Submitting excursion reviews?

[QuattroRomeo]

Just off Rotterdam last week and thought I would submit a few excursion reviews on the HAL site, since there wasn't much to go on back when I was booking them. I haven't received any emails soliciting them. How are they submitted nowadays? 

[0106]

You will receive an email from HAL asking you to submit your excursion reviews.  I received them one at a time, between 2 and 3 weeks after my cruise in February.

[Lindancer]

21 hours ago, QuattroRomeo said:

Just off Rotterdam last week and thought I would submit a few excursion reviews on the HAL site, since there wasn't much to go on back when I was booking them. I haven't received any emails soliciting them. How are they submitted nowadays? 

I rarely see any reviews.  Personally, I don't think they publish the negative ones.  Most of their shore excursions are overpriced crap and I do not hesitate to tell them that in detail when I return.  (I usually book shore excursions with locals, on my own, but I do seem to end up on an HAL excursion every now and then for one reason or another).

[3rdGenCunarder]

8 hours ago, 0106 said:

You will receive an email from HAL asking you to submit your excursion reviews.  I received them one at a time, between 2 and 3 weeks after my cruise in February.

 

I haven't received any, and my cruise was in January. I went on one that was particularly good, and I'd really like to say nice things about it.

[Lindancer]

2 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I haven't received any, and my cruise was in January. I went on one that was particularly good, and I'd really like to say nice things about it.

I hope you can.  I'd love to hear about a good one.  I did have a great excursion in Sorrento/Pompei with a great guide named Roberto, but that was back in 2006.

[storkington]

I got emails asking to review the 2 excursions we had booked through HAL for our cruise in January. Apparently they are live, but I can't see either of them under the excursions in question. One was negative and the other a positive one. So who knows where they end up!

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, Lindancer said:

I hope you can.  I'd love to hear about a good one.  I did have a great excursion in Sorrento/Pompei with a great guide named Roberto, but that was back in 2006.

 

I had an excellent cruise in Costa Rica in January. It was a boat ride in a canal and a "hike" (really a walk on a path) in the rainforest. Other reviews have complained that the canal ride isn't very long, and the boat just went up and down the canal and didn't really go anywhere. But the point was to see wildlife, not to go somewhere--a good guide and a good driver spot wildlife and stop so everyone can look. I wanted to be able to say that so people reading the reviews could understand why the canal ride was not a long distance. And the driver always turned the boat so both sides could have a chance to see the sloths and monkeys and birds. And a crocodile! An excellent guide with correct and easy-to-understand ecology lessons made it fantastic.

 

Most of the times I've left negative reviews have been because the time on the bus was grossly underestimated. The previous time in Costa Rica, the "45 minute" bus ride was an hour and a half, much of it on a bumpy unpaved road. The place we went to was okay, but not good enough to justify three hours on a bus.

[REOVA]

I remember receiving feedback request through Navigator app after each excursion. But they only last a day or so to access. Even received requests on tours we missed because of quarantine. 🤦

[QuattroRomeo]

Well I guess I will hold on to my notes for a little while in case I get an email. If not, I'll just write something in the Ports of Call section on CC. We had a mix of private and ship tours. Like others have said here, I like to include details about the ride to and from a place, any conditions at a site that might be important (tricky stairways, poor bathrooms for example), and of course highlights & recommendations for the good ones. So often one reads something like " great tour" or "horrible tour" which don't tell me much!

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Lindancer]

20 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I had an excellent cruise in Costa Rica in January. It was a boat ride in a canal and a "hike" (really a walk on a path) in the rainforest. Other reviews have complained that the canal ride isn't very long, and the boat just went up and down the canal and didn't really go anywhere. But the point was to see wildlife, not to go somewhere--a good guide and a good driver spot wildlife and stop so everyone can look. I wanted to be able to say that so people reading the reviews could understand why the canal ride was not a long distance. And the driver always turned the boat so both sides could have a chance to see the sloths and monkeys and birds. And a crocodile! An excellent guide with correct and easy-to-understand ecology lessons made it fantastic.

 

Most of the times I've left negative reviews have been because the time on the bus was grossly underestimated. The previous time in Costa Rica, the "45 minute" bus ride was an hour and a half, much of it on a bumpy unpaved road. The place we went to was okay, but not good enough to justify three hours on a bus.

Yes, in Santorini we sat on a hot bus (after being on a sweltering tender) for 2 hours before we got going anywhere.  It was awful.

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 minutes ago, Lindancer said:

Yes, in Santorini we sat on a hot bus (after being on a sweltering tender) for 2 hours before we got going anywhere.  It was awful.

 

I would have been asking to get out and go back to the ship! 

[Lindancer]

20 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I would have been asking to get out and go back to the ship! 

Ha.  Not after paying $537 for this excursion, for 3 of us!

[QuattroRomeo]

Just a followup for anyone curious about excursion reviews:

 

I received 3 emails from HAL/ Carnival, on Mar 22, 23 & 25, reading 'How were your shore excursions"? Each asked about a different excursion we did on the second leg of our 21 day collector cruise. The tours were taken on Mar 1,2 & 4. I have yet to receive any emails for the 2 excursions taken during the first leg of the cruise Feb 15-25. Why, I have no idea!

I included my reviewer name on all 3, but they put "anonymous" on 1 of them.

 

To their credit, the reviews, and photos I attached, were included in their entirety. When I was following up on them, I noticed that sometimes the reviews appear on the website with the shore excursion descriptions, and sometimes they don't. 

 

Somehow I don't believe I will get any requests for the first leg after this amount of time! There are a few glitches in their review process, but at least some reviews make it to the site. 

 

[Gsel]

3rdGenCunarder, we did the same tour a number of years ago. We loved it! The idea was not to get from point to point, but to learn about the wildlife and native plants and flowers. Great guide and real fun.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to remember.

[VermeulT]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:26 AM, QuattroRomeo said:

Well I guess I will hold on to my notes for a little while in case I get an email. If not, I'll just write something in the Ports of Call section on CC.

Also look to review on Trip Advisor if you can match up to the tour provider.

 

I cruised in early March and got the review request on 3/27.

[ewlj]

We (and others on board) received surveys on the Navigator app after each excursion, but the surveys didn't work. It doesn't seem like they want feedback. There were hardly any recent reviews on the HAL web site when booking excursions, I guess for this reason.

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, ewlj said:

We (and others on board) received surveys on the Navigator app after each excursion, but the surveys didn't work. It doesn't seem like they want feedback. There were hardly any recent reviews on the HAL web site when booking excursions, I guess for this reason.

Same.

[Haljo1935]

On 4/5/2023 at 1:02 PM, QuattroRomeo said:

Just a followup for anyone curious about excursion reviews:

 

I received 3 emails from HAL/ Carnival, on Mar 22, 23 & 25, reading 'How were your shore excursions"?...Somehow I don't believe I will get any requests for the first leg after this amount of time!

 

@QuattroRomeo you might try reaching out to the HAL excursions desk - they have a different number (which I don't have handy) and specifically letting them know you would like to post positive feedback. If anyone can get you a link to post, they can/will.

Good to hear you had a positive experience.