They Have to do it Well the first few Days.....

[SwissMyst]

I've always secretly wanted to get robbed on a cruise, so I'd have a great story to tell... I'm a little jealous.

 

The only good story I have to tell is about the time I ate six cheese plates in the Lido.

 

Eat your heat out, DH diverted a pickpocket in progress on the bus in Palemo and he thought he was wearing "pickpocket proof" pants with both two buttons on the flap and a zipper.

 

6 plates of cheese. :confused: That is a far better story because at least we know why people get robbed -- for the money. But what on earth is the reason to tuck away 6 plates of cheese?

 

Though after a rugged trek across the Pakistan and China Silk Road, when finally arriving in a decent hotel in Beijing I realized what I had missed most of all for those past weeks was ...cheese and delighted to see a cheese plate on the hotel menu back in the day when China was still hovering as a "western" tourist destination.

 

Out came a large plate with a dozen or so hunky slices of a white cheese - it was good, but after a few slices it was a bit of overkill. So please, your 6 plates of cheese story please.

 

Which also reminds me of this last Maasdam trip when asking for the new special cheese menu like we had enjoyed so much on the recent Ryndam cruise failed completely - no menu could be found so we just dropped the idea of asking for it any longer at dinner - seemed like it was going to be more hassle for the waiter than it was worth it for me. Too bad because they were starting to make the cheese course a real deal on the Ryndam.

[AZWTRLVR]

I would add a bit to Lisa's experience boarding the ship in Seattle.

 

We, too, we're on that cruise. Those of us with accessibility issues (scooters, wheelchairs) were unable to board using the crew gangway. As Lisa said, it was too steep and there were also horizontal strips of wood placed horizontally every so often on the gangway to keep from sliding backward. We had arrived at 11:30am. Finally at 3:00pm we were asked if my DH could walk without the scooter. Yes. So they were arranging to have two crew members assist him up the gangway and they would then go back and carry the scooter up. At that time the regular gangway was ready for use. We finally got aboard around 3:30pm.

 

The rest of the story....I was talking with one of the Managers on the ship the next day. One of the longshoremen had caused the problem with the gangway. AND, with almost 1,800 people waiting to board, they decided to take their lunch break before starting the repairs!

 

Did this put a damper on our trip? Nope, we were just happy to be back aboard a HAL ship and on the water. We just consider it to be another "experience". That was our fourteenth HAL cruise and unfortunately our last one.

[Ineke]

Out of 7 cruises of HAL, one of them truly fit Murphy's Law, a Panama Canal cruise best forgotten. That doesn't mean it was all bad, but it was bad enough that we swore we wouldn't cruise HAL again and left $1000 credit go untouched. Of course we could only keep that up for so long (6 years), and then caved and enjoyed 4 more HAL cruises, and will do so again if the opportunity arises. But first we're trying X in January, hope it measures up!

[Two@Sea]

I like people like you!

 

Lemonade!!!!!

 

And, I like people like YOU too! Your posts are always entertaining, interesting, and positive. :)

[GmaPajama]

Once, just once, did I encounter a bad start to a cruise - in an SA on the Zuiderdam. An obviously new cabin steward who just didn't get it. When I asked for more ice, he told me they don't replenish ice till turndown time. When I asked for the dinner menu, he said they don't provide those anymore. There's lots more, but I won't burden you with it.

 

Our initial reaction was aggravation, but we soon had to start laughing about it. Everything else about the cruise was pretty much perfect, and he definitely gave us some unique memories. I can't imagine he still works for HAL.

[cruisemom42]

I think for any seasoned Cruisers a mis-hap in the begnning is just that a mis-hap and it is quickly ignored. But to that person who does not cruise that often who plans for many months often years to have their perfect cruise and if things go wrong in the very beginning it is pretty darn hard to sway it back the other way. I have learned when talking to these people that I try to find some that went well and attemtp to dwell on that to help to take away the negative.

 

 

It's difficult to pinpoint why this phenomenon happens, but I think you're onto something with this observation. When you travel a good deal, you learn that you have to "roll with the punches" to a certain extent. It's not that you should excuse something that is clearly a major problem, but you learn not to sweat the small stuff.

 

Then again, I have seen a small percentage of folks who HAVE traveled a lot and still find opportunities to complain frequently. This seems to happen more on cruises than on land trips -- the inevitable "I've been on 60 cruises and I've never had X, Y, or Z happen before! This is intolerable!" I think one reason is that people who cruise are used to having most everything taken care of for them -- they do not have to plan for meals, hotels, entertainment, tour options, etc. Much as I enjoy cruising, you do tend to be in a bit of a bubble and not exposed to a lot of the real "trials" of travel....

 

 

 

Here is what happened for very first impressions on our last cruise and what HAL did to make up for it. We arrived and were able to go to our room immediately upon check-in - great. (Besides our perfect Rome airport pick-up and transfer, which was our very, very first impression)

 

We unfortunately then were greeted when we opened the cabin door with one of those huge noisy room fans and the explanation the carpet got wet when they were washing the outside of the ship because the balcony door had not been properly closed.

 

Lots of apologies but the room was unusable - no problem, we wanted to get off the ship anyway.

 

Came back and the fan was gone, but got put in for the next day too because the carpet had not fully dried. Lots of apologies by phone message, a note and a plate of chocolates from the front desk.

 

Next day they told us to be out of the room the next day because they needed to now shampoo the carpet. But with that request came a complimentary invitation to the Pinnacle restaurant, and continued apologies.

 

So while the first impression was not perfect (but things like this can happen and the balcony door did not close shut easily in fact), the follow-up was more than expected.

 

Plus it got us back to the Pinnacle which was the biggest treat for all considered because now we will be willing to pay the extra charge again after our one prior disastrous experience on another ship.

 

So HAL went out of its way to make something unfortunate work out for all concerned and added those unexpected extra touches that said they knew we should not have to expect this first impression inconvenience, and please can we make up for this in any reasonable way we can.

 

We never complained because we do know things like this can happen. So their generous unsolicited offers of compensation for our inconvenience was honored and appreciated.

 

I can guarantee that there are many posters on CC who would've turned this situation into a crusade: "Why did this happen in the first place?? Our cruise was ruined! We should've been moved to another cabin (preferably a suite) right away and been comped for at least 50% of the cruise cost!"

 

Unrealistic expectations are rampant.

[Viesczy]

I am low maintenance; if I'm on board, in the room of my choice, going to where I want, and the food hasn't left me emptying myself via top and bottom, all other matters are trivial.

 

C'mon, it is vacation on the Blue again! How can that truly be bad? No place feels the same as when I'm riding the Blue... she feels like Home.

 

Derek

[mountainmare]

I do agree that if there are too many glitches the first few days then it does set the tone of the cruise. I don't know what is considered short or long for people to whom a short cruise is 14 days or so but I think it may be worse on a long cruise.

For us a short cruise is 10 days or less.

On an 18 day cruise the first two days we had one miss step after another, to the point that by the time we got to the cabin our friends commented that HAL had definately gone downhill.

I'm not complaining that we were able to have a wonderful vacation but on that cruise in every port I found myself thinking "what will be wrong now" when returning to the ship.

It ending with the final words when leaving were "move it along" . HONEST!! Not "move it along please" or "goodbye" . That allowed us the chance to spend vacation for the next few years exploring other options, which we still do. We used to cruise a medium length cruise on HAL at least once a year, now about every other year we alternate between land vacations and cruising.

Maybe it was time and we were getting cruised out, but that one bad cruise pushed us over the edge, and it started with a bad first few days.

[Modern_Viking]

I was once told by HAL shore term that only suite passengers are always allowed to bypass the photographers at boarding, so consider that a perk you are paying for.

 

On some days, Mariners at certain star levels are also allowed to bypass in order to get to the welcome lunch.

 

We always just walk on by the photographers.

They don't say anything.....

 

[sail7seas]

When you think about that, it really isn't logical IMO

 

It isn't a Suite perk. It's the privilege of all guests.

 

No one except the check in person making your ID can force you to have a photo taken. The photographers have no right to take a photo if you tell them not to.

 

[SwissMyst]

I was once told by HAL shore term that only suite passengers are always allowed to bypass the photographers at boarding, so consider that a perk you are paying for.

 

On some days, Mariners at certain star levels are also allowed to bypass in order to get to the welcome lunch.

 

Not true. We always by-pass the photographers and have ever since we started cruising. HAL photographers are the least intrusive we have ever dealt with and that is a huge HAL bonus in my mind. I hope this never changes.

 

Suite passengers do have to have their photo taken for their ID cards just like everyone else, but anyone can step around that initial commercial photo op -- probably new passengers don't know, this but it has nothing to do with being a suite passenger or Mariner status.

 

Yes, there is a Mariner Lunch perk on some embarkations that allows them to dine in the main dining room instead of the Lido. Small perk, easily earned. Just come back for that second cruise.

 

Suite passengers get a few extra small parties with the top officer staff, but suite passengers are paying a significantly higher base fare too -- they get more benefits, than just larger cabin sizes which is okay with me if this is what people want for the additional charges.

 

On our last FLL shore excursion to the Everglades air boat book through HAL we had a showdown with the airboat company's onsite photographer that was extremely aggressive and unpleasant, as everyone was forced to line up and pass the photo area before getting on the boat. We side stepped it and got yelled at with an attempt to humiliate us into also getting our photo taken too.

 

We ignored that hostile threat and just added one more black mark to that very unsatisfactory post-cruise shore excursion. The guides shake-down for tips was even worse. Avoid this shorex one if you are thinking about it. The harbor boat tour was much better, though it too had a photo op line up but much easier to step around than this forced entry one with the Everglades airboat tour. Creepy. The one alligator we saw probably had a chain on its leg to guarantee a "sighting".

[sail7seas]

I feel as though if there is a constellation of mis-steps, small things that go wrong and accumulate, minor irritations and disappointments the first several days of a cruise, it can become an uphill struggle to get the cruise 'back on course'. Each little thing taken by itself doesn't matter particularly, but when those little things start to accumulate, it's hard to get the happy go lucky, we're on vacation, let the good times roll state of mind back.

 

Yes, one can make lemonade and all that but it's still sour. ;)

 

JMO.....

[surfsidemary]

I agree - it's not the big things that get to me; it's an aggregate of little things. Then all that is needed is one last straw......

[SwissMyst]

DM gave me this travel advice decades ago:

 

Budget ahead of time for getting "taken" in some transaction, somewhere. If/when it happens, consider this a budgeted travel loss and get on with your vacation.

 

(This was back in the days when travel to Europe in the 1960's would always lead to some nefarious local transaction that would take advantage of the "rich" Americans.)

 

No one gets a 100% guarantee for a perfect vacation. In this case, I think we sometimes have to budget a certain degree of tolerance in our expectations for our travel account too.

 

Best news is now everyone knows Americans are too poor to take advantage of any longer -- and a lot more travel savvy. I wonder if the same scams now transfer to the traveling Chinese, Russians or Brazilians who now have money to burn.

 

Plus the upwardly mobile lives of more and more countries around the globe make it more unlikely they need to hustle and scrap for that dollar. When was the last time an Italian stopped you to open his coat and show you a hanging display case of Rolex watches -special price just for you. Still happens on Nanking Road in Shanghai - or at least it did a few years ago, but in Italy now never. You can't buy a post card on the street these days in Italy if you life depended on it. ;)

 

I do admire that entrepreneurial hustle in retrospect. They did not sit around looking for a handout. They hustled and worked to offer at least something of value in exchange for those formerly coveted US dollars.

[StevieEd]

I just returned from my first ever cruise aboard the Eurodam. Leading up to this cruise I read CC almost daily and was worried about the following:

 

Lido buffet being too crowded

Bad coffee

Photographers everywhere

Seasickness

Smoke

Dresscode

The Weather

 

Once I finally boarded the ship none of it mattered. I had the time of my life start to finish and none of the above mentioned things bothered me in any way. This websites provides great information on things you may wonder about, but like many have said before, your attitude will make all the difference.:)

[jkrislc]

Very good point StevieEd. There may be a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy going into these cruises. For example, if you expect smoking to be a problem, you'll probably notice it more. I also think we sometimes set our expectations so high from all the research that we do that some end up disappointed even though everything onboard was fine. There's also the availability heuristic, and this if one bad thing happens after another that's all we're going to remember as those items are emotional and most available to recall in memory.

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

I have found if your expectations are not set too high, that it is easier to get over any "bumps" the first few days. For exaple, I expect the first night dinner will be chaotic as there are usually new crew in the MDR learning the ropes of the particular ship, so we just go with the flow. We have been lucky and have never had a total disaster such as overflowing toilet etc. (knock wood).

[sail7seas]

[B]HAL has taught us, through many cruises, to have high expectations and we do. They didn't tell us to no longer expect that so I continue to expect (and just about always recieve) a high experience.[/B]

[jhannah]

I subscribe to the mantra that says "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." I do believe the initial experience can color the entire experience. However, that is probably most true with newbies. It's like being around a "strange" friend. Others may find him/her off-putting; but you know them well enough to really know them and go past that.

Like RuthC said, if there's anything amiss initially I have it taken care of and that's the end of it. No muss, no fuss.

[PatsyAnne]

I think the first impression takes a little longer to overcome. I've experienced this at hotels when the check in is not friendly (you can read that as rude and incompetent). The rest of the hotel can be wonderful, but it takes an effort to get past the initial irritation. It's the book's cover, not the contents.

I've learned to not let someone's bad day become mine... most of the time.:rolleyes:

[SwissMyst]

Two additional travel tips I got before taking my long-awaited land trip to India:

1. Nothing ever goes as planned in India
2. There is no uninteresting street in India

Both were absolutely correct and knowing both ahead of time actually ended in even a better trip than I had anticipated.

Yes, bad weather threw a monkey wrench into my carefully laid out plans and destinations but the weather diversion itinerary took me to even more fascinating spots far more off the beaten path and to a palace hotel with a superb culinary reputation in the highly unlikely city of Bhopal for an extremely fascinating travel diversion.

And when stranded in an airport business hotel way way out of town in Madras(Chennai) airport on a Hindi holiday when everything had closed, I went out looking for that proverbial always interesting street in India even though I was on a busy highway and unbelievably I found the vast local produce and flower market, the long-distance bus station where families with the women all in brilliantly colored saris were traveling back to visit relatives and side streets that stepped back in time and quiet displaying chalked sidewalk drawings inviting the gods to bring good luck to their homes.

I am glad I got that pre-travel advice to expect the unexpected, and to make the best of it. I very much took it to heart ahead of time and applied those lessons when faced with the now-expected unexpected.

[lcand1923]

The only time that HAL started a cruise wrong and NEVER got it right was on our last HAL cruise. I've put the ship out of my mind because it was so riduculous. Our cabin was on the Lower Promenade Deck about five cabins from the Atrium area. As we walked through the Atrium to get to our cabin, we were "called down" because we were walking in a restricted area (or so we were told). There were no signs or ropes indicating this. We apologized to the person in uniform and proceded to our cabin. The next time we walked through the Atruim, we were again "called down" by a different person in uniform. Again, no signs or ropes and we were walking where the first person had told us to walk. This happened each and every time we walked through the Atrium. No matter how we walked we were told we were wrong. We joked about the "Atrium Police" as we tried to sneak through the area, but still got "called down". We finally figured out the long way back to our cabin so as to completely avoid the Atrium area. I know it's silly, but it was such a turn-off that we haven't cruised HAL in many years.

[SwissMyst]

[quote name='lcand1923']The only time that HAL started a cruise wrong and NEVER got it right was on our last HAL cruise. I've put the ship out of my mind because it was so riduculous. Our cabin was on the Lower Promenade Deck about five cabins from the Atrium area. As we walked through the Atrium to get to our cabin, we were "called down" because we were walking in a restricted area (or so we were told). There were no signs or ropes indicating this. We apologized to the person in uniform and proceded to our cabin. The next time we walked through the Atruim, we were again "called down" by a different person in uniform. Again, no signs or ropes and we were walking where the first person had told us to walk. This happened each and every time we walked through the Atrium. No matter how we walked we were told we were wrong. We joked about the "Atrium Police" as we tried to sneak through the area, but still got "called down". We finally figured out the long way back to our cabin so as to completely avoid the Atrium area. I know it's silly, but it was such a turn-off that we haven't cruised HAL in many years.[/QUOTE]

What an unfortunate story - I hope we find out from someone what went wrong. Sorry this put you off but I don't blame you and appreciate at least you were able to get around if on the cruise itself both in humor and in alternate route.

[bepsf]

[quote name='GmaPajama'][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4]Once, just once, did I encounter a bad start to a cruise - in an SA on the Zuiderdam. An obviously new cabin steward who just didn't get it. When I asked for more ice, he told me they don't replenish ice till turndown time. When I asked for the dinner menu, he said they don't provide those anymore. There's lots more, but I won't burden you with it.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=4][FONT=Comic Sans MS]Our initial reaction was aggravation, but we soon had to start laughing about it. Everything else about the cruise was pretty much perfect, and he definitely gave us some unique memories. I can't imagine he still works for HAL.[/FONT][/SIZE][/quote]

[FONT=Garamond][SIZE=4]What a bizarre story - Such an inexperienced individual clearly had no business attending to the Deluxes... [/SIZE][/FONT]

[mamaofami]

[quote name='lcand1923']The only time that HAL started a cruise wrong and NEVER got it right was on our last HAL cruise. I've put the ship out of my mind because it was so riduculous. Our cabin was on the Lower Promenade Deck about five cabins from the Atrium area. As we walked through the Atrium to get to our cabin, we were "called down" because we were walking in a restricted area (or so we were told). There were no signs or ropes indicating this. We apologized to the person in uniform and proceded to our cabin. The next time we walked through the Atruim, we were again "called down" by a different person in uniform. Again, no signs or ropes and we were walking where the first person had told us to walk. This happened each and every time we walked through the Atrium. No matter how we walked we were told we were wrong. We joked about the "Atrium Police" as we tried to sneak through the area, but still got "called down". We finally figured out the long way back to our cabin so as to completely avoid the Atrium area. I know it's silly, but it was such a turn-off that we haven't cruised HAL in many years.[/quote]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3]I've walked through the Atrium many times to get to my cabin on the Maasdam. No problem, ever. I wonder what that was all about? Which ship?
[/SIZE][/FONT]