Ship Reviews

[happy cruzer]

Hi, I have read some very good cruise reviews on the HAL board lately but they don't seem to be appearing in the review section by ship.

My experience has been that posting here is good for people to get current info quicker than they would get during the review posting process and to allow for q and a.

But the review section is key when you are trying to decide what ship to make a booking on. I always look over there before booking a cruise.

Does anyone else use the review board? Anyone notice that the reviews are appearing over there?

:) Thanks for listening.

[jhannah]

I have seldom visited the review section. This board gives me the information I need about a particular ship. I find reviews, per se, of nominal worth. I've learned that I often don't agree with "professional" movie critics and such. I have my own standards and expectations. A more casual report of a shipboard experience here is all I need.

[happy cruzer]

OOOps, I should have clearly said the member reviews section was what I found helpful. It is a very nice archive of the differenct itenaries by ship. So if the ship is in Alaska now, you can read the most current member review to find out about the ship. And then you can look in the previous year for the same itenerary (not always the same but often is) on the ship you picked and get another review of that ship at that time of year in that locale.
And since they are archived by ship you can find them easily.

[RuthC]

Does anyone else use the review board?
Never go there. I get as much as I need from the give & take on this board. Plus, over here I feel more like I "know" the posters. I can put what's said in a greater context and better evaluate information.

[Copper10-8]

Nope; have only posted my reviews here - never even been there

[newmexicoNita]

It depends, usually I do write a review for that section, but I always do a quick one here as soon as I get back from the cruise. NMnita

[Krazy Kruizers]

I don't post a review to listed in the review section - gave that up many years ago.

Did my last review in June.

Won't be anymore!!

I have noticed that some individuals who "claimed" to have read my reviews suddenly had questions about ships and itineraries that we had been had questions which I had answered and I reminded them that I had talked about what they asked. I got the response "Oh - I missed that" -- sorry Having been on these boards for several years I know that "These" individuals did not read what I had posted.

So I am no longer going to post when, where, anything about our recent cruises.

JMO - it was a waste of my time!!

[DougandEric]

I do read 'reader' review - never the 'official' reviews. The official reviews I consider to be biased since they always agree with the line/ship being reviewed. Member reviews tend to be more useful - however, I always look at it statistically. If 50% of the people reviewing say the experience was iffy, I'd tend to think it was iffy. If 10% say iffy but 90% say great, I'd think 'very good'. Assuming there is more than 2 reviews! I generally take the average of the reviews and assume that's the way the ship runs on a regular week. Remember to take into account that some people are very happy with very little, others are very unhappy unless everything is perfect (this probably doesn't occur in their real life but it gives them a chance to complain!). I tend to take the middle road. Also pay attention to what the reviewer is complementing/complaining about - does that matter to you? If the tables aren't bussed as quickly as they'd like in the lido but you eat in the dining room, it really doesn't matter.

Just my 2 cents!

Doug

[thomasale]

I enjoy reading the reviews and contrasting things with my opinions. I am disappointed there is such a lack of "new" reviews

[happy cruzer]

Hi, Thanks everyone for replying. Reading between the lines. I'm guessing that those of us who are still shopping around a bit use the member reviews a good bit. Experienced or decided shoppers don't seem to need them.

If you look, there is a shortage of HAL reviews posted over on the member reviews. So if anyone wants HAL info they have come over here and search or post. Maybe the host could copy reviews to be put over there.

But right now if you only post review on this HAL thread, it probably will not be looked at for much more than 1 month. If you post to the member review area, I imagine it will be used for about 1 year. At least I know I have read some about that old because it had the itenerary that I was about to go on. I even might look at older ones if I know the reviewer.

Food for thought. Thanks.

[Hojo's redbeard]

I don't pay any attention to the professional critic's ratings. Their review tends to be biased and comparative rather than stand alone. I do read their description of the ship though. I can't get enough of the Member Reviews though, they have helped me make my decision on all three of the cruises I've booked in the last year. I read them all. That is really the key to my decision. Like Doug, I take into account the common theme of the bulk of the reviews. The overall member rating is also pretty telling, the picture gets clearer with more reviews and ratings. Just wish more HAL cruisers applied their Boards posting to the Member reviews section. It is so much easier to find them and they are in a common format. All you have to do is copy your Boards post and paste it in.

I did a review on our last cruise, but for some reason it never showed up. Must have been user error :)

[DougandEric]

There are other sources for cruise reviews:

www.cruisemates.com
www.cruisereviews.com
www.cruise-addicts.com
www.cruisereviews.net

and probably others. You could also try rec.travel.cruises on the newsgroups search for the ship you're interested in.

Doug

[LHC]

OK for me there are 24 hours in a day....I spend 8 hours at work and on two days a week 12 hours...I have a handicap son who just turned 22 yesterday:) who requires a great deal of time....and I have elderly parents to help care for and I do the yard work for all of us, plus church on Sunday, that said, I love these boards.
I use the old Pre-Post and now EastCoast boards for hotel, shuttle, local information, my roll call board to talk with others on my cruise and this site for HAL exclusively.
I love to read the reviews posted on this site, especially those for the ship I have traveled on, or as in now I read all the ones on the Volendam.
I peruse them a couple of times per day at work, they brighten even the roughest of days (I am a school nurse), and sometimes if I am lucky once at home.
I love HAL cruisers and find I can trust their words and opinions.
Linda

[JYGresham]

I feel the same.

[hammybee]

OK for me there are 24 hours in a day....I spend 8 hours at work and on two days a week 12 hours...I have a handicap son who just turned 22 yesterday:) who requires a great deal of time....and I have elderly parents to help care for and I do the yard work for all of us, plus church on Sunday, that said, I love these boards.
I use the old Pre-Post and now EastCoast boards for hotel, shuttle, local information, my roll call board to talk with others on my cruise and this site for HAL exclusively.
I love to read the reviews posted on this site, especially those for the ship I have traveled on, or as in now I read all the ones on the Volendam.
I peruse them a couple of times per day at work, they brighten even the roughest of days (I am a school nurse), and sometimes if I am lucky once at home.
I love HAL cruisers and find I can trust their words and opinions.
Linda
I am exhausted reading your daily routine. I can't imagine how you do what you need to do. You deserve a cruise.

[hammybee]

Never go there. I get as much as I need from the give & take on this board. Plus, over here I feel more like I "know" the posters. I can put what's said in a greater context and better evaluate information.

It's all about context on these boards.

[AAAAmerican]

Ship reviews, yes, have bias.

Where are the Crew Reviews...?:eek:

[thomasale]

I did a review on our last cruise, but for some reason it never showed up. Must have been user error :)

And that is the problem...I have submitted several reviews and have yet to have any published to the review section ( I find it hard to believe that the last review recieved for the Volendam was 3/06 and than we go back to pre SOE come on now)...now maybe its' my writing style (or lack thereof) :)

[happy cruzer]

Hi, I think we may have some reviews lost in the approval process.

So maybe the HAL host can get them found and approved???

this happened over on the RCI board and the host there got them moving again. It is in everyone's best interest to have a much good content on this board.

Can we find Hojo's and thom's reviews? and any other ones lost in the approval process?

[duck tune]

DH and I were on the Zaandam June 2 - 9 and by June 16 I had written a review here and had sent one through the CC review site. That review did not appear until August 25. Don't know what took so long. I used to go to the review section before deciding on a cruise and never understood why there were no current reviews. I spent a lot of time doing mine and since it took 8 weeks to get posted, why bother? Now that I read the boards regularly it helps but I often wonder how many people who don't participate in the boards never have a valid review of a current cruise ship experience.

[happy cruzer]

Hi, Everyone

I sent a pointer to this thread to Walt who forwarded my mail to Miriam.

Here is her reply:


Thanks. We're working on this, in fact, I'm working right now. At this point, anything submitted more than three weeks ago should be reported to me at reviews@cruisecritic.com (reviews@cruisecritic.com) or to community@cruisecritic.com (community@cruisecritic.com) so we can look into it.

Miriam


So that looks like it takes 3 weeks to get a review posted to the members review board. So if your review is missing from the members review list, please let Miriam know. I kind of hoped that they would look at the ones reported missing in this thread and fix them but they don't indicate that they will do that. So I guess each auther will have to email Miriam to look into it. Hopefully, we can get more reviews archived. Which is in everyones including CC's best interest.

Thanks!

[happy cruzer]

Hi, I watched the review board for HAL reviews and two finally came out.

One very short one on the Noordam, mostly stating negatives.
And one on the Maasdam.

They are very interesting and I always love reading them.

[IndieTraveler]

I just returned from Alaska on Zaandam and postem my review here on the board, then submitted a similar post in the review section. I agree that having the reviews by ship is best, because when you're trying to research you don't want to have to search through all of the threads. The night I submitted my review I got an email that said it would take a while and they review the review to make sure it covers enough information.

[duckman715]

I enjoy reading the reviews and contrasting things with my opinions. I am disappointed there is such a lack of "new" reviews
I agree. I find the "Reviews" to be very informative and easilylocated. Not always as easy to locate on the boards. Seems the boards are more slanted one way or the other with fewer objective reviews IMO

[happy cruzer]

Hi, another one got posted, this time the Veendam, and the group really liked Club Hal
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=20999

[happy cruzer]

Hi
A few more have been posted to the review pages.

Oosterdam got a very negative one, Noordam also reviewed.

And Candy the Zuider Princess posted 3 of her very excellent reviews.

Thanks!

[jtl513]

Does anyone else use the review board? Anyone notice that the reviews are appearing over there?

For about two years my DW and I read only the Member Reviews before we discoved the Forums. We were grateful that they were there because they saved us from what I believe would have been a bad experience on the NCL Pride of Aloha when it first started operating and had some very severe service problems.

As other have said, the professional reviews always seem to soft-pedal problems if any, whereas Members tell it like it is, good and bad. I pretty much ignore the odd-ball reviews, either lower or higher than the majority.

[bankerbabe]

When I posted my last review I typed it in Word and then just copied and pasted it to both the member reviews site and the boards. I figured that since I had studied so many reviews prior to choosing my own cruise that I needed to give something back to the "community".

It literally took months for it to appear on the member review area, so I was glad that I posted the information in the boards as well. (Although I did get a bit of a flaming for disliking some things about our NCL cruise.)

I enjoy reading the member reviews in both sections and generally I find them very helpful. I just have to keep in mind that everyone's tastes and priorities are different and what may be important to someone else is not necessarily important for me. I especially take the food reviews with a grain of salt.

[Sueseb]

I also posted a review of our first (with trepidation as we are senior citizens) Carnival cruise. We had a wonderful time. But, it was months before I was notified that it would be posted. sue

[tomc]

When I do my "Live From" threads, I intend them to be part reviews, part daily diary. It's fresh each day, so there is no memory loss; at the end, I do a several-part review (this time, on "Live from the Noordam - Carib" it was a 7-part review), after I have had time to look at things in perspective. I dearly hope others will post theirs, as well; nobody has the complete take on a cruise or a ship. Mine is terribly subjective, as are ALL reviews. I even supply the grain of salt with which to take it, and wish others would do the same.

[happy cruzer]

Good News everyone!

The reviews are being posted much quicker. My review was posted in less than 24 hours from when I submitted it. This is wonderful because now for most ships the ship review section has more current reviews. Before you were lucky to read a review that was only 2 months old. Now it may be only 2 days old.

Also there seem to be quite a few new HAL reviews out there - some good and some bad.

Well Done, Cruise Critic!

[happy cruzer]

Yes, more current reviews are being posted. The poor Rotterdam has two very negative ones as the most recent. so if you went on the Rotterdam recently and liked it, you might want to be heard too.

any way, positive or negative, I love those reviews over on the review pages.

Cheers