Just back from Volendam

[KenM]

Just returned from the 26 Nov cruise....

Embarkation:
Arrived at the port at 11:15. We had a suite so we went to the suite line..
WE were on the ship in less then 15 minutes and were at the LIDO by noon..
Bags were in the room by 2pm.

Service:
WE were with two other couples(they also had suites) and we have cruised many times..
Cabin Steward- T, along with the concierge team in the Neptune lounge- Rollie and Theresa were fantastic..
I will tell you that a couple of nights we had ROOM service and it was fantastic. You order from the regular dinner menu and they set in up on the Verandah....You do your appetizers, followed by soup or salad and THEN they bring the hot entree's when you call them. They come immdiately after dinner and take it all away and here is the best part.. They call for a follow up as to what you thought of the service....The dining room could learn from them...


Dining Room
Dining Room.- now this is a different story. There is NO doubt that they have reduced staff and it shows...One waiter for 4 tables- 24 people- not a good situation..If this is the NEW HA- they are in big trouble..The bus boy was basically non existent.
The waiter was a good man . IT IS THE SYSTEM that is broken..
They are well aware of the problem..When we had the suite luncheon with the captain and the hotel manager- this issue was discussed by many..
They have no real solution..That is the normal mix per waiter to headcount...
POLICY----

Food
Quality, Variety in the LIDO and Dining room was good..
Normally at dinner- choice of 4 Appetizers, 3 soups and salad(SOUPS WERE VERY GOOD). 7 or 8 entrees..
FOOD was good to excellent.... If you wanted to mix and match a main course with different vegetables- not a problem..They ALWAYS tried to please...

Pinnacle

EXCELLENT food- Great variety...Service was Ok- but it was better on the Zuiderdam.

Entertainment

It is no match for Celebrity..It is very basic with an in house staff.. OK if you are not use to a higher standard( which HA did have at one time).
They had a magician- Devlin, along with an Australian singer( not bad) but overall- weak....

SHIP
The ship itself is spectacular- well maintained. I saw no issues and my AC was not an issue...Flowers were very nice.

Tours
These were some of the best tours that I have seen in several years..
The mini boats in St Thomas, along with the CAT rides in Tortola and Barbados were GREAT..
WEATHER and Seas were fantastic the entire cruise......

Debarkation
WE were off the ship today at 8:30 and on our way home by 9am.
It doesn't get any better then this...


OVERALL:
I had a great cruise but I will say that Celebrity will be the direction that I go with in the future..
I believe that HA thinks that they have a captured market and to some degree they are correct. OLDER CROWD and we had a repeat rate of over 60%. I am in my 50's but this crowd was probably late 60's and up..
Hell I felt very young..
IF you enjoy Vegas style entertainment, excellent dinning room service with a well trained and sufficient staff, then the current HA is NOT your future choice...MY OPINION>>>

As I said the group that I was with have sailed many times. In fact one couple received their 400 day medalian from HA and they are not going again until some real changes are made in the dining room service......

Now that I have said all this, and if you are booked- go and enoy yourself..

[Peggy Sue]

Ken,

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. Glad you had a terrific time and great wather. Sniff, sniff...I was on board last month when the weather wasn't too terrific..but we had fun despite the cloudy skies!!

Agree, the Conceriege team is fantastic. Rollie was so helpful and the Neptune was a great place to duck in a grab a great cup of coffee of a snack. We never did do dinner in our room. Wanted too, but the winds were high or it was raining in the evenings...so couldn't really use our verandah for that. Will have to try to do that.

Glad to hear your A/C wasn't an issue. Ours was..but it was sporadic. We like a very cool room to sleep in..and it just wasn't happenning for us.

Agree about the dining room staff. Our were professional, and pleasant..but way too many tables to cover. I often want a refill on ice tea, but as you stated the assistant waiter was no where to be found most of the time, and when I did spot him he wasn't looking in our direction. They did try .. and I agree, it's not their fault..HAL has created this problem and they should listen to their guests and fix it immediately.

We only attended on show in the .. a comedian. He was the cruise director's husband. He was OK..

We booked HAL for Alaska next year for two reasons. One, we're taking my Dad (75) along, and I think the pace of this line will be very comfortable for him. He loves to strike up conversations with people and we find the seniors on board are a delight to talk to. The second, is HAL is a leader in the Alaska market and one of the few ships that can go into Glacier Bay, etc.

After that, I think we will try Celebrity or perhaps Princess. The grass may not be greener on the other side of the fence, but I think it's worth a try. HAL certainly provided a pleasant cruise experience..and we did enjoy our cruise...but we didn't leave the ship with the desire to sail only HAL..Again, I view this as a problem HAL needs to address..I think the staff tried very hard to provide good service ect.

Welcome home!!

Peggy sue

[dakrewser]

Good review, thanks!


-dave

[ekerr19]

Ken-

We are on the Volendam 3/20/05 and cannot wait. Sorry to hear the service in the pinnacle was not up to the Zui... we didn't care for Pinnacle on Zui, but loved it on Maasdam - I think it's become "hit or miss" anymore.

We have been fortunate to have excellent D/R service our past two cruises, both the Noordam and Maasdam were unsurpassed. In addition to the great service on Noordam, the food and selections far exceeded our expectations.

Thanks again for sharing your cruise with us!

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for the review.

You mentiond that you were in a suite.

Which suite?

How was the air-conditioning? VERY IMPORTANT TO US FOT HEALTH REASONS!

We will be doing back-to-back on her Feb/Mar.

[BCEagle78]

I also just got off the same cruise as Ken M... (Ken, how come we never crossed paths?)....

I will provide some more commentary shortly...

[JDee]

Believe HAL knows exactly what they are doing with the overburdened DR service staff. It's simply a devious means to discourage DR service and make life miserable enough so that when you are really ticked off, you will go to the Lido for dinner. That is partially what I did on recent ZAANDAM cruise. With the split dining times, things were really screwed up for many. Couldn't get your table cleaned, get dessert & coffee in a reasonable wait.

We conceded defeat, and after finishing the main entree, went to the Lido for dessert & coffee. The desserts were usually the same as the DR, plus you had the entire choice of the ice cream bar.

HAL has previously discouraged lunch in the DR with the 12:30 opening, only those real die-hards that wanted table service would wait until that time. Most others went for the 11:30 opening of the Lido. However, it seems that the DR lunch hours have changed recently on some ships.

Just another vent....

[KenM]

Sorry that we never linked up..
By the way- what did you think of the fact that we stayed at St Thomas until 4:30am Tuesday morning...First time that I have been on a cruise that they decided it would be to much trouble to put to sea because of the "short distance"..to Tortola.
Will be interested to see what your impressions were????

[doone]

Thanks for your review and glad you had a great time.

I keep hearing about the dining room staff being over burdened on most of the HAL ships. I hope you let HAL know how you feel about this. I am on the Volendam with Ekerr19 on March 20th, rest assure that I will be expressing my views if our dining room experience isn't better than yours was. These waiters are such wonderful people, its not fair they are pushed and over burdened the way they are.

I hope HAL is addressing these issues as I know alot of you have let them know about them.

[gizmo]

Dining Room.- now this is a different story. There is NO doubt that they have reduced staff and it shows...One waiter for 4 tables- 24 people- not a good situation..If this is the NEW HA- they are in big trouble..The bus boy was basically non existent.
The waiter was a good man . IT IS THE SYSTEM that is broken..
They are well aware of the problem..When we had the suite luncheon with the captain and the hotel manager- this issue was discussed by many..
They have no real solution..That is the normal mix per waiter to headcount...
POLICY----

As I said the group that I was with have sailed many times. In fact one couple received their 400 day medalian from HA and they are not going again until some real changes are made in the dining room service......


Agree 100% IT IS THE SYSTEM THAT IS BROKEN. They will start loosing business if they don't fix it.

Normal mix per waiter to headcount....BALONEY !!! I think they were feeding everyone a "standard answer". If your waiter had 24 pax to wait on you were lucky, mine had more on my last cruise. I think the count was around 32.

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. :)

[tommy]

Thanks Ken,We were on the Zuiderdam in Oct.We did A B2B and it seemed like the DR service got worse the 2nd week even after we talked to the head waiter.We called Holland after we got home and did recieve a $200 dollar cabin credict for a future cruise and a promise they were trying to rectify the DR problems.It appears they have not accomplised it yet.We were lucky enough to have been upgraded to a S Suite from a Cat A guarentee so we still had a good cruise. TOM

[Himself]

I just hope HAL has someone reading these boards who can make changes. HAL needs to widen their base and not anger a part of the base.

[elmorejj]

Great review, I enjoyed it. One quick question, are they giving a medallion for 400 days now? I thought it was 300 then 500.....jean :cool:

[KenM]

I did not realize that others were experiencing the same issue in the DR service..
It is a real shame.
I work in a profession where 100% quality is expected by the profession and "consumers" all the time -error free........

HA was the top in mid price cruises..They fail to realize that people will PAY for quality( i. e. Celebrity). What they have chosen to do is cut the margin..
That is a path for long term failure- short term success.

AS I said, I had a good time but I know that I can do better with my discretionary choice in the future..

HA management- take a crusie on your ship, take a cruise on Celebrity..
Do an honest assessment- then fix it...
As a consumer, competition is good.........