Amsterdam Holiday Review - Mostly Good - Some Caveats

[arzz]

Never too Late for a Review - Mostly Excellent with a Couple Caveats

 

Amsterdam, Holiday Cruise, December 22, 2014 - January 5, 2015

 

Living in the path of the Polar Vortex we saw it as an almost mandatory requirement this year to get some winter heat and sun - A fourteen day Holiday Cruise on one of our favorite ships seemed a good choice.

 

We booked an FF guarantee at a very attractive price about six weeks out. We were assigned a very nice midships category D cabin about two weeks out. Two days before sailing I glanced at our reservation on line and to my utter shock we were now assigned a Vista Suite - Wow! Thank you upgrade fairy you really do exist! What a nice holiday treat.

 

Embarkation went well. Once on board we got to view our gift from the upgrade fairy. The Amsterdam has a row of nine Vista Suites forward on either side of the ship that are shower only. Our gift cabin was one of those. To our surprise there was nothing different about this cabin or bathroom from the other Vista Suites with the exception that instead of the tub shower we enjoyed a large shower stall. This cabin was not handicap accessible in any way (it had the normal narrow doors, normal thresholds and threshold into the shower). We were very happy and we did very much enjoy not having to step over the side of a deep tub in order to bathe.

 

As a whole we had a mellow, happy cruise. I spent much time out on our private deck absorbing the warmth and the cheer of the sun. I got to watch the pilots arrive and leave and when dockside I also got to watch the dock workers pull the lines. For me, wonderful stuff.

 

The Amsterdam is still as lovely as we remember her from our last time on board (Seattle to Shanghai, Sept-Oct, 2014). Since we had cruised her so recently many of the crew who were on board in the fall were still there - and amazingly remembered us by sight and often by name. Dewa, the MDR steward who comes around with the sweet rolls at breakfast who in the fall always saved DH his favorite, a cinnamon danish, recognized us on the gangway as we boarded and was there promptly every morning with that roll for DH. This is what keeps us returning to HAL. The feeling of family and coming home.

 

We have never had a bad cruise and hope that we never do. We understand that there is a difference between the standards on a Grand Cruise and those on a regular cruise. We expected those things. We had wonderful ports, good weather, and a grand time. This trip did for us exactly what we wished, and more - but it wasn't without some surprising blips.

 

First, when we arrived at our cabin we were greeted by a caution sign and a bucket in the hallway catching drips. Ship happens. Bucket and sign - the crew clearly knew of the issue.

 

As we traveled the ship during our two weeks on board we found similar buckets and drips on decks 2, 3, and 7, and elsewhere on deck 6 - as well as at the entrance to the lower dining room early in the cruise. The buckets at the lower dining room disappeared rather quickly.

 

The buckets and drips were outside our cabin, in the hallway. Where the water was dripping tended to vary from day to day and hour to hour (not unexpected in a moving vehicle that does some amount of pitch and roll from time to time). It continued to drip for the first several days of our cruise and the carpet in the hall got quite damp at times. The hall carpet started to smell. Finally, late one afternoon we heard a loud "tick, tick" in the cabin and found the ceiling dripping over the threshold to our cabin door and somewhat into the cabin. We called the front desk.

 

To their credit someone came up immediately to view the problem. Within a few minutes one of the plumbers was in the hall, on a ladder, taking down the ceiling - stewards were running around with wet vacs and dry vacs and within an hour or so the dripping stopped and never recurred during our time on board.

 

Unfortunately by that time the wet carpet really reeked of must and mildew. You could find our cabin blindfolded by scent. Once the cabin door was closed, however, we could not detect the odor. Hallway fans, time to dry and carpet cleaning got rid of most of the odor by the end of the cruise.

 

To their credit the front office staff responded quickly and appropriately and did follow up, in person, at our cabin the next day. This is what I would expect of a premium cruise line. What I did not expect was that a relatively simple issue to fix was allowed to continue until the carpet was ruined.

 

Another surprising issue was that there were several instances while on board where we were told "we are out of that right now". In the Crow's Nest they often claimed to be out of peanuts or gold fish crackers - and one evening served us a container of the oriental mix that was quite rancid. Receipt of the evening hot appetizers in the Crow's Nest (what generally keeps me going until 8 pm dinner) was spotty at best. Either they said they would be delivered and they never were, or we were told they ran out or had none.

 

One of our table mates at dinner was recipient of a gift of several bottles of wine pre-ordered and paid for by her daughter. The daughter had ordered a Beringer wine - our table mate received a different, less expensive wine that was delivered to her cabin. At dinner she complained to the wine steward who resolved the mix up (well done HAL), but he said the ship was out of Beringer wines. Later we were told that HAL was no longer going to carry Beringer wines even though they were displayed prominently on the wine list. And, disturbingly, on several evenings during the cruise - on the menu where the Sommelier lists a wine recommendation to pair with the meal - guess what wines were listed as recommended pairings? ... Beringer wines. They had no Beringer wines.

 

My comments on the new menu design: In the MDR at the evening meal the melding of the available every day list and the features of the day makes the list of choices look very large (as indeed they are). From my perspective as a frequent HAL cruiser I can easily distinguish every day items from specials. But I heard an interesting comment from another cruiser who was not familiar with HAL's offerings - she said that she was going to scream if she saw French Onion soup on the menu one more time. Her interpretation was not that HAL maintains a large list of "always available" items - but rather that the daily menu was terribly repetitious. From this perspective going back to the old menu format with available every day items listed as such, separately, might be considered a good thing. Just sayin'

 

We did find it difficult, at times, to determine if a menu item was an appetizer or a soup since they are no longer listed separately in a labeled menu section and are often creatively named. It could be useful to HAL to add the word "soup" in either the name of the item, or in its description.

 

We were terribly disappointed at our dinner service in the MDR. We have never experienced service that was this poor. It was definitely not up to HAL standards. Every evening we waited a very long time before anyone took our dinner orders. By the time we were ordering dinner the other tables in our area, even those being served by our wait team, were usually on their first and often their second course. There were mistakes; e.g. someone whose order was never taken until the food was served and there was no food for one of us, or when food arrived, not all the orders were there, or soup would be served without a spoon. Unfortunately these issues were consistent and repeated from day to day. This paragraph would not even be here if these things happened only once or twice. We tried coming early as did our table mates - but we still sat a long time before our orders were taken, and the other tables were, by that time, already eating. It was obvious to us that either our wait team had far too many tables to serve or they were not competent to do the job properly. Who knows but this was a first for us on HAL. We got used to closing the dining room and often skipping the after dinner tea and coffee.

 

Our wine steward did an excellent job - especially since he had to keep up with us sitting in different locations every day.

 

We had a lovely dinner in the Pinnacle Grill one night - I was hoping to experience the chocolate bowl - but it was not on the menu. :(

 

We are not ones to attend many shows on board - not sure why - but we did particularly enjoy the music of the solo guitarist David. We also enjoyed Pub Trivia with Nick and are proud to say we were on the team that won the most Pub Trivias during our two week cruise.

 

Despite the issues mentioned above - we had a great cruise and a good time.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for taking the time to write and post a review of your Amsterdam cruise. Sorry about your dinner service and the dripping. I would have been disappointed with the snacks in the Crows Nest. Like you, I tend to like them as they hold us over till we get to dinner later.

Edited January 10, 2015 by PathfinderEss

[sail7seas]

Thanks for sharing your review with us.

Seems poor MDR service is a recurring theme from ship to ship. We are hearing too many reports to dismiss them as only occasional.

 

Happy your cruise was overall what you wanted from it. :)

 

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Appreciate your balanced review. Very sorry to hear about the dining room service on my favorite HAL ship.

[take us away]

Just curious - did you speak to your MDR area maître de about your servers being overworked and the delay in your meal?

[kazu]

thanks for the review. I am really sorry to hear about your poor MDR service.

 

I suspect you had someone "new" - no soup spoon screams "new" to me and I don't care if they have been trained or not. It still takes experience to "know".

 

I hope you did speak to the MDR asst mgr or mgr about this.

 

 

We've only hit this one or two times, give it a night as first night is always hard and if it is there on the second we do speak up nicely. Mind you, we don't do 7 day cruises often so if it were a 7 day cruise it would really colour my experience.

 

 

It's too bad you had this experience but it sounds like the rest of the cruise was nice.

 

A shame.

[arzz]

It was a fourteen day cruise. We did not speak to the dining room manager - we believe he was aware as he would occasionally pitch in as did the Yum Yum man. I doubt that the waiter was new as he was not young. The assistant waiter seemed quite sharp and at times apologetic. They were both very nice.

 

We were at a table for 8. None of us were newbie to HAL or to cruising - we all had a large number of HAL days. We just endured and tried to laugh about it. It was just the way it was for this cruise. DH and I did reflect the situation in our post cruise surveys. It was clear that the rest of the dining room got much better service.

Edited January 10, 2015 by arzz

[cruz chic]

Thanks for you review. The bucket situation sounds brutal. My lungs would not enjoy that. I've looked at a few cruises on the older ships but I don't want to deal with issues like this on my precious vacation time. I appreciate you talking about it. Hal has some poor employees, simple as that. I hate to complain to the higher ups because they do nothing long term to fix issues. They just put salve temporarily on the people that complain. It's giving me serious doubts about hals older ships. They seem to be in such poor shape with no maintenance getting done.

Edited January 11, 2015 by cruz chic

[erewhon]

Thank you for reviewing your Amsterdam cruise.

Congratulations on your upgrade.

 

Am pleased that you mentioned the issues on your post cruise survey.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for taking the time to write you review.

I would have been upset with that bucket deal and dripping water. Especially since I use a walker and would be going through that mess and dragging water into the cabin.