Currently on board Zaandam

[jwh]

I was very pleasantly surprised to find the ship appearance much nicer than when I sailed a few years ago with refurbished carpets, soft furnishings etc.  The food has been better than i remembered - both in the main dining room and the Lido.  The Indonesian and Filipino crew are as lovely as ever.  However what an enormous disappointment is the total lack of entertainment and ambience.  The ship is flat.  The cruise director, whoever he is, makes infrequent appearances and flat dialogues of not more than a sentence or two.  "have a nice evening' at the end of a performance or over the intercom etc.  No personality, no happy smiles or, heaven forbid, a sense of humour,  and no energy.  The scheduling for whatever limited evening  'entertainment' that may be on offer  is appalling with no thought to those who are on fixed seating/late dining as some things are scheduled for 8pm with no repeats earlier or later.  The 'entertainment' over the past week has been flat and boring. We have quite a number of sea days on this itinerary which I usually look forward to.  Even the female hostess delivering trivia questions reads them in a monotone and bored fashion.    The ship itself lends itself to a happy, convivial atmosphere but unfortunately the whole place is just dead and there is absolutely no happy ambience.  Passengers are not even acknowledging each other in the corridors with a nod or a smile.  We are constantly hearing 'worst cruise ever' type comments.    All the recent reports on CC about lack of entertainment on HAL are not unfounded. It is so disappointing to hear people who  are cruising for the first time say they will never do another cruise.  I am a 4 star mariner  and am writing this just to reaffirm earlier posts about entertainment.  It's not important to everyone but is important to create a happy social atmosphere on board for those who want.  My friends and I will not be back to HAL.

[roddonn]

We have just returned from a South Pacific cruise on the Noordam and I will say that the entertainment was

fantastic!     Hopefully, that keeps up.... as entertainment is a pleasant plus, no matter which cruise.

[drowelf]

Just off a 7 day Caribbean cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Entertainment on the main stage consisted of 

 

• 1 Comedy show. So-So 
• 1 Magician/Illusionist. Quite Good 
• 2 shows by the One Step Dance Group (6 members, no band canned music only). Both shows very good.   
• 2 Movies.

Cruise and Travel Director was Rachael and she was perky and had a personality. ACD (Mandy) would did Trivia and was very good. Very few other activities to occupy the day. 

 

Its been at least 10 years since we did less than a 2 week cruises but I was not really impressed with entertainment/activities choices. I'm really wondering what the entertainment is going to be like on our 28 Day Asia in 2021. 

 

 

 

[T8NCruise]

We were on the Zaandam back in the summer.  I loved the ship, it was in pretty good shape, and had the "old" Crows Nest, thankfully.  The crew was great as always.  I totally agree about entertainment, which was sadly lacking, but at least we had a decent CD - Jude - who was very personable and certainly did her best to make it a good cruise.

[GeezerCouple]

3 hours ago, roddonn said:

We have just returned from a South Pacific cruise on the Noordam and I will say that the entertainment was

fantastic!     Hopefully, that keeps up.... as entertainment is a pleasant plus, no matter which cruise.

 

We are on Noordam now, and we were astonished at how good the Lincoln Center Stage chamber music group is!

They were not a "group" until they met up for HAL, in October, when Noordam left Vancouver, and they've certainly done a remarkable job of working together, including tricky musical timing *together*.

 

We are really thrilled with them, and hope that in the future, other groups are as good, or almost as good.  This is our first cruise with HAL, so we didn't know what to expect.

 

The Lincoln Center Stage venue is waaay too small to accommodate the number of people who want to listen.  There is a lot of overflow standing in the back.

 

GC

[sevenseasnomad]

HAL's depending on the cruise director to wear multiple hats and implementing cut-backs in recreation staff has negatively affected entertainment, especially on sea days.  Add to that deficit the trend toward fewer shows on the World Stage and there's a recipe for disaster.  Worse, Seattle appears to ignore passenger complaints, assuring us that they're responding to passenger suggestions/demands as regards entertainment.  I hope someone at corporate wakes up and realizes what areas need improvement and takes action.

[teacherman]

We did 17 nights on the Zuiderdam this summer, Rotterdam to Boston, with stops in Greenland, Iceland, and several other ports we had not previously visited.  To me, one of the highlights, were the "port" talks given by one of the staff, not the CD.  She was informative and entertaining, but that was just her personality.  Her talks were packed with passengers.  I am sad to hear that her position may be filled by a CD.

 

People cruise for many different reasons.  We were on the Koningsdam and loved the Music Walk each evening, but I know hundreds of people probably avoided the area because it was too loud.  You can only see so many production shows, ventriloquists, comedians, etc. before they are all "the same".  Entertainment is simply to "fill time" between meals and port stops.  You can't satisfy everyone.  But we will be on the Zaandam 22 night S. America/Antarctica cruise in January, and there will be a LOT of time to fill.  For US, we hope the ship will show the NFL play-offs, but other people could not care less.

[Krazy Kruizers]

It has been interesting to read the reports on the entertainment on the various ships.

 

Thanks people.  Hope HAL reads this thread and wakes up to what people want.

[iancal]

I don't think that you can judge a mass market cruise line by one experience on one ship or one voyage.  For a start some fleets have a wide variety of ships in their fleet.  That in itself can translate into a wide variety of shipboard offerings, entertainment options dining venues, and level of ship maintenance.

 

Add inconsistency into the mixture.   Inconsistency in food quality, prep, ship mtce, etc. not to mention in the differences that can occur between cruises because of shipboard management and staff.  This is why we no longer pay much attention to the logo on the funnel.  The ship is much more important to us.   We came to the conclusion some time ago  that any one of these cruise lines can offer us a wonderful experience or a dog of ship based on the ship/itinerary that we select and the luck of the draw vis a vis the other consistencies.

 

We are not in the least bit interested in a Veendam, Zaandam, etc cruise at any price.  Not our preference.  Does that mean we do not like HAL?   No, we would consider one of the newer builds in a heartbeat.  But we are not so jaded as to believe that the experience will be streets ahead of the experience that we might have on a Princess or Celebrity ship/cruise.  It will be very similar with some minor differences as it would be if we selected either of the others.

Edited November 27, 2019 by iancal