Crows Nest closed from 4-9 every evening for private (park west) group - Oostradam

[ghstudio]

2 hours ago, Wehwalt said:

Our regrets that you seem so focused on this one thing. It's a great cruise. Everyone we speak to is having a wonderful time, and the main regret seems to be that everyone has to get off in Athens because of the charter. We'd stay longer if we could. 25 days is not enough.

I can multitask 🙂 we’ve been on since Ft. Lauderdale as well and we will continue our trip on land.  

[ghstudio]

Based on passenger feedback, the Park West group was moved to an interior bar…and the crows nest was open for the second half of the cruise.  Cudos for reacting to the complaints, but it’s not at all clear that this won’t happen again on a future HAL cruise…and what if this was a scenic cruise…Norway, chile, etc….and you were kept out of the crows nest..one of the prime viewing areas.

[oakridger]

15 minutes ago, ghstudio said:

Based on passenger feedback, the Park West group was moved to an interior bar

 

Excellent!  Thank you for reporting back.  I'm hopeful that HAL will not make the same mistake again by closing off important public areas to the general passengers for private use by a large group on board.  They appear to be listening to feedback regarding upping the food and entertainment, so this is another positive step for HAL management to make happy customers!  

 

~Nancy

[Mary229]

5 hours ago, ghstudio said:

Based on passenger feedback, the Park West group was moved to an interior bar…and the crows nest was open for the second half of the cruise.  Cudos for reacting to the complaints, but it’s not at all clear that this won’t happen again on a future HAL cruise…and what if this was a scenic cruise…Norway, chile, etc….and you were kept out of the crows nest..one of the prime viewing areas.

Delighted to hear this and thank you for your efforts 

[VMax1700]

5 hours ago, ghstudio said:

Based on passenger feedback, the Park West group was moved to an interior bar..

Power to the people!

[ontheweb]

36 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Power to the people!

At some point even the bean counters have to say, "whoa, did we make a big mistake?".

 

As I wrote in an earlier post in this thread, basically the same thing happened when NCL closed off the observation lounge on the Prima, also for Park West. And if HAL goes by the same precedent, they will not try to repeat this mistake on future cruises. Just like NCL, they will learn from their original mistake.

[ghstudio]

18 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

At some point even the bean counters have to say, "whoa, did we make a big mistake?".

 

As I wrote in an earlier post in this thread, basically the same thing happened when NCL closed off the observation lounge on the Prima, also for Park West. And if HAL goes by the same precedent, they will not try to repeat this mistake on future cruises. Just like NCL, they will learn from their original mistake.

I wish I could believe that you’re right.  I did cancel a booked cruise based on the experience…already replaced with a cruise on another cruise line while on this cruise. We have another Hal cruise fully paid in August so we’ll see how we feel after that cruise.  We have a couple of longer Hal cruises booked. That will still be cancellable.  To date, Hal has not even felt the need to apologize or provide any sort of compensation for the closing. 

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, ghstudio said:

I wish I could believe that you’re right.  I did cancel a booked cruise based on the experience…already replaced with a cruise on another cruise line while on this cruise. We have another Hal cruise fully paid in August so we’ll see how we feel after that cruise.  We have a couple of longer Hal cruises booked. That will still be cancellable.  To date, Hal has not even felt the need to apologize or provide any sort of compensation for the closing. 

👌 that I am right. All I can say is NCL did the right thing in a similar situation. OTOH, I understand that they also apologized. If HAL did not, that is not a good sign.

 

When cruisers react with their pocketbook instead of just threats, I think they will have to take notice.

[Mary229]

6 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

👌 that I am right. All I can say is NCL did the right thing in a similar situation. OTOH, I understand that they also apologized. If HAL did not, that is not a good sign.

 

When cruisers react with their pocketbook instead of just threats, I think they will have to take notice.

I don’t see the need to apologize nor compensate.  They made a business decision, saw that it was not optimal and chose to try it a different way. Businesses make choices but those choices are not failures they simply were not a good fit for the customer.  Ask Coca Cola about this.  (The New Coke fiasco)
 

Let’s be clear the Crow’s nest only seats 200 or so people.  I think it was a bad decision but it does not rise to the level of backed up sewage.  

[ontheweb]

2 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

I don’t see the need to apologize nor compensate.  They made a business decision, saw that it was not optimal and chose to try it a different way. Businesses make choices but those choices are not failures they simply were not a good fit for the customer.  Ask Coca Cola about this.  (The New Coke fiasco)
 

Let’s be clear the Crow’s nest only seats 200 or so people.  I think it was a bad decision but it does not rise to the level of backed up sewage.  

An apology costs them nothing. And it can make at least some of the people being apologized to feel better. They made a mistake, why not own up to it?

[ontheweb]

11 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

I don’t see the need to apologize nor compensate.  They made a business decision, saw that it was not optimal and chose to try it a different way. Businesses make choices but those choices are not failures they simply were not a good fit for the customer.  Ask Coca Cola about this.  (The New Coke fiasco)
 

Let’s be clear the Crow’s nest only seats 200 or so people.  I think it was a bad decision but it does not rise to the level of backed up sewage.  

Let me go even further with my analysis and say that it is something they need to apologize for even more than backed up sewage.

 

The did not intend for there to be backed up sewage. In fact it is probably due to one or more passengers flushing things down the toilet that they are expressly told not to flush down the toilet. OTOH, closing off an area important to passenger for the benefit of Park West was a conscious decision that they made. Apologize for it, which NCL did but it seems HAL did not, and then move on from it hopefully having learned your lesson.

[Mary229]

6 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Let me go even further with my analysis and say that it is something they need to apologize for even more than backed up sewage.

 

The did not intend for there to be backed up sewage. In fact it is probably due to one or more passengers flushing things down the toilet that they are expressly told not to flush down the toilet. OTOH, closing off an area important to passenger for the benefit of Park West was a conscious decision that they made. Apologize for it, which NCL did but it seems HAL did not, and then move on from it hopefully having learned your lesson.

That’s NCL.  I will not be convinced it was a mistake, it was simply a poor business decision.  The point of the complaint is to voice one’s opinion not to receive a judgement whether that judgement is verbal or monetary.  Ultimately businesses have a right to make their own decisions and your recourse is to buy from them or not.  This is not an actionable complaint. 

[Blackduck59]

While the idea of an "apology" seems straight forward enough, it has implications. The apology infers wrong doing as opposed to a poor business decision. There would be those who would take the apology as an invitation to demand compensation. I stated earlier that I would be demanding compensation for their very poor "business decision". Now they have changed that bad decision, I guess I would be placated but still unhappy.  I would definitely think twice about booking again though. A lame apology would make little difference. That being said for us itinerary is the top motivation and many of HAL's are not offered by other lines.

[dockman]

If you checked into a hotel and then found that a large group had blocked the pool and gym for their private use during your stay seems that at minimum you should be advised at time of booking that certain facilities would not be available so you can cancel or book elsewhere it you want. 

 

Did HAL advise at time of booking about crows nest being closed?  If not, then they need to do better as not fair to buy a "six pack of beer" then get home to find two beers missing.

[Mary229]

4 hours ago, dockman said:

If you checked into a hotel and then found that a large group had blocked the pool and gym for their private use during your stay seems that at minimum you should be advised at time of booking that certain facilities would not be available so you can cancel or book elsewhere it you want. 

 

Did HAL advise at time of booking about crows nest being closed?  If not, then they need to do better as not fair to buy a "six pack of beer" then get home to find two beers missing.

In this case the pool is not being blocked for the duration of your stay.  Reread the thread.  Of course if this would cause you to not want to cruise/stay then you can vote with your wallet.  I do believe people should be outspoken when there is a change they disagree with and they should try to enlist other customers to make those statements also - as was does in this thread. On the other hand expecting compensation for every eventuality is unrealistic.  If it bothers people so much then yes, they should not use the product, cruise, hotel.  But it is hardly actionable requiring compensation 

[dockman]

3 hours ago, Mary229 said:

In this case the pool is not being blocked for the duration of your stay.  Reread the thread.  Of course if this would cause you to not want to cruise/stay then you can vote with your wallet.  I do believe people should be outspoken when there is a change they disagree with and they should try to enlist other customers to make those statements also - as was does in this thread. On the other hand expecting compensation for every eventuality is unrealistic.  If it bothers people so much then yes, they should not use the product, cruise, hotel.  But it is hardly actionable requiring compensation 

Don't need to "reread"....all i said was customers should be notified at time of booking so they can decide then if acceptable or not and only when given prior knowledge can they vote with their wallet.  Hard to vote with your wallet if you are not made aware of changes prior to giving them your money.  Never said anything re compensation.  Prior notice is/was the point of my post and if prior notice was given then no reason to try to enlist customers to complain as you simply do not buy the product being offered.

[Wehwalt]

Catching up a bit. As we discussed earlier, the Crow's Nest was to be closed six of the eleven nights. So what did it wind up being? I'm gathering five? Sorry, but we generally only went up there for coffee in the morning. We'd happily take any compensation that's going around to defray our bill of fifty-eight cents, but, like Mary229, don't see why it would be necessary.

[Real NHDOC]

We've been on cruises where things didn't go according to plan and even though it wasn't the cruise line's fault they still apologized and made some token offer to make things right.  We've missed ports because of weather and been given a free "happy hour" to ease the disappointment.  We've had issues with people in neighboring cabins that have caused disruption of our enjoyment and were upgraded to a better cabin even though we just asked to be moved.  In one case we received FCC for changes to the itinerary caused by Covid issues at South Pacific islands that caused us to miss those ports even though we didn't ask for it and certainly it was outside of the cruise line's control.  Being in the hospitality business sometimes means being accommodating even if you, as host, wasn't the cause of the guest's disappointment.  Apologizing isn't an admission of guilt, it's just recognizing that for whatever reason the guest was disappointed with a particular experience. 

 

In this case a business decision was made to trade the use of a ship's space for a small group over all of the other guests who paid for the use of that amenity.  Certainly HAL has been in this business long enough to know that it would upset at least a few guests who prefer to spend time in that space instead of other spaces on the ship and expected it would be available to them.  Or for people who might want a specialty coffee in the evening but were told the explorations cafe was unavailable.  It would seem that, at the very least, acknowledgement of the guests' disappointment with a token apology, along with something like a tray of chocolate covered strawberries, or a bottle of wine sent to the guest cabin would go a long way to making things right.  People on this board tend to belittle the experiences of others with the equivalent of "suck it up" when they didn't suffer any inconvenience or disappointment because they aren't even on this cruise or if the loss of use of the space didn't matter to them.  What's important to one person may not be important to another but it doesn't mean you can't sympathize with them, at least a little.  

Edited Tuesday at 11:18 AM by Real NHDOC

[poffles]

On 4/23/2024 at 4:32 PM, Haljo1935 said:

This should read "coffee" lovers; too late to edit.

 

Closing off the only place to get paid coffee is a problem. 

 

As I read this thread, this is what speaks the loudest to me.  It seems to not just be impacting an area but impacting a service.  I have not sailed HAL yet but looking at one in my future and I was already trying to convince myself that the Signature class ship with the specialty coffee venue being in this area (unlike what I see for the Pinnacle class) would be totally fine.  Reading stuff like this is a bit off putting.  I am looking at a Panama full transit so I ease my mind that it might be less likely on the longer cruise.

[Mary229]

11 minutes ago, poffles said:

 

As I read this thread, this is what speaks the loudest to me.  It seems to not just be impacting an area but impacting a service.  I have not sailed HAL yet but looking at one in my future and I was already trying to convince myself that the Signature class ship with the specialty coffee venue being in this area (unlike what I see for the Pinnacle class) would be totally fine.  Reading stuff like this is a bit off putting.  I am looking at a Panama full transit so I ease my mind that it might be less likely on the longer cruise.

Actually you can also get coffee in the library on the Oosterdam.

 

as to belittling everyone that simply is not true.  Having to be compensated for every small miss is a bit entitled (to use the modern vernacular).  Customers should note the response time, it was quick. It did not drag on.  
 

Private groups using public spaces happens on every single sailing, this one just happened to be in a space that HAL specific cruisers particularly love,  please remember this was an evening event when the crow’s nest usage is light.  

Edited Tuesday at 11:43 AM by Mary229

[Wehwalt]

We got a plate of chocolate covered strawberries. But we had considerable plumbing problems, which affected us specifically. That may be different than the situation complained of regarding the Crow's Nest

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:28 PM by Wehwalt

[Mary229]

24 minutes ago, Wehwalt said:

We got a plate of chocolate covered strawberries. But we had considerable plumbing problems, which affected us specifically. That may be different than the situation complained of regarding the Crow's Nest

 

That is different and I think there should be compensation if one is driven from the cabin which is an integral part of the contract.  

[Wehwalt]

2 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

That is different and I think there should be compensation if one is driven from the cabin which is an integral part of the contract.  

Fortunately, we were not driven out. It may not be good to be near the end of the end of the hall on an older ship that seems to have trouble maintaining the vacuum for the toilets, but sooner or later we heard that woosh. 

[Real NHDOC]

2 hours ago, Mary229 said:

as to belittling everyone that simply is not true.  Having to be compensated for every small miss is a bit entitled (to use the modern vernacular).  Customers should note the response time, it was quick. It did not drag on. 

Again, this is your perception of things...from what I read it was only after 5 days of use (out of the first 6 days) of the Crow's Nest did HAL relocate the special events - not exactly what I would call quick.  Guests do like to use the area in the evenings for playing card, puzzles, etc and had an expectation that it would be available. 

 

Does it ruin the cruise?, no, but it is still disappointing to people to find out that a venue was sold out from under them so that Park West could use it to sell art - and clearly they found another space (a bar) that they could hold the events in that would have less of an impact on the guests than commandeering the crow's nest did.  An apology and a gesture to make it right isn't from a sense of entitlement - it's simply doing the right thing.

 

I  guess we can all agree to disagree about this but as for HAL, they should always err on the side of making things right because goodwill is hard to get back once it is lost.

Edited Tuesday at 01:36 PM by Real NHDOC

[Wehwalt]

4 minutes ago, Real NHDOC said:

Again, this is your perception of things...from what I read it was only after 5 days of use (out of the first 6 days) of the Crow's Nest did HAL relocate the special events - not exactly what I would call quick.  Guests do like to use the area in the evenings for playing card, puzzles, etc and had an expectation that it would be available. 

 

I'm still not clear on the exact sequence of events. On April 23, I went through the Navigator and found that it stated the Crow's Nest would be closed on four nights, the last of which was the 26th. Another individual stated that it had already closed two additional nights, which makes six. When the paper daily program for the 26th came out, there was no mention of a closure (which was supposed to be 4 to 8:30). So I'm guessing five took place. But at least from what I could tell, there were never any more scheduled except for the shortened one on the 26th.