aardvark2300

The almost totally self serve aspect of the Lido offerings on Celebrity are a big difference for us - we by far feel the HAL approach is much safer than some of nasty shared utensil behavior exhibited by many of the Celebrity patrons. Both lines have their advantages and disadvantages (no smoking casinos on Celebrity are a plus for them), but we really feel much safer dining on a HAL ship if we do wind up eating at the Lido.

I am in total agreement that losing this wonderful venue on the ship reduces the competitive advantage HAL has - at least in our minds. We always found the performances very relaxing and worthwhile. The cruise lines appear to be cutting out the very things we really enjoy about cruising vs land vacations. The recent announcement from Norwegian Cruise lines about laying off many of their entertainment employees is a prime example. What's the best way to contact HAL to express an opinion - ie writing them at what address?

LOL, thanks for the replies! It appears there is, in fact, not a banana supply issue currently in effect on HAL and YouTubers may be spreading conspiracy theories for clickbate, I was just unlucky I suppose. It seemed ironic to me that one of the cruises I was on that had no bananas was a Panama Canal cruise. It's enough to drive me bananas (sorry, couldn't resist that). On a related note - wonder if refrigeration of bananas kills those little teeny flies that like them. We had a very persistent invasion of them recently that I am convinced came from grocery store bananas. Do the cruise lines use irradiation on their produce to keep that problem controlled? Not trying to start another conspiracy theory here, just curious.

Watched one of the youTube bloggers (think it was Tony) that had a story about a woman complaining about the quality of her banana she got on HAL. She claimed it was rotten - the picture displayed on the video looked like a banana that had been frozen and thawed, not necessarily rotten, but it does bring to attention an issue I have had on the last couple of HAL cruises I have been on. They almost never had any bananas available on the ships - even if I specifically asked for them in the Lido or checked them on my room service menu I was consistently told on two different cruises they were "out". Just finished a Celebrity cruise and they had nice looking bananas available every day. Now - I realize this is not an earth-shattering problem, but I wonder if HAL has just decided not to make them available. Bananas are after all pretty doggone cheap to buy. Any recent banana-eaters have a comment to share on this problem?

So I have reviewed this entire thread twice and never saw an answer to the question of what ship the OP was/is on. Particularly curious as I have a HAL Alaska cruise coming up shortly! Thanks!

The last couple of casino cruises we went on (Panama Canal & Caribbean) we were sent offers via email about 2 weeks prior to sailing to upgrade our cabin (OV & Inside) to balconies for very reasonable fees. We were able to choose our cabin from a few that were offered to us. In both cases, we were happy with the results. We have been booking through HAL direct as we don’t have a relationship with a with a travel agent - not sure if we’d do better using one as we have been exclusively using casino offers lately. As an additional note, I did call about upgrades prior to receiving the offers and they were substantially more expensive.