Holland America Group Restructuring

[Guest ldtr]

All of the functions mentioned in the article are all back office areas, not customer facing areas.  Best one can hope for is different port selections for the different lines.

[FlaMariner]

1 minute ago, ldtr said:

While medallion had problems in its early days it now works pretty well

 

It did not work on our "one and done" Princess cruise in March 2022 for drinks/ordering.

[Guest ldtr]

8 minutes ago, FlaMariner said:

 

It did not work on our "one and done" Princess cruise in March 2022 for drinks/ordering.

Has worked fine on my 9 cruises last year.  Keep in mind it is now almost a year after your experience.

 

Back in March you still have cruise ships with pretty limited passenger loads and staffing.  You still had most Covid restrictions in place.  Lots of issues even getting staff into the US and onto the ships. Some of the cruises I took around that time frame was running about 50% on both staff and passenger loads.  Many normal functions not running.  Buffet for example only about half of its normal size. Only 2 of 3 dining rooms open. Supply chains were a mess and getting ships resupplied was problematic.

 

As passenger loads and staffing have gotten back to full levels things are returning to pretty much the way they were pre-covid. Except for those changes that are due to changes in policy.

Edited January 31, 2023 by ldtr

[StLouisCruisers]

Our medallions worked fine except after 30 days and we had the battery changed out in them. That sounds reasonable to me.  We tested food delivery service on them early on by requesting a piece of chocolate cake and a few chocolate chip cookies be delivered to us in Wheelhouse Bar one evening.  10 or 15 minutes later our goodies arrived at our sofa near the bar.  Once we were put in quarantine for Covid we ordered food all the time on the Medallion.  I also liked the locate your shipmate (DH) option but that wasn't a problem while we were both stuck in our quarantine cabin!

[DCThunder]

The best feature of the medallion is the unlocking of the cabin door.  Coming back to your cabin with hands full, the medallion really beats having to dig out the HAL card to get the door open.

[StLouisCruisers]

7 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

The best feature of the medallion is the unlocking of the cabin door.  Coming back to your cabin with hands full, the medallion really beats having to dig out the HAL card to get the door open.

Very helpful, I agree.

[brovol]

The medallion check-in was fastest we ever had on a ship.  ordering drinks and food worked like a charm.  locating my wife when we were separated was cool too.  And the internet worked fantastic.  like my WiFi at home.  just ordering a drink at a bar was awesome, without having to even hand them a card.  Hard to believe anyone had bad experience.  We love it, and even before medallion we loved Princess.

[loge23]

On 1/30/2023 at 6:28 PM, iceman93 said:

I'd love to see their definition of the target market for each brand.  Just as an example, I was very surprised when a friend of mine went to work for Princess (in the group that developed the medallion) and told me Princess was explicitly above HAL in the CCL pecking order in terms of prestige and sophistication.

Interesting take. We primarily sail on Princess but would have thought the opposite about HAL and Princess. I guess both lines look like Tiffany compared to Carnival! 

[loge23]

On 1/31/2023 at 4:58 AM, ski ww said:

Couldn't agree more. I guess only time will tell. The post cruise surveys, do they read them & fix what the guests are telling them is wrong with the brand/ship??

I suppose that process has been effectively corporatized as well. Most of the questionnaire is just numerical values (the fill-ins). The written comments are filtered down to fit into the same criteria as the fill-ins. The whole thing is fed into a computer and someone makes a report out of it for the quarterly meetings. Anything that possibly comes out of it has to be almost unanimously documented on the surveys. Of course, all of this is super-ceded by a hotshot young new Marketing exec that Carnival poached from Proctor and Gamble!

[Colorado Klutch]

39 minutes ago, loge23 said:

I suppose that process has been effectively corporatized as well. Most of the questionnaire is just numerical values (the fill-ins). The written comments are filtered down to fit into the same criteria as the fill-ins. The whole thing is fed into a computer and someone makes a report out of it for the quarterly meetings. Anything that possibly comes out of it has to be almost unanimously documented on the surveys. Of course, all of this is super-ceded by a hotshot young new Marketing exec that Carnival poached from Proctor and Gamble!

 

And this is one of the primary reasons modern corporations are so clueless. They try to run everything based on spreadsheets and metrics. The reality is there are many intangibles which simply don't show up in spreadsheets or metrics. Real leaders get out of the executive suite and walk the factory floor, to out to the actual stores or, in this case, board an actual ship. 

Have HAL executives ever been on a cruise that wasn't on a private superyacht? Have they visited any of the ships to see first hand how things run day to day? It sure seems like have not.

You can't run a massive corporation using a joystick on a desktop, but it seems many people try to do just that. 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Colorado Klutch

[REOVA]

1 hour ago, Colorado Klutch said:

 

And this is one of the primary reasons modern corporations are so clueless. They try to run everything based on spreadsheets and metrics. The reality is there are many intangibles which simply don't show up in spreadsheets or metrics. Real leaders get out of the executive suite and walk the factory floor, to out to the actual stores or, in this case, board an actual ship. 

Have HAL executives ever been on a cruise that wasn't on a private superyacht? Have they visited any of the ships to see first hand how things run day to day? It sure seems like have not.

You can't run a massive corporation using a joystick on a desktop, but it seems many people try to do just that. 

Actually both Executives of HAL and CCL have sailed on the World Cruises (and their families). Of course it's like flying business class on a jumbo jet and watching the commuter planes from above. 

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Colorado Klutch said:

 

And this is one of the primary reasons modern corporations are so clueless. They try to run everything based on spreadsheets and metrics. The reality is there are many intangibles which simply don't show up in spreadsheets or metrics. Real leaders get out of the executive suite and walk the factory floor, to out to the actual stores or, in this case, board an actual ship. 

Have HAL executives ever been on a cruise that wasn't on a private superyacht? Have they visited any of the ships to see first hand how things run day to day? It sure seems like have not.

You can't run a massive corporation using a joystick on a desktop, but it seems many people try to do just that. 

Keep in mind that the cruise lines give very good rates to employees and their family members to cruise.  I have run into several individuals from Princess at the manager and director level on board ship with their families.  In most cases it was only after we had talked a few times that they would say that they worked for the cruise line, because it was their vacation time, not a work trip. Have not run into any on HAL, but then again I do 5-6 cruises on Princess for every cruise I do on HAL so the opportunity to run into folks is not as great.

Edited February 2, 2023 by ldtr

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, REOVA said:

Actually both Executives of HAL and CCL have sailed on the World Cruises (and their families). Of course it's like flying business class on a jumbo jet and watching the commuter planes from above. 

You best believe it’s a different experience than the unwashed.  I’ve heard how different things are when the executives are on board.  Why don’t they have business as usual?  One of the things I’m not crazy about at work is the offsite we have on a monthly basis.  They are very stressful as you must speak on subjects I know nothing about.  You work in teams of people you don’t know.  The good that comes from them is that the management has implemented suggestions that we all have come up with. They are not afraid to get in the trench with everyone for the greater good.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Florida_gal_50

[Colorado Klutch]

I am glad to hear HAL executives have actually done long cruises with their families. No doubt they had top-tier suites, but at least they have been there for the experience which is a HUGE help. 

 

I might be cluelessly optimistic here, but when I read the article, it appeared multiple positions previously oversaw multiple cruise lines. The new structure has people overseeing one specific cruise line. I see that as an improvement. It allows people to be focused on a specific brand without having to implement "one size fits all" processes and solutions. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Colorado Klutch

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Colorado Klutch said:

I am glad to hear HAL executives have actually done long cruises with their families. No doubt they had top-tier suites, but at least they have been there for the experience which is a HUGE help. 

 

I might be cluelessly optimistic here, but when I read the article, it appeared multiple positions previously oversaw multiple cruise lines. The new structure has people overseeing one specific cruise line. I see that as an improvement. It allows people to be focused on a specific brand without having to implement "one size fits all" processes and solutions. 

However none of the positions described have anything to do with the customer facing aspects to the cruise line such as entertainment, culinary or Hotel services.  The items mentioned are all back office stuff that deals with things like port selection, port operations, ship maintenance, etc.  The changes are more about span of control (i.e. the number of captains, ships and ports they had to deal with) than with changes that a customer actually sees.

[chengkp75]

29 minutes ago, ldtr said:

The changes are more about span of control (i.e. the number of captains, ships and ports they had to deal with) than with changes that a customer actually sees.

And, it made it sound like the head of the operations group was dealing with 35 ships directly.  This is a false assumption.  Each ship has a technical superintendent who deals with the engineering side of the ship, and usually two or three ships share a marine superintendent who deals with the nautical side of the ship, and these will report to a fleet manager, who then reports to the operations VP.  It is up to the VP to ensure that the management levels below him/her are capable of dealing with the ships or groups of ships that they manage, on a day to day, and even annual basis.  If these new "head of maritime" positions are doing much beyond setting fleetwide budgets, and setting fleetwide policies, then they are not organizing their work, or not utilizing their subordinates properly.  It sounds to me like the Group lost too many middle management during the pandemic, and are now devolving back to try to create another layer of management.

[Colorado Klutch]

43 minutes ago, ldtr said:

However none of the positions described have anything to do with the customer facing aspects to the cruise line such as entertainment, culinary or Hotel services.  The items mentioned are all back office stuff that deals with things like port selection, port operations, ship maintenance, etc.  The changes are more about span of control (i.e. the number of captains, ships and ports they had to deal with) than with changes that a customer actually sees.

 

While not customer facing, all those things have a big influence on the cruise experience. Nobody wants to cruise to lousy ports on a ship which is not well maintained. 
 

Recently I'm hearing large numbers of passengers aren't even bothering to get off the ship for Nassau. Sounds like cruise lines should start looking at other ports. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Colorado Klutch

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, Colorado Klutch said:

 

While not customer facing, all those things have a big influence on the cruise experience. Nobody wants to cruise to lousy ports on a ship which is not well maintained. 
 

Recently I'm hearing large numbers of passengers aren't even bothering to get off the ship for Nassau. Sounds like cruise lines should start looking at other ports. 

Some ports such as Nassau get stopped at because of location, distance, availability of other ports.  The changes HAL is making is not going to change that.  Same as Ensenada on the West coast.  Especially in the Caribbean where the total number of ships from all of the companies are pretty much saturating the available ports.  Even with all of the new private ports being constructed.

 

Also the complaints have not been about maintenance since restart. Food yes, entertainment yes, staffing yes, twice a day room service yes none of which are impacted in anyway by the changes.

 

Chengkp75 has probably nailed it with his description of the reasoning.

Edited February 2, 2023 by ldtr