What Makes a HAL Cruise Director Excellent?

On our cruise to Bermuda our Explorer / On Location states we had Carlos Mendoza. We found Anthony Choice to be a great friendly guy on the Maasdam.

Bingo!!! :p

We never bother with the cruise director. Out of sight, out of mind. And the fewer public announcements the better.

I'm relieved they stopped the daily Bingo announcements. That used to get under my skin.

Our favorite HA cruise director on HA was Tom Faulkner. We use the word "was" because Tom is no longer a cruise director but will now be found doing is future cruise consulting (along with his lovely wife...Tina) on various HA ships. What made Tom special? He quickly won-over most passengers the first day of every cruise with a short announcement that he would only be making one PA announcement per day (at noon with the Captain's report) and folks who wanted to know about activities could find this info in the daily schedule. To spend all day without the annoying PA stuff was a true pleasure. We are just back from the Veendam where there is an excellent CD (Alex) except that he simply had to interrupt everyone with announcements at around 9:45am, 12:30pm and again at 4pm (and sometimes had 1 or 2 other annoucments). Everything said in those announcements is contained in the daily schedule but I guess HA (and most of their CDs) feel that their charges are illiterate and need frequent reinforcing of the daily schedule and ways to spend their money ("there is a sale at the spa," "a shop sale at the pool," "a scheduled show in the Showroom," etc).

 

There is an interesting facet of cruising for those who cruise on many different lines (we have been on 14 lines). The number (and length) of annoying PA announcements seems to be inversely proportional to the overall quality of the product. If you cruise on the ultra luxury lines there are generally no more then a single announcement per day. But the mass market lines seem to feel that its fine to annoy customers. It reminds me of the "Blue Light specials" that are announced at K-Marts.

 

Hank

That post made me wonder too sail. A cd is totally unimportant to me. Maybe we wouldn't have the twice daily updates about what is going on around the ship without one. Clearly none of us can read. I rarely go to any organized activities so I really don't care who the cd is.

I tend to agree with you Lorene. Those daily updates drive me nuts. The only PA I look forward to is the Captain's talk around noon. Wish people would not talk while he is talking.

A post in another thread got me wondering.......

 

What do you think makes an HAL CD more excellent, more to your liking, better at his/her work than another?

CD's are at their best when they stay home...

My comment is not about a cruise director but someone on his staff. The fellow who ran name that toon, bingo, line dancing as well as other activities on the Amsterdam was hard to take. His attitude was rude and condescending and at times bordered on bullying. An example of this is; four from our group got up to learn to line dance. After a couple of songs we wanted to sit, watch and sip a drink. He actually took my arm and pulled me and others back while making comments that I found upsetting. I did stay dancing but left the crow's nest soon after as I felt that this was the only way out of this situation. The group of us discussed this after and felt that he was completely inappropriate. I commented on this in my survey to HAL. :mad:

My comment is not about a cruise director but someone on his staff. The fellow who ran name that toon, bingo, line dancing as well as other activities on the Amsterdam was hard to take. His attitude was rude and condescending and at times bordered on bullying. An example of this is; four from our group got up to learn to line dance. After a couple of songs we wanted to sit, watch and sip a drink. He actually took my arm and pulled me and others back while making comments that I found upsetting. I did stay dancing but left the crow's nest soon after as I felt that this was the only way out of this situation. The group of us discussed this after and felt that he was completely inappropriate. I commented on this in my survey to HAL. :mad:

Wow, that is totally inappropriate.

On our cruise to Bermuda our Explorer / On Location states we had Carlos Mendoza. We found Anthony Choice to be a great friendly guy on the Maasdam.

I agree, Anthony Choice is one of the few I remember.

On our cruise to Bermuda our Explorer / On Location states we had Carlos Mendoza. We found Anthony Choice to be a great friendly guy on the Maasdam.

I agree, Anthony Choice is one of the few I remember.

As soon as I saw Anthony's name I remembered him as one of the better Cruise Directors I have had. Very friendly and easy to talk to.

We had a new cruise director on Prinsendam. She had a lot of excellent qualities BUT.....she insisted on getting on the P.A. at 9 a.m. with her announcements. Sometimes we like to stay up late and sleep in, on sea days. I don't remember Thom Faulkner or Linda M. being so thoughtless!!

I think the Cruise Director is an especially important job on the transatlantic cruises...more so on the short Caribbean runs with an intensive port itinerary. We had 8 sea days this last cruise, with one "break" in between in the Azores.

That's a lot of passengers to keep entertained for 8 days at sea!

We had a new cruise director on Prinsendam. She had a lot of excellent qualities BUT.....she insisted on getting on the P.A. at 9 a.m. with her announcements. Sometimes we like to stay up late and sleep in, on sea days. I don't remember Thom Faulkner or Linda M. being so thoughtless!!

9am! OMG! If we were awakened by worthless 9AM announcements we would quickly seek out the CD and have a very polite conversation. The gist would be that if it happened again, there would be an e-mail soon on it's way to Seattle. Believe it or not but there are actually a few HA cruisers who stay awake after 10pm and enjoy sleeping late :)

Hank

The perfect CD is one I'm not aware of. A CD who keeps announcements short.

9am! OMG! If we were awakened by worthless 9AM announcements we would quickly seek out the CD and have a very polite conversation. The gist would be that if it happened again, there would be an e-mail soon on it's way to Seattle. Believe it or not but there are actually a few HA cruisers who stay awake after 10pm and enjoy sleeping late :)

 

Hank

How do you get these announcements broad cast into your room? We always have to stand out in the hallway to hear them.

Used to be that only emergency announcements were piped into cabins.

One CD on a longer cruise made an announcement every day that cut out the TV. This was in the middle of a news program and it put one of us into orbit every day. I don't think she is still on HAL, thankfully!

How do you get these announcements broad cast into your room? We always have to stand out in the hallway to hear them.

Interesting. If you cannot hear them in your cabin how do you know to even go out in the hall? :) Granted it sometimes just sounds like noise in the cabins....but then again it often sounds like useless noise when you can understand the announcements.

Hank

Interesting. If you cannot hear them in your cabin how do you know to even go out in the hall? :) Granted it sometimes just sounds like noise in the cabins....but then again it often sounds like useless noise when you can understand the announcements.

 

Hank

Hearing them, and understanding what is being spoken are two different things. We can hear something sometimes, if we are near the cabin door and then have to pop out into the hallway to actually be able to listen to what is said.

So how do you get them broadcast into your cabin -- we thought they would also be on a TV channel but that did not work for us, at least. What is your secret that they are so loud they can wake you up. We almost wish because we generally find them helpful, to the point … and short.

How do you get these announcements broad cast into your room? We always have to stand out in the hallway to hear them.

That is usually the case. The speaker must have been outside our cabin. We did have this cabin a couple of years ago and there was not a problem. This gal was trying too hard, being new!

The best CDs keep the corny jokes to a minimum.

On the Zaandam, and maybe others of the same class, there is a volume control and channel selector on the "headboard". Most of the time the volume control is turned all the way down so you don't really notice it. If you turn up the volume most of the channels have music, and one is for announcements.

If you leave the volume turned up to a comfortable level and leave it on the proper channel you will have the announcements in your cabin.

On the Zaandam, and maybe others of the same class, there is a volume control and channel selector on the "headboard". Most of the time the volume control is turned all the way down so you don't really notice it. If you turn up the volume most of the channels have music, and one is for announcements.

 

If you leave the volume turned up to a comfortable level and leave it on the proper channel you will have the announcements in your cabin.

Is that control still on headboard on Zaandam?

I thought they were all removed at dry docks. I remember well when we would tune to the 'communication' channel and leave it there for the cruise but there were also several music stations.

Veendam, Maasdam, and none of the Vista or Signature ships have that headboard control now.

A post in another thread got me wondering.......

 

What do you think makes an HAL CD more excellent, more to your liking, better at his/her work than another?

A. Personality without be obnoxiously loud and overbearing.

B. Being there doing his or her job without blasting me/us with Advertisements, i.e., shore excursions, Port Shopping (mention my name and ger....), Bingo, Games that would be on other cruise lines such as Belly flop contests, druken games, I think you can see where I am coming from, other things I care nothing about ......

C. Being out there with the passengers and including them as fellow cruisers. I want a CD who is a human being that cares about the passengers needs and wants and not the bottom dollar of what's in it for him (again read: mention my name....)

D. Most importantly, one that shows not just says he or she is there for you, but stops you whenever he or she sees you, remembers your name, and makes you like him or her, just because they are that way.

Joanie

Even though we don’t need the games and many activities onboard to enjoy a cruise, the Cruise Director is part of the ship’s backbone, along with the Captain and the Hotel Director.

I agree with a lot of what Hlitner had to say. Our favorite Cruise Directors have been Bruce Scudder and Thom Faulkner. Gene Young and Glenn Coenen are both potential greats.

Slightly off the subject, we really miss Travel Guide Frank Buckingham. None of the newer ones we have had come even close to his expertise. And we wish that HAL would keep the Travel lectures more separate from the Shore Excursion talks. Exploring a port is different from buying a tour.

I do think that this falls under the responsibility of the Cruise Director, whose job covers far more than assumed.

Barbara