HAL's New Luggage Tag System......Not Good, IMO

[sail7seas]

This is the first time we saw the new tag system HAL has instituted for tagging baggage when we leave the ship.

 

We had Black (1). This new style calls for you to enter your name and cabin number on both sides; attach the tag to your suitcase and remove the perforated bottom section which is your 'disembarkation number'.

 

All sounds fine up to this point.

 

It isn't.

 

When we got to the terminal to claim our luggage, we learned that BLACK tags number 1 - 5. They are NOT in sections. They have placed what previously would have been five different groupings all together and in no order. Usually you would look through about 3-4 rows for your bags. Under this new system, we had to plow through about 30 rows. The 'numeral 1' bags were mixed with all other numbers. It was an absolute NIGHTMARE and unfortunately the shore people were not able to assist in any way. They simply pointed and said there is black. Duh....that was a big help!

 

They used to handle luggage at disembarkation very well IMO...... I can't speak for any color but the black that we had and that was about as badly done as possible.

[KAJOKG]

Sail -- This was the system when we had to disembark at Cape Canaveral on Oct.26. I thought it was a Canaveral system, but you docked at Port Everglades, right? Well, you are right -- it's not a good system at all. Luggage with all color tags was every which way. It seems that they started placing like tags together, but gave up. Either that, or pax were moving bags in search of theirs.

[FlorenceItaly]

What a NIGHTMARE. It sounds like we may be better off carrying our own luggage off. Is that an option? I know it is on other lines, but can not recall about HAL. Thanks.

 

Marie

[jimbug]

The aforementioned system is the way Princess has done it on both of our prior cruises. For instance, if we had Cream 3 disembarkation tags, we'd go to the "Cream" room to find our luggage along with the Cream 1 and Cream 2 people. Bags weren't separated by number. I just thought that was the way everyone did it...hmm. Anyhow, if it seems HAL is going to this from now on, we always just put something on our bags to make them stand out, since there are a million black Samsonite suitcases out there. Last time I had a huge blue Princess ribbon around the whole bag. Prior to that, I used these giant obnoxious pink & blue luggage tags that my work gives to employees on their birthday (?!?). Never thought those would come in handy...haha. Best of luck!

[sail7seas]

Sail -- This was the system when we had to disembark at Cape Canaveral on Oct.26. I thought it was a Canaveral system, but you docked at Port Everglades, right? Well, you are right -- it's not a good system at all. Luggage with all color tags was every which way. It seems that they started placing like tags together, but gave up. Either that, or pax were moving bags in search of theirs.

 

 

Yes....we disembarked at Port Everglades. It wasn't that pax moved baggage around as we were the first ones off the ship. No passengers had gotten to the piles yet.

Seems this might be another 'All things Princess' that seems to be the prevailing theme around HAL lately. Why is Seattle trying to turn HAL into Princess? Every time we hear HAL is doing something new, someone comments that is how Princess does it. If we wanted to sail Princess, we'd be booking cruises on Princess.

 

If this is how Princess does it, they could well learn from how HAL always has (in the past) done it.

 

HAL had excellent luggage handling in the past. This new method is far from excellent IMO

[jhannah]

That doesn't sound good at all! I guess it's all the more reason to make your bag stand out. We purchased straps that have our last name woven into them. Makes it very easy to find our pieces.

[sail7seas]

We have straps, Jim. Sometimes they are actually still on the luggage when it comes off the planes and ships. Sometimes they are listed among the 'missing'.

 

[Mollynme]

This is what we were faced with when we got off the Volendam in Port Everglades 10/15. I am currently searching for fluorescent ribbon to use when 5 of us go on our cruise in March.

Does anyone know if we are allowed to take our own bags off on a HAL ship?

[richcrow]

I guess we were lucky when we disembarked in Port Everglades. You are right that each location had all of the bags of one color in no particular order, but we found ours with very little searching. My DW has always believed in attaching something loud colored to our bags. BTW, we did see alot of PAX moving bags to other locations when, I guess, they felt like they were in their way. Why do people have to always think of no one but themselves.

[ecormier]

Last November my husband and I were in the first group off the ship in Norfolk. We carried our bags off and were in a taxi within minutes. This option was offered by HAL.

 

Cheers, Elizabeth

[sweetcat]

I used fabric paint and did a scroll and dot design on all sides of my black soft sided luggage. Now it is the most distinctive suitcase out there and no one has anything like it. Of course, this does not prevent damage like the broken handle but it is fixed with a bit of wire and a cotter pin. Voila.

[KAJOKG]

This system is similar to what Princess does with the luggage on debarkation, but it seems to work with Princess. It was mayhem when the Volendam docked at Canaveral. And then the porter ran ahead of us and I had to chase him --- he was going to put our bags on a bus bound north to Daytona -- We were headed south to Stuart!! BTW, I always put a strap around our luggage, use bright crayon colored address tags, and wrap red and yellow wool around the handles.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

We also used this new system for the first time on our Oosterdam cruise a few weeks ago and it worked perfect for us. This was by far the easiest time we ever had getting out luggage. We were Black number 1 and when we came to the area of the luggage they had them seperated by number and only the black ones were there. Now with that being said I did hear of some problems one of the people in our Roll Call had one of the tags fall off her suit case so it was in the big holding area that she could not go into with lots of other luggage. But after a few minutes some one did help her to locate her suit case. The other problem was we were traveling with another person who was not in a suite and he had Red 1, since we were traveling to the airport together and had designated on the debarkation form that we were together we just gave him one of our little black number cards and he got off with us. This was a slight problem, he got off with us but his luggage was not out yet because his original color/number had not been called. After talking to a few people they did allow him to go into the large holding area to find his luggage which he found quickly.

[the2ofus]

Sail7Seas, by the time black number 4 disembarked, there was still a whole lot of luggage in the black area. I agree that it was not a very good system. Luckily, two of our group were among the first in the black 4 group to actually get to the area. They had found their bags and scouted for ours, so could point out where they were.

 

I'm sure it is cheaper to print many tags in the same color but with different numbers. I liked the old system of many colors and even striped colors on the tags, plus the signs in the terminal showing where each color was.

[Emmie]

We went through this disembarkation procedure this past week when we left the Rotterdam in Lisbon. There were no rooms in which to place the luggage, it was all on the dock. HAL had placed signs along a wall under an awning reading "Black 1", "Black 2", "Blue 1", etc. The idea seemed to be that the luggage handlers would place the bags in their sections.

 

Well, it started out working really well. However, the Portuguese army (or Lisbon police, I was never quite sure which) were there with dogs, and needed to do inspection of all luggage prior to it being claimed by the passengers. That was not immediately clear, and people were picking up ther bags, and getting rather disgruntled when told to put them back. Then we were told if we didn't leave the luggage alone until it was cleared, they wouuld inspect it all in a big pile and we would have to hike to the end of the dock to get it. Everyone obediently backed off, but by then it seemed the luggage handlers had just about had it. They would get a cart and just place everything in long rows in one spot with no regard to the coding system. Then dogs would run up and down sniffing, and then we all had to go grab bags. We all started to just watch out for each other: "Here comes a group of blue 3's, everybody! Who has purple 2?" For the most part, the luggage came off the cart in groupings by color and number. It was just that they would only put the luggage in one spot, so Orange 3 bags were all lined up under Black 4 signs, and only when they were all gone would they re-fill the space...with Purple 2 bags.

 

I don't think the concept is such a bad one, however it takes a lot of steps, and if everyone isn't on the same page, it is going to be a miserable experience. The security obviously had a different idea of what was to happen than HAL did, and the passengers were thiking a bit differently as well. Plus, as I finally realized, the luggage handlers only seemed to speak Portuguese. The signs HAL put up were in English. I'm sure that didn't help.:rolleyes:

 

It tooks so long for us to get off the ship and get our luggage that our car service had given up on us, and we had to wait an hour for them to make a trip back to get us and bring us to our hotel. Other people were very worried about missing flights.

 

I'm curious as to how HAL used to handle baggage collection. What was the previous method, and when did they change?

 

Take care,

Emmie

[cruisecrasy]

curious where it goes! It can be put out in the morning instead of the nite before so does it go to the general baggage area or another area altogether?

Thanks for the reply.

Happy cruisin'!

[sail7seas]

We were in a Suite and had the very first number. Our luggage all got spread out among all of the Black Numbers.

 

IF, as Lisa said happened for her cruise, they divide the luggage by Black 1, Black 2 etc, then it would be great. They did NOT do that for our cruise and it was a nightmare. Way, far too many bags are Black numbers-----they have to be set out by sub-numbers or it is chaos.

 

Suite pax didn't have it any better than the rest of the crowd. The only advantage was we got to go deal with the chaos first.

 

[RuthC]

Sounds like a good time to have the last disembarkation number called. At least there's a lot less luggage to pick through at that point.

Hopefully, HAL will awaken from this nightmare and get it working smoothly.

[cruisecrasy]

We were in a Suite and had the very first number. Our luggage all got spread out among all of the Black Numbers.

 

IF, as Lisa said happened for her cruise, they divide the luggage by Black 1, Black 2 etc, then it would be great. They did NOT do that for our cruise and it was a nightmare. Way, far too many bags are Black numbers-----they have to be set out by sub-numbers or it is chaos.

 

Suite pax didn't have it any better than the rest of the crowd. The only advantage was we got to go deal with the chaos first.

 

 

Very grateful u posted this info so we are warned - another reason I enjoy this board. U kept it simple so quick & easy to read. Many thanks again...!

Happy cruisin'!

[kryos]

Yes....we disembarked at Port Everglades. It wasn't that pax moved baggage around as we were the first ones off the ship. No passengers had gotten to the piles yet.

Sounds to me like it's not gonna be advantageous anymore to be the first off the ship. Better to let others go first and get much of the luggage outta there. :(

 

On my last Princess trip in April/May, I was late disembarking ... can't remember why ... but they had called my color like half an hour before. By the time I got off the ship, my bags were the only ones left in the pile for my color. I just picked them up and continued on my way.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[sail7seas]

Actually.....all it will take is for them to sort by the numbers they are handing out and it will be fine.

 

First off is still best IMO

 

Having the choice to leave at any point once disembarkation has begun, I'll always opt for first off. :)

 

[GatorV]

We opted to carry our own bags off the Veendam last year and it was the best disembarkation ever...and we've had many, of course we had a reasonable amount of baggage, one large and one smaller each. WE were through and out the door in 10 min. WE sail on a 10 day ZAANDAM 1/14/06 and pray they still have that choice, along with the discount wine certificates, buy 10 and save 50 cents a glass:)

[bepsf]

Let everyone else sort through the piles of luggage and fight for taxi's while you have a leisurely breakfast and a walk around deck...

...leave the ship last!

:D

[kruzkeen]

What a NIGHTMARE. It sounds like we may be better off carrying our own luggage off. Is that an option? I know it is on other lines, but can not recall about HAL. Thanks.

 

Marie

I do not know if this is an option with every ship in every port but in Vancouver last summer on the Zaandam it was. It is called EXPRESS WALK OFF. You did not put any tag on your bags and did not put them outside the cabin the night before. You pull your bags off the ship before they start calling any numbers or colors.

 

I did not do it, but friends did. They told me that they were past Customs and out of the big room where the longshoremen were putting out the bags and getting their rental car before 8:00.

 

It would probably be a good idea to ask at the front desk of the ship if this option is always available. Sometimes Customs or Immigration want their dogs to sniff the bags before you leave the pier.

[kruzkeen]

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