lippylulu
February 26th, 2007, 11:18 AM
EMBARKATION AND DISEMBARKATION---- We got to the ship early--before they were ready for passengers but it was only a 15 minute wait. Were totally confused upon entering the HAL embarkation room. We had filled out our immigrtion forms online but were told by workers standing about we had to fill them out by hand again. We knew this was wrong because no one else was doing it but of course we did it anyway. We got on a long line to check in only to notice one not so large sign for a special area for Deluxe Suite check in. That went quite smoothly. We spent the next hour exploring the ship and having lunch before our room was ready. Our luggage arrived an hour or so later. We spent the next 6 hours trying to get our bottled water and diet coke (see PART I) delivered to our room.
CLUB HAL--Our daughter enjoyed it but it didn't seem like a lot of kids participated. There were abot 100 kids on board but many did not particpate in CLUB HAL. Their actvities seemed alright. We wouldn't want a ship but my guess in Princess or even Roya Caribbean might be a bit better in this regard. All I know is she didn't come back in love with the kids club staff like she did at the Riu in Ocho Rios Jamaica, but she did want to keep going back to Club HAL, so it was good enough!
ENTERTAINMENT--- In our opinion, it was terrible! We weren't so keen on it on the Golden Princess either but this was even worse. Our last vacation was to the Riu in Ocho Ris Jamaica and their entertainment staff was FANTASTIC and made an otherwise mediocre resort seem superb.
SPECIAL SERVICES---Very impressive. As a diabetic, I really appreciated the fish, low fat and low sugar options on the menu. They also offered a "sharps container" for the proper disposal of syringes and needles. Also, as a deluxe verandah suite passenger you get FREE UNLIMITED LAUNDREY AND DRY CLEANING! This was FANTASTIC!! We sent out laundrey every other day and wrote EXPRESS on the ticket. If we got it out early, it always came back the same day (this was for laundrey, not dry cleaning). What a joy to not come home to 5 loads of wet smelly laundrey, especially when half dead with exhaustion from the virus I caught.
PASSENGERS--- We are in our mid 40's. Altough this was younger than average, there were plenty of passengers in our age group and also younger. Very simlar to Princess. We heard some people complain that it was less of a partying atmosphere than Carnival, which was PERFECT for us. Seems to me there were plenty of opportunities for fun on board and off and unless your main objective is to constantly be around people who are smashed and act wild then HAL is perfectly fine in this regard.
OVERALL IMPRSSIONS--- We felt things were just off a beat on the Westerdam. Things just didn't seem to run as smoothy as our experiene on the Golden Princess and the ship, while lovely in its own way, is not as spacious. The ship is CLEAN, with Purell dispensers everywhere which I used compulsively (and still got sick though not with novovirus). There were about 1800-1900 passengers on board same as the Golden orincess which to me seems perfect. I cannot imagine these new cruise ines with 3000-4500 passengers. We saw one of those ships in port and WOW it was HUGE. We thoght LIDO the swimming pool mid ship was too small.
As you can probably tell from this review, we will likely return to Princess for our next cruise, or we might try Royal Carbbean if we can get a big spacious balcony. A huge balcony with los of nice furniture is one of our favorite things and we did get that on HAL. We sailed Presdeit's week when kids were off rom school but still I think maybe a few more school aged kids making use of the kids program might have been better for our daughter. We enjoyed our cruise but HAL is probably not the best cruiseline for us.
Thanks for all the advice everyone and especially for posting photos and encouraging words about those aft balconies!
CLUB HAL--Our daughter enjoyed it but it didn't seem like a lot of kids participated. There were abot 100 kids on board but many did not particpate in CLUB HAL. Their actvities seemed alright. We wouldn't want a ship but my guess in Princess or even Roya Caribbean might be a bit better in this regard. All I know is she didn't come back in love with the kids club staff like she did at the Riu in Ocho Rios Jamaica, but she did want to keep going back to Club HAL, so it was good enough!
ENTERTAINMENT--- In our opinion, it was terrible! We weren't so keen on it on the Golden Princess either but this was even worse. Our last vacation was to the Riu in Ocho Ris Jamaica and their entertainment staff was FANTASTIC and made an otherwise mediocre resort seem superb.
SPECIAL SERVICES---Very impressive. As a diabetic, I really appreciated the fish, low fat and low sugar options on the menu. They also offered a "sharps container" for the proper disposal of syringes and needles. Also, as a deluxe verandah suite passenger you get FREE UNLIMITED LAUNDREY AND DRY CLEANING! This was FANTASTIC!! We sent out laundrey every other day and wrote EXPRESS on the ticket. If we got it out early, it always came back the same day (this was for laundrey, not dry cleaning). What a joy to not come home to 5 loads of wet smelly laundrey, especially when half dead with exhaustion from the virus I caught.
PASSENGERS--- We are in our mid 40's. Altough this was younger than average, there were plenty of passengers in our age group and also younger. Very simlar to Princess. We heard some people complain that it was less of a partying atmosphere than Carnival, which was PERFECT for us. Seems to me there were plenty of opportunities for fun on board and off and unless your main objective is to constantly be around people who are smashed and act wild then HAL is perfectly fine in this regard.
OVERALL IMPRSSIONS--- We felt things were just off a beat on the Westerdam. Things just didn't seem to run as smoothy as our experiene on the Golden Princess and the ship, while lovely in its own way, is not as spacious. The ship is CLEAN, with Purell dispensers everywhere which I used compulsively (and still got sick though not with novovirus). There were about 1800-1900 passengers on board same as the Golden orincess which to me seems perfect. I cannot imagine these new cruise ines with 3000-4500 passengers. We saw one of those ships in port and WOW it was HUGE. We thoght LIDO the swimming pool mid ship was too small.
As you can probably tell from this review, we will likely return to Princess for our next cruise, or we might try Royal Carbbean if we can get a big spacious balcony. A huge balcony with los of nice furniture is one of our favorite things and we did get that on HAL. We sailed Presdeit's week when kids were off rom school but still I think maybe a few more school aged kids making use of the kids program might have been better for our daughter. We enjoyed our cruise but HAL is probably not the best cruiseline for us.
Thanks for all the advice everyone and especially for posting photos and encouraging words about those aft balconies!