cruzbums
August 29th, 2006, 02:03 PM
First a little background.
MY wife and I have cruised on eight previous HAL cruises, three Princesss, three RCCL and one NCL.
We have always been of the opinion that HAL does it best so it is with some sorrow that I write this review.
This cruise was not a total disaster but it also did not live up to our expectations.
We were in The Penthouse Suite, cabin #7001.
We arrived at the pier about 10:00 AM and dropped off our luggage which consisted of 3 suitcases and 7 boxes of medical supplies as my wife has kidney failure and needs to do dialysis using these supplies. We have done this before with no problem except one time when HAL lost the boxes and we had to depart the ship before it sailed. Because of this I am somewhat parinoid when it comes to these boxes. When we could get to deck 7 about 1:00 PM I went to the Concierge, Alma, and explained the situation with the boxes and that we need to have them in our room before sailing or we would have leave the ship. I had kept track where they were in the loading process and told her that I would be glad to show someone where they were so that they didn't get lost in the process of delivering luggage to the rooms. To make a long story short she said that she would handle it but as a result we did not get the boxes until 15 minutes before sailing. When I did this on another cruise line last year they gave the boxes priority status and had them in our stateroom within a half hour. Other than this experience, Alma was very nice and in all other areas very accomodating.
Our stateroom had a heating problem all week and in spite of the thermostats being set at the highest level all week it was usually cold in the cabin unless the sun was hitting it directly. The ships engineer tried to fix it several times and then expressed the opinion that it was within their standards. I finally gave up on getting it fixed.
The food in my opinion was not up to HAL standards but of course this is quite subjective. When eating breakfast in the morning the process was set up so that if you had your eggs cooked order and you had ordered something like hot cakes, ect. then the stuff previously ordered would get cold while you waited for your eggs. As far as the rest of the food, in my opinion the beef was very tough. I also thought that the desserts were not quite as good as on past cruises except for the bread pudding. The ice cream bar on other HAL ships, such as Amsterdam and Veendam was much better with more and better choices of flavors and toppings.
We ate at the Pinnacle one night and found it to be very good.
The ship is in good shape as are all HAL ships but would not rate as my favorite. I think I have come to like the new VISTA ships which again is subjective.
All in all the cruise and the weather was good. This was one of the few times wse have been to Ketchikan that it was sunny.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask as I am not a great writer but much better at answering questions.
MY wife and I have cruised on eight previous HAL cruises, three Princesss, three RCCL and one NCL.
We have always been of the opinion that HAL does it best so it is with some sorrow that I write this review.
This cruise was not a total disaster but it also did not live up to our expectations.
We were in The Penthouse Suite, cabin #7001.
We arrived at the pier about 10:00 AM and dropped off our luggage which consisted of 3 suitcases and 7 boxes of medical supplies as my wife has kidney failure and needs to do dialysis using these supplies. We have done this before with no problem except one time when HAL lost the boxes and we had to depart the ship before it sailed. Because of this I am somewhat parinoid when it comes to these boxes. When we could get to deck 7 about 1:00 PM I went to the Concierge, Alma, and explained the situation with the boxes and that we need to have them in our room before sailing or we would have leave the ship. I had kept track where they were in the loading process and told her that I would be glad to show someone where they were so that they didn't get lost in the process of delivering luggage to the rooms. To make a long story short she said that she would handle it but as a result we did not get the boxes until 15 minutes before sailing. When I did this on another cruise line last year they gave the boxes priority status and had them in our stateroom within a half hour. Other than this experience, Alma was very nice and in all other areas very accomodating.
Our stateroom had a heating problem all week and in spite of the thermostats being set at the highest level all week it was usually cold in the cabin unless the sun was hitting it directly. The ships engineer tried to fix it several times and then expressed the opinion that it was within their standards. I finally gave up on getting it fixed.
The food in my opinion was not up to HAL standards but of course this is quite subjective. When eating breakfast in the morning the process was set up so that if you had your eggs cooked order and you had ordered something like hot cakes, ect. then the stuff previously ordered would get cold while you waited for your eggs. As far as the rest of the food, in my opinion the beef was very tough. I also thought that the desserts were not quite as good as on past cruises except for the bread pudding. The ice cream bar on other HAL ships, such as Amsterdam and Veendam was much better with more and better choices of flavors and toppings.
We ate at the Pinnacle one night and found it to be very good.
The ship is in good shape as are all HAL ships but would not rate as my favorite. I think I have come to like the new VISTA ships which again is subjective.
All in all the cruise and the weather was good. This was one of the few times wse have been to Ketchikan that it was sunny.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask as I am not a great writer but much better at answering questions.