HAL just canceled our June 14th 2022 Triple Denali trip

[Caribbean Chris]

Gosh, I feel so bad for you and all the people affected by this. Also it’s so sad hearing how bad the service level was for previous travelers with the hotel arrangements. So HAL truly did the right thing … but sad to have your vacation plans upended.

[Freckles1983]

Wow we are supposed to be sailing out on Sunday on the nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska Yukon and triple Denali.  They offered us a lot to voluntarily drop out.  I’m so sorry you’re going thru this and I would be devastated if the same thing happened to us.  But now I’m wondering if I should have just taken the offer after reading this post.  Good luck on your future trip planning and again I’m sorry for the cancellation 😔

[kangforpres]

I think the company is in disarray. Both shoreside and onboard. On our K-dam cruise in May the musicians said they had all been hired the week before, didn't know each other and told to start playing together for shows the first day onboard. All of them had short-term 4 week contracts and none of them where interested in working with HAL beyond their contracts.

 

-Paul

[TheLizardHouse]

I’m likewise concerned about our 14 day double Denali, leaving Vancouver on the 31st of next Month. It looks like we’ll need to have a plan B - which I think will be to stay onboard and cruise back to Vancouver.

 

Terrible to read that people are being mean to the ship staff, when we should all be thanking them for coming back to work, so that we can enjoy a cruise. 😒

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by TheLizardHouse

[TheLizardHouse]

I’m not 100% on this, but from what I can see on the website, there looks to be no possibility of staying at Denali with HAL before the 10th of July or so. After that, it’s OK through to the end of the season, with the exception being the week starting 7th of August.  Wow 😳.

Edited June 4, 2022 by TheLizardHouse

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, TheLizardHouse said:

I’m not 100% on this, but from what I can see on the website, there looks to be no possibility of staying at Denali with HAL before the 10th of July or so. After that, it’s OK through to the end of the season, with the exception being the week starting 7th of August.  Wow 😳.

Curious, did you see a list?

[TheLizardHouse]

I looked through booking dates for the cruise tours, and many weeks were listed as ‘ unavailable’. The week of 7th August is also unavailable, but I’m not sure if that is land first, or cruise.

Clarification: McKinley Lodge looks to be out of action from the present to around the 10th of July. The land tours earlier in the season went ahead, so something’s changed. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by TheLizardHouse

[cat shepard]

@KirkNC
Kirk, can I ask you when you booked this cruise?
 

Was it a replacement cruise? Or was the entire cruise moved from last year to this year?

 

Ann

[kellycambp]

I think the cruise lines are going to have to re-evaluate how they bring in their workers for these summer Alaska programs. My college-age son looked into it and I was surprised to find out that they didn’t pay for housing or airfare for their seasonal employees. Maybe that’s how they’ve always done it; I have no idea. But a lot of nice young people probably decided against going there to work for this reason.

[kangforpres]

I remember talking to a Denali lodge worker and he said he and 4 of his college buddies drive up from Georgia the day after classes end in the Spring, work all Summer at the lodge and then drive back to Georgia together for the Fall Semester.

 

All 5 of them shared a 2BR apartment. It's not a glamorous summer work job by any measure.

 

-Paul

 

 

[Gray Lady]

12 hours ago, Freckles1983 said:

Wow we are supposed to be sailing out on Sunday on the nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska Yukon and triple Denali.  They offered us a lot to voluntarily drop out.  I’m so sorry you’re going thru this and I would be devastated if the same thing happened to us.  But now I’m wondering if I should have just taken the offer after reading this post.  Good luck on your future trip planning and again I’m sorry for the cancellation 😔

Please let us know how everything goes. I think they are trying to scale back their numbers for their land tours. I am afraid now to get out my suitcases to start packing!

[KirkNC]

1 hour ago, cat shepard said:

@KirkNC
Kirk, can I ask you when you booked this cruise?
 

Was it a replacement cruise? Or was the entire cruise moved from last year to this year?

 

Ann

We booked it a few months ago when HAL canceled our Volendam cruise.  We were trying to use FCC (again) from the 2020 world cruise.

[1025cruise]

I'm guessing the cruise is still on, but HAL opted to cancel the entire package to possibly lower headcount on the ship. 

I'm sorry for the OP. 

[LocoLoco1]

13 hours ago, Freckles1983 said:

Wow we are supposed to be sailing out on Sunday on the nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska Yukon and triple Denali.  They offered us a lot to voluntarily drop out.  I’m so sorry you’re going thru this and I would be devastated if the same thing happened to us.  But now I’m wondering if I should have just taken the offer after reading this post.  Good luck on your future trip planning and again I’m sorry for the cancellation 😔

Please let us know what happens with YOUR cruise, OK?

[DaveOKC]

13 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

I'm guessing the cruise is still on, but HAL opted to cancel the entire package to possibly lower headcount on the ship. 

I'm sorry for the OP. 

Sounding like the issue is more at Denali and less onboard!

[shuyak]

Received HAL email overnight informing us covid test is now required (and will be provided on board during the 3 day NB cruise Vancouver to Skagway ) before the land portion started at Skagway for our Prestige Y4Z 19 day cruisetour.  Guess we are going.

 

Our SB is also 6/26/22 on NA.  Yesterday, it was still bookable at HAL.  It is no longer available at HAL now - yet still bookable at various TA sites.

 

Hope things will work out with minimum stress/frustration for all one way or the other.

[Babr]

I wonder how much of this can be attributed to staff being infected with Covid and replacements not being readily available.

 

My Windstar cruise was cancelled for that very reason. One cruise was aborted midway and the next (mine) was cancelled because the crew had been impacted to the point that they could no longer provide service.

 

They were out of service for two weeks followed by one sailing to Alaska and immediately returned to Orange status.

[Hlitner]

Grrrr.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  HAL cancels cruises, changes itineraries, etc. with relatively little notice.  The time to plan and deal with staffing issues is when scheduling cruises, not in the last few weeks prior to booked trips.  Our last 3 HAL cruises have been cancelled (due to COVID issues) and we have a 2023 Asian booking (42 days) that we suspect will eventually be cancelled although the passengers might be the last to know!  

 

Not every cruise line is cancelling cruises although they are all wrestling with staffing issues.  One reason (out of many) that we have been cruising a lot more on Seabourn (6 cruises in less than a year) is that SB somehow manages to actually have their cruises with the ships being fully staffed.  Perhaps it is because SB allows most of the crew to work 3 month contracts,  crew is properly paid and does not rely on tips (there is no tipping on SB), etc.  Bottom line is that we have lost faith on HAL's ability to perform as advertised.  Staffing a large HAL vessel where a good part of the crew's income is derived from tips must contribute to HAL's difficulties.  If a ship is only sailing at 60% capacity then it is only generating 60% of the usual tipping pool, and yet minimum staffing requirements do not make it possible for the line to cut back staffing to only 60% of the norm.

 

I should add that staffing issues are also causing chaos in the entire airline industry.  The airlines continue to schedule flights that they know will not happen because it allows them to keep "slots" at the busiest airports.  If they fail to schedule flights they can lose their allocation of valuable slots and this will have nasty future impact.  Our strategy for dealing with the airlines has been to drive longer distances to major airports where we can maximize non-stop flights and minimize connections.   Even that has caused us some difficulty, but so-far (knock on wood) we have been able to work around flight cancellations (with some pain).

 

DW recently suggested that perhaps we should cancel our future HAL booking and make alternate arrangements.  Continuing to do the same thing over and over again with no success (such as planning trips around HAL cruises) comes close to the definition of insanity.  The travel/cruise industry is going to have a very long road to recovery if the customers lose faith in their ability to provide the scheduled services.

 

Hank

 

 

[Babr]

8 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Grrrr.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  HAL cancels cruises, changes itineraries, etc. with relatively little notice.  The time to plan and deal with staffing issues is when scheduling cruises, not in the last few weeks prior to booked trips.  Our last 3 HAL cruises have been cancelled (due to COVID issues) and we have a 2023 Asian booking (42 days) that we suspect will eventually be cancelled although the passengers might be the last to know!  

 

Not every cruise line is cancelling cruises although they are all wrestling with staffing issues.  One reason (out of many) that we have been cruising a lot more on Seabourn (6 cruises in less than a year) is that SB somehow manages to actually have their cruises with the ships being fully staffed.  Perhaps it is because SB allows most of the crew to work 3 month contracts,  crew is properly paid and does not rely on tips (there is no tipping on SB), etc.  Bottom line is that we have lost faith on HAL's ability to perform as advertised.  Staffing a large HAL vessel where a good part of the crew's income is derived from tips must contribute to HAL's difficulties.  If a ship is only sailing at 60% capacity then it is only generating 60% of the usual tipping pool, and yet minimum staffing requirements do not make it possible for the line to cut back staffing to only 60% of the norm.

 

I should add that staffing issues are also causing chaos in the entire airline industry.  The airlines continue to schedule flights that they know will not happen because it allows them to keep "slots" at the busiest airports.  If they fail to schedule flights they can lose their allocation of valuable slots and this will have nasty future impact.  Our strategy for dealing with the airlines has been to drive longer distances to major airports where we can maximize non-stop flights and minimize connections.   Even that has caused us some difficulty, but so-far (knock on wood) we have been able to work around flight cancellations (with some pain).

 

DW recently suggested that perhaps we should cancel our future HAL booking and make alternate arrangements.  Continuing to do the same thing over and over again with no success (such as planning trips around HAL cruises) comes close to the definition of insanity.  The travel/cruise industry is going to have a very long road to recovery if the customers lose faith in their ability to provide the scheduled services.

 

Hank

 

 

See above post #42. I agree with what you are saying, but I think they are dealing with circumstance beyond their control. It is not easy to have dozens of trained, qualified people to replace sick employees when large numbers are impacted at the same time. 

[aliaschief]

Yesterday You Tube cruise blogger Don stated there was a 40,000 staff shortage throughout the cruise industry. One of the main problems besides getting vaccinated is that in many places it’s taking up to six months for crew to get work Visas.

 

Hard times running a industry when short handed and customers who want their experiences to be perfect like in pre Covid.

He stated Jamaica is stepping up and promising quick visa processing and 10,000 workers. Will wait and see about that. Training would be my first thought?

[Freckles1983]

Locoloco1 & Gray Lady

 

i will keep you all posted.  Just at the airport now waiting for our flight to Vancouver.  Got our covid negative test results 5 mins before we left our house.  
 

airport service at west jet has been trash so far.  Rude and not helpful.  
 

hopefully it’s all up from here but I won’t lie, I’m not feeling too positive at the moment.  
 

again so sorry to hear about all the terrible situations with peoples trips getting canceled/rescheduled over and over again.  I can’t imagine the stress that would cause and vacations are supposed to be a time to destress.

 My heart really goes out to you all 

 

I’ll update as I can.  
 

[Mary229]

I just checked the Zuiderdam land and sea tours for August September.   Every other week is now unavailable so I am assuming they will be either consolidating or cancelling 1/2 of those journeys.  Hopefully they will inform people with sufficient notice. 

[Hlitner]

8 minutes ago, Babr said:

See above post #42. I agree with what you are saying, but I think they are dealing with circumstance beyond their control. It is not easy to have dozens of trained, qualified people to replace sick employees when large numbers are impacted at the same time. 

Perhaps and perhaps not!  HAL and Seabourn (both part of the same management group) have seemingly adopted an attitude to keep passengers/customers in the dark about COVID related issues onboard.  While some cruise lines are being transparent and keep passengers aware of the COVID situation aboard, that is not the case with the HAL Group.   So, whether cancellations are due to crew illness or just bad planning/execution in bringing back staff is a question.  When we were on the SB Ovation (March-April) we did have a significant number of COVID cases (both passengers and crew) but we only knew this because some passengers and crew suddenly disappeared (they had to quarantine for 7 days).  As those folks returned to normal functioning they would relay what they learned while in the quarantine cabins. 

 

 But with a 7 day quarantine requirement they muddled through staffing issues as folks would come and go.  The absurdness of keeping folks in the dark hit a new low when our CD got COVID.  While word of mouth made it clear that he was down with COVID, some officers/staff would only acknowledge he "had a cold."

 

The problem with not informing passengers is that folks are denied knowledge that might cause them to take further mitigation precautions.  So, for example, if we had known that 20% of the ship had COVID we would have likely practiced much more social distancing and adopted a very cautious set of behaviors.  Not knowing how bad it was, many of us continued to hang-out at a crowded bar.

 

Hank  

[shuyak]

21 hours ago, Tracey/Thom said:

There were, literally, mountains of used sheets/towels piled in the public hallways.

 

21 hours ago, Tracey/Thom said:

The bathroom/toilet had obviously not been cleaned. Luckily, we travel with sanitizing wipes and a bottle of Peroxide too. In the 2 nights that we were there, no one came to replenish the coffee supplies, the towels or empty the trash.

 

@Tracey/Thom, thank you for the detailed description that we can better prepare ourselves.

[Gray Lady]

1 hour ago, Freckles1983 said:

Locoloco1 & Gray Lady

 

i will keep you all posted.  Just at the airport now waiting for our flight to Vancouver.  Got our covid negative test results 5 mins before we left our house.  
 

airport service at west jet has been trash so far.  Rude and not helpful.  
 

hopefully it’s all up from here but I won’t lie, I’m not feeling too positive at the moment.  
 

again so sorry to hear about all the terrible situations with peoples trips getting canceled/rescheduled over and over again.  I can’t imagine the stress that would cause and vacations are supposed to be a time to destress.

 My heart really goes out to you all 

 

I’ll update as I can.  
 

Freckles, thank you for keeping us up to date. Just curious where you did you pre-cruise testing. I really hope everything goes well for you. I am just expecting the worst, am prepared to make lemonade out of it; then if it goes better, it will be a win! Very curious about the land component, as we are doing that first. What ship are you sailing on? My fingers are crossed for you!