@NE John
The crew was fabulous !
I am a 4 star Mariner so I have a lot of HAL experience.
Food was mediocre at best. Lots of repetition. Portions very very small.
The main stage was dark once a week. 2-3 times a week they played B rate movies no one had ever heard of. They had a man showing you his yo-yo skills as a main show.
HAL Singers and dancers had 15 shows for a 128 day cruise.
No port talks except for the Cruise Director telling you of a few HAL sponsored places.
No lecturers speaking to any of the places we were to experience.
Virtually nothing to do during the day except Arts & Crafts on sea days that were only available to the first 200 people to sign up. And, this was set up as 2 groups so was was really every other sea day.
No special set up in dining room for theme nights. (The excuse was that all the decorations were left on the Amsterdam when sold & there was no place to store them on the Zuiderdam)
There was nothing GRAND about this Grand World Voyage.