Where are the excursion reviews?

[take us away]

Anyone know where to find the seemingly missing excursion reviews on the HAL website?

Liked these if trying to decide on an excursion.

[3rdGenCunarder]

You aren't the only one disappointed by this move. I think the lack of reviews makes HAL tours less competitive compared to independent tours with reviews on Tripadvisor and similar sites. I sent an email to HAL pointing that out, but got no reply. Here's a recent thread discussing this:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2482154

[FloridaTourist]

Most reviews on the HAL site were negative. Thus the removal. Search for what you are looking for on TripAdvisor and book it elsewhere. You will get better pricing with usually the same companies the cruise ships use.

 

 

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[POA1]

Most reviews on the HAL site were negative. Thus the removal. Search for what you are looking for on TripAdvisor and book it elsewhere. You will get better pricing with usually the same companies the cruise ships use.

 

 

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That's not true. Most of the reviews were positive to neutral. I'm not saying that the reviews were helpful, but they were mostly positive.

[mame42]

Someone posted a response to this question from HAL, saying the reviews were in the process of moving to a different page on the website, whatever that means.

[FloridaTourist]

That's not true. Most of the reviews were positive to neutral. I'm not saying that the reviews were helpful, but they were mostly positive.

 

 

I guess that just depends on what you are looking for. Most of the ones I ever looked at were mediocre at best

 

 

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[POA1]

I guess that just depends on what you are looking for. Most of the ones I ever looked at were mediocre at best

 

 

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I use a caching browser, so I'm fairly confident that most of the reviews were plus / above neutral. Clearly, I don't know exactly what you've looked at, but your post does not not specifically say "posts that I've looked at."

 

It says that most were negative.

[avian777]

... Search for what you are looking for on TripAdvisor and book it elsewhere. You will get better pricing with usually the same companies the cruise ships use.

 

Not true insofar as HAL is concerned.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Not true insofar as HAL is concerned.

 

I don't know if it's always the case, but I agree that you can't always bypass HAL and get the same tour.

 

Smaller vendors often don't have the capacity to take care of HAL's demands and book public tours. So when you look at their booking calendar there are gaps, which are the days they're completely committed to a cruise line. I found that to be true when researching some of the snorkel trips in the Caribbean. I could identify the company from the photo that went with HAL's description, but when I went to the website, times didn't work with our time in port, or simply weren't available. A few tour vendors, possibly in Alaska, said "book with your cruise ship" and didn't take public bookings. (This was a few years ago and things may have changed.)

[3rdGenCunarder]

That's not true. Most of the reviews were positive to neutral. I'm not saying that the reviews were helpful, but they were mostly positive.

 

That's been my experience, too. I'm less interested in the number of stars than in the comments. Similar to sifting through reviews on Tripadvisor, I look for specifics, especially when people have comments about what they liked, not just "best tour ever!" Or comments that the tour wasn't as described--more time on the bus than stated, fewer guides than promised, meal/snack being smaller than expected, etc.

[canadianbear]

My daughter and I have wanted to do a review of our Aruba excursion through HAL since our cruise in March-I phoned again today as it is still not working. Can't put up a review nor any to look at. Was told IT is still working on the system and it should be available again within 2 weeks.

 

We shall see. I told him we had very good reviews to do. I like to read them good or bad and then decide if I want to do a HAL excursion or not.

 

Hopefully they will bring back this feature soon.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Reviews are back, sort of. I noticed that reviews were available when I was checking out tours for a cruise I have already booked. When I'm logged in, I can see reviews of the excursions for my cruise. I was glad to see them because a tour I thought we might do turns out not to be suitable for us.

 

That seems to be the extent of the "return." If I investigate a port not on my cruise, I can see the tours for that port, but no reviews. If I look in "my account" at past tours, there's a list. Each has a link to post a review, but the link takes me to the description with no way to do a review and no way to see any existing reviews. At one point in my poking around, there was a "we're working on it" notice. But I'm wondering if their plan is to make reviews available only to those who have already booked the cruise.