Prinsendam:Dec 18,2004-Jan 3,2005

[Florida Lady]

We returned yesterday January 3, 2005 from the 16 day Christmas/New Years cruise on the Prinsendam. The service was Great, the staff on the ship is wonderful. The best we have seen on any HAL cruise. They really work well as a team. If you are going on the Prinsendam look for Larry in the Java Bar and Andy who supervises the Lido.

The ship left yesterday for drydock in Freeport. SHAME ON HAL for not seding her to drydock earlier. Xmas/ New years cruises are premier cost cruises and passengers expect thing to work.

1. ELEVATORS-One of the aft elevators was out of service for the whole cruise. Several times the only other aft elevators was out for a period during the afternoon. One afternoon only one forward elevator was working. None of the elevators worked properly. We were on deck 5 and it was quite a trek up to deck 11 Lido. I felt sorry for the people with wheelchairs and canes.

2. AUTOMATIC DOORS AT AFT LIDO- Both automatic doors leading out from the Lido to the outside seating were broken. It was lots of fun trying to open the doors while carrying a tray or coffee.

3. EXPRESSO MACHINE IN JAVA BAR- The expresso machine in the Java BAr has been broken since November. This meant that you could get expresso only when the kitchen was open since the staff woul go down to the kitchen and bring it up to Java.

4. FLAT SCREEN TV- The flat screen TV is Java was broken.

5. BROKEN WINDOWS- There were various broken windows on the ship. One taped window in the smoking room off Java.

I do hope the above items will be fixed for the World Cruise but it did not help those of us who spent the holidays on the Prinsendam. All I can say is: SHAME ON HAL, SHAME ON HAL.

AGAIN I SAY - SHAME ON HAL

[localady]

Thanks for your review! I have to agree with you that the holiday cruises are premium dollar cruises!:eek: There had also been posts about A/C problems and pipe leaks. Did you experience any of that??

 

Despite the fact that we know this is an older Ship, but we are looking forward to a smaller ship for our Baltic cruise. Looking forward to hearing the reviews from the World Cruisers to see if these items were repaired!:cool:

[jhannah]

All I can say is: SHAME ON HAL, SHAME ON HAL.

AGAIN I SAY - SHAME ON HAL

While I certainly understand the inconveniences/annoyances you mentioned, it seems you are being a little "over the top" on this. I'm sure HAL did not plan to have the elevators, doors, or window panes break. I would not think these are dry dock issues anyway. Even so, dry dock is not something they can schedule at a moment's notice. We didn't have any of these issues that I know of when we were on the Prinsendam in September/October. Things break. Sometimes the parts to restore them have to be ordered. I have no clue what was involved in the issues you mentioned; but I fail to see where HAL should be the object of such scorn. These were not serious health or safety issues.

[Florida Lady]

To Localady- A/C was working fine. No pipe leaks.

[Florida Lady]

To Jhannah

Elevators were a problem if you were in a wheelchair or used a cane. This was a health and safty issue for some passengers. Try asking the lady with the broken wrist and the one with the broken leg what they think. I am glad that everything worked when you were on the Prinsendam but these were issues on our cruise. GETTING CAUGHT BY AN ELEVATOR DOOR IS A SAFETY ISSUE!!!! WALKING UP OR DOWN 6 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS IS A HEALTH ISSUE FOR SOME PEOPLE.

Drydocking should have been scheduled earlier so the ship would be in decent operating condition for this EXPENSIVE HOLIDAY CRUISE.

[trubey]

Florida lady, We were on the cruise with Jim in September, and were on the tender that broke the window in the Oak Room. We all called it the 'tender from H---'. I guess they smashed into the window as they were lifting the tender up to restow it -- this was right after they rammed into the ship (hard!) on their approach, and then ripped a big chunk of fibreglas out of the deck while trying to dock it.

 

It was behind a curtain with glass all over the floor! We reported it, but they didn't do anything about it at all. Glad it's taped shut now!

 

Lane (no more smileys -- they're part of a spyware program and were a devil to get off my machine)

[RuffinReady]

Trubey, do you mean the "smileys" to the right of the message format? I have no evidence of any spyware. Maybe I need to run my Spybot program again.

 

 

Ruffin

 

:-) - There that's the old kind

[Grumpy1]

Since the cruise schedules are set more than a year in advance and drydock schedules are not only a matter of the cruise schedules, but also availability of the drydock, I can't understand your attitude that the ship should have gone in sooner. What would your reaction have been if HAL had called and told you that they were cancelling your cruise so they could go into dry dock? To change a schedule that was set more than a year out would have required cancelling SOMEONES cruise, wouldn't it?

 

We will be on her first voyage after drydock for 113 days. I'm sure, in that length of time, things that were working perfectly when we leave will be broken, and there will be times that one or more elevators will be out of service. But we will deal with it and enjoy our cruise. This isn't a perfect world and there is no gaurantee of a perfect ship, regardless of the amount of money you spend.

 

Grumpy and Slinkie

 

Prensendam 2005 World Voyage

[Florida Lady]

TO GRUMPY1

Schedule drydock BEFORE a Xmas / New Years Cruise. This could have been scheduled a year ago. FYI we were been booked on a cruise that had to be cancelled so the ship could go to drydock.

[RuffinReady]

Grumpy and Slinkie. What a pair of cool names! I wonder which one of you is DH and which is DW?

 

Bon Voyage and please write while you are gone.

 

Ruffin

[trubey]

Trubey, do you mean the "smileys" to the right of the message format? I have no evidence of any spyware. Maybe I need to run my Spybot program again.

Nope, I meant Smiley Central. I like the old emoticons better too, I guess. The smileys are kind of gimmicky (though I have a few cute R-rated ones saved that are no problem)

 

lane

[RuffinReady]

Grumpy1 and Slinkie,

We sailed on the Royal Princess on a cruise from Fort Lauderdale around South America to Varapriso. It was for 32 days and departed from FLL on November 2001. She had just come out of drydock in Baltimore and sailed with no pax down to FLL. When we boarded they were still working on the ship, installing new carpet etc. and continued working for a couple of ports. They had also put new talking elevators mid-ship during drydock. They were nice when they worked, but they finally got them fixed sometime during the cruise. They kept telling us to "mind the doors" which I thought was cute. During my life I have had to mind different people and objects, but never elevator doors! One of the differences between "american" and "english" english! :) I hope that the Prinsendam is "shipshape" for your voyage and if everything is not perfect I am sure that they will do their best to make it right soonest.

 

Bon Voyage and keep writing.

 

Ruffin

 

Bahama Star (long time ago!)

S.S. France (Transatlantic -1965)

S.S Atlantic (Transatlantic, Mediterranean - American Export Lines - 1966)

Europa (Caribbean - 1969 - North German Lloyd)

Statendam (Caribbean - 1975)

Sunward (Bahamas - c. 1980)

Song of America (Caribbean - 1988)

Crown Princess (Alaska - 1999)

Crown Princess (Baltic - 2001)

Royal Princess (B2B to South America - 2001)

Royal Princess (B2B2B; Transatlantic, France, Belgium, Holland; Gt.Britain-2002)

Galaxy (Caribbean - 2003)

 

 

Prinsendam (B2B; Transatlantic NYC to Athens – May 2005)and counting!

 

[Grumpy1]

I fully expect that there will be problems after the ship comes out of drydock and that there will be ongoing work for a time after we are underway. That's just the nature of maintenance and refurbishing work. I've had a lot of experience in that area and do know what I'm talking about.

 

I still think the OP is being very unfair with her SHAME SHAME rant. How could HAL possibly anticipate that there would be problems that need to be addressed before "her" cruise.

 

Given the schedule of the Prinsendam this year, the Amazon river Cruise would have been eliminated to do a drydock before the Holiday Cruise. With an entire fleet to schedule, materials to order, and all of the other logistics that have to be worked out, you can't put every ship in drydock just before a holiday cruise. The drydock schedules are easily ascertained, so the OP should make sure that her next cruise is on a ship that has recently completed drydock, but not too recent as they will probably be working on the ship at sea after drydock.

 

I don't mean to sound cold, but I just have no sympathy for the OP's position. I have sympathy for the fact that your cruise was less than perfect, but I feel her "solution" is simplistic and unreasonable.

 

Grumpy and Slinkie

[Slinkiecat]

<<Grumpy and Slinkie. What a pair of cool names! I wonder which one of you is DH and which is DW?>>

 

Hi, Ruffin. Glad you like our names. Grumpy is DH.

 

I'm really looking forward to traveling for 113 days on Prinsendam, whether or not all its parts are functioning perfectly. The world cruise should be such an awesome trip, with really nice people onboard to meet and some fantastic ports to explore. Certainly there has been so much damage in the Far East that some changes may be made in our itinerary, but with the whole globe to circle in that time, other events could cause trouble anywhere along the way. We'll take it all as a new adventure and hope it is a great learning experience as well as a fun one.

 

Slinkie

[RuffinReady]

Grumpy1 and Slinkie,

 

You two must be a pair of "cool cats". I love your email login and logo. I never would have guessed that "Grumpy1" was DH :) I love your attitude, we only pass this way once and if we don't make the most of it then that is our loss. I am 75 years-young and my wife will become a 62 years-young survivor of late stage Ovarian Cancer with 5 years of remission in May 2005. She is a living miracle. When the doctor came out to give me a report after the surgery he didn't expect her to live more that a year. During her subsequent chemotherapy I asked him if it was okay for her to travel when she had finished the therapy. He said that we should not wait to do anything that we wanted to do. Well, he is a much, much better surgeon than a prognosticator. Since then we have been on 7 cruises and 3 trips to Canada. And on May 9th we are going to celebrate her 5 year anniversary with a B2B on the Prinsendam from NYC to Barcelona then to Athens. Whoopee! :)

 

BTW, I love your post vis-a-vis the recent cruise of the Prinsendam and agree with everything you said.

 

RuffinReady

[jhannah]

And on May 9th we are going to celebrate her 5 year anniversary with a B2B on the Prinsendam from NYC to Barcelona then to Athens. Whoopee!

Whoopee, indeed! Hallelujah for your DW's recovery. You are so right about going aorund only once. Each day needs to count. That's one reason we try to cruise a couple of times a year. There just may come a time when we can't, and I don't ever want to look back at life saying, "woulda-coulda-shoulda."

[Grumpy1]

We agree completely, Jim. We know we can enjoy the World Tour now, but who knows what another year may bring. I'd hate to look back and say " we should have done that when we had the chance..."

 

RuffinReady, congratulations on the 5th anniversary of remission. Here's to many more to come.

Grumpy and Slinky

[Florida Lady]

To Grumpy1

I stated the Facts. There were MANY people on the ship that could not walk up and down the stairs. Our sailing had lots of people with limited mobility. My heart went out to them. The frustration in their faces waiting for an elevator. If it did arrive hoping the elevator door would not close on them. That is why I say: SHAME on HAL.

I have sailed on this ship in the past and I see that very little money is being spent on her. I hope that she is given the care in drydock that she well deserves. Maybe some people don't care or don't know any better but I do care about my fellow passengers.

I am sorry that you miss the point.

As you may know, HAL does monitor this board. Pointing out areas in need of improvement and posting them may be just the incentive needed to fix them.

Enjoy your World Cruise. Do look for Larry in Java Cafe.

[Grumpy1]

Yes, you stated the facts, and I haven't argued one bit with the facts. BUT, you also drew conclusions, e.g. they should have gone into drydock before your cruise. I merely pointed out, as did others, that it would not have been practical to do that, based on my personal knowledge of scheduling, material acquisition, logistics and many other factor that you totally ignore.

 

Drydock schedules are seldom changed unless the ships propulsion system or a major safety system is involved. Yes, passengers were inconvenienced, but the problems you outlined were not of a nature that would have necessitated a change in drydock schedule and for you to insist that it could have been scheduled to occur before YOUR cruise without knowing anything about what factors have to be considered is IMHO rediculous.

 

Grumpy (also in South florida)

[Florida Lady]

To Grumpy 1

You are making lots of assumption.

1. I DID NOT suggest an emergency drydocking. I said SCHEDULED drydocking.

2. Everyone does not agree with you.

3. I found out today that the elevator issue was not a new developement, they have been a problem as far back as JUNE 2002. (passenger review on another website)

4. You don't know anything about my professional background.

 

Preventive Maintenance costs money and I am concerned that not enough is being done on the Prinsendam. I did not mention everything that is in need of repair/replacement (some of which ARE SAFETY issues). Don't attack the messenger because you don't like what is being said. You will be on the Prinsendam in a week so I am waiting to hear about your observations.

[Grumpy1]

Elevator problems are common on many ships. usually, there will not be most of them down at one time, but it does happen. And I will repeat, you have not offered any information that would would allow anyone that has had a carreer in maintenance, maintenance scheduling and retrofit repairs, which is MY background, to conclude that the drydock should have been scheduled at an earlier date. You say I am making assumptions. I could say the same about you:

 

You assume that well over a year in advance, when schedules are set, that they would have known what repairs would be needed.

 

You assume that drydock facilities would have been available at that time.

 

you assume that all of the repair materials as well as the retrofit materials would have been available sooner.

 

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that most of the time projects like a major drydock are driven by material availability. There isn't some monstrous warehouse somewhere that has every possible repair part as well as all of the SOE upgrade parts sitting there just waiting for the ship. And I CAN assume, because you are so adamant about the fact that the drydock could have been scheduled earlier, that you do not have a background in that type of work. By the way, the Prinsendam had come out of drydock shortly before the June 2002 cruise that drew such negative reviews. After a few months, most of the problems were taken care of and most reviews after that have been positive. Believe me, I did a LOT of research before deciding to spend 113 days aboard her.

 

Grumpy

 

I never said EVERYONE agrees with me, I said OTHERS

[Cruiseoften]

Grumpy1 - Love your attitude - would be a dull world if everything was always perfect.

 

Some people seem to feel that everything should be scheduled for their personal convenience.

 

By the way, the ship's name isPRINSENDAM - we love her! :D :D

[Aussie Gal]

I can only say that when we were on the Prinsendam in October, all the elevators were working. Also the coffee machine was working in the Java Cafe and the automatic doors at the aft Lido were working. I cannot remember even seeing a TV in the Java Cafe. As all of these were working only a few weeks ago it was very unfortunate for you that they weren't working in December.

 

We use the stairs all the time for exercise and only use the elevators on embarkation and disembarkation but I do know that there wasn't any trouble with any of the elevators whilst we were on board.

 

Jennie

[Grumpy1]

Aussie Gal, thank you for your comments. It would appear that there were several things that decided to malfunction at a most inappropriate time for the OP, and I'm truly sorry that it lessened the enjoyment of her cruise. I probably wouldn't have bothered to reply were it not for her repeated screaming in capital letters, shame on hal, when in reality there was not much that HAL could have or should have done differently, IMHO.

 

Cruiseoften, I fully expect that there will be quite a few bugs that will need to be worked out during our voyage and there will be things that have just been replaced and are working perfectly when we leave that will develop problems before we return. Having brought large new construction projects online as well as major renovation and repair projects, it will be very interesting to me to find out about the problems that they are having in drydock right now, and what they have to to finish up after we are underway. Less than two weeks is a very short time frame for major systems work. I've sailed two ships in their inaugural season and they both had major problems. Getting an opportunity to talk with the chief engineer on one of them and getting the "inside story" was quite interesting.

 

Grumpy

[jhannah]

Grumpy1 thanks for your thoughtful and rational post. When we were on the Prinsendam the sailing before Aussie Gal, we had some toilet problems for a couple of days. Most likely because someone tried to flush something down the vacuum system that they shouldn't have. Yes, we had to go out and use a public toilet for a while ... but it didn't "ruin" our cruise in any way.

 

What we all tend to forget is that sailing ships are just like the houses we live in. Stuff breaks or wears out. And at the most inconvenient time. Like when you have out of town guests in the house and your washer malfunctions and overflows, sending water all over the place, just before you're about to leave the house! I didn't have what I needed, but was able to go out and rent a wet vac. A ship can't divert three degrees north and swing by Home Depot.

 

Oh well. Our Prinsendam plumbing was fixed. No harm, no foul.