Trending on this board -- pay attention HAL

[jabcruiser]

We have cruised NCL, Carnival, and HAL and much prefer HAL to the others. Never any desire to try RCCL as those ships are just too large for me. Will leave those to families with children and the younger crowd who I am sure do like them or they wouldn't be able to fill those gigantic ships. NCL didn't like at all - extremely poor service especially in dining room, extremely poor food quality (IMO), layout of ship very poorly thought out and couldn't get from "here to there" half of the time it seemed. Entertainment, however, was great. Have done several Carnival cruises and believe they get a bad rap. Certainly not up to HAL standards, but we have enjoyed them and never witnessed excessive drinking, partying, etc. But we usually do at least 11 day cruises and probably the 7 day cruises have more party atmosphere. BUT - for us HAL is where we want to be for now. Granted pre-made sandwiches are a bummer. But usually only ate one or two of the made to order ones anyway during a cruise. Granted the pizza sucks (now here Carnival wins by a landslide-my DH about lived on pizza on one of our Carnival cruises). But in general we find HAL food to be to our liking and several steps above Carnival and way above NCL. We love the friendly and helpful HAL crew members, the size of the ships and layout, the Crows Nest for ocean viewing and happy hour, full room service, and most of all BB King Blues club. We aren't into the Showroom type shows, except occasionally a comedian or illusionist and pretty much stopped attending the Carnival nightly entertainment venues. But we just love BB King Blues club and on HAL ships we can do that every night and generally do. All the HAL ships we have taken so far have the BB King club but I know some of the smaller ones do not.

That being said, good friends love Princess and we may try that or Celebrity some day. Probably will try a Windstar next year if all goes as planned. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes and each to their own. Wouldn't life be boring if everyone was just alike? But for us HAL seems to fit us just right.

Jane

[AtlantaCruiser72]

Never any desire to try RCCL as those ships are just too large for me. Will leave those to families with children and the younger crowd who I am sure do like them or they wouldn't be able to fill those gigantic ships.

 

Royal has two "classes" of ships similar in size to the HAL Viasta/Signature class - they are the Vision (Grandeur, Enchantment, Vision and Rhapsody) and Radiance (Radiance, Brilliance, Serenade and Jewel) Classes - all in the 75,000-90,000 ton ranges, though slightly more passengers than HAL. I personally enjoy both classes, but find that the food and service on Royal is more mid-market than premium. MDR food is okish, but not special, the buffet is meh, and service is cheerful and efficient - but not on the same level as HAL, Princess or Celebrity.

[navybankerteacher]

 

...

 

Operating the S-class and R-class ships is likely headed into unsustainable territory. These ships lack the economies of scale that make the larger ships profitable, and they lack the éclat that justifies the higher fares that the ships' operating costs will need. That trend is going to continue as more and more of the market is taken up by ever larger ships with more amenities and lower fares. The mid-size ship market is going to be the domain of lines line RSSC, Oceania, Azamara and Crystal--the lines that can charge the prices that those ships need to turn a profit.

 

/QUOTE]

 

I would disagree - having sailed Prinsendam and Maasdam - paying the higher fares involved - I believe there is a niche between the 2,000+ passenger ships and the premium Oceana, Crystal, etc. There are lots of us who want a small size mainstream ship.

 

Accepting your rational of winding up with just two options: premium price or humongous floating shopping malls, is too dismal a prospect.

 

I certainly take issue with your apparently seeing skating rinks, bumper cars, ropes courses, water parks, etc. as the only amenities which count.

 

There certainly is room for a third option - neither luxury nor behemoth mob scene.

[EagleRockers]

I've been cruising 40+ years and will be taking my first HAL cruise in March. I've sailed almost every cruise line, being most loyal to RCI. When they started to go with their mega-liners, I jumped ship. I'm looking forward to the HAL experience now that I'm a little older and hopefully wiser.

[Nic6318]

We have seen a lot of changes the last few years on HAL -- some good -- some bad.

 

The worst changes:

 

pre-made sandwiches

 

and I could go on.

 

Hi there

 

Just curious...why would something that is "newly added" top your list of the "worst changes". Even if it was something that you didn't enjoy, wouldn't it just be something else that you don't partake in. I am sure there are other things on board that you don't think are great.

 

As it turns out we were on our first HAL cruise and enjoyed it. One day when I was looking at the buffet offerings I saw these sandwiches. They looked pretty nice, I tried this "lobster roll" sandwich and it was really good. Just goes to show "one person's trash is another person's treasure".

 

If you look at threads for the other cruise lines, what people typically are unhappy about are things they "stopped" offering. I can only think, that if this is what tops your list, you must be quite satisfied on the whole. :)

 

whatever cruise line you choose

have a great cruise

[kazu]

Hi there

 

Just curious...why would something that is "newly added" top your list of the "worst changes". Even if it was something that you didn't enjoy, wouldn't it just be something else that you don't partake in. I am sure there are other things on board that you don't think are great.

 

As it turns out we were on our first HAL cruise and enjoyed it. One day when I was looking at the buffet offerings I saw these sandwiches. They looked pretty nice, I tried this "lobster roll" sandwich and it was really good. Just goes to show "one person's trash is another person's treasure".

 

If you look at threads for the other cruise lines, what people typically are unhappy about are things they "stopped" offering. I can only think, that if this is what tops your list, you must be quite satisfied on the whole. :)

 

whatever cruise line you choose

have a great cruise

 

Pre-made sandwiches are not newly added. They have been there for some time BUT we used to get sandwiches made to order or you could opt for the pre-made. Now, the only option appears to be the pre-made.

 

No more lovely paninins, etc. This is what they stopped and why KK made the comment she did.

 

As someone who enjoyed the freshly made, delicious sandwiches on HAL I totally get where she is coming from.

[Nic6318]

Pre-made sandwiches are not newly added. They have been there for some time BUT we used to get sandwiches made to order or you could opt for the pre-made. Now, the only option appears to be the pre-made.

 

No more lovely paninins, etc. This is what they stopped and why KK made the comment she did.

 

As someone who enjoyed the freshly made, delicious sandwiches on HAL I totally get where she is coming from.

 

Hi there

 

See what I mean...to my untrained eyes, they appeared freshly made. :) I get it, they used to make them while you waited. For me, I thought this was the plus...I didn't have to wait.

 

Just a matter of perspective. As I said if this really rises up to a really bad change for the cruise line, it speaks very well for them. There is no doubt that I would consider HAL again in the future.

 

happy sailing

[AtlantaCruiser72]

I would disagree - having sailed Prinsendam and Maasdam - paying the higher fares involved - I believe there is a niche between the 2,000+ passenger ships and the premium Oceana, Crystal, etc. There are lots of us who want a small size mainstream ship.

 

Accepting your rational of winding up with just two options: premium price or humongous floating shopping malls, is too dismal a prospect.

 

I certainly take issue with your apparently seeing skating rinks, bumper cars, ropes courses, water parks, etc. as the only amenities which count.

 

There certainly is room for a third option - neither luxury nor behemoth mob scene.

 

I agree with this and I THINK that HAL is working at finding the balance - larger newer ships for the bread and butter 7-10 night round trip Alaska/Caribbean cruises (Eurodam/N.Amsterdam, Konigsdam), The 4 Vista ships for the longer mainstays in Europe, Alaska Cruisetours, Panama Canal, Australia/NZ, Etc and a fleet of smaller vessels for the more niche offerings - World Cruise, Grand Voyages, South Pacific, Asia, South America, Black Sea etc. I think when the 2nd Signature Class ship comes out we will see the Maasdam and Veendam go buh-bye, but that the 4 R-Class and Prinsendam will soldier on for a number of years more. The destinations those ships can serve are just not tenable with a 1900-2600 passenger vessels. HAL need to be smart and treat the R class and Prinsendam lovingly and keep the decor updated and in good shape if they want to command the per diems needed to keep these vessels profitable long term.

 

At some point big becomes too big and you will force out a segment of the traveling public. All the mainstream lines are going to have to carefully consider their fleet plans and ship renewals over the next 10-15 years as there are many vessels that will be 20-25 years old at that point amongst all the lines and they cannot all be replaced with 100000+ ton behemoths. At some point they are going to have to build more truly mid-sized ships or sacrifice markets.

Edited September 13, 2016 by AtlantaCruiser72

[kalliekae]

Iancal, Glad you enjoyed your cruise on Royal. We had cruised HAL exclusively since the 90's, but tried Royal in 2012 and loved it. So very different from HAL in many ways since the Royal ships definitely have a WOW factor. However, service was equal on both lines and on our last Allure cruise, it was far better than the service we received on our NA cruise which was in the same year. We will still sail HAL for port intensive cruises, but give me Royal for the Caribbean destinations where the ship is our destination.

[navybankerteacher]

AtlantaCruiser72 -- I guess I am a step ahead of you: my last cruise will be my LAST cruise on NCL.

[fatcat04]

I do hope HAL hangs onto some of her smaller ships that can make those more exotic cruises. There is a price premium but at least for now it is not insurmountable. What time we have been able to spend on these smaller ships has been wonderful. We will be "working age" for at least another 20 years and it grieves me to think that by the time we have more time and can take cruises longer than 14 days all the smaller ships will either be gone or so far priced out our range they might as well be extinct. And yes, if my only choice is a 4k passenger plus ugly floating shopping mall that "is the destination" or a land based vacation, I'll stay on land.

Edited September 13, 2016 by fatcat04

[mor mor]

HAL does have cruises out of San Diego.....Mexican Riviera (7 days) and also 4-day San Diego to Vancouver "Coastals" (do not include Alaska.)

 

Also we have taken Panama canal, Hawaii, and Central America cruises out of San Diego. All were enjoyable. We take our Kindles but check out the library the first day and always find something interesting. Sometimes I think we're on a different cruise from the people who have very bad experiences cruising HAL.

[Sonora5]

We took a number of initial cruises on HAL, but they were all full charter Blues Cruises. They were all great but I do not think it was a typical HAL experience.

 

We also have taken one cruise on Celebrity, also a Blues Cruise. We had a nice and very expensive suite with a really awful butler. There were other things about Celebrity that were not great, maybe it was just the ship, but we will not hurry back to them. We did one cruise on Royal that was so busy with port days we barely saw the ship. We could have been on a freighter!

 

We liked NCL for non Blues Cruises for a while, but lately their customer service has been a major fail. We did like the Epic better than we thought we would, but overall are not eager for a large ship experience.

 

We have come back to HAL for our next cruise but I am very worried about the smoking issue. We are going to try Princess next, and if the smoke bothers us on HAL we will not go back to it.

 

We also have our sights on a river cruise or two, if we could figure out the high water/low water thing.

 

This will be our first non Blues Cruise on HAL and we are interested in how it will be.

 

We are people who are probably moving into the traditional HAL demographic. Starting to have more time to cruise, and the desire to see the world. So we are itinerary driven more than ship or line driven, but we also want decent food and service and a nice experience. Water slides and climbing walls are not necessary for our pleasure. I could see us moving to the higher priced lines if HAL and Princess do not work out for us.

[Cruise a holic]

Have you ever tried Celebrity Solstice class ships? You might really enjoy them

[navybankerteacher]

I do hope HAL hangs onto some of her smaller ships that can make those more exotic cruises. There is a price premium but at least for now it is not insurmountable. What time we have been able to spend on these smaller ships has been wonderful. We will be "working age" for at least another 20 years and it grieves me to think that by the time we have more time and can take cruises longer than 14 days all the smaller ships will either be gone or so far priced out our range they might as well be extinct. And yes, if my only choice is a 4k passenger plus ugly floating shopping mall that "is the destination" or a land based vacation, I'll stay on land.

 

This is why I am inclined to believe that, if HAL does not stay in the game, some other line will step up and fill the niche between the ultra-pricey premium lines and the floating shopping malls - yes, more expensive than the cheap monsters, but still not over the top. There is too large a potential market to be ignored. I already pay somewhat higher prices to get the ship's I want -- as with everything else, cheapest is NOT always best value.