Just Off The Amsterdam

[scapilot]

The cruise to Victoria on the 25th was beautiful. Clear skies spring colors everywhere... The crew was a bit cold... The ship was looking fair.(Now in dry Dock for 8 days for paint) Cruise into Vancouver was spectacular, Fun filled day in Stanley Park... Our room steward was off, He missed many things every day... DIESEL SMELL was everywhere, so strong that some of people that I talked to, had to go to the doctor... Other than that the cruise was.. Priceless :rolleyes:

[thewebers9999]

New To cruising, why do you think everything was such a miss?

 

Were leaving on the Amsterdam May 9th, i hope it is better than that!

 

 

 

Dewey

[pipedreams62]

[Kyana]

Any time a ship is readying itself for drydock things can get missed. You should be fine in May as she will be back as good as new after her refit

[Jeeves]

I was also on the Amsterdam April 24-27. I've only been on one other cruise before which was the Celebrity Mercury 18 months ago. That was also a 3-day Pacific Northwest cruise. We had a good time on the Amsterdam with fabulous weather. We experienced a couple of issues and most of our shipmates I talked to seemed to have the same experiences.

 

It's my understanding that the ship had been Code Red for the previous 3 weeks with the noro virus (there's another thread that mentions a CDC report of 9% of the passengers being ill). As a result, there was no self-service at the buffet. Not a big deal but it slowed things down and may have taken crew away from other duties.

 

The biggest shortcoming was the open seating at dinner. Each night there were long lines and confusion. You could make a reservation for open seating but those reservations got gobbled up early. On Saturday night, we had to wait in line for 10 or 15 minutes to be told that they couldn't seat us for at least 30 minutes. They gave us a hand pager and we took off for a stroll. We came back 30 minutes later. Still a chaotic scene. Finally got seated about 10 minutes later after having to push our way to the front of the line with people looking at us like "who do they think they are".

 

On Sunday night, we called for a dinner reservation at about 3:30pm and were told we had a choice of 5:15, 5:30 or 8:00pm. We chose 8pm. We we arrived at 8pm, we tried to make our way to the front of the line. People were trying to bypass people saying "I've got a reservation." and others saying "So do we.". Again, lots of jostling and confusion. When we finally got to the front of the line, I gave the gentleman our reservation info and he told us to wait a minute and took off into the dining room to check on something. He must have been gone 5 minutes. Everyone then started pouncing on the other dining room manager. Even with reservations, it probably took us 15 minutes to be seated.

 

Each night at dinner, there were plenty of empty tables. It looked like the dining room was understaffed.

 

At dinner, our dining steward never greeted us. He would just show up with his note pad and ask what we wanted. We did have one dining steward assistant who had a lot of personality. The food was reasonably good. My water glass was almost always empty. One night our table wasn't given any bread. Another night I had to eat my steak with a butter knive. None of this ruined the trip but clearly things were not right.

 

We were told by the cruise director that this was the last cruise for the crew and that they were going home after being at sea for 7 months. Perhaps the thought of going home and the previous virus outbreak had affected the crew performance.

 

I know I will probably get flamed for being too critical or being a newbie, but the dining situation was really a let down. Perhaps we were spoiled by our Celebrity dining experience, which was one of the highlights of our previous cruise. I'm sure that HA performs better most of the time, otherwise they wouldn't have such a good reputation. Whatever the reason, the open seating dining was not working well on this cruise.

 

At the morning of disembarkation, the crew was already removing items on the deck for drydocking. It was kind of interesting to see what they were doing.

 

The new Pier 91 facility seemed to work well. They had trouble with checked luggage at disembarkation, which delayed things.

 

I'd be curious to hear comments from others who were on this cruise.

[jmk22574]

Jeeves - I don't think you're being too critical at all. You gave a thorough explanation of what went wrong.....I'd be surprised if someone flamed you for anything you wrote.

 

Jill

[Tracyr]

I was also on this short sailing. This was my 17th cruise, 4th with HAL, 2nd on the Amsterdam, first short HAL cruise.

I would agree that the crew was "tired". Although I had a wonderful time, we were a group of 14, I admit that things weren't quite up to HAL standards.

No major complaints just that some of the staff weren't 100% with the exception of the spa staff!! Slow service in some of the bars, waiters at dinner just seemed to be going through the motions. We had assigned dining which I was grateful for.

I can't imagine the extra work it must be for them serving at buffets, deep cleaning, etc.

I thought the ship was in wonderful shape, but I love HAL ships. I think those of you sailing after dry dock have a lot to look forward to.

Enjoy!!! I would get right back on if I could!!

Tracy

[Old As Dirt Mom]

No flames from me, Jeeves. I think you gave a very fair and accurate description of the dining room issues. These issues are not typical, in my HAL experience. I think that perhaps the following reasons applied:

 

1) The norovirus situation slowed the dining room service, as they had to follow code red protocols, thus creating a backlog at the entrance. Plus, the crew were all tired from almost three weeks of code red, and they were probably understaffed because of illness.

 

2) Maybe they were already on autopilot because of the upcoming drydock, and this was really just a "filler" cruise for them.

 

3) The fact that many were at the end of their contracts (some as long as 10 or 11 months!).

 

4) They may have assumed because it was a 3-day cruise that we were all a bunch of neophyte rubes. Or maybe our dining habits were different from the average HAL cruiser, and they couldn't adjust. Who knows. We had some very pleasant dining stewards, and others who were obviously just going through the motions. I encountered two rude stewards in the dining room at breakfast, who obviously didn't care what the passenger response was. That was a HAL first for me.

 

We found that if we showed up for dinner around 6-ish or closer to 8:30 pm, we could get a table quickly with no problems. Between 7-8 pm was a zoo. The last night things seemed to be better, from our perspective.

[DFD1]

In my opinion, HAL does not seem to do short cruises very well. I've read several reviews that point out many of the same problems with the 3 and 4 day itineraries.

 

I realize there are exceptions to this generalization.

[luvcruisn']

I have done a 4 night cruise on the Ryndam, and a 5 night cruise on the Statendam. Had a great time on both. The only issues on the Statendam were with the open seating dining - could only get a reservation for 5:30pm or 8:00pm, otherwise had to just come to the dining room, and wait to be seated. Different wait staff each night. The wait staff kept forgetting my tea, brought coffee for the others I was with, but had to be reminded again that I still needed my tea. Not a large issue, just not the same service I had with fixed seating.

[Old As Dirt Mom]

The main issues we had were with Open Seating in the main dining room. We had some very good service in the dining room, and one very good wine steward, Rey Durato. For us, anyway, the rest of the cruise was extremely pleasant and enjoyable. The weather was gorgeous (thank you G-d), and the service elsewhere throughout the ship was just fine (thank you, Ocean Bar staff, cabin stewards, Neptune Lounge concierges, staff in the Logo shop, Explorere's Lounge staff, and many others). The itinerary called for a full day in Victoria and a full day in Vancouver, with calm, easy cruising in-between. Lots of beautiful views. We were part of a wine-tasting group, and we enjoyed two wine-tastings and a Pinnacle Grill wine-maker's luncheon, all of which was very good:)