Not the best cruise

[Pete Jackson]

Perhaps some of the problems the OP saw in the standard of ship's maintenance were related to the crewman overboard incident (yes, I know it happened towards the end of the trip). A lot of energy had to go into looking for the person, as well as helping pax make alternate arrangements because of the ship's later arrival at the disembarcation port.

[djallar]

Re-reading the OP's post, it doesn't sound like it was a total waste. I'm sure the missing crew member had a lot to do with the overall level of enjoyment.

 

I didn't find the "New York type" comment to be offensive. I was born & raised in Wisconsin. When I lived there, we hated to see the "Flat-landers" come up from Illinois. When I lived in Illinois, it was those stupid "cheeseheads" that set us off. When I lived in Syracuse, NY, the "City" folks were an issue. When I moved to PA, I had to deal with the New Jersey types.

 

So, you see...it's the same everywhere. I really don't think the OP meant any offense and think we ALL should grow some thicker skin.

[arabrab]

Well, while I was born in California I basically grew up on Long Island, so that kind of makes me at least an honorary "New Yorker." And while the OP didn't perhaps word this as well as he could have, I do have a sense of what he means. You see, my mother-in-law (a wonderful lady) is from the South. And, at least in her generation, ladies from the South gently edge around what they want. Took me years of marriage to figure out that her, "Are you hungry, dear?" when she was visiting us meant, "I am famished and just when are you thinking of feeding me?" Similarly, "Are you cold?" is very much code for "I'm freezing, please turn up the heat A LOT." I personally find direct a lot easier to deal with, and I don't find it, or "New Yorker" to be a code word for "rude."

 

Barb

[GAJE]

First of all, we were on that cruise. Yes, there was confusion initially over phone and computer use. The need from passengers to contact home and arrange new air arrangements was overwhelming, but how does a ship plan for a once in a maybe forever instance like a crew member going overboard? I thought the staff did an excellent job trying to accommodate everyone.

On another note, what does "OP" stand for?

Thanks, Betty

[Sunshine10]

I can't help myself, but I have to give a cheer to djallar and arabrab... djallar hit the nail on the head...being from Michigan we had lots of different ways to generalize folks from places like Ohio and Canada (I'm 1/4 Canadian so don't go there). And my Canadian relatives would wax on and on about the Americans - never aimed at an individual, but simply a generalization. :rolleyes:

 

Now that I live in the south... I know exactly what djallar is saying... it's taken me YEARS to be able to properly converse without seeming like a rude, dare I say the word, Yankee...:D You just got to find the humor in it... having good friends from NY/NJ I knew exactly what the OP was saying... LOL:p ... it's so boring being PC all the time... this from a damn Yankee since I stayed...:D

 

Can't wait until our 1st HAL voyage in May...:)

[lizf]

I second your post. I was just about to post similar thanks to Dave and Barb. You said if very well. I've used the same sayings as I've moved geographically and I chuckled to read Dave and Barb's posts too. Thanks.

[Sunshine10]

Opps.. meant to say I knew what arabrab was saying about folks from the south (having married one)... Bless my heart...:rolleyes:

[JDRMYS]

Joanne G,

 

I have re-read my post and I realize that in my annoyance at the OP I wasn't careful enough in my wording. By no means are most visitors to New York inconsiderate or rude. The vast majority are wonderful & polite people and we are thrilled to have them as visitors to our town. However, there is a very visible (and loud) minority who act in New York in ways that they probably wouldn't dream of acting in their own home towns. I apologize for inadvertantly seeming to defame all tourists in New York.

[kryos]

I'm really sorry to hear that your cruise did not live up to your expectations. To plan and anticipate a trip ... and then have it turn out to be far from what you expected ... and longed for ... is a real letdown. Believe me, I can feel your pain.

 

I guess I'm just lucky. I was on the Amsterdam the cruise right before yours ... 30 days ... and my experience was 180 degrees different. I too had a cabin on the main deck forward ... number 2531 ... inside. The only time I felt some vibration there was when we were dropping anchor or docking. I would hear a whining sound and the room would sometimes vibrate. But, I would rarely feel anything at any other times.

 

As for the dining room, I am totally floored by your report. I originally had early seating and after two days I could see that it wasn't going to work out. Too early for me and also lack of compatibility with tablemates. I went to see KiKi and made my request to move to a fellow CCer's table in late seating and wala ... that night I was at late seating. Why your request was a problem, I can't imagine. And, yes, our cruise had a FULL ship. Also, we always had time to eat and then make the 10:15 show. In fact, I even had time to slip into the Ocean Bar and have a smoke before the show. Maybe your servers were new ... and slow?

 

I do know that a lot of people's contracts were ending after our cruise. Maybe a new matri 'd? I know our cruise director, John Challenger, got off the ship at the end of our cruise, so maybe that would explain about the problem with the activities' scheduling on your cruise? John always had activities spaced far enough so that people could do multiple things they were interested in. Of course, there were times two activities were scheduled simultaneously ... or with no time to do both ... but I guess you're always going to have that. Someone is always gonna be unhappy with the scheduling. Can't be helped.

 

As for the ship's windows being dirty ... I'll be honest. I never noticed. As long as I don't have to clean them, I guess I just don't take notice of things like that. As long as my cabin is clean, public areas are nice, etc. ... I just don't bother myself with that. I did notice, however, that many times when we were in port, they had people up on those lifts cleaning windows all over the ship, so I guess they were trying to stay on top of it.

 

Again, I'm really sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise. I hate to say it, but I think you hit a bad time ... when a lot of people were at the beginning of their contracts and thus stressed with trying to get back into sea life. A lot of people were getting off at the end of our sailing, so I am sure a lot of new people were getting on. I'd be willing to bet that if you had just been on a different sailing, your experiences may have been vastly different. I know my experience on the Amsterdam the cruise right before yours was absolute bliss. Was it perfect? Heck no. But it sure got close.

 

Hopefully you'll give the Amsterdam another try someday. You might have a totally different, much more pleasurable experience.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[Joanne G.]

Joanne G, I apologize for inadvertantly seeming to defame all tourists in New York.

 

No offense taken. We all say things in the heat of the moment that don't come out right.

 

I love New York, I love the diversity of New Yorkers, and I love cruises out of New York. :D

[Navy_Chief]

Sorry about your cruise not meeting expectations and understandably the problems with arriving a day late in port. I can say that I have been delayed getting into port on more than one occasion (and yes in those days, I made more Phone Patches using the ship's radios than I care to count). Losing a crew member over the side (no presuming about it) is not a good thing. Fortunately for the one who went over the side on my first ship, we were able to get him back on board after an hour search in the pitch black Med and in the middle of the night (on a navy ship it's all hands on deck for that evolution). The ship's captain under maritime law is obligated to help any person or vessel in trouble at sea no matter how put out one gets from it. I feel for that family and the crew of that ship for their loss of a shipmate.

[serendipity1499]

.

On another note, what does "OP" stand for?

Thanks, Betty

 

Betty..

 

"OP" stands for "Original Poster" the person who started the thread..

 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise.:)

 

Another Betty aka Elizabeth

[Boriiiing]

I would like to add my two cents to the original post, since we were on the same cruise! The entertainment was for the most part embarrassing, and the activities were terrible. Now I know why there are so many jokes about cruise ship entertainers. The Indonesian and Phillipino shows were the best, and reflected the incredible staff that we were lucky enough to get to know. Unfortunately, the auditorium was too small for these popular shows, and it was standing room only. For the majority of other speakers, attendance reflected the quality of the entertainment.

 

If HAL is truly committed to attracting a younger crowd, they are going to have to come up with a better variety of on board activities. One example of an activity gone bad was a folded paper picture frame...or how about a seminar on teeth whitening....the crafts activity often ran short of supplies due to so many scrambling to find something to do. The cooking seminars were packed; standing room only. They need to take a look at attendance at activities, and add additional ones for those that are popular, and get rid of some of the ones that were created to fill a time slot. There was a fairly large area dedicated to youth activities, but on this cruise there were no more than 10 youth under 18, so the area sat unused. The two computers in that area were not even utilized when it was imperative for everyone to reschedule their travel plans.

 

The windows were dirty, but that was not something that bothered us. We did not find the rest of the ship in poor condition, although there were some plumbing problems in some of the restrooms toward the end of the cruise. It did bother us that if you had the late dinner seating, as we did, the place was virtually shut down. There were many evenings we would have enjoyed the hot tub, but it was shut down and emptied by the time we finished eating. Same with the sauna and fitness area. Jogging was not permitted on the 3rd deck and was limited to the top "sports area" which was too windy and cold to use for anything. Obviously anyone seeking a more active type of entertainment was out of luck. We felt it was an obvious attempt to steer passengers toward activities that will cost; drinking and gambling primarily. By 11:30, the ship was virtually a ghost. Everyone was in their cabins...

 

And I want to second the part about email. I talked to a lot of people that were really wishing they had brought a list of email addresses with them on the cruise. It should be on everyone's list of things to take in case of an emergency.

 

We also had a very poor experience with the HAL excursions. We found that they were charging from 50-100 % over cost to arrange them. It would be nice if they would be upfront about the fees they are charging. I would encourage anyone interested in an excursion to do some research. For example, the Pacific Whale watch cruise if booked through HAL was 69.00, and left from the dock, so no transportation was required. I booked the same cruise for 35.00. The luau at the Hyatt Regency on Maui was 129.00 through HAL, which included busing. The regular price was 89.00, VIP seating was 111.00. A taxi cost 7.50 from the port. We definitely did not get VIP treatment...although we paid 18.00 more. We were also given erroneous information by the excursions office in regard to what was included in this excursion, but they were unwilling to back what we were told. I would suspect that anyone computer literate enough to be utilizing this board would find it very easy to take care of the excursions on their own. We certainly will from now on.

 

The library was always extremely busy. I appreciated the newspapers that were printed off to read there. But why only one copy of each? Several times I checked back multiple times, and never did time it to be able to read the copy available.

I also had a bad experience with one of the spa workers who was determined to sell me multiple products, and refused to take "NO" for an answer. I had intended on utilizing the spa services several times, but did not appreciate the pressure sales, so chose to not return. I did participate in several of the fitness classes, but they were in a very small area, and several times people wishing to take the classes left because there wasnt enough space left.

 

We enjoyed the dining room immensely, primarily because of the staff. It was by far the highlight of our day, and the food for the most part was outstanding. There were beautiful flowers throughout the ship, which I enjoyed. Beautiful ship, outstanding staff, great food--but dreadful activities and entertainment!

[CruisinMK]

Thank you for sharing your experience, good to hear another perspective.

[GAJE]

Serendipity1499: Thank you for your kind response as to what OP stands for!!

Betty (also named Elizabeth)

[caribbean girl]

I wonder...did they ever find out what happened to the missing crewmember?:confused:

[kryos]

I would like to add my two cents to the original post, since we were on the same cruise! The entertainment was for the most part embarrassing, and the activities were terrible. Now I know why there are so many jokes about cruise ship entertainers. The Indonesian and Phillipino shows were the best, and reflected the incredible staff that we were lucky enough to get to know. Unfortunately, the auditorium was too small for these popular shows, and it was standing room only. For the majority of other speakers, attendance reflected the quality of the entertainment.

You make an excellent point here. The auditorium was way too small for certain activities, way to big for others. And, yes, some of the lecturers were downright boring and drew a pretty dismal crowd after their first lecture. I would have liked to see more "workshop" type lectures ... especially on a 30-day cruise like ours. There is no reason a series of workshops couldn't have been offered during the sailing ... on subjects such as creative writing, photography, maybe learning a musical instrument, the game of bridge, etc. People like to actually learn things while on vacation. Having a series of workshops focused on a couple of subjects, would provide plenty of opportunity for this. Doesn't Crystal do something similar on their cruises? Of course, I understand that HAL is not a luxury line like Crystal, but surely they could have a somewhat limited program in place ... especially on their longer sailings.

 

Like you, I couldn't understand was why the more popular shows had only one performance. On our cruise, in addition to a packed Phillipino and Indonesian crew show, we had a couple of ports where local performers were brought onboard ... once in Hawaii and once in the South Pacific. These shows, of course, were one seating only and like you said ... if you didn't get there early, you were gonna be standing up. People were running up to the front ... distracting and blocking the view of everyone else ... in order to take photos. It definitely detracted from the performance.

 

Of course, I understand that when local entertainment is brought onboard, there is probably nothing HAL can do about the one show limit. They have a budget to work with, and would probably have to pay for a second performance. But, when the production is produced by HAL, I can't understand why a second performance ... either that evening or the next ... could not be scheduled. Like you said, the cooking demonstrations were packed, as were other popular activities. If an activity is gonna be a really popular one ... and they can determine this from past attendance ... then require pax to pick up tickets ... and have two performances. The tickets would guarantee that passengers wouldn't try to attend both performances.

 

I'll tell you, I wouldn't wanna be an activities director on a large cruise ship. Sounds like a ton of work ... and someone is always gonna be left unhappy.

 

Who was your cruise director, by the way?

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[kryos]

If HAL is truly committed to attracting a younger crowd, they are going to have to come up with a better variety of on board activities. One example of an activity gone bad was a folded paper picture frame...or how about a seminar on teeth whitening....the crafts activity often ran short of supplies due to so many scrambling to find something to do.

I wonder if HAL gears the activities to the passenger demographic onboard a particular cruise? The reason I ask is that we had loads of stuff geared for the sports-minded passenger on our cruise ... Amsterdam Survivor, Amsterdam Olympics, etc. We also had a full "menu" of singles and solos activities ... at least one item just about every single sea day, and some on nights after we sailed from port. Our cruise, however, had about 100 singles and solos on it ... and it seemed a lot of them were younger and anxious to participate in more "challenging" activities. We also had a "Great Pretenders" show in which many of the singles and solos took part.

 

I just wonder if your cruise had a different set of passenger demographics than ours had ... and thus less "young-minded" activities?

 

I agree too about the excursions. I learned my lesson as well. I spent $903 on HAL excursions for this 30-day sailing. I probably could have shaved about 25% off of that number had I been more proactive to do the research and book on my own. I just wonder, though, if some of these excursion providers are under contract to HAL when the ship is in port, and thus won't take independent passengers on those days? For example, in Maui, I took the Pacific Whale Foundation's Wild Dolphin Snorkle. They had other boats at the pier, but those boats were only doing whale watch excursions. Only their one boat was doing the snorkling (which actually was a combination of snorkling and a whale watch excursion) and that boat was chartered 100% to HAL on the day the Amsterdam was in port. Someone trying to arrange that excursion on their own would be out of luck. But, in the future, I'm gonna try to make more of my own arrangements, rather than relying on the cruiseline to provide my excursions. While I enjoyed all of my HAL excursions minus one, I do agree that they are greatly overpriced and can easily be arranged independently either in advance via the internet, or even once the ship makes it to port.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[synman]

Thanks for the extensive review. Sorry your trip did not meet expectations.

I must take exception to your comment regarding the Pinnacle serving the same food as the dining room. This is absolutely not the case. Pinnacle has it's own kitchen, and it's own chef. None of the dishes on the Pinnacle menu are served in the main dining room and vice versa. We feel a meal at the Pinnacle is worth every bit of the surcharge.