Ship Building Contest Suspended for a while

[Cruisinetta]

I am on the Noordam right now and was told by the CD that the shipbuilding contest was going away for good. After going back and forth with Seattle, I found out it is just going to be put on the back burner for a while. NOT HAPPY!!!! I will get in to it deeper when I get home.

[rplc882]

Just seems like on our last few trips with HAL that most the fun stuff on at sea days is going away or is it just me?

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Have never done it but really enjoy seeing the creativity of others. Too bad, this activity is being suspended for awhile.

[sail7seas]

I wonder why they are suspending it?

It's not like it's a costly activity for the ship to manage.

[Cruising-along]

So sorry to hear this Lynn! Yes, more details please when you get home. Hope you're loving this cruise otherwise. :)

Edited February 3, 2012 by Cruising-along

[barante]

I accidentally saw one entry -- perhaps the only entry -- on an Oct/Nov Nieuw Amsterdam trans-Atlantic. The event was so poorly advertised, I didn't even know about. Except that when I went to the pool area earlier, some passengers were complaining that you couldn't use to pool because it was reserved for some event.

[Spinner2]

Part of it, I think, is that there are so many port-intensive cruises. There's not really time for people to work on projects like this; they are not on the ship for extended periods of time.

 

I haven't chatted with Cruisinetta about her itinerary this time but I see that the next cruise for the Noordam is 10 days and of that there are only 3 sea days. She says that her model was the only entry and no wonder; no one had time to work on one. It's a priority for Cruisinetta, but some will not have even heard of this before coming aboard.

 

Sail's right; this is not an expense really for HAL; it's a couple of listings in the Daily Program and someone to take sign-ups and someone to be in charge of the contest. That's not many hours of staff time and even if a lot of people don't enter, a good-sized crowd usually comes to watch the contest so one staff person is "entertaining" quite a few people. I don't see this as a financial decision; a "cutback."

 

But they need more than one entry!

[sail7seas]

CC'ers here on the HAL Board know how great Cruisinetta's models are and know they don't have a chance of winning. :eek: I would never dream of submitting an entry in the same competition. Mine would look pathetic. :o :D

[RMLincoln]

Sorry to hear this event has been discontinued. We're always in the crowd cheering for the creativity and efforts of the entrants. I look at the artistry and DH looks at the engineering but we cheer for all because we appreciate them. Sounds like they're not filling the gap yet and that is a loss, IMHO. m--

Edited February 3, 2012 by RMLincoln

[ASIWISH]

I'm going to miss your pictures!!!!:(

[lettienets]

I participated in shipbuilding last year on the NA TA for the first time; my table mates made a ship. It was so much fun, just the "spirit-building" alone! Although there were only two ships in the sailout, we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Was looking forward to doing it again! :(

[kazu]

Too bad - I enjoyed watching the competition last cruise and the participants had a fabulous time.:) I'm going to miss all of your fab pictures:(

[sapper1]

I participated in shipbuilding last year on the NA TA for the first time; my table mates made a ship. It was so much fun, just the "spirit-building" alone! Although there were only two ships in the sailout, we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Was looking forward to doing it again! :(

I totally missed that. Was it mentioned in the daily programmes? It would have been fun to see the results.

[Cruisinetta]

OK, I'm home and first I want to explain why I love this contest so much. I am fascinated with cruise ships and to build a smaller version makes me proud and happy. When they revoked the Dam Dollar program, I leaned on the shipbuilding contest even harder. When we had the Dam Dollar program, there were things to do almost every hour. I would play basketball, volleyball, in fact I would do anything for one of those pretty blue Dam Dollars. Now that they have cooking classes, computer classes, I am bored to tears. I cook in my microwave. I have NEVER used my oven. As for the computer, I could teach them a thing or two. That leaves me with trivia. Without shipbuilding, I will become extremely bored and poor. That contest keeps me out of the "donation center". I also use this contest to help me sleep. I am all wound up at the end of the day and I build until I am dropping. So that's why this is important to me.

Now on to the reason why this has happened. The Cruise Director told me that it has "run it's course". NOT!!! I have been told by Seattle that it is suspended until the Concordia disaster dies down. They told me on the Noordam that the cruise before me, someone actually built a ship and called it the Concordia and made jokes about it. Some of the passengers were upset over this. I understand completely and would NEVER make fun of something so horrible. I plan on rebuilding the Antsterdam on my Ryndam cruise Feb 19th. The Antsterdam is the only ship I have ever brought home with me. It was small but very cute. We have a couple of CCers who will be building also. So Spinner2, get ready to see the ship I built on your cruise again.

[Spinner2]

Cruisinetta's tale of the contest before hers reminds us yet again that some people have no social skills at all. Anything about the Concordia is, of course, a very sensitive topic and will remain so for some time. I'm sure that the passengers who saw that reacted very negatively. But reacting by shutting down the shipbuilding contest forever isn't going to erase the memory of that insensitivity. And HAL's response may calm down in time as well. We can hope so.

 

This is a low-budget/low staff-time activity as far as HAL's bottom line is concerned and if people are participating and a good-sized crowd gathers to watch the results I can't imagine why they'd not want to have it. If they really think that another "Concordia" might be built it would make sense to cool it for awhile (or to ask people to describe what they have in mind when they sign up) but it would be nice to know that there's a definite plan to resume the contests. And to keep the participation level up so HAL will notice that people are interested maybe we need to encourage a few CC'ers to build something, anything! doesn't have to be at Crusinetta's level! and enter the contests for the cruises they are on.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Spinner2

[Randyk47]

This is not to question the Concordia story but I was actually kind of curious so I pulled the daily programs from our last two cruises on the Maasdam this past March and the Veendam before that, both well before the Concordia. I can find no mention of the ship building contest in any of the programs for either cruise. I do remember thinking about it on the Maasdam but wasn't interested enough to ask the CD or staff about it. It was a port intensive cruise with seven ports in ten days with the sea days loaded at the front and back of the cruise so I kind of wrote it off as not being held because of the ports. Now two cruises don't necessary mean that much but it would appear that the ship building isn't quite what it once was in terms of interest and participation. I do remember years ago on the Ryndam there being quite a gathering for the contest and some five or six entries and tailing off to just a couple of entries on the Oosterdam a couple of cruises later. Seems to me though it's a pretty low cost, low impact event so find it hard to understand why HAL would drop it unless it was for lack of interest.

[LUV2CRUZalso]

It will be a shame if they in fact eliminate these fun events completely. We enjoy seeing all of the entries, even though they are not all showing the same levels of detail.

One of Lynn's ships was the Boodam. BOO is a good word to use for this situation.

Cheers to All !!!

Denn (& Karen) :confused::o

[TiogaCruiser]

There's been a number of Titanic "celebrations" being planned within the historical costuming community. Most are being called "memorials" which is more fitting, but there are a few locally being done as "celebrations". It just doesnt feel right.

[lettienets]

I totally missed that. Was it mentioned in the daily programmes? It would have been fun to see the results.

Hi sapper1 Must have been in the daily programme but I don't remember. You had to pick up a sheet with the rules and instructions on what was allowed etc somewhere. I can't seem to remeber that either... ! My tablemates met one morning in the Lido and brought all kinds of bits and bobs to create our ship. We laughed so hard and enjoyed it very much. Our ship was so small and we did our float out in the hot tub much to everyone's amusement. Shipbuilding is an especially good activity on transatlantics when you have lots of time. Will have to see what happens next trip.

Edited February 3, 2012 by lettienets

[Cruisinetta]

I have always requested the contest.

[English_in_Spain]

If there are people on a ship that are interested, would it not be possible for passengers to arrange the contest themselves? Do HAL really need to arrange it?

 

It could be a CC group or people on a Facebook roll call.

 

Or, perhaps, at the start of a cruise, HAL could ask for people to come forward if they are interested and if there are sufficient then they hold the contest and if not enough people they do not.

 

[bob brown]

I think there could be more interest if people were aware of it before they even board. A simple little plug in the HAL website could help.

Although, I don't see any mention on the site of any of the organised staff activities such as trivia....

[kazu]

I think there could be more interest if people were aware of it before they even board. A simple little plug in the HAL website could help.

Although, I don't see any mention on the site of any of the organised staff activities such as trivia....

 

This is a good idea. If HAL listed the activities on their website it would answer a lot of questions for some people and give them an idea what to expect. It would also increase participation.

 

I don't recall the contest being in our daily program on the P'dam either. I just happened to be on the Lido at the time and stayed with some cc'ers to watch

[GeriatricNurse]

I am on the Noordam right now and was told by the CD that the shipbuilding contest was going away for good. After going back and forth with Seattle, I found out it is just going to be put on the back burner for a while. NOT HAPPY!!!! I will get in to it deeper when I get home.

 

Well, beneficially, it will, once again free up the Lido Pool for use by swimmers on those days that the "shipbuilding contest" took it over! :) I will miss it terribly! :(

[Cruisinetta]

My next cruise, the CCers are planning to do their own contest. It's true we don't need HAL to do this but it is a lot more fun with them. HAL, if you are reading this, please reinstate this contest before my April 13th cruise. :)