing.

Fast forward to January 3. Called the HAL customer service number. After a few minutes on hold, I ended talking with a reservations agent. After a bit of back and forth and some rudeness from said agent, she offered to connect me with customer service and would wait until that happened. After 55 minutes wait, I hung up.

Given that it appears impossible to reach these folks, my plan is to bring it up at check-in for my next cruise in late January, when I will have a real live human being in front of me. And I plan to ask for a bottle of wine for my trouble.

Neal

I just got off the Nieuw Amsterdam. I had been invited by the Casino to book dinner at the Pinnacle Grill, which I did. We enjoyed a nice dinner. BUT - the charge ended up on my account.  2 nights in a row I brought it up to the Casino host, AND to guest services.  As of today - 9 days post cruise, the $100 charge never got taken off my account.  SO - paid for a $100 meal (not even any wine!), that I would not have otherwise have booked.  I'm still pretty miffed about that.

I just got off the Nieuw Amsterdam on Saturday.  For our cruise, the internet was down more than it was up for me the entire week! Most aggravating.  Additionally, the TV satellite was terrible the entire week, with entire days or evenings where we couldn't get anything besides the lifeboat information. When we COULD get a movie to play, it would cut out after 10 minutes or so and we would have to re-start. I hope they get the bugs worked out, but for this cruise - HAL should be refunding money paid for internet packages!

On 12/18/2022 at 1:07 PM, AV8rix said:

OMG!  Then what I heard from the folks on the Thanksgiving voyages was correct!!  They're not enforcing the rule to keep the kids out of the Seaview pool area.  Bummer!  I was going to use that open area to eat on the upcoming crowded Christmas segment because I didn't want to eat in an enclosed venue with hundreds of kids aboard whose vaccination and health status is uncertain.  I'd already planned to stay out of the MDR for ANY meal on that segment.

 

Umm, actually the overwhelmed staff may not be enforcing any rules at all.

I was on board the K-Dam for Christmas, and you are correct about the MDR.  After the 2nd day of extremely poor dinner service from our overwhelmed wait staff, we never went back. We checked out Club Orange for the first time and it was like the heavens opened up. We did breakfast and dinner there for the rest of the cruise.  There were a ton of kids on board, and they were not staffed for the amount people they had.

IggySue is beyond ready to set sail!   Embarkation Date: December 1, on the new Rotterdam - 11 night Southern Caribbean Wayfarer.  Holding out hope this will still go - I Cannot Wait!!!!

We were booked on the Westerdam in August, but last week we moved to an August 2022 sailing - Venice round trip.  Just getting too late in the year for us to feel reasonably certain cruises would be a Go. Also - vaccine roll out is sluggish in the US - no guarantees at this point that we'd be all vax'd up and ready to go.  We are still booked in the So. Caribbean in December 2021 - fingers crossed that will still go.

What an adventure!  Thank you so much for telling us about your experience - a very interesting read!

We are ice cream lovers, and enjoyed scanning the lido for the flavors of the day.  The K-Dam was a disappointment for us on the ice cream front.  All you could get for 'free' was vanilla - chocolate - strawberry.  If you wanted anything more interesting, you had to pay at the gelato bar.  Love HAL, but they are instrumental in causing me to wean myself off of soda, ice cream, sweetner for my tea.  Booked for December - wonder what is next on the hit parade ...

We just completed our first cruise on the Koningsdam this last December.  We generally cruise on the vista-class ships, and we were interested to experience the newer ship.  We were in the aft wraparound suite, and were surprised at how much smaller the cabin space was, and the balcony.  Still the ship was beautiful and we adjusted.  The two things I was really disappointed in was how much narrower the promenade deck was.  Also, up in the spa area, where I went every day as we enjoy the Thermal suite - I think the changing rooms are a huge miss. Besides being so small, SUCH poor design!  All the doors are on handicap power assist, which is not a problem except that the doors stand open for 10-15 seconds, leaving anyone changing in the tiny changing room just exposed to all who walk by in the hallway.  All in all, we did thoroughly enjoy our cruise in spite of  the negatives, but we did leave thinking we preferred the Vista class ships.

We do aft wraparounds every year - they are our first choice!  We are usually Deck 7 or 8 though - so perhaps being further away from the engines would make a difference.  We have never had the problems you've described!

And I can see my lovely back aft wrap-around stateroom (7189).  Perhaps you can see me sobbing wildly with my arms and legs wrapped around the back rail as they tried to force me to pack up and get off LOL.  Seriously though - Lovely cruise to the South Caribbean, wonderful food, interesting weather, great service.  It was my first time on Koningsdam, after a dozen cruises on the Vista Class ships, so I was interested to see what changes in design had been made.  For me - hits and misses on design changes, but the same wonderful HAL service helped me overcome little disappointments.  Can't wait til the next cruise!

On 12/15/2019 at 3:13 AM, 65 Gator said:

Koningsdam in all her glory...

I used a trainer on the Noordam last December.  I specifically wanted help putting together a training program I could carry on with at home.  He was very helpful, and on the last day, he let me demonstrate all the exercises so I could remember them.  For what I wanted, it was a good value.

I got caught last summer and didn't realize my passport expired just 6 days before I was to travel to Europe on business.  Discovery made on a Sunday; closest passport office that would do expedited passports was Seattle, but no appointments available.  I was forced to pay an expediting company (found online) big bucks to walk my documents into the Philly office and push through a renewal.  So I went on a Sunday morning to Walgreens to get a (bad) passport photo, and overnighted everything including my expired passport document to the on online expediting company.  I picked one that had a lot of good reviews and prayed a lot.  Good news is, they got it done and I had my new passport in hand 72 hours later.  Hey - it only cost me about $650 (expensive lesson), but I am good for 10 years.  My passport photo makes me look very ANGRY (maybe cause all I could think was, "six hundred and fifty dollars ...?")  I considered getting new pics taken and having it re-issued, but decided to keep it as a reminder.

Received this from my TA:

 

 

 

Terri

Thanks for posting this! I'm on this cruise as well, and I have not received this notification!

OK -- I'll ask LOL: What's a code red?

Note that none of the DVDs available for checkout are particularly 'current', though, so if you have some favorites you can bring along, you might want to consider that.

Captain Frans Consen, with HAL since 1978, retired on March 15, 2013 in Port Everglades/Ft. Lauderdale, FL where a white limousine picked him up from the dock after an emotional farewell by his crew. His last ship was Statendam. Awesome captain loved by his crew!

 

Aww - love the pics, and how cute was he in jeans a T-shirt? I hope he is loving his retirement!!!

We really enjoyed him on the Sea of Cortez cruise. And he was the only captain I've sailed with who was highly visible. That was on the "beautiful and elegant RRRRRRRyndam" :)

Capt. Frans Consen, without a doubt, funny guy with a booming voice who likes to roll his 'rrrrrrr's:D, plus will do anything (within reason) for his guests

I know this is a very old thread, but I often think of our Captain on the Ryndam - Sea of Cortez cruise, who was such a delight every day with his humor and wit. Started with his announcement at the muster drill. At first we thought it was a joke as he spoke, then we were all laughing out loud as we realized he just had an amazing sense of humor and was walking us through a rote drill with flair. Thereafter, when we heard the mic. click on during the day, everyone stopped to listen, and we were never disappointed.

Had a few idle moments and thought I'd see if I could learn who he was. I've had many HAL cruises since this one. Never ran across Capt. Frans Consen since then, but he stands out as our favorite of all time. Looks like he's retired now, but such a fond memory!

We've frequently sailed in the aft-wraps; our favorite location on the ship by far! And we also often book for 3; plenty of room!

We frequently have someone on the sofa bed in a triple room. It's super easy to make up daily. We frequently have to tell the stewards we want the bed put away each day though - seems as though if we don't, it stays a bed for the entire cruise! We like to have the sofa for sitting on during the day!

Disney Magic! It was just a 3 day to the Bahamas and Disney's private island. We booked a land/sea package because we weren't sure we would like the cruise part. But boy did we ever!!! Hooked since then. After a couple of cruises in the Caribbean, we decided we wanted to try a line that had a casino, entertainment that did not center around a cartoon character, and somewhere less than 2,000 kids on board. So we cruised on the Ryndam up into the Sea of Cortez. Awesomeness - never looked back!

I've sailed both the Westerdam and the Noordam, and I can say the Noordam is a particular favorite. We like the location of Explorations better. That difference aside, the Noordam and the Westie are pretty much the same ship. Faced with the same decision for our 7 days in Alaska this year, we picked the Westerdam for the itinerary, as we wanted to see Glacier Bay and have somehow managed to miss seeing that (up til now!)

I'm picky, because I am spoiled by awesome water from Bull Run in the Pacific Northwest, so I usually try to drink bottled water. On the occassions when I had to use the tap water on board, it has actually been just fine. Not Bull run, but definitely OK ;-)

Point of Americas I - It's where we live. I wanted something short, and it was available. In hindsight, I should have picked something better, like "Vice Chancellor of Fun" but POA1 is easy to type. :)

OOH! I was actually pretty close. I am an old horse person, so everytime I see POA, my brain reads PONY of the Americas.... LOL :D

A question for you, POA1 - I am packing for my cruise on the 14th and wondering if there is any whisper of an Ugly Christmas Sweater Night on the NA? Because I have some beauts and could hang with the best if I had any of those bad boys along with me ... :D