Ship Capacity

[Linda&Vern]

Does anyone know (or know how to find out) the answer to this? The Holiday sailing of the Maasdam is sold out. Per a 7/04 ship fact sheet, there are 629 rooms and a ship capacity of 1258. Doesn't take a lot of math skills to figure out that is "two" to a room. So here is my question. With this being a Holiday sailing and assuming there will be many families with children -- will this cruise end up with more than the 1258 capacity? Does that ship capacity number really mean anything (i.e., is it against some type of code to have more than 1258 passengers on the ship)? We knew when we booked 11 days at Holiday time it would be "prime" time . . . however, because we can't be with our family this year we were hoping for a "quiet" getaway. I guess I just want to be mentally prepared and want to know if we'll be sailing in an "over-capacity," "no room to move around," and "crew can't handle the crowd" situation. Thanks for all your valuable info over the last few months!

[garydm]

We had a very bad expererience on the Amsterdam last year. When booking we did not realize the ship had been chartered to a travel agency in Vancouver which packed the ship. As I recall the capacity is rated at around 1300 and we had 1790 people on board. There were not enough seats in the dining room-people literally wandered around looking for someplace to sit. Diners in the Lido were asked for their table numbers in the dining room so their seats could be used. They ran out of a number of food items by the third day and there were lines everywhere.

The charter company was doing sales at the pier for new passengers (who had earlier registered for stand by) as late as the scheduled departure time. We fortuntately had an S suite and hunkered down there and in the Neptune for most of the trip.

I felt very bad for the crew, some of whom I knew from an earlier trip. The head waiters were visibly distraught and one told me they had never had this many guests on the ship. And the room stewards, with so many people packed in cabins had some real challenges.

Good luck.

Gary

[arzz]

We have been on many Christmas cruises on many different lines. They were always fully booked with many families so probably a significant number of 3rd and 4th berths were filled. We have sailed Christmas on numerous lines -- unfortunattely not all of those cruise lines are still with us. With the exception of Christmas on the Norway (IMHO sailing under the NCL banner she had far too many cabins and not nearly enough public space for the passenger load), we have never felt over crowded. Especially comfortable and quiet was our Christmas on the Statendam in the mid '90's. We still have many special memories there. In March of 2003 we were on a spring break cruise on the Zaandam, also fully booked and again we never felt overwhelmed by people. In fact on that cruise we were so happy we only left the ship once. I guess the type of situation that occured on the Amsterdam mentioned in the previous post could happen if EVERY berth was sold, but the HAL ships seem to have such a favorable passenger/space ratio I find it difficult to imagine such chaos under normal circumstances. I admit that our Christmas's on Royal Caribbean and Princess were a little more "people polluted" than our Christmas on HAL but then that is one of the reasons we are sailing HAL and not a differenet line.

[Globaliser]

Does that ship capacity number really mean anything (i.e., is it against some type of code to have more than 1258 passengers on the ship)?Sometimes you'll see more detailed details about ships which specify that, eg, capacity is 1258 (double occupancy) and maybe 1500 or whatever (full occupancy) - the latter figure will include all the extra berths in the cabins that can take a third or fourth person. If you can find that extra information it'll give you a better idea of what you might be in for. As always, you know what they say about lies, damned lies and statistics.

[grannynurse]

Last February we found out that my adult son was going to be in London while we were on our 34 day transatlantic on the Rotterdam (june-july).
We invited him to join us in Amsterdam and sail to Ny with us.

Our TA found out from HAL that 3rd passenger quotas for that sailing were filled and we were waitlisted for my son's passage.
It was not yet final payment time so we knew we had a chance that he'd get on, and he eventually was booked.

As you get past final payment and rooms open up chances get better, but things close up quickly after that, and our sailing was not chartered. That sounds like a nightmare, I can't believe HAL allowed it to happen, as they were so cautious with our request.

I would be upset if i was placed in that position, full ship and no where to sit etc. Hopefully HAL learned from their error and won't allow it to happen again.
GN