First Time Ever for Us on an HAL Cruise......

[sail7seas]

I forgot to mention in my other thread re: Volendam that we had 'towel animals' left in our cabin for the first time ever in all of our HAL cruises.

Our steward left us an elephant, a puppy, and one other.....can't remember what it was.

 

I'm not sure it was necessarily any kind of improvement. While they were harmless and cute enough, they were a little too cutesy for my taste.

 

I left them undisturbed on the counter in our cabin so he could reuse them on the next cruise. If they have enough storage space in their work station, I suppose they can put them in there and bring them out to surprise the next guest.

 

Now that I think about it........hmmm, that might not be a very good idea. If someone touched them with 'dirty hands', could be a source of future trouble on the ship.

 

[Roz]

I thought the towel animals on Carnival were clever, especially the cobra. Just a fun touch. I wonder if your cabin steward has worked for another line where this is done as a matter of course.

 

Roz

[bookworm0911]

It takes the steward less than 30 seconds to make each one, so I imagine it is just easier to make a new one each evening for each cabin rather than store them. We had one waiting for us each night of the cruise and each morning our steward showed my DH how to make the one from the night before. They are very easy and quick to do when you know how. He even gave us a supply of 'eyes' to take home, so DH can make them for the kids. :D

[Stevesan]

Our steward on RVI last June left towel animals each evening. A first for us, too. They were somewhat rudimentary, but we appreciated the effort.

I undid them each morning.

 

Lawdy, imagine if everyone kept them intact. Ours was a twelve day cruise. 978 cabins X 12 days = 11,736 towel animals. :eek:

[jhannah]

We had them about 4 times on our Prinsendam sailing a few months ago. That was the first time for us. They were cute, but I'm rather ambivalent about them ... I can take them or leave them. They're cute, but don't especially appeal to me.

[arzz]

We had four on our recent Volendam cruise -- they apeared on formal and informal nights

 

Elephant, puppy, sting ray and the fourth, I think, was a lobster

 

Cute touch, but not one that would make or break the cruise

 

Bolo, our cabin steward, however, was fantastic -- he was one of the factors that did "make" our cruise

 

If everyone saved the animals for the length of the cruise, imagine how many more towels that HAL would have to purchase and process!

[sail7seas]

We had four on our recent Volendam cruise -- they apeared on formal and informal nights

 

Elephant, puppy, sting ray and the fourth, I think, was a lobster

 

Cute touch, but not one that would make or break the cruise

 

Bolo, our cabin steward, however, was fantastic -- he was one of the factors that did "make" our cruise

 

If everyone saved the animals for the length of the cruise, imagine how many more towels that HAL would have to purchase and process!

 

 

I agree that keeping the towel animals does add up to a lot of towels but somehow it seemed disrespectful to me for us to pull them apart. I really didn't care about having them or keeping them but I didn't want to insult our very fine Steward, Adi. It may have needlessly hurt his feelings.

[cruisingagainsoon]

Our steward did one for us every night when we were on our Carnival Cruise. I saved them for the whole week.

[Madame Snowflake]

I loved the towel animals--but then, I have a taste for whimsy. We kept them all intact and up in our window. It made it easy for us to tell which stateroom was ours when we returned from port.

[kryos]

We had four on our recent Volendam cruise -- they apeared on formal and informal nights

 

Elephant, puppy, sting ray and the fourth, I think, was a lobster

 

Cute touch, but not one that would make or break the cruise

I've never had towel animals on any cruise I've taken, but I think the whole concept is really kind of cute. I hope I get some on my upcoming cruise in January.

 

Of course, on a cruise of 30 days, I suppose one couldn't save the towel animals for the entire duration of the cruise, but on a seven or ten-day itinerary I certainly would! I'm sure HAL has enough towels that they can spare that many from inventory until the end of the cruise ... at which time they would be placed right back into inventory.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[michmike]

I've always been kinda partial to the animal I find in my cabin between the sheets... but then I bring HER w/ me.... *L*

[jazncruiser]

We were on the Volendam 10-16 and our cabin steward, Jabar, made us 3 towel animals, an Elephant, A dog and a Rabbit. It was very nice to come back from dancing and see them on our bed! We love them and it, again, is one of the special touches that HAL does, that we really appreciate.

 

So, Keep up the little touches HAL and thanks Jabar!!!

 

Patti

[sail7seas]

We were on the Volendam 10-16 and our cabin steward, Jabar, made us 3 towel animals, an Elephant, A dog and a Rabbit. It was very nice to come back from dancing and see them on our bed! We love them and it, again, is one of the special touches that HAL does, that we really appreciate.

 

So, Keep up the little touches HAL and thanks Jabar!!!

 

Patti

 

This is a BRAND NEW special touch on HAL. Over 45+ cruises on HAL, and this last cruise was the first time we ever saw a towel animal in our cabin. Other cruiselines have done it for a while, but it just 'moved over' to HAL.

[elmorejj]

I thought they were cute on our Veendam cruise last week. Our cabin steward, Kenneddi, dressed some of them up with Indonesian batik fabric. After 14 days, they did take up a bit of room on the desk area..........jean:cool:

[O2cruise]

We had a great time with our steward and the towel animals. We dressed them for formal night - earings, bracelets, reading glasses, etc. I think our steward had as much fun seeing what we had done to the animals as we had checking to see what animal might be awaiting us after dinner. We put our snorkel gear on the stingray and he loved it - said that was the best he'd seen - and gave us the honor of being "the best at having outdone him" - See, even if I didn't like the Chef's dinner I do like to have fun :o)

[sail7seas]

We had a great time with our steward and the towel animals. We dressed them for formal night - earings, bracelets, reading glasses, etc. I think our steward had as much fun seeing what we had done to the animals as we had checking to see what animal might be awaiting us after dinner. We put our snorkel gear on the stingray and he loved it - said that was the best he'd seen - and gave us the honor of being "the best at having outdone him" - See, even if I didn't like the Chef's dinner I do like to have fun :o)

 

 

To my mind, that is one of the great things about cruising.....Fun in all forms; fun in your style; fun in ours.

 

We had fun with the Master Chef's Dinner but really didn't care much about the towel animals. I (in a subtle way) sort of discourage our Steward from devoting his time to making the animals for us by never making a comment about them. I hoped he'd devote his energy in towel wrapping for those who appreciated it more than we did.

 

Nothing wrong with it at all......it just 'isn't our thing'.