Experience with Orient Lines?

[garydm]

In today's mail we received a brochure from HAL and one from Orient Lines. In checking the Orient CC Board, there are few posts and it looks like they are having problems with the postings. So, have any of you HAL regulars sailed on the Marco Polo and how did it compare with HAL? I read that it was built about 40 years ago and redone about ten years ago. I suspect the cabins are small as I could not find any square footage information on the Orient Lines web site. Thanks for any information.

 

Gary

[Globaliser]

The Marco Polo was frankly a completely different world from any HAL ship I've been on. She's the only "small" ship I've ever sailed on (and she's not even really that small). The way the ship works is very different from a big ship - for example, most of the customer-facing personnel have multiple jobs, whereas on a "big" ship the show dancers will usually only dance in the show, etc. This means that on an 8-day cruise (as I did) you get to know the individuals really well in all the different departments, as well as your fellow passengers of course.

 

When I sailed (February 2002) the ship still felt like a single family - there were staff who had served on board this ship only, for years. This was beginning to change, though, with the influence of Star Cruises starting to have an impact.

 

The ship itself was well maintained. Clearly not new or modern in design, but everything worked well. My inside cabin was a little smaller than on a modern "big" cookie cutter ship, but I had quite a lot of gear for the destination and it was far from being "cozy" let alone cramped.

 

I will always remember the deck party - the ship's first ever deck party, apparently. We were all outdoors having a group photo taken whilst wearing our bright red parkas. Then we swigged drinks chilled with iceberg fished out of the sea that afternoon, and were dancing to the Caribbean CD I had persuaded the cruise director to play, the Macarena included - and then it started to snow. Magical.

 

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Jewel of the Seas 1-3 May 2004 - see my review here, and my photos here.

[madhsieh]

We have done two cruises on the Marco Polo totalling about 26 days (Singapore to Mumbai to Athens), the primary attraction being the itinerary.

 

My wife and I like Holland America much better than Orient (we were also on the Crown Odyssey before it got turned back to NCL). The food's better on HAL as is the entertainment. If I recall correctly, the cabins in the Marco Polo were not that well insulated and so we could hear noise from the neighboring cabin.

 

If you do end up booking a cabin on the Marco Polo, be aware that many of the outside cabins have either an obstructed view or a porthole, which my wife and I do not like.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Dick Hsieh