I'd Sail HAL Again

Have cruised with HAL four times and starting to think I need to return to them again. Thanks for the review,

Thanks for your review! Appreciate your comparison.

Thank you for your review/report.

Keith

I reached Elite status on Celebrity before they chased me away. I booked an Azamara cruise, a couple more Oceania cruises and this Hal cruise. Of course I wouldn't compare HAL or Celebrity to the other two but they are far superior in my opinion. However they are also much more expensive as well.

 

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that the next to last day we were refunded a combined $64 on our port/tax charges without explanation. We did not miss a port. I never saw that on any other cruise we've taken.

We have had a refund of port fees a couple of times, also without explanation. Nice that they do that.

I, too, was on this cruise and agree that it was a good one. It was refreshing after the disastrous Rotterdam cruise of December 2016.

The food in the dining room and PG were very good and we thought Sel de Mer was very good as well.

Service was very good both in MDR and PG. we had open seating for the first time but had the same table every night at 7:00 pm.

Our one disappointment was the family cabana. The draperies have been removed because of damage. This left them open to the elements and afforded no privacy. It also meant that we were unable to use it on most days of the cruise. I do think we should have been advised of this prior to purchase.

Other from that, it was a good cruise.

Terri

Thanks for your review. I'm so glad you enjoyed your cruise. We took our second HAL cruise last December for a full Panama Canal Transit. We enjoyed our experience so much that while we were still onboard we booked a 14 day Alaska cruise for 2019.

We have cruised on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Princess, but both of us agree that HAL gives us the relaxed, pampered, friendly atmosphere we look for in cruising. We have a 7 day cruise booked on another cruise line in December, but we will definitely go back to HAL again in the future!

Thank you so much for your review! We can't wait to try HAL in May!

We have sailed primarily with Royal Caribbean and decided to go with Celebrity to Alaska last year. Loved it, and have two more cruises booked with them... Decided to also try HAL and have two on the calendar with them as well. Will report back after the HAL cruises and hope that our experiences are just as positive! Love that HAL sails from the west coast!

Nieuw Amsterdam ~5*, Oceania Riviera 4*, Celebrity Eclipse (best Celebrity ship) 3.5*, Azamara 3.5*-

Can you please tell me where these ratings are coming from? I often see sites rating the Celebrity Solstice Class ships very highly, and much more favourably than most of the HAL fleet. I sail HAL, but want to try a Celebrity and Oceania ship — it needs to be the right one though!

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I would also like to know the source of those stats. It would be helpful for future reference.

Thank-you, very much for the review. We have sailed the Rotterdam and the Maasdam, prior to switch to X. We have now sailed on Solstice with two more X cruise to come Infinity and Constellation. After who knows? Your review of Zuiderdam helps alleviating some of the minor issues/concerns previously experienced on HAL, so we may try them again. Once again, thank-you very much!

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Why not compare?

Of course we cannot compare HAL (varies from about 5* to 3*+) vs Oceania (4* - 3.5*). We only can compare ship to ship.

If you look at the best ships, you'll see that HAL highest point is far superior.

Nieuw Amsterdam ~5*, Oceania Riviera 4*, Celebrity Eclipse (best Celebrity ship) 3.5*, Azamara 3.5*-

 

For 10 years best HAL product has been superior to Celebrity. This is only the loyalty blindness that prevents cruisers from enjoying so many beautiful things around.

 

For the record: I don't have a favorite cruise line.

Those surveys are very subjective and have no bearing on what you'll experience in reality. Celebrity and HAL are mass market lines. Oceania and Azamara are a step above that. However you can have Loyalists from mass market lines who like larger ships give the more boutique ships a lower rating because it's not what they prefer. The larger the ship, the larger the sample responding. Thus I take the ratings with a grain of salt and rely on my own experiences as my guideline.

You can have a crappy sailing on a top rated ship and a wonderful sailing on a lower rated ship. Therefore YMMV :D

Thanks for your review!

Thank you for that great review. My hubby and I are cruise newbies and are about to embark on our first cruise with HAL near the end of the month.

I can't wait.