iceman93

It sounds like you can't go wrong either way, but if I'm reading the tone of your post correctly I think you already kind of know that HAL is the better choice.

That being said, consider Disney.  No other line does family cruising as well, they DO have a nursery on board so you can enjoy an evening or two of adult time, and yet you won't feel overrun with children on board either.

I have two thoughts about the 4* laundry benefit which a surprising number of people seem to consider the sacrosanct benefit HAL had best not touch.  It appears that paying for the unlimited laundry package on board costs $10.50 per day.  Are you really going to walk away from HAL because they take a ten-buck-a-day perk away?

And if so, I think you're exactly the kind of frequent cruiser HAL really doesn't want.  I'm not trying to be insulting, really I'm not, but a cruise customer who gets that worked up over having to pay $10.50 a day for a benefit previously offered as a loyalty reward is not the kind of spender they'd prefer to have.

Ever since they switched to the electronic tablets, we don't go to Bingo anymore.  Just watching all the people passively sitting there, literally not doing a thing except watching their little screen, takes all the fun out of it.  Of course Bingo was always merely a game of chance, but at least by checking and marking paper cards the participants did SOMETHING to participate.

And yes, I know you can still choose the paper.  But honestly people with the tablets almost always win because they are simultaneously "doing" so many cards.

On 4/17/2025 at 10:25 PM, oakridger said:

Viking Ocean just keeps cranking them out.....and apparently filling them up! So far.

I was going to say the same thing about Disney!

20 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Formal nights are only on Grand voyages. On shorter cruises, the Dressy night is usually on the first and last sea days.   All you need for a dressy night is a collared shirt and no shorts or jeans

 

A very low bar...

Very true, but I'll just point out that some people still treat dressy night as formal night--I still see the occasional tux or three-piece suit.  So to the OP, don't let the lowered standard keep you from dressing up even more if you want to.

20 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

The $15 upcharge for Dover Sole over and above the Sel de Mer price seems a bit excessive.... 🤔

My guess is that this upcharge is mainly intended to discourage too many people from ordering it.  It is a very labor-intensive dish for the servers, and if everyone ordered it then service would slow to a crawl.  Not saying I disagree with your assessment that it seems excessive, though.

If HAL thought they could make more money sailing out of Tampa, they would.  I remember when I lived near Washington, DC we took a HAL cruise in and out of Norfolk.  It was wonderfully convenient (although the seas the first and last two days were pretty rough).

I had a chance to ask a HAL higher-up on another cruise why they didn't sail out of Norfolk anymore, and she explained that it's a hugely complicated issue deciding on embarkation and disembarkation ports.  She did say that the fewer ports they sailed from, the fewer government agencies, longshoremen's unions, local port agents, and all that they had to deal with.  But she said the primary factor, as it is with so many things, is profitability.  They run the numbers constantly and put the ships where they think they'll make the most money.

Take away the sarcastic stuff in POA1's description, and I'd go for that in a heartbeat!  Sounds a bit like Remy on the newer Disney ships, which is considered the finest dining experience at sea.

I'm not sure what the OP's basis is for saying "the current trend is rapidly moving to non-alcoholic Beveridge's [sic]", so if that is not true, that could be the reason.  NA wine is generally sold in 750ml bottles.  If they only serve one glass now and then, there could be a fair bit of spoilage, unlike NA beer which is served in single-serving cans or bottles.

It's like asking why won't they serve those expensive reserve wines by the glass--they've done the math and determined they wouldn't sell enough of them to make it worth chancing throwing away part or most of the bottle.

On 11/18/2024 at 12:26 PM, REOVA said:

Now if they return the music to the MDR, that would be welcomed back. 😆

I'm with you on that one.  I have no (as in zero, none, nada, zip) interest in sitting silently to watch a performance in a small space like they used to do with the LCS.  But live music in the MDR, especially on formal nights, is one of the things I used to truly enjoy about cruising.

9 hours ago, Queen of Oakville said:

is automated poker the same as video poker?

No, video poker is a standalone machine where you typically play five-card draw, selecting discards with the payout for a pair of jacks or better hands.

Automated poker is on a large poker table with multiple other players and is generally no-limit Texas hold 'em.  The whole table is a large computer monitor where things like the community cards and chips in the pot are displayed in the middle, while only you can see your hole cards and you touch the screen to check/bet/fold.

Either way, there is no live dealer, but at least at automated poker there is still the interaction with other players.

I can't say I'm happy about the expanded space for Effy jewelry.  I guess HAL is making money off of it, otherwise they wouldn't do it, but Effy is just an upscale "gold by the inch" as far as I'm concerned, and any square footage dedicated to them is wasted space.

I guess I'm the only one who ranked all the "feel good" items above the items of basic monetary value.

I'm just curious how you all track your casino "points".  They may not even apply to my wife and I, as all the gambling we've done on our last couple of cruises is to play Texas Hold'Em on the big electronic table almost anytime there's a tournament, but if we choose to play some blackjack on a future cruise I'm wondering how to keep track.  And sorry to go too far off-track, but I assume the casino likes slots players the best just like in land-based casinos?

1 hour ago, Laminator said:

Both mine and my wife's offer are for free Neptune Suites. We are bigger players though.

That's great!  And I love the way you look at it, even if you lose some money you're still coming out ahead of what you would have spent just to pay for the cruise anyway.  Good for you!

2 hours ago, Laminator said:

I can pay $16,000 to $20,000 to HAL for 2 Neptune Suites that include the SBP for all guests or I can take a chance in the casino. If I lose $16.000 to $20,000 I am even. If I dump $10 grand I am $6000 to $10,000 ahead. Last cruise I lost $2000 so I came out quite a bit ahead. 

 

Are you getting casino offers for free Neptune Suites?  The only ones I get (and I'll admit I'm the smallest of the small fish in the casino) are for free insides.  The cash value of those rooms is a pittance when looking to upgrade to a Neptune or Pinnacle Suite, so I've stopped even looking at them.  But if they offered a free Neptune Suite, that would change things drastically for me.

I've never been on a ship that didn't at least have creaks and moans as the ship moved.  If you require absolute silence to sleep, I'd invest in earplugs, noise-cancelling headphones, and/or a white noise machine to try to drown out the other sounds.

But if the OP really "can't sleep in noise", then a cruise is not a good vacation choice.

I personally feel like HAL has to eliminate a few older ships before adding anything new to the fleet.  And while I would personally like the new ships to be on the smaller side, that's probably not realistic.  I guess we'll see what happens over these next few years...

Both of those issues are real, for cruises just before and just after dry dock (I've experienced both).  Supplies do start to run low since they don't want a big inventory during the dry dock, and while they try to minimize the impact on guests you will start to see areas closed off for staging, prep work, etc.

It wouldn't keep me from booking another cruise just before or after a dry dock, just go in with eyes wide open.

It seems that most of the problems MIGHT have to do with the fact this was an inaugural cruise.  I'd like to see Captain Albert do the exact same cruise in six months or a year and see what he thinks then.

I've had minor customer service issues with HAL in the past (nothing even close to what happened to the OP), and they bent so far over backwards to right the wrong that it's part of what cemented my loyalty to HAL over the years.  I know that customer service in all industries and particularly hospitality has declined rapidly since "the unpleasantness of 2020", but hearing the OP's tale here really bothers me.  HAL screwed up--no matter how, which doesn't really matter--and they should be not only apologizing and fully refunding the OP, they should be offering additional compensation (doesn't have to be cash, by the way) to do what they can to make it right.

A company with sophisticated IT and revenue maximization systems would definitely do this.  I just don't think HAL has their act together that well (which isn't a bad thing for us passengers in this case).

I'm sure that the same picture in the RCCL boards would generate a lot of "you'd never catch me dead on that tiny, boring ship on the left" posts.  Which is fine--different strokes, and all that.  But yes, without ever having sailed on an ...of the Seas ship, I am quite content continuing to sail with HAL.

On 1/29/2024 at 7:28 AM, cruisemom42 said:

Effy onboard ships is the equivalent of Diamonds International ashore, IMHO. Their aggressive marketing is annoying.

I completely agree, and had such a poor experience with the Effy people on my NS cruise last year that I will never even consider buying Effy jewelry ever again.

My wife and I had been considering a couple of items that were in the $10k-$15k range.  Not the kind of decision we make on the spot, so we told them we were going to take a few days to decide which we wanted to get.

Every day from then on, when we'd walk by the Effy area, they'd swarm over to us.  "What have you decided?  Are you ready to buy yet?  You don't want your preferred items to sell out, so you should make up your minds!"

The kicker was the one day I was walking through the area by myself and one of the sales staff approached me to say "If you want your wife to know how much you love her, you should buy the most expensive items."  After being speechless for a moment (rare for me), I told her that my wife knows very well how much I love her and she doesn't need me spending money on trinkets to demonstrate it.  I also told her she had lost the sale and to please not approach us anymore.

She didn't, but a few days later when walking through the store manager approached us to say he understood there was a problem with a sale but that he'd like to take over, and if it was a matter of not being to afford what we wanted that he could offer a slight discount or offer some similar lower-priced items.  I was speechless again (twice in one cruise!), but bless my wife she told him it had nothing to do with being to afford the items but that she now knew where the sales staff got their rude attitudes from and to please not approach us again.  She also gave him our cabin number and asked that no further Effy offers be delivered to us.  Since we were staying in the PS, I hope that put to bed the question of whether or not we could afford his jewelry...

On 1/23/2024 at 10:47 AM, Sir PMP said:

Is this the one you're talking about?

If so, they are sure to get their extra Mariner Society days for onboard spending.