Maasdam Review: 1/2-1/9/09 7-night Eastern Caribbean

[ViolaSwamp]

Let me preface this review with a disclaimer that I will periodically compare this cruise’s experience with our prior trips on RCCL ships in 2003 and 2006. Those ships may have changed for the better or worse since we sailed on them, but they are the only other cruise experiences we have to compare at the moment.

Thursday January 1

Said goodbye to our kiddos and left home around noon for the 2.5 hour trek to the airport in Manchester, NH. Boarded our flight to Philadelphia, had a 2.5 hour layover there, then finally flew down to FLL. Uneventful flights – on Southwest. Arrived in FLL and collected luggage by 11:45pm.

Grabbed a taxi and went to the WORST. MOTEL. EVER. Motel 6. Will be doing a VERY negative review on Trip Advisor shortly. Seriously – sleep in a cardboard box outside the airport rather than staying at this place. You’ll probably feel safer and sleep better.

ANYWAY

After a night of very restless sleep we set off to Port Everglades. Had the cab driver bring us to a plaza with a wine store and a Winn Dixie to pick up a few last minute items (champagne, toothpaste, nail polish remover).

Then to the pier: EASY embarkation, maybe 10 minutes of wait before we boarded the lovely MS Maasdam. It took a while for all of our luggage to be delivered to our room, but it eventually made it there okay.

Pretty much immediately upon embarkation, my husband was approached by a steward selling beverage cards – we bought two right off (we ended up using three all week, and several other drink purchases).

We went to the Lido right away – YES there are trays. Food was okay, and I liked that they had sushi. Wasabi was VERY GOOD and VERY HOT!!

Neither of us was super impressed with the buffet for any of the meals. We preferred the Windjammer on RCCL much better. BUT we like the dining room on HAL MUCH better than the dining room on RCCL.

We had AYWD and really enjoyed the flexibility it offered. We ate in the Rotterdam all but one night (the evening we were docked in San Juan – that night we just hopped aboard and grabbed a bite at the Lido and ran right back off into the city). Most of the people we sat with were interesting. We also NEVER had to wait, probably because we didn’t care if we were sat at a table for 2 or 10. Only one night was the service poor, the first formal night, when we waited 30 minutes after our meal for our plates to be removed and the dessert menu given to us. The food also seemed to get progressively better as the cruise went on. The first few nights in the dining room, I didn’t finish many of the dishes as they were kind of “blah”. Toward the end of the trip the food seemed much tastier.

The first sea day, we pretty much putzed around the ship getting to know where everything was. VERY easy ship to find things on, and our cabin C369 (which was an upgrade – thanks HAL!!) was in a primo location on the Lower Promenade deck. Three doors down from our own private balcony we called it! LOL The only complaint about this cabin is that you can see inside it at night. Which we didn’t realize until about three days in. So we unwittingly provided entertainment for anyone strolling by…

AMAZING bed. SO comfortable, like heaven!! FAR superior to RCCL in comfort and size, of the bed and the cabin itself. The bathroom was spacious and loved the tub setup much better than the RCCL shower stalls. The only problems with our cabin was when we arrived there was mold in our toilet! ???? Blecch. We complained to the front desk and it wasn’t a problem after the first day. Also, it took a few days and several requests for our steward to keep refilling our ice bucket to chill our champagne. After a few days he did it automatically and wasn’t an issue.

We had no problems with the heat or AC in our cabin as several other past Maasdam guests have complained.

There was a CC Meet and Greet the afternoon in the Crow’s Nest on the first sea day – HAL didn’t provide anything by way of treats, which was slightly disappointing. It was nice meeting some fellow CC’ers though. Thanks for organizing this, Diver Dan!

This was the first formal night and let me say that pretty much everyone (including us) were dressed appropriately. Men in suits, women in dresses. Anyone not dressed up pretty much stayed out of the public areas – except for a few ruffians I noticed in the casino.

Before I forget to mention this, on the second formal night I actually witnessed the Maitre D’ refusing entrance to the Rotterdam to a fellow who wasn’t wearing a suit jacket. I think they tried to find one he could borrow – not sure if they succeeded, this was a pretty big guy…

We bought one of our picture sheets, from the first formal night. $39.95 – highway robbery!! This wasn’t even a formal portrait session, just a regular picture. But oh well, my husband wanted a picture of us all dollied up, so we had to get it…

Entertainment… there was a John Denver tribute, by Jim and Ann Curry, and we LOVED it. FANTASTIC show. There was also a “tribute to the divas” by a lady named Alfreda Gerald, which was also good. They had a comedian who wasn’t particularly funny. I must say that the shows by the Maasdam Singers and Dancers were AWFUL. I walked out of two of their shows because I couldn’t stomach their lack of synchronicity any longer, and their poor vocals. It was unfortunate because the costumes were great and the Rembrandt was a beautiful lounge. The onboard shows is one area where RCCL FAR excelled – their shows were fantastic. The ones on our ship, sadly I’ve seen far more precise execution of programs at our local high school drama department. I don’t know if they were new to working together or what, but it was very, very poor. For me to walk out of two shows… that says a lot about how poor they were. Oh, also, the Indonesian Crew Show, we left that one too, five minutes into the second interpretive dance routine which I’m sure was very nice, but it bored us sitting and watching one woman dance around the stage to music. Maybe it got more interesting or lively after that, we don’t know.

By far our favorite nighttime entertainment was the fabulous Heather in the Piano Bar!! LOVED her. There was a small group of us who went there every evening. She is a fantastic entertainer. Also, the bartender Rey was wonderful. One night we were on the winning “Name That Tune” team and won a pair of HAL luggage tags. Yay!

I played BINGO one day and didn’t win. We also paid our fair share of money to the casino over the course of the week with nothing to show for it.

I did the Walk for the Cure, not very many other participants though. I appreciated that HAL offers this opportunity to participate in such a great cause.

I smoke (courteously) and noticed that there were very few other smokers on board. Everyone seemed to smoke courteously. Our cabin didn’t smell like smoke at all upon arrival (nor when we left – I always went outside).

There were a TON of young families on board! The children all seemed to behave marvelously. I only noticed one instance of an unruly child, but this is more the parent than anything else. I was standing at the taco bar, with a woman at my left. Her daughter (maybe 5-6 years old) was across the bar. The girl grabbed a taco shell with her hands, smelled/licked it (!!!) and put it back on the bar. The woman saw the whole thing and said nothing. (!!!) I said to her, “maybe you didn’t see this, but your daughter just picked up that shell and put it back”. She said “oh” and turned around and walked away. (!!!) Did NOTHING about the taco shell and said NOTHING to her daughter. (!!!) I was flabbergasted. Another lady walked up, took the shell and disposed of it and we commiserated about the behavior of the mother. Unbelievable.

I did notice several VERY RUDE older people. Barking orders to staff and so forth. I always apologized to the staff when I saw this behavior and made a point to thank them for doing a great job despite the attitude of those few schmucks.

Speaking of thanking the staff, I liked having the $11 per person service charge added, this way I felt comfortable that we were tipping appropriately and not too little (or too much?). We also did tip the few times we ordered room service.

One morning, I think when in port at Saint Thomas, maybe?, there was an electrical fire on one of the below decks. It was announced and that area was evacuated, and the fire was contained very quickly. We were impressed.

For the last half of the journey we were a “sick ship” which really drained crew resources and was a general PITA for everyone. I heard that 14 people were sick but I don’t know if that is true or not.

Ports of call were great, we got sunburned on the beautiful beach at Grand Turk. We wish we had more time there – only 7am-1pm. Water was warm, warm enough to swim. Even for me, who is always cold! San Juan was very fun, loved the old fort and the Coach store where I just HAD to buy two new handbags… yay! Also found a lovely little hole in the wall local place that made the BEST pina coladas ever… Saint Thomas was BEAUTIFUL, we bought new wedding bands and went on a tour with a local guide (not through the cruise line) for $25 per person and it was wonderful. The beaches were glorious, with super warm water. Half Moon Cay was really nice, even though it rained (poured!) half the time we were there! We were definitely glad we had a clamshell to keep us sort of dry. The BBQ was nice. We bought pina coladas in a souvenir water bottle, for $9ish, that was a very good deal we thought.

 

We disembarked early and carried our own luggage off. Very easy, quick and painless! Then to FLL for our flight from FLL to Manchester, we were stuck on the runway at FLL for an hour because only one of their runways was open… annoying but not Southwest’s fault. Uneventful drive home after that.

In all we really enjoyed this trip and wouldn’t hesitate to sail on HAL again. Certain things we liked better on RCCL, certain things were better on HAL, and we were very happy with our experience on the beautiful Maasdam.

I’d be happy to answer any specific questions if anyone has them.

[LadyFurn]

Loved your review! Thanks for making up for those rude people on your cruise.. I think it is awful when people yell at the staff. We had a man that was yelling so loud in the Neptune Lounge you could hear him outside in the hallway on our last cruise! That is absolutely uncalled for! I also loved your description of the Motel 6 ! :rolleyes: Cindy

[sail7seas]

Great review. So happy you enjoyed your cruise on the very beautiful Maasdam. She's a great ship with an awesome crew, isn't she? :)

 

[aliaschief]

Thank you for the great review. Makes it even harder waiting for our May repositioning cruise on the MS Maasdam. Did any of the crew mention about some of the work that would be done on the scheduled week of "dry or wet dock" later this month?

[twinkletoes4445]

I really enjoyed your review! :)

[RuthC]

I enjoyed reading your review.

And thank you so much for the extensive report on the entertainment---especially mentioning the names of the entertainers. That is so helpful to know if/when I run into any of them on one of my cruises.

[ViolaSwamp]

Thanks folks!

 

Yes, the Maasdam was really nice. We miss her already!

 

I didn't hear anything about the upcoming docking/update... maybe I should have asked! :o

[Sleepladypalmdesert]

Thank you so much...I have become hooked on these reviews. I have a list in my head of ships I want to try next. These reviews help me to keep them all straight.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for your review.

We were also able to see the John Denver Salute with Jim and Ann Curry a couple of years and really loved it.

I have noticed and posted about how expensive the pictures have gotten since the new company took over.

Glad you had a wonderul cruise.

[markcruising]

And will be posting a trip report and overall review shortly. Points that I wanted to make

 

 

The ship looks great since the last time I sailed in her in 2005.

 

The complete redo of Lido and the library is fantastic! The public rooms looked amazingly handsome. This ship does not show her age!

 

The Pinnacle Dining room, for $20 a person was two of the better meals I've eaten . Who knew Lobster Macaroni and Cheese could be so awesome!

 

The expanded room service menu was awesome and the meals you could get before 10:00PM as well as the 24 hour room menu was wonderfully expanded. Also a full breakfast delivered to your cabin (not just coffee and danishes as in my last 2005 trip)- now you can order really great eggs , omelets, and side dishes. You could have a full breakfast delivered to your room every day. What a luxury- if only they had looked a bit harder at the food quality it would have been perfect. That said the food quality in room service was actually better then the lido food.

 

The service is still fantastic on board- the people are nice, friendly, and helpful, and for the most part people greeted you like friends. They had an outbreak of gastro illness on board and they handled it wonderfully. They really did everything possible to prevent its spread and while being nice they were also assertive in getting people to sanitize in dining areas and while entering ship stores, and when re-entering the ship from port, and also went to having every piece of food hand served. If you wanted salt you had to ask for it. Each and every food item on the lido or any buffet had to be hand served and everybody pitched in from the cruise director serving dessert to the dancers serving veal and veggies.

 

You could not touch snacks or bottles of liquor in the duty free ships without a plastic glove on and same for the library. Bravo!!! Who knows how many people got saved from a ruined few days because of their aggressive handling of this.

 

They had an emergency in St Thomas where a fire detector went off and it was responded to quickly and professionally. It was an electrical short in the phone system and they went to full alert and then quickly and professionally identified the problem and notified us.

 

There were some problems however .

 

First, I just want to make a blanket statement that although I know times are tough, the overall quality of the food has made a noticeably sharp downturn, in my opinion. I am shocked to say that as far as dinners went, the 7 day ship that I took on the Carnival Valor last year had better entrees and better quality food than the Hal premium experience on this cruise. More on that later.

 

We did have air conditioner problems. Knowing that the ship had issues, knowing that this was the first cruise I have ever gotten my fiancee on, and knowing that she did not deal with heat well I did everything possible to get assured of a suite that had working thermostat (including taking myself off of a guaranteed balcony cabin and offering to pay for a cabin assignment). I got emailed reassurances that my cabin (149) was in full working order. and I even printed those emails off and took them with me on this ship so if there was a problem I could show them the email assurances. The fact that it was a holiday cruise of course meant that there were no other cabins that we could be moved to, and we actually offered to trade an inside no v window no balcony cabin for a working thermostat and no dice.

 

We had a veranda suite and the air was either arctic or off and there was no in between even though I called and emailed and got written confirmation that our cabin had working air when we got to the room the thermostat was set at max heat and there was no air. when we turned the thermostat back to full air we got no air. The staff told us when the ship closed up and started moving the air would flow and it did not. They sent someone in and he did open the air but there was no control. The air was either full on or full off (which we had no control over at all), and full on was very, very cold. My wife is a Canadian and she was sleeping in thermal underwear and a sweatshirt while I slept on the balcony. After having the engineers come in an look at it twice, they waved a very cool looking laser thingy by the vent and told me the air coming out was 62 degrees and further informed us that 62 degrees is not too cold to sleep in. I'm sorry but I guess I have thin blood, and I slept on the balcony for my honeymoon.

 

 

Again, I'm not the only one- I met people from cabin 831 who had the same problems, as well as a few other people who did. I tried duct-taping the vent to only leave part of it open in hopes of moderating the air flow but at night it was just too darn cold to sleep.

 

Eventually we chose to have the air on and arctic after the engineer finally just said he could have it on or off. HAL offered to supply us with a fan but they could not actually get us one because they were all in use. We wanted to keep the balcony door open at night to get air into the cabin and for safety reasons that do make sense we were unable to do that. This was frustrating not because there was a problem but because I knew this was a problem and went out of my way to avoid it by both paying extra, and to make sure by contacting the ships rep in Seattle as well as several emails I have from different departments telling me that they asked and were told that my cabin had working air. I have the emails and that is upsetting

 

 

This cruise ended with my 126th sailing day with Holland America and my 5th Maasdam cruise and boy, has their food quality gone down. I like that they serve all the same dishes on the Lido deck for casual dinner that they do in the Dining room but doing it, and doing it right are different. The food quality really bottomed out. I know times are hard but I noticed that there were some dishes that were good but many lido dishes did not at all meet up with HAL standards. We actually get much better food at the neighbourhood roadhouse than we did on the ship, and seeing as my fiancee is very keen on food that was extremely disappointing. I also saw much less of the floral arraignments that HAL is so famous for on their ships and that made sense when trying to save money. It used to be that you would all around that ship and see several very hard to grow varieties of Orchards and other flowers.

 

 

My issue was this. I needed to have actual documentation sent to me before the cruise, because I just became a Canadian resident a few weeks before the trip, I had not yet recived my offical permenent resident card in the mail and so to re emter the country I needed real docs and not pier pick up or Internet docs.

 

They sent it twice to the wrong address, and then a third time where they lost the tracking number and then just did not want to send docs again. This ended with me having to recover the docs sent to the wrong address in the wrong country (at a cost of $100.00) and having to take two days to travel to the Canadian embassy in Buffalo to get a document that if I had received any of the three sets of docs they sent to the wrong addresses or lost I could have done so through the mail. This really turned the pre-cruise experience, which is something that we all enjoy- the counting down of days until our wonderful experience, into a work experience trying to find tracking numbers and arguing with HAL through my travel agent, and worrying about whether or not I'm going to have to take a last minute trip to the States to get a proper visa or possibly get deported due to not having proper documentation. They were nice enough to give me an onboard credit for the $100, but it took a great deal of work to actually get the credit to the ship and have it applied (the docs arrived at my house the day after I got back from my trip to the states for the Travel Document).

 

I took their air and took a pre- hotel and transfers. The original air that we paid $700 per person for was two connections leaving Toronto at 9:00 am and getting to FLL at 10:00PM. I wanted to have their air and actually paid more then what travelocity was selling it for on a direct flight because I wanted their protection if we had a delay. We also paid for a hotel package for the day prior in case of flight delays.

 

So I paid another Deviation fee to get sent to Miami on a direct and we got in at about 2:00.

 

The Westin is lovely- someone should have told us it was non-smoking however. We asked for and were told that we were confirmed in a smoking room at the Westin. I have a feeling this is my travel agent's fault and not HAL's but it kind of worked out . I paid $30 for an upgrade to a suite with a balcony and it was totally worth it. The room was great!

 

 

It started getting sticky when the HAL rep didn't show up when she was supposed to on the day of our arrival and instead showed up on the day of our boarding. The night before we got a letter from HAL telling us to have our luggage set out and ready to be taken by noon- OK, no problem. However, the next day I had a question to ask the rep and when I did it turned out that all she knew was that there was a sixty four day cruise leaving on the Prisindam, and that's where all ofthe luggage was going. She had no knowledge of anyone from the Maasdam being there nor any knowledge about providing transfers. It turns out that there were eight couples who were traveling on the Maasdam in the hotel, and as opposed to trying to work it out I was told that someone would reimburse me in cash for the cab ride when I got to the ship. This is not even my hundredth sailing on a cruise ship- if I really did the math I've mostly taken 4 or five cruises a year for 26 years. When I was a travel agent I had some years that were more and when I was newly married I had some years that were less but it evens out. I have some knowledge about how things work here and I know someone telling me that they will reimburse me in cash if I take a cab is a blow-off. Thats not the way things work. .

 

And what I know is that there is no way that someone on the ship or the pier at HAL is going to repay me cash for cab fare. I would have been lucky to get a credit for a future cruise. I felt like I was being blown off. I then called the cruse lines up, and they did confirm that no one would be giving us cash back for taking our own transportation, but other then that they told me I would have to speak with my travel agent. I'm in the hotel that they arranged for me on their pre package that we bought, we are on site and in my mind we have now passed from my agent's sphere into theirs and I felt really crappy that they were passing the buck. It is my vacation and should have started the second I met the HAL rep at the FLL on my inbound flight, and that's the last time I should have had to worry or stress- and there I am an hour away from needing to be on the ship and they refuse to discuss anything with me. The only thing that I know is to have my wife stand guard against the luggae so that it did not get sent to the Prisindam for a sixty day cruise around south America! The rep (who kept calling the Prisindam the Pritzendam) also wanted nothing else to do with me. On the phone with HAL I ask "That's it- you're just going to leave me here and not talk with me? My travel agent is in California and I'm here with you now ". I asked them how if they gave me a hotel could they not give me a transfer?

 

At this point it's not as much the forty dollar cab ride but the lie about getting a cash reimbursement and then the blow-off of taking care of me.

 

Meanwhile, the HAL rep is taking all the other Maasdam luggage in the buses with the Prisendam passengers and because at this point no one else sailing on the Maasdam at that hotel knows there was a problem no one is saying anything and so I started seeing tags for the Maasdam going in the transfer bus to the Prisindam and knowing that there were Maasdam passengers at that hotel I could not believe that they wouldn't at least say "Let's not send luggage that has tags for a ship we are not going too, to that ship." Sending Maasdam tagged luggage it to the Prisindam where it was going to possibly leave on a 64 day South American cruise is asking for inconvenience of a big way- now if they had wanted to take me on the 64 day South American cruise and send my luggage to the Maasdam I would have happily made do!

 

Finally I call in desperation to HAL and ask them if they really going to just leave me at the hotel after I've bought transfers and I have with me my statement showing that I have purchased transfers both ways and that they are insisting I go through my travel agent (who is in the West Coast on West Coast time), and who will be at her desk at the earliest noon EST, while there are other people here who are having their luggage sent to a ship they were not sailing on, and then finally someone decided perhaps they should look into it. I finish by saying to HAL on the phone "I'm sitting here as we are speaking and I am right now watching your rep putting Maasdam tagged luggage onto the Prisindam bound bus and you're saying that not going to do anything...is that what you are saying to me?"

 

That must have finally broken through - they started being responsive .

They faxed me at the hotel a statement saying that I was due a transfer, which I brought to the HAL rep who still told me she had nothing she could do to help me and then as I was with her, the phone rang with orders to transfer any Maasdam passengers to their ships and to make sure that the luggage gets sorted out. She apologized and shortly afterward we had a bus and the separated the luggage and were on our way. I was really hoping now that my vacation was started.

 

Boarding was a pleasure because since we got there late we simply checked in and walked onto the ship. The ship looked great. I had pre-paid my gratuities and ordered the 20 drink soda card, the 20 drink wine card (which is not on the gift order form anymore but is still available). I had been sent a gift of $180.00 in Casino chips , a plate of hot appetizers and pre-ordered a bottle of wine, and I had all the credits including the fuel credits and the credits given to me on from HAL for the documentation issue which totalled about another $125.

 

Some of the gifts make it ito my stateroom and some don't, so after the ship sails I go to the front desk and try and deal with making sure the credits actually find there way to my record and that the gifts I had bought for my own honeymoon are actually on my account and right away I'm told that they were not received on the ship.

 

The person at the desk could not find any of the credits aside from the prepaid gratuities and the wine and soda card. And she told me that I would have to either call from the ship to HAL ( is it still $16.00 a minute?)or deal with it after the cruise. I had the paid receipts as well as the names and number of who I ordered the gifts from, and I also had the gifts that people specifically sent me this document so that if this occurred that I would have some documentation to that effect. What was upsetting me was how fast they were to just try and not deal with it-if they could not find it in the first check they looked no further.

 

This had more importance because I chose not to register a credit card since mine is actually a debit card that has my cash reserve money in it and they recommend in writing and in person during the boarding process when discussing the deposit on boarding that they do not recommend using a debit card for the deposit, because while they can get any unused finds back onto a credit card in 48 hours it can take at least 30 days if not more to get unused funds back on a debit card that has a Visa or Mastercard logo on it.

 

HAL wants $60 per person per day as a deposit for the on board account and I don't have much more then that in ready funds. I can do it if I have to but I had thought I had set it up that I would not have to, and it would represent an inconvenience in that I would have had to dip into emergency money.

 

I thought and was told that I was correctly by HAL befor the trip that by prepaying the gratuities and buying the casino chips along with all the on board credits that I would be pretty close to that $800 that they wanted from me and we could go from there.

 

I don't really spend much on board- my average cost for a 7 day cruise in on board spending is about $300 (not including whatever I buy in the duty free shops), which means that if they take the full $800 deposit off my debit card then there would be about $500 that I would not see for a month or more.

 

Finally after speaking to a supervisor they actually located all of the credits and everything else. They tell me that with everything I have $620 in on board credit . They then ask me for $800 deposit to cover our on board expenses and again I'm thrown into a logic suck hole that needs to be worked out. I just want my vacation to begin already and I want to stop dealing with this stuff but alas.

 

I explain that to my knowledge part of that deposit was to cover the gratuities. They agree and so I ask them that at the very least if I've prepaid my gratuities then why can't that at least be applied to the deposit amount. After much discussion it is decided that can happen. I also say that since I have all the shipboard credits why can't I use those and since they add up to $680 and if they wanted $800 from me why could I not just give them them $120 in cash, bringing my onbord account to the $800 they want and if my spending got near there and they felt they needed more money on my account they could ask me for it and then I would be happy to oblige, but if I have over $600 in shipboard credits why cannot those finds be applied to my overall deposit.

 

We argue back and forth on that for awhile where I again produce confirmation letters saying I could do this. The chief purser gets involved and they agree.

 

Except I'm finding that anytime I try and make a purchase over say the cost of two drinks that my card is being shut off as needing a credit card deposit after two more trips to the pursers office finally get that done and then finally my vacation starts other then the air issues etc., and then there's one final thing which we found disconcerting, and I'll tell you why. When you have triplets who are 13 years old, special needs or not, finding time to be alone and child-free, specifically when it comes to naps and while on your honeymoon, opportunities for intimacy are a value to us like other people value diamonds or gold. On the third or fourth day of our cruise we found an envelope on our door notifying us that they wished to conduct some maintenance in the bathroom of our cabin. However, as opposed to saying we will start this maintenance at 3 o'clock, and work for about 45 minutes, we were given a window, much like you get when you're waiting for your cable to be installed. They would be there any time between 11 am and 4 pm, and although we did not need to be in or out of our cabin for the maintenance to take place, I tried to explain that if they could give us a more finite time it would be much easier, and this they were unable to do.

 

I don't have any vouchers for a transfer to the airport from the port and since I bought my flights from HAL and since HAL put me on a very early flight (around 11:00 Am with a boarding time of 10:15 AM and since for an international flight Air Canada suggests that you check in at least 2 and a half hours early) I wanted to know if they were sure they had me covered to get me off the ship and to the airport in time to check in and make the flight. Since my fiancee and I also have triplets who all have special needs, getting coverage for all this time has been a super heroic effort.

 

Their dad can take them for some of the time and we have good friends who our kids like who can take them the rest but we really do need to be home on the ninth and we don't want a delay. And we further know that there are very limited direct flights that day and again, they have nothing in their system showing that I should have a voucher, and it should have been included in the docs. My Fiancee I might add did get her docs on time weeks and weeks before the cruise, and as I said I eventually did get a set of the docs that went to the wrong address in the wrong country. Those contained no vouchers, and while it says I am due a transfer there is no voucher and my question is basically do I need the voucher or do you just have my name on a list. They insist that I do actually need a voucher and cannot understand why there is not one, and once again I have to produce the documentation. Eventually they give us a voucher, and then when we board the bus to transfer us back to the airport the driver says that he doesn't need to see it. AHHH!

 

So here's my overall vibe on this. The ship was great , it looked great, and the people were overall very nice. Having our cabin being an arctic tundra especially since we live in Canada sucks but I really try not to get too caught up in things that I have no control over. I did everything I could to get a properly working cabin and when that did not happen we processed it and went on with our vacation, but there are two things. My fiancee and future wife has always thought that she would hate cruising, and it took me four years to save up and then get her to agree to go on one. I thought for sure that by choosing HAL that I would have no worries and she would have the best service and least problems, and we ended up being tense for the entire time. I really only got that relaxed carefree feeling that I usually have after waking up the day after boarding . My fiancee enjoyed the experience, and since cruising is what I like to do for vacations when I'm not working I was really hoping that HAL would do their magic and convert her into a cruise nut like me (and most of you), and in the end with the complications she ended up feeling like it was better then she thought it would be but not as good as I made it out to be and not something she wants to do on a regular basis. That really hurts me.

 

The ship was lovely, the facilities (other then our cabin temperature) were great, the islands were nice, the weather good (although going to Grand Turk on Sunday is sort of like having a port that is just the cruise center and the beach ). Nothing is open in Cockburn town at all until afternoon and the call is very short, so most everyone except a few brave souls went to the beach at the cruise center and drank and ate at Margaritaville which was nice but .. not a real port call. More like a private island call with food you have to pay for. Other than that we had a good time- loved the Pinnacle restaurant, loved open dining, loved lido dining even though the food quality was so low. We had a good time, but overall this one was sort of a dud, which is ok with me since I've taken a so many cruises I realize than an occasional dud happens, but I really did not want this one to be a dud. We had a great time in San Juan and in St Thomas, and loved sitting on the balcony, so I'm not going to say the ship was less than great and like I said in my opening paragraph the service was overall wonderful, but I worked too hard during the cruise to kept us stress free.