Panraven - HAL

[taxmantoo]

Have never cruised on HAL before but are going in April on the Eurodam and just found this web link...

 

http://www.panraven.com/hal/

 

It already contains your itinerary, daily summaries, background text and professional photos.

 

Has anyone ever used their services before? Any comments?

[Just4You]

We recently sailed Zaandam with HAL in April to Hawaii 15 days and had a wonderful time. The only sore point was the photo gallery, and later Panraven website. We purchased the Signature Plus photo album, which is a photo album that you can add your own pictures on the panraven website to create a memorable 100-page photo album. We were supposed to get 5 free Gallery Photos to include in the album, 100 pages total to the album, a leather bound album with dust jacket, all for around $255. The price included 4 Formal pics, 4 Fun pics (but these weren't included in the album that you have to finish online). We paid this amount up front. The photographer really ripped us off. Not only did we pay $255 for the album, we also paid around $270 after we picked out our 4 "free" Formal, 4 "free" Fun and the 5 Gallery Photos the last day of our cruise. The photographer made us sign a receipt but told us, "Don't worry, it will all balance out in the end." Well, it didn't, and we were charged extra. There is ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT FROM PANRAVEN, whatsoever. The telephone number listed on the web is no longer in service. In fact, after spending 2 weeks finishing up our photo album on line, now we are asked to pay by credit card an additional $219.15!!!!! I am having to go to the Better Business Bureau and trying to fight it out with Holland America Line. In the meantime, I wasted 2 weeks trying to put together, what I thought, would be a memorable photo album of our otherwise perfect vacation.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY OR YOUR TIME WITH THE PHOTO GALLERY ON HOLLAND AMERICA LINE AND STAY AWAY FROM PANRAVEN!

[deejcruiser]

We purchased a package from Panraven on our Holland America Cruise (Westerdam) in September of '09. When we returned home, I was horrified to read one customer's experience and worried that we had signed on for the same. We received an email letting us know our acct was available within 2 weeks of our cruise. The software was one of the better digital scrapbook products but at times was restrictive since everything is based on page template selections. Overall I was happy with the results. There was a lagtime getting our purchased photos uploaded to us - it took about a month and a half. I had to send several emails for various support questions but received a response every time within 24 hours of my request. It is true that I could find no phone support but the email responses were enough to provide what I needed. We were very happy with the product and the service. I would purchase from Panraven again.

[pilotdane]

If your main intrest is getting the hard cover book there are many other companies that allow you to upload your photographs and create a book. The only company I've used is My Publisher and the books arrived 3 days after I submitted and it was about $40 for a 35 page hardcover 8"x11" book. Their book creation software limits what you can do but it was very easy to create the book by dragging & dropping photos and adding simple text captions.

 

If you don't think your pictures will be good enough you can buy some professional shots from the ship's photographer and make friends with someone on your ship carrying a fancy DSL camera. Many photographers will gladly E-mail you or burn a CD with pictures of the trip.