Musings from the Monarch (Koningsdam)

[VMax1700]

48 minutes ago, taxmantoo said:

They are all the same account, they all are stored on the same database, they are all the same debits and credits BUT the onboard statement that you get from the self-print machine, the statement you get from Guest Services, and the statement you see on the onboard app ARE ALL ALWAYS DIFFERENT???  This is something a first-year programming student could get right in a few hours. 🙄

Remember your first lesson in db managment? RIRO.

They offered to transfer the credit to 'my' account, but when they said that hotel charge and purchases would hit the other account, it made more sense to leave it there. 

I will visit GS again and get the credit transferred. There is a lot of non refundable credit so it needs management!

[VMax1700]

TONIGHT'S DINNER MENU!!!

[drowelf]

12 hours ago, jmkennett said:

Got off the Koningsdam on Wednesday.  No goodnight chocolates the entire cruise.  Told we were not in a premium enough category.  In a VB balcony.

What, that is ridiculous. 

[VMax1700]

I am not sure if the dinner menu uploaded or not as it is not showing on the thread but.........

L'escargot are back!

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Remember your first lesson in db managment? RIRO.

They offered to transfer the credit to 'my' account, but when they said that hotel charge and purchases would hit the other account, it made more sense to leave it there. 

I will visit GS again and get the credit transferred. There is a lot of non refundable credit so it needs management!

 

Over here, we say GIGO ("garbage" not "rubbish"). Haven't heard that expression in a while, but it's true!

 

[rkacruiser]

Re:  the missing chocolates:

 

Maybe they were loaded onto the ship, but were difficult to find.  On my 2008 world cruise, one of the last pillow gifts we received was a very nice cruise journal that should have been the among the first, if not the first, pillow gift.  Excuse given:  the box had just been found by the crew.

[Copper10-8]

45 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

Re:  the missing chocolates:

 

Maybe they were loaded onto the ship, but were difficult to find.  On my 2008 world cruise, one of the last pillow gifts we received was a very nice cruise journal that should have been the among the first, if not the first, pillow gift.  Excuse given:  the box had just been found by the crew.

 

The ship's provision master knows all below decks 

[VMax1700]

Last night was the first gala night.

Total disorganisation and chaos. 

We did not make a reservation but arrived to deck 2 for open seating at 6.30pm. 15 minutes later we were at the head of the queue and given a pager and told 25 to 35 minutes. Here is a voucher fir 2 glasses of sparkling wine because of the delay. A lot of people were drinking complimentary wine last night!!

Well 1hour 10 mins after first joining the queue we were paged and shown to our table.  All the time during dinner there were 'suits' with laptops patrolling the tables and calling staff to clear them. There were trollies full of empty plates and dishes rolling past each side of the table and silliest of all was the staff showing diners to their tables didn't know where the tables were located and had to keep referring to a floor plan that they carried.

It was noisy and chaotic and uncomfortable to attend.  No way could it be classified as 'gala'.

Edited March 30, 2019 by VMax1700

[Copper10-8]

4 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Last night was the first gala night.

Total disorganisation and chaos. 

We did not make a reservation but arrived to deck 2 for open seating at 6.30pm. 15 minutes later we were at the head of the queue and given a pager and told 25 to 35 minutes. Here is a voucher fir 2 glasses of sparkling wine because of the delay. A lot of people were drinking complimentary wine last night!!

Well 1hour 10 mins after first joining the queue we were paged and shown to our table.  All the time during dinner there were 'suits' with laptops patrolling the tables and calling staff to clear them. There were trollies full of empty plates and dishes rolling past each side of the table and silliest of all was the staff showing diners to their tables didn't know where the tables were located and had to keep referring to a floor plan that they carried.

It was noisy and chaotic and uncomfortable to attend.  No way could it be classified as 'gala'.

 

Wow! Frickin' embarrassment galore for the MDR management! No excuse! We were told that there were "major issues" with open seating last week also. Why is this still going on? K-dam's food service management needs to get their caca together and fast!

[canadianbear]

It was happening in February on our cruise on the K.  I luckily made reservations for Gala night (cancelling one because no escargot).  All through the cruise though they kept announcing to please come after 7:30 for supper!  So it seems nothing has changed in a month except now they have escargot 😁

[rkacruiser]

52 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

1hour 10 mins after first joining the queue we were paged and shown to our table.  

 

Your experience is precisely why I will never again opt for Open Dining on any vessel.  One evening on Royal Princess in late December, I finally got a pager and 70 minutes later it went off!  Plus, I was seated by myself after requesting to be seated with others at a table for two, having been set for just me  and no chair on the other side of the table.

[Krazy Kruizers]

57 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Last night was the first gala night.

Total disorganisation and chaos. 

We did not make a reservation but arrived to deck 2 for open seating at 6.30pm. 15 minutes later we were at the head of the queue and given a pager and told 25 to 35 minutes. Here is a voucher fir 2 glasses of sparkling wine because of the delay. A lot of people were drinking complimentary wine last night!!

Well 1hour 10 mins after first joining the queue we were paged and shown to our table.  All the time during dinner there were 'suits' with laptops patrolling the tables and calling staff to clear them. There were trollies full of empty plates and dishes rolling past each side of the table and silliest of all was the staff showing diners to their tables didn't know where the tables were located and had to keep referring to a floor plan that they carried.

It was noisy and chaotic and uncomfortable to attend.  No way could it be classified as 'gala'.

 

Really sounds horrible!!

[3rdGenCunarder]

15 minutes ago, canadianbear said:

It was happening in February on our cruise on the K.  I luckily made reservations for Gala night (cancelling one because no escargot).  All through the cruise though they kept announcing to please come after 7:30 for supper!  So it seems nothing has changed in a month except now they have escargot 😁

 

Same announcement in January, too. I don't remember hearing this on other HAL ships. Is the K's dining room small in proportion to the number of passengers, compared to other ships?

[Copper10-8]

6 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Same announcement in January, too. I don't remember hearing this on other HAL ships. Is the K's dining room small in proportion to the number of passengers, compared to other ships?

 

K-dam's dining room is the largest dining venue on the ship with a capacity of 1,098 guests

[3rdGenCunarder]

8 minutes ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

K-dam's dining room is the largest dining venue on the ship with a capacity of 1,098 guests

 

So the dining room seats fewer than half of the guests. (website says 2650, but I don't know if that's double occupancy or counting the max number of extra pax in cabins). Is that typical for HAL ships?? 

 

[canadianbear]

17 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Same announcement in January, too. I don't remember hearing this on other HAL ships. Is the K's dining room small in proportion to the number of passengers, compared to other ships?

I was on also in January (13-23) and don’t remember these announcements but I was with girlfriends so we probably just didn’t hear the announcements and dined later anyway so didn’t run into issues.  It sure seems to be an issue on the Koningsdam so someone needs to be held accountable and some changes are needed.  

[RMLincoln]

We were on K in Nov, 21 nights... had the same issues in the MDR first Gala night.... had a reservation and got there a few minutes ahead of time to find a line reaching almost to the mix-your-own-wine bar.  Worked our way to the podium in about 15-20 minutes and were seated a few minutes later, so no pager but well behind our reservation time.  It's like they've never done this before and they don't seem to have a process for learning.  

The K has a very noisy MDR, mostly I think because of the huge serving stations that have so many wait staff working at each one, so fewer serving station total.  The waters we asked about it said they struggle with the new large serving stations, and if you are unfortunate enough to be seated near one you can be mesmerized by the "dance" they do to not knock into each other with trays of food.  We found that if we dined late, after 8pm, it was a bit quieter.  

I liked K because of the Lincoln Center Stage and the World Stage production shows against the LED paneled surround, but I guess the production shows are going away.  

No pillow chocolates could be the last straw?  No cruises booked now, no plans, keeping our options open.  m--

[VMax1700]

Sent our first bag of laundry last night at 6pm and it was returned mid morning today! Now that is service!

Found this note attached to the laundry cover. First glance I thought it was someone trying to escape! 😂

[simplyrubies]

Seeing the issue with the gala, does anyone have any advice as to how the big lines be avoided? I'm sailing the Koninsgdam fairly soon (June) and we opted for open dining time as we usually do with other cruise lines to allow for flexibility, particularly since we have such a port heavy itinerary. At the very least can you walk around the ship (or around the deck) with the pager? 

 

I'm thinking that it might be better to go later (7:30pm or after) with snacks throughout the day to tide us over, but at the same time we'd like to be able to attend shows and later seating times/slower service on a gala night might prevent us from doing so...

[wombatKY]

We were on the K-dam for 2 weeks last fall in Europe. We had absolutely no problem with either Gala Night but we rocked up to the podium around 7:15pm each night. 

 

The only night we had any problem was the first night when we arrived at 7pm.  We had to wait about 10-15 minutes for a small communal table.

 

 

[doone]

On March 29, 2019 at 12:05 PM, VMax1700 said:

TONIGHT'S DINNER MENU!!!

Yummy, so glad they are back....

[mncyclist]

My wife and I were also on the 3/17 sailing and noticed the very long queues for the open seating on deck 2.  We were open seating, but managed to avoid the worst of the crowding by setting up a standing reservation for the whole cruise on embarkation day.  Upon boarding, we went straight to the dining reservation table near the atrium on deck 3, where one of the assistant maitre-d’s got us a table.  The only problem was that only very early or late times were available, so we went with 5:15, which turned out fine.   We loved our table assignment and waiters and had a great experience in the dining room.  

 

It it seemed like things calmed down after the first few nights and we didn’t see anymore long queues the rest of the cruise.  Although it worked out OK for us, it seems like HAL hasn’t figured out Anytime Dining. 

[rkacruiser]

1 hour ago, VMax1700 said:

Sent our first bag of laundry last night at 6pm and it was returned mid morning today! Now that is service!

Found this note attached to the laundry cover. First glance I thought it was someone trying to escape! 😂

 

I have never seen such!  And, I think it is a wonderful attempt to provide by a crew member an attempt to replicate what I think some aspects of HAL have forgotten:  SIGNATURE OF EXCELLENCE.

 

I hope that you will inform the NAME of this crew member to the ship's Hotel Director as well as on any end of cruise survey or message that you send to Seattle.  

 

HAL recognizes "Employees of the Month".  This person deserves such recognition.

[richwmn]

2 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Sent our first bag of laundry last night at 6pm and it was returned mid morning today! Now that is service!

Found this note attached to the laundry cover. First glance I thought it was someone trying to escape! 😂

I received a similar note on the Nieuw Statendam last month

[cowmilker]

We were on the K last October for three weeks in the Med.

Opening dining, no problem ever being seated.  Never used a pager but once that I remember, and the wait was really short.  However, we were always willing to share a table and I am quite sure that made a difference.

But I will make a confession here.

We ate all the chocolates. Our steward colluded with us and gave us extras.  OFTEN.  LOTS of them. 🙂