FredT

Very strange that HAL call their Mariner program a loyalty program yet penalize cruisers for their loyalty.

Sooooo.... Book your cruise as a nubie, and dont enter your mariner number UNTIL you check in at the pier.....

First off, a disclaimer. I dont smoke... never have.

I think you are fighting windmills. For every person out there who has a "major" issue with the HAL smoking policy, there are probably two smokers out there who would go elsewhere if they were prohibited from smoking.

It's all economics.

We have done three HAL trips over the past 2 years. Antarctica, Far east and a trans atlantic. In out mid 50's we were smack dab in the middle of the age demographic. The biggest difference is the whole entertainment thing mentioned above. HAL counts on you to entertain yourself, they are not going to spoon feed you. "Are you self entertaining" is a GREAT line/question. Fits HAL perfectly.

The other big thing you will notice about HAL is that the vast majority of passengers are VERY experienced travelers. Not snooty, not aloof, but they know what they want and what to expect.

Question for those who have experience with Star Clippers.

For the last few months I have been trying to get an answer from the company regarding a cruise that my DW and I are interested in. (A Panama Canal sailing that starts in the Pacific, hops down to the canal, and ends in the Caribbean. Saw it for January 2014.)

I have tried asking my travel agent... they cant get an answer. I've tried e-mailing the company... they dont respond. I tried mailing the company, no response. I even tried calling their reservation line. No one knows when or if that sailing will be repeated in 2015.

Now I have been following the Cuba thread here, where most of the passengers are commenting on poor followup (or NO followup) with problems, and I begin to wonder... Is this typical with this company? If so, I'd love to know so that I dont waste a precious vacation next year on a trip with management that does not care about their passengers...

My opinion on Alaska vs Antarctica:

Go to Alaska first. If you do Antarctica first you will be HIGHLY disappointed when you do Alaska later.

Also, before we went, we read a lot on this board. One of the best bits of advice we got was NOT to take any heavy clothing. Rather, take LOTS of layers. It's summer in both Chile and Argentina where you start and end, and gets progressively colder as you head south. By adding successive layers you stay nice and warm, and you dont have to pack 10 suitcases for a 2 week cruise.

Saw this about a year ago. The image of this film that has stuck with me is the

picture of all the life jackets just dumped on the quay as the passengers came ashore.

Had it on my laptop when we did a far east cruise in January. Something really spooky about a bunch of us huddling around in a circle on the lower promenade deck one night watching that...

My wife and I also just did RCI and Holland in the same month (January). I would have to agree with just about everything that the OP said. we were on the Brilliance, and I honestly thought that we would have a lot more "space" on the larger ship... Nope. Lines everywhere, crowds everywhere, a REALLY poor ship design where the elevators are concerned, and (lots) of so so food.

The only place they really kick HAL's butt is entertainment. Better in every way in quantity AND quality.

Note on the room stewards. On RC they were all from the Caribbean, and honestly seemed to have a slight chip on their shoulders. Also they really seemed to LIVE on their cell phones, something I have never seen on HAL.

BUT. (Last one I promise) If I had kids through the teen years, I'd choose RC if the itineraries were similar. Different demographic, and more for THEM to do.

Fast walking (Power walking) is certainly permitted on the lower promenade deck, and you will find a number of walkers pushing themselves whenever you go out there. About a quarter mile (if I remember correctly) and a great place to get your exercise. (I averaged about 5 miles a day on our Antarctica trip on the Veendam)

The full wrap around promenade deck.

Fresh Flowers everywhere.

Smaller ship (in general)

Better itineraries. (Otherwise I would have sailed on other lines!)

Better library

Self service laundries

Better tech center

Better "attitude". IMHO it seems HAL KNOWS "what" it wants to be. Princess is trying to be everything to everyone...

But in the end, if Princess has a better itinerary for a particular route... I'm on Princess.....

Perhaps the reason that HAL takes fires so seriously is the little "incident" on October 4, 1980... Thats when a "minor fire" in the engine room of the Prinsendam got out of control... and spread to the Lido.

Good training got everyone off the ship, but it's a lesson that Holland America will probably never forget.

CruiseTail:

Your point? Anyone see the Veendam after that minor storm a couple years ago? (And, we were on board when the Argentines dropped a crane on her a year later...) :eek:

The problem was we had higher expectations because of our Med cruise experience. We have sailed Crystal, Siverisea, and Seabourn and are not comparing those cruise lines to our HAL experience.

LOL..... But it sounds as if that's EXACTLY what you (perhaps subconsciously )

did. Hell, If I had the income to cruise on those three lines on a regular basis, I'd NEVER come back to HAL. :D

But being the "average joe", I revel at the olpportunity to take a HAL cruise every year or so, and understand that the overworked wait staff and constant plea's for money are the price I pay for that $1700.00 two week far east cruise (Which I leave for in 8 days! :) )

I think, (and hope) that you also really realize this, (based on your last post) and don't slam the company for what it is, a nice, comfortable, mid range cruise line that is being run as well as can be expected (While keeping prices down to those "oh my" levels! )

The word i'm getting on the street is that the issue is a lack of pilots and cabin crews. The new rules for crew rest that came into effect January 1 have been known for years, and all the airlines have ramped up hiring so that they had extra help just in case something like these storms happened... except Jet Blue.

They elected to roll the dice and hope that a series of "system wide" storms would not adversely effect their scheduling. Well, guess what... They are the ONLY carrier to have to shut down for 2 days to get their act together... So they saved a few million on crew costs, and COST them tens of millions in revenue (and how much more in bad feelings)

Just got off a RCCL cruise in Tampa (Saturday) Our flight home was on Jet Blue, (To Westchester) our daughters on Jet Blue to Washington. To say that Jet Blue is having a "meltdown" would be an understatement. At LEAST 3/4 of all their flights out of Orlando were massively delayed or canceled, and one of the gate agents told me that it had been that bad since Thursday night. We were lucky. Our flight (6 pm departure) got out at midnight. My daughters (6:20 departure) was canceled at 3 AM. She was told there was no chance of a flight until Wednesday, so she rented a car and drove to Washington...

As a former airline pilot, I can say with certainty that Jet Blue has WAY bigger problems going on than the weather.

Just got off a RCCL cruise in Tampa (Saturday) Our flight home was on Jet Blue, (To Westchester) our daughters on Jet Blue to Washington. To say that Jet Blue is having a "meltdown" would be an understatement. At LEAST 3/4 of all their flights out of Orlando were massively delayed or canceled, and one of the gate agents told me that it had been that bad since Thursday night. We were lucky. Our flight (6 pm departure) got out at midnight. My daughters (6:20 departure) was canceled at 3 AM. She was told there was no chance of a flight until Wednesday, so she rented a car and drove to Washington...

As a former airline pilot, I can say with certainty that Jet Blue has WAY bigger problems going on than the weather.

As long as HAL has the interesting itineraries I want, and their price is not too high, they will get my business... Simple as that.

We are about to go on a far east cruise, and when we researched it, HAL had better itineraries, more stops, and longer stops than their competition. (At least their competition that was charging SIMILAR fares... )

FredT

PS: Just an aside: Go onto the NCL board, the Cunard board, the Princess board and others and you will see the same bitching about service and shipboard issues.

What do you all expect? Sure, when we first sailed HAL in the early 80's it was a lot more luxurious. But then we paid $1600 each for a one week cruise. Fast forward almost 25 years, and prices have gone DOWN, while fuel has gone up $3.00/gal, labor costs have quadrupled, insurance soared, etc etc etc.

SOMETHING has to give! (And looking at the HAL forum week to week, I can tell you a LOT of passangers are not willing to pay $10.00 more, much less the inflation adjusted 30% more!

Guess I am just "gun shy" about pushy photographers... A bunch of bad experiences (on other lines) with photographers who would not take "no". It got so bad once on a NCL cruise that they would physically stop you and insist that you get your photograph taken on boarding. No photo, no gangway....

So if I get my hackles raised when seeing one.... please understand! :D

Funny you should say that, our next cruise is Singapore/Hong Kong. Having had that experience in San Juan before though, we are now smart enough to fly out two days early on ALL our cruises... :D

Along the same lines... I was watching one of the discovery channel shows on the cruise industry. One of the things that jumped out at me was the cruise line (RC) cutting off boarding 1 hr before sailing.

So my question is this. In a case like that, could the late arrivals pay to fly to the first port (say the Bahamas for example) and join the cruise there?

PS:

About 10 yrs ago, we missed the departure out of San Juan due to a massive snowstorm, but were able to fly directly to St Thomas and join the next day... But that was BEFORE 9-11.

Ahhhhh, I see.Why not just wait till you get to the airport and print it for free?

Cause if you're flying Southwest, printing out your boarding card a day early vs at the airport is the difference between sitting by your DW in a location of your choice and sitting apart in middle row seats half a plane apart... :eek: