cgolf1

It is a beautiful ship, but I do like the Fincantieri builds from that timeframe and this ship didn't disappoint. The MDR was a challenge, as I covered here and my post cruise report on here. It was a great trip overall. Every cruise has its share of challenges, and we just need to roll with them. We have seen many on other boards that would scrap a ship for slightly worn carpet, tile issues in a bathroom, marks on the paint etc, we refuse to roll that way. These ships turnover a lot of people each year, there is bound to be wear and tear, these aren't super yachts.

I agree with all you said having sailed the Zaandam recently as well, except they ran out of Amaretto in the crows nest. Despite some of the hiccups we will be back for a second HAL cruise in the future.

The lady that played at the piano bar had an amazing voice, so I wasn’t surprised it was packed. She was a gem. After are last Celebrity cruise, it was nice to hear great live vocals.

The Canada/New England cruise on the Zaandam had zero issues with chair hogs. That said it was cold and the top was always closed, and we only had one sea/river day. Being our first HAL cruise, I just thought HAL had it controlled:) All joking aside, we appeared to have a full ship based on rooms booked and no upgrades available and other then the piano bar by the casino being packed at night, I really never saw many people congregating in one area during the trip. Other than the lines for the MDR at 5:30 that is to tie it all together;)

Yup and we chose to cruise on lines with the least first world problems:)

We booked late, month before the cruise, so fixed dining wasn't an option or we would have chosen early seating. We are first time HAL so we are used to how Celebrity and RCCL handle the anytime. Once we has a set time on those lines, like we ended up with on HAL after day 2, we always had either the same table/server or a table in the same servers area.

I wonder if that is because of the issue lines are having getting staff. It sounds like most lines are running understaffed, likely both to save money, but have also heard from numerous sources that it is more difficult to get staff onboard now.

At that point we didn't push it. It seemed so chaotic that we let it go and rolled with it. Did it cause some frustration sure, but we were on a cruise so all in all life was good. It takes a lot for us to seriously get bent out of shape to complain, especially in this case. I would hate for someone to get a mark against them for what appears to be a flawed system because of my complaint. Back in my teens I worked fast food counter, and we are seen as a lower lifeform than servers, and the way some people treat you is atrocious, so I try to be open minded. If a server is just rude or inappropriate, yes there would be a complaint, if it is the system, it would have to be really bad and we would go to great lengths for it not to reflect on the staff who are trying.

We did ask for the same table and serving team, and was assured it would happen once we set a reservation time, and it never happened. Also one night we got there for our reservation time and we were given a buzzer to wait to be seated, while people without a reservation were seated right away. If we were waiting to get the same table, I would understand this, but nope it was to a random table that night too. We had lots of comments on the after cruise survey about the disorganization in the main dining room. I guess I fell into the trap here and also commented about the inconsistency in service quality as well night to night.

Why because in 18 cruises we have never had different servers every night where we eat in the same dining room, so for us very unusual. Also who wants and hour long meal, if we get seated at 5:45 is it too much to ask to be done by 6:50? We either sit as a couple or with family members we travel with, so we have conversations outside of meal time so we don't need long periods of time where we can chat. We don't view meal time as a social time, I know that some do. We just want to sit down and eat and get on with the cruise, and this usually happens. Other lines even with my time dining we always had the same servers, pre and post pandemic. Also the servers on HAL seemed very unfocused, looking around as they were taking peoples orders. The food was great, not so much the level of service with 1 or 2 exceptions. We never order anything special and trying to get gluten free bread on HAL was an adventure lol. The worst we would do is my wife may ask for a sauce to be left off, or say the anchovies on the ceaser salad.

Let’s set aside that I am gluten free that makes having the same team very beneficial. we like to do early seating and also make the early show. HAL baffled us by not giving us the same serving team even with a reservation at 5:45. Some nights we had lots of time before the show, other nights we were walking in as the show started. Having the same service team, they can get to know the pace that you like. We like to eat fast with minimal time between courses, so it is great when they consistently do this. As a side note and important for the crew, this was the first time we didn’t tip a service team extra, because they were different every night and one did stand out as more efficient, but we only had them once. I would guess that these servers earn less in extra tips compared to servers while it saved us some money I feel bad for the servers.

I don't know about guilt, but when we first moved away from Disney for many reasons after 12 cruises with them, we were super nervous and second guessing our decision until the moment we stepped foot on another line, RCCL, and realized that other lines were equal to or even way better than what we experienced on Disney. Now we are cruising free agents and select cruises and which line using the criteria we have set up. There are a few lines we won't sail based on experiences of people we know, but there are some lines out there we will likely try in the future. It also makes reviews post cruise easier because I don't have the viewpoint that any line is the best and I have multiple experiences to compare to. But wow that first step out of the bubble of sailing one cruise line is huge with lots of anxiety!

They weren't good in 2019 or 2023 so no difference to me. Just off HAL and there burger bar was pretty good and light years better than X.

I do feel we all have a different expectation of what the cruise experience we expect. If you read my review from our Canada/New England cruise from a week and a half ago, you may read that and may not want to Sail HAL again if you had that experience. While we found HAL a cruise line we would sail again. We have seen bumps in the road on all lines we sailed, and figure if there is enough good we ignore some of the misses.

We like excellent service, but suite level/personalized service is not for us. We sailed the suite life twice on Disney and didn’t use the extra services and it wasn’t a good fit for us. We priced out I believe Oceania and Viking earlier this year and it was an easy no. Maybe Azamara is cheaper than the two lines I looked up. That and we haven’t had any issues with the level of service on the four lines we have sailed, hoping that doesn’t change.

That may work for you, but we being thrifty refuse to pay that cost and likely wouldn't like that level of service either. When onboard the world cruises HAL has look pretty incredible, if things like our jobs wouldn't get in the way. We want to get to Australia, but my wife doesn't even like the flights to Florida, so a world cruise could pull that off for us. So if HAL is the line with the unique itineraries that is where our money will go. The most expensive 7 night cruise we will do is the Galapagos, but that is a bucket list destination cruise.

I use the paper daily sheets for each days notes which makes it easier for me to do the trip reports when I get back. Also when I reference an activity or performance or need to.

Even though we are on the young side of the typical HAL cruiser, we very much enjoy quiet cruises. We are done with every minute of every day planned with activities. Our first cruise post pandemic on the Connie, I did more of my puzzle book and lost more cribbage games then ever out on that back deck with the video screen. I bet we chilled out there for 1/2 the day everyday. That was one of the best cruises ever. We did sail HAL due to the intinerary. To your point about HAL being at a crossroads, sure along with every cruise line. I have been on a Celebrity crossroads thread similar to this too. Whether its debt issues, difficulty hiring staff, food costs, etc it is a tough time for cruise lines and all of them are doing various things to navigate through it, many unpopular to try and make it back out of the darkness. Listening to the Connie CD about her time on the empty ship during the shutdown it was pretty much darkness. Having sailed when the X cuts were at their worst, some things weren't great but we managed. I am hoping that cruise lines will find there footing again over the next few years and then we will get to whatever the new normal is. I guess that is why we aren't abandoning any one line because it sounds like it impacts all lines.

Celebrity Edge class is a great example of this especially with the music choices which trend younger a we applaud the choice they made there, but the majority likely not so much. That said there are quite a few Celebrity folks that won't step foot on the Edge class. We do our best to research the ships before we go. Even our most recent on the Zaandam we booked a month before sailing, we wore out you tube and read the boards a lot in a day before we booked. That way we can either pick the itinerary or the ship that suits us. HAL wasn't a perfect fit for us, as my review showed, but there will never be a perfect fit so we roll with it:)

Never many trip reports on the boards from inside and oceanview rooms. We were pleasantly surprised by the crazy amount of storage and the room size for the Zaandam inside room. Oddly from sailing the Disney magic so many times, the Zaandam felt familiar being a Fincantieri build of the same vintage, magic was built there too. I honestly felt right at home. We always try to include pictures in the reviews to let people know how usable the space is. I wish more people posted about them as well on here to be able to discuss the pros and cons more.

Interestingly I have found HAL, Celebrity, and RCCL to be similar in price point, but we do sail inside rooms by choice because we like them and didn't like the suite life experience. We are mid to late 40s, but could see our selves sailing on any of the 3 lines for the next how many ever years we have left. We adjust to what is offered onboard and make use of the stuff we enjoy. Our days of being loyal to one line are over. As we branch out we find things we like on each line we sail and that is likely why we have an interesting choice of cruise line options:). We might be an outlier in that we just like to cruise certain times of the year and sea days can be our favorite days. One big thing going for us on RCCL is mini golf. I never understood why Celebrity and not sure about HAL don't put a classy mini golf course in. Many people in the demographic that they attract golf, so I would think it would go over well like pickleball. For the way we like to cruise and the Thrifty part of my trip report it would take a lot to bump us to the premium brands, but one can never predict the future. I would love to know what people thought on our Canada New England cruise where we had kids jumping in the pool and splashing, would have caused lots of comments on Celebrity. One note about this HAL board and our small sample size of 1 cruise on HAL. We have noticed a lot of entitlement on Celebrity and the CC board is pretty negative. We didn't see that onboard HAL, everyone seemed nice and it was a different vibe. Also this CC board seems much more approachable and tame as well.

Edge Feb13-24th 2023 Partial PC, Ship was sailing at capacity and it definitely felt like it. Was also hard to get a seat at a show too. We stood in back for a couple of shows.

Our cruise could have been an outlier, but we had a hard time getting a seat that wasn't at the bar. Actually annoyed us because we wanted to sit out there.

Actually when we were on the partial PC transit cruise this year, even on a sea day it was hard to get a seat. We overhead a few say this is actually nice, I thought it was a gimmick lol.

No worries and agree it is always a personal choice. We are relatively new to Celebrity as well. Once on the Edge pre pandemic, Connie with like 600 guests post startup, and a full Edge this year. It is neat jumping into HAL now and thinking hey this is pretty nice. We also love the smaller ships too with a proper promenade so HAL wins there big time for us:) We could never do Disney again due to cost and cutbacks in 2016, no value for us, can't imagine now lol. So for Disney we are like the long time HAL cruisers that are saying its too many cuts.