Beautiful Pinnacle Suite overview, Rotterdam, (Southern Caribbean Seafarer) 1/25/23-2/4/23

[Catlover54]

For those interested in trying suite travel on HAL, I hope you find my review helpful.

 I also provide a few comments about our ship sponsored excursions. I had a very good overall experience (rate it 4.3/5, rounded down to 4 for CC) and will be back!

 

I usually cruised/cruise on small "luxury" ships (some of which have become just "semi-luxury" lately). I had previously only had 3 HAL cruises (1 in a Neptune suite and 2 others in less expensive cabins), but none at all on the Rotterdam, and none since 2019.  I am glad I tried the beautiful Rotterdam.

If anyone has questions, I will answer as best I can.  

 

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=695753&et_cid=3500453&et_rid=17464385&et_referrer=NULL

Edited February 6, 2023 by Catlover54
Typo

[canadianbear]

Great detailed review.  Appreciate the time you took to do that.  We are 4* but have not sailed since the pandemic.  I’ve read a lot of reviews and just not ready to spend the money to get a mediocre cruise.  HAL has been great in the past but not up to the old standards from other threads I’ve read and not sure when/if it ever will be.  
 

 

[GeezerCouple]

Thanks very much for your long review.  It was very useful.

We've only been on HAL once thus far, and we had a very good time.  We were on Noordam, in NZ and Australia.  We headed home in mid-December, 2019.

So... for us, anyway, not much since then, alas.

 

We LOVED Lincoln Center Stage, and that would have been a huge draw for us to return... sigh.

 

GC

[SeaCapt]

My understanding is that the Lincoln Center Stage performers are moving to the Main Stage, not going away. This will allow more folks to enjoy them, and will eliminate conflicts with noisy auctions or loud conversations walking by.

[Real NHDOC]

We were given a nice tour of the Pinnacle suite on the Pinnacle class by our "lowly" Neptune suite concierge during a changeover day and it is a spectacular space worthy of praise.  Given that there is only one Pinnacle suite per Pinnacle class ship the odds are small we could ever get one but it's always nice to see how the 1% lives!

Edited February 6, 2023 by Real NHDOC

[Sea42]

What a nice review. Thanks for sharing your opinions.

[cbr663]

Wonderful review.  It was a joy to read.  Well balanced and well written.

 

I really appreciated 2 points that you made:  that even though the pics of Club Orange do show wooden chairs that the actual chairs were different and more comfortable.  This was a concern I had for our upcoming cruise and I am glad to read that it isn't a concern at all.

 

I also noted that you can arrange to have your excursion tickets printed instead of relying on the app.  Great to read that and I will be sure to ask the Concierge to print them.

[Real NHDOC]

FYI, you don't need tickets or the app for excursions any longer.  Just your key card which you have to have with you.  They scan the key card bar code and it works just like a ticket.  Of course, if you feel more comfortable having a paper ticket then get them, but just thought you would like to know that for the past year or so they have been scanning key cards when checking in for them and it has worked just fine.

[RuthC]

4 hours ago, Real NHDOC said:

FYI, you don't need tickets or the app for excursions any longer.  Just your key card which you have to have with you.  They scan the key card bar code and it works just like a ticket. 

If you don't have a paper ticket, and are not using an app, how do you know what time, and where, to meet for your excursion? 

[Real NHDOC]

On 2/6/2023 at 4:35 PM, RuthC said:

If you don't have a paper ticket, and are not using an app, how do you know what time, and where, to meet for your excursion? 

I misunderstood your comment.  I thought you meant relying on the Navigator app to check-in at the excursion.  I have heard of people who got to the pier and weren't able to open their tickets on the Navigator app because they weren't able to connect to the ship's wifi from outside - for those people they can use their key card.  If you don't use the app at all to keep track of your itinerary then I guess your only choice is the paper tickets.  But I would advise that you double check on the app too because we've had them change times on us without notifying us and the only way we would have seen it is by looking at the app.  If we had relied on paper tickets and not received notice then we'd have been out of luck.  Like it or not, HAL is trying to get people to rely on the Navigator more.

[RuthC]

12 hours ago, Real NHDOC said:

But I would advise that you double check on the app too because we've had them change times on us without notifying us and the only way we would have seen it is by looking at the app.  If we had relied on paper tickets and not received notice then we'd have been out of luck.  Like it or not, HAL is trying to get people to rely on the Navigator more.

So someone who books a HAL shore excursion is supposed to think---on their own!---that maybe they should go to the Internet Center (not everyone has, needs, or wants, a smart phone), check Navigator to see if there have been changes to their excursion details? 
And just how long/soon before the excursion is scheduled should they plan time to do this? And how many times? 

And this is supposed to get us to book HAL shore excursions? There must be a better way. 

[oakridger]

@RuthC I was on Nieuw Amsterdam in October and had 2 excursions booked.  The first one was scheduled to go at 10:30 when I booked it.  I didn't get any notification that it had been changed to 8:30 so I missed it!  The second one later in the cruise was also changed from 10:30 to 8:00 with no notice.  At least on the second one I checked Navigator the day before and knew about it.  I didn't go.  These were both part of my Have It All package.  I tried to call the Shore Excursions that day to let them know that this was poor planning but they were never "in the office" when I called.  I did mention it on my post cruise survey.

 

Bottom line, always check the day before!

 

~Nancy

[Real NHDOC]

8 hours ago, oakridger said:

@RuthC I was on Nieuw Amsterdam in October and had 2 excursions booked.  The first one was scheduled to go at 10:30 when I booked it.  I didn't get any notification that it had been changed to 8:30 so I missed it!  The second one later in the cruise was also changed from 10:30 to 8:00 with no notice.  At least on the second one I checked Navigator the day before and knew about it.  I didn't go.  These were both part of my Have It All package.  I tried to call the Shore Excursions that day to let them know that this was poor planning but they were never "in the office" when I called.  I did mention it on my post cruise survey.

 

Bottom line, always check the day before!

 

~Nancy

Yep, that's similar to our experience.  If we hadn't checked we'd have missed our excursions too.  Frankly, the SHOREX department needs an overhaul in the way they manage things - but that's a whole other conversation.  In the "old days" they would send out paper notices to update guests when the time changed but now they rely on people using the Navigator to confirm the excursion times and if you don't have or want to use your smart phone it is not going to be very convenient for you. 

[Catlover54]

13 hours ago, RuthC said:

So someone who books a HAL shore excursion is supposed to think---on their own!---that maybe they should go to the Internet Center (not everyone has, needs, or wants, a smart phone), check Navigator to see if there have been changes to their excursion details? 
And just how long/soon before the excursion is scheduled should they plan time to do this? And how many times? 

And this is supposed to get us to book HAL shore excursions? There must be a better way. 

 

1. Unless I am recalling incorrectly, I think the TV in the room also had information about when each excursion would depart and return (though it required a couple steps to get the complete info, instead of having it all together).  But I do not know if that would be updated "real time" if there were changes, and if guests would be able to timely get *notices* of a time change (especially an earlier departure).  It would still require a proactive step on the part of the guest to check for an update, in which case there should be a clear warning for guests who book excursions that they need to add that step to their excursion planning if they do not have a phone they carry.

 

2. I had opted in on my iphone to get text notifications about our excursions to test it out, and it worked well (especially compared with the Seabourn Source App SB was trying to push when I was on in September in Canada around hurricane time -- that app was a mess, with nothing updated real time, so I found the Navigator app, after initial learning steps, to be a joy -- and yet, SB and HAL have the same "parent", Carnival).

 

3. My personal preference is still for paper tickets, with all information on them (meeting, departure, and return times, meeting place, cost, etc.). I get anxious I may forget my phone and/or my phone may lose power, and know that at least on SB on my cruise, some people were denied boarding an excursion bus if they did not have the code to scan off their phones.

 

Also, my friend on this cruise did not have a functional smart phone, so if I had decided last minute to bail on an excursion and she was relying on my phone to show our  electronic tickets, she would not have been able to get on (as opposed to her just having her own paper ticket she could have taken with her).  It is good to know, per post #8, that just your room card would be enough!  

 

4.  In my comments, I also suggested the Navigator app have a good 'search' function (if there was one, I missed it), and also that the hours for the SHOREX department be expanded (but that is another topic).