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I am impressed with HAL (from a Celebrity Cruiser)

Damcruiser

By Damcruiser,
in Holland America Line

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Damcruiser

Damcruiser

Posted
Posted

We sailed on Nieuw Statendam B2B Quebec to Boston in September, our first HAL cruise since 2008.  The friendliness of the crew and the quality of the food was better than we expected.

Three trivias a day, excellent live music and actual dance floors were all better than our Celebrity cruises in each class (From Zenith to Edge).

As a result, we booked 7 weeks on NS starting next month.

I bought a 100 shares of CCL stock, sent in my Bank statement, our three B2B booking numbers yesterday and received confirmation before the day was out.

This morning I received an email that our immigration details of where we were staying after our cruise was not complete.  I checked our boarding info and there was no place to add that info.  I called HAL, got a busy signal, and hung up.  I tried again three minutes later and was connected without delay.

The agent filled in the info: "at the pier" and the task was done.

 

The experience on NS was not perfect, I caught a cold and tested positive for covid when I returned home and coughed for weeks.

 

I found my home in the Crow's Nest and we are eager to go back.

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Broon

Broon

Posted
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28 minutes ago, Damcruiser said:

We sailed on Nieuw Statendam B2B Quebec to Boston in September, our first HAL cruise since 2008.  The friendliness of the crew and the quality of the food was better than we expected.

Three trivias a day, excellent live music and actual dance floors were all better than our Celebrity cruises in each class (From Zenith to Edge).

As a result, we booked 7 weeks on NS starting next month.

I bought a 100 shares of CCL stock, sent in my Bank statement, our three B2B booking numbers yesterday and received confirmation before the day was out.

This morning I received an email that our immigration details of where we were staying after our cruise was not complete.  I checked our boarding info and there was no place to add that info.  I called HAL, got a busy signal, and hung up.  I tried again three minutes later and was connected without delay.

The agent filled in the info: "at the pier" and the task was done.

 

The experience on NS was not perfect, I caught a cold and tested positive for covid when I returned home and coughed for weeks.

 

I found my home in the Crow's Nest and we are eager to go back.

We too were on the NS b2b Que Bos Que in Sept, and I echo your comments about friendliness of the crew, even more than that….almost always highly motivated, it was consistently obvious, and the quality of the food. We are experienced HAL cruisers, and we prefer sailing with them. Nothing against other lines, simply, we found HAL years ago, and have stayed with them. 

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FlaMariner Holiday Sharing Rare

FlaMariner

Posted
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13 minutes ago, librarylady19 said:

What is the stockholder benefit w/ HAL?

 

Welcome to Holland America Line!

 

If you own 100 shares of Carnival Corp stock you can get $$$OBC for your Holland America Line sailing.....Here is the info:

 

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/50351a91-4dc0-4f6b-bfec-684647e6129f

 

 

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librarylady19

librarylady19

Posted
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12 minutes ago, FlaMariner said:

 

Welcome to Holland America Line!

 

If you own 100 shares of Carnival Corp stock you can get $$$OBC for your Holland America Line sailing.....Here is the info:

 

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/50351a91-4dc0-4f6b-bfec-684647e6129f

 

 

Good to know - esp. since their stock is rather low!

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seacruise9

seacruise9

Posted
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Hi, 

 

Thanks for your post. I have been cruising mainly with Celebrity lately, but I am booked on the Nieuw Statendam in the Caribbean for late November 2022. This will be my first HAL cruise since 2009. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the Nieuw Statendam. I am looking forward to my cruise on this ship next month.

 

Chuck

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robotpony

robotpony

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I wish hal would fix that immigration issue for Canadians.  I'm getting emails constantly and I've been told to ignore them as long as the online check in shows complete.

 

Thank you so much, I was trying to figure this out for our upcoming trip and our TA is out of their office (on a cruise, of course) until next week. 

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Damcruiser

Damcruiser

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16 hours ago, seacruise9 said:

Hi, 

 

Thanks for your post. I have been cruising mainly with Celebrity lately, but I am booked on the Nieuw Statendam in the Caribbean for late November 2022. This will be my first HAL cruise since 2009. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the Nieuw Statendam. I am looking forward to my cruise on this ship next month.

 

Chuck

We'll be on board. 

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Damcruiser

Damcruiser

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15 hours ago, robotpony said:

 

Thank you so much, I was trying to figure this out for our upcoming trip and our TA is out of their office (on a cruise, of course) until next week. 

There is a phone number with the email, call it and the problem will go away.

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oakridger

oakridger

Posted
Posted

My daughter and her husband went on HAL with me on the Nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska when they were 40 and 47 and had a ball. The son in law had said he thought cruises on HAL were only for “old people”  and only went along to humor me but really did have a good time!

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zgscl "Live from...." Rare

zgscl

Posted
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3 hours ago, Dallas Glenn said:

So what is an easy way to buy CCL stock?

If you have an IRA or 401(k) you can get it through the same brokerage you already use. Otherwise there are many online options for trading, but I am not certain the CC terms allow us to post any specifically here. 

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mcrcruiser

mcrcruiser

Posted
Posted (edited)

We are Elite Plus with Celebrity & Dimond  with Royal Caribbean . We did most of our 87 cruises with Celebrity  when we  were flying from San diego to Florida & Europe   .I liked Celebrity a lot in the earlier years  & always was able to get my Ahi tuna in the  lite lunch cafe (forgot the nam) .Then X  decided to delete the Aji tuna . That turned me off   U saw the big brother  RCL  's influence  . 

 

 We then decided to try HAL & we are 3 star going quickly to 4 star Mariners  . I can honestly tell any one HAL imo is just as good as Celebrity & lower cost to boot  with better & longer itineraries  . We been to Sydney Australia on Noordam in 2015 ,a great cruise from SD   .That is a long cruise but really nice for all the port stops 

You will not be sorry with HAL😀

 

 PS we are headed toward the 100 cruise mark quickly now

Edited by mcrcruiser
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mcrcruiser

mcrcruiser

Posted
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27 minutes ago, puppycanducruise said:

Thanks for the report, glad you enjoyed your cruise.

We have 3 more HAL cruises booked . 2 more with Celebrity booked & 2 with Royal Caribbean booked  between now & early 2024   .Our cruising is now from either San Diego  or San Pedro ,world Cruise Center ,LA county location  .We avoid flying  in todays crazy airport congestion  & higher  airline  prices   than ever before 

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montythecat

montythecat

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Interesting thread. We are Elite Plus on Celebrity who do, IMHO, most things very well.

However, I am not keen on the entertainment provided which I find rather old

fashioned (generally acrobats, theatre productions etc). We have now jumped ship to

HAL to see how they approach this element of cruising. On NS we had the choice of

a rock band, a blues/soul band, two pianos, and a classical quartet every night. We

couldn‘t have been happier. Actually, that’s not quite true, The Blues Band could have

been a bit more bluesy ! There were also a couple of evenings in the theatre which

were very enjoyable. On Oosterdam there was, unfortunately, no rock band but there

was still enough to listen to in the evenings to keep us happy.

Every other aspect of HAL matched or exceeded our Celebrity experiences. In these

circumstances, subject to finding the right itineraries, we will be looking for

cruises on the Pinnacle Class ships. HAL seem to understand rather better than

Celebrity the core age range of their customers and their likely musical tastes.

Of course, music is such a subjective topic but these comments merely

provide our reaction to the HAL approach to this element of cruising, particularly 

as we felt a tad guilty about trying an alternative to Celebrity.

 

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skatelady

skatelady

Posted
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11 hours ago, montythecat said:

Interesting thread. We are Elite Plus on Celebrity who do, IMHO, most things very well.

However, I am not keen on the entertainment provided which I find rather old

fashioned (generally acrobats, theatre productions etc). We have now jumped ship to

HAL to see how they approach this element of cruising. On NS we had the choice of

a rock band, a blues/soul band, two pianos, and a classical quartet every night. We

couldn‘t have been happier. Actually, that’s not quite true, The Blues Band could have

been a bit more bluesy ! There were also a couple of evenings in the theatre which

were very enjoyable. On Oosterdam there was, unfortunately, no rock band but there

was still enough to listen to in the evenings to keep us happy.

Every other aspect of HAL matched or exceeded our Celebrity experiences. In these

circumstances, subject to finding the right itineraries, we will be looking for

cruises on the Pinnacle Class ships. HAL seem to understand rather better than

Celebrity the core age range of their customers and their likely musical tastes.

Of course, music is such a subjective topic but these comments merely

provide our reaction to the HAL approach to this element of cruising, particularly 

as we felt a tad guilty about trying an alternative to Celebrity.

 

We sailed HAL several times and then moved to Celebrity.  We are Elite Celebrity.  We just did an Alaska cruise in September with HAL because everything I've read says HAL does Alaska best.  In the back of my mind I have always thought HAL's entertainment was better so was looking forward to what we would see.  We were very disappointed in the entertainment on the Nieuw Amsterdam and have read threads saying the same thing about other HAL ships.  Main theater had dancers three of the 7 nights.  Three nights were Alaska presentations and  one night was a comedian.  The best part of the dancers was the light show that was their backdrop but that gets tired after a while.  We went to the first and had no desire to see the other two.  BB Kings had great performers but too loud and not enough seating.  People were leaning against the  walls of the hallway to listen.  Our last X cruise was just before everything shut down, our next is over Christmas and New Year so I'm very curious to see what the entertainment is like.  Always the chance they are doing the best they can in the pandemic era.

I absolutely agree that HAL's staff is the best and the food was very, very good.  

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Stateroom_Sailor

Stateroom_Sailor

Posted
Posted

I miss Celebrity's cruising portal, where you can see what you've purchased, and cancel.  We enjoyed Blu, and some of the modern decor and innovations.  Entertainment is one of HAL's shortcomings, but I wasn't impressed with X's offerings either, and much prefer the live music and cooking classes that HAL offers.  Food, service, accommodations, itinerary, and price, HAL wins.

 

In a perfect world, I want a Celebrity ship, with HAL's itineraries, Princess' atriums, Disney's food, Royal Caribbean's shows, Norwegian's activities, MSC's kids' club, at Carnival's prices.

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