HAL vs others cruise lines?

[nanheath]

We just returned from our first HAL cruise on the Oosterdam. We had previously cruised NCL Sky to Alaska 3 other times and had heard that HAL was a superior line. Although we did enjoy the HAL cruise, we did not feel that HAL was superior. The ship is new and beautiful, but we thought the food selection was better on the Sky and that the entertainment was also better on Sky. The regular singers and dancers performed 3 times on a 7 day cruise on Sky while they only performed 2 times on Oosterdam. We also enjoyed the Broadway themes on Sky; the Oosterdam had more Hip Hop type music. The waiters on Sky seemed to have more time for us; we have always enjoyed getting to visit some with them. It seemed that the waiters on the Oosterdam stayed very busy and had too many tables. I wasn't sure if it was always this way with HAL or if the tightening of the budget had done this.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Since 9/11 HAL has made cuts everywhere. Less dining room staff, less bar tenders, fewer cabin stewards - cuts in all departments.

There was a time when the dining room waitstaff did have time to talk to everyone and get to know the people in their area. Now they just introduce themselves and chat if they get a chance.

[FlorenceItaly]

On my June and August cruise (first time on HAL in June) our dining room staff had no time to chat....still really enjoyed my cruise, but have not experienced HAL the way other's have on this board. My previous cruises were Carnival and RCI, and I don't see THAT much of a difference. Both my HAL trips were solo, and HAL has very friendly solo rates, and a bit more refined experience, that is why I keep coming back :).

Marie

[Randyk47]

We didn't cruise between 1998 and 2004. Why? Beats me...we must have temporarily lost our minds. (Not really....getting married, getting new home built, and job demands overtook us for a few years.) Anyhow, we really noticed the difference between our Ryndam honeymoon cruise and our Oosterdam cruise in terms of the level of service. It was quite dramatic...and not in a good way. We're giving Celebrity a try this coming March and we're interested to see how it will compare. Should add that the switch to Celebrity, for at least this one cruise, was driven more out of opportunity...we can drive to Galveston and save a lot on airfare and hassle....than it was out of disappointment with HAL.

[OCruisers]

nanhealth .... Thanks for taking the time to post. There can NEVER be too many hosest opinions.

What is a negative to some ... may be a positive to others! We expect to have attentive waiters but have found the overly "chatty" ones to be annoying ... so that's a positive for us.

Thanks again! Glad you enjoyed your cruise.

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[jhannah]

We noticed obvious drops in service levels between our Rotterdam cruise in 2002 and Zuiderdam cruise in 2003. I know they're different ships and all that ... but it just wasn't the same. Not terrible ... just not the same.

[FlorenceItaly]

I am sailing Celebrity in a few months(solo), for the first time, comparable size ship to the Maasdam and Veendam, and looking very forward to seeing what the similarities/differences are. Celebrity also touts exceptional service.

Marie

[elmorejj]

I personally don`t care for overly chatty stewards in the DR. I like to know their name, where they are from, how long they have been with HAL and which ships they have sailed. Thats about it. I do not like to be interupted while I am eating either by chatty stewards or photographers. On our last cruise, our asst. steward was talking so much to pax he used to forget to go get the food! We were the closest station to the doors, but always the last to receive our food. Now if we are in the lounges, I love to chat with the servers and bar tenders, I have made many friends with the Filipinos.....jean :cool:

[FlorenceItaly]

I agree Jean...also, one of the things I LOVE about HAL is that they only have one "show" sorta speak, in the dining room...the baked Alaska parade.
The other cruiselines do alot more of that, in the dining room, and I don't care for it.

I guess when I first posted, I didn't articulate well...in June my water glass was often empty, for long periods of time. In August, our waiters were very attentive.

Marie

[chefajax]

Hi to All....
Ater travelling on HAL and the other cruiselines, I believe tht HAL has cut too much dining staff on the Zuiderdam. The waitstaff looked almost frantic compared to Princess's Grand. I do believe HAL's staff on the Ryndam was better trained then on Zuiderdam. IMHO.......Dennis

[Randyk47]

There's a difference between overly chattie wait staff and not being able to get basic service. We had a lot of trouble with just getting drinks and dinners delivered to our table on the Oosterdam. There's got to be some acceptable level between almost having to hunt down the waiter and having them hover over you every minute.

[nanheath]

Thanks for all the replies........I was really curious about past vs now on the HAL ships since I had heard so much about them. We cruised Celebrity Millenium last summer and Royal Princess last fall. Both had more attentive waiters and better food selection. I just wondered how HAL would compare. As I said before, we did enjoy our HAL cruise and the food was good, we just liked the others bette. Even thought the Royal Princess was not nearly as new or pretty, the crew, food, and entertainment made up for it. Celebrity was newer and very pretty; the food and entertaiment were great!

[dakrewser]

I personally don`t care for overly chatty stewards in the DR.
Nor do I. I expect them to do their job, quickly and efficiently. When I've finished a course, or need to ask for something, I don't want to see my steward involved in a personal conversation with another diner. That's not service. If you really want to "get to know" the help, arrange to meet with them when they are off duty.

-dave

[estj]

Still very loyal to HAL but must admit that service isn't the same as in the past. (always sailed on the Veendam). Cruised on the Zuiderdam in April and will be on the Oosterdam in November. On the Zuiderdam, the cabin wasn't attended to as well as previously. (on the previous cruise we would joke that Hari, our steward, came in every time we left to replace the towels, etc.) But bottom line...there wasn't any serious problems. Wait staff in dining room were not attentive...and our table of eight elected to tip at a very minimal level. We'll see how things go in November. Hopefully, someone responsible for PR for HAL monitors these boards...and they make changes.
CP

[Tatka]

I found my experience on HAL Zuiderdam very good and close to Celebrity..Service on Century and even on RCI (Splendour) was faster specially in term of cleaning our room, but I really enjoyed size of my inside cabin on Zui as well as fruit basket. I found food on Zuiderdam and Century of much better quality than on RCI. Both Celebrity and HAL ships were very clean and pretty although Splendour had great open atrium and huge 2 story windows to enjoy the views. I probably will cruise on all theree lines again but HAL and X will be my prfered choices. I've never tried Princess so might as well give it a try. I thought Caribbean Princess and Star looked very interesting from outside at least.

[gliles]

I have cruised on Carnival a couple times, once in the early 90s and the second time last year. Commodore, NCL many times and I will say that I was surprised at how nice Carnival was compared to what I had read and remembered but a long time had passed. However, I was very impressed after many NCL cruises when we went on HAL, the service was so much better IMO. The little touches meant a lot like the towels on the deck chairs, the fact that the bar tenders and all service staff remembered our names and wants.

[Giorgi-one]

I agree with original poster. Not a whole lot of difference between HAL Zuiderdam and NCL Sun or Sky, except maybe the price. Not to worry about chatty waiters in the dining room - bigger problem was getting your meal and desert done without missing half the late show. And for the most part the food was "thrown at us" rather than served. The difference between HAL Zuiderdam and Celebrity Summit in the dining room wasn't even close. Besides the service, I rarely found more than one entree I wanted on HAL and wanted them all on Celebrity. We are booked on Millenium in January in an aft balcony which was $200 less than same location on Zuiderdam.

[jan7487]

We are just off the O'dam (yesterday) and have debated posting our thoughts. Please don't flame me, as I recognise these are simply my own OPINIONS. This was #11 on HA since 1998--we have never seen any real reason to defect to brand X--as we enjoy the HA experience, feeling that by and large they do a credible job.

There were almost 2000 guests on this sailing and for the first time ever we felt the impact of too many guests and too few crew. We had a suite so could escape to the Neptune for breakfast, but we do also normaly enjoy the Lido. It seemed always to be way overcrowded, noisy, and just not a very pleasant place to be.

Since they had many more people wanting early seating at dinner than they could accommodate, they moved each seating up. We were assigned 5:30(!), and in order to get as many as possible seated the dining room was configured "mess hall" style, with tables of 8 lined all along one side. It really destroyed any ambience at all---at least that's the effect it presented to us. No effort at all was made to follow (or enforce) the dress code.

We had been on this ship last fall in Europe, enjoying every minute, but this time the atmosphere was very, very different. The O is such a beautiful ship, the crew they have is wonderful and I guess it's simply disappointing to me to have the Holland America experience lose a little of it's polish.

We will be on the smaller Statendam for the January 5 Hawaii/Tahiti sailing and are hoping to have a return of the "typical" Holland America style. Will post on our return.

Thanks for listening.

Janet