Nieuw Statendam - slowed?

[Balliett]

The Nieuw Statendam cruise itineraries are being revised, it appears, from now until drydock in November.  These revisions result in less time in ports and more time at sea. Some ports are missed altogether.  Excursions are canceled because the date for the port changed.   The cruise review by Jsom98 details this experience in March.  HAL says "operational difficulties." I believe that the NS can't sail at her usual speed due to mechanical difficulties which can't be repaired until they cancel a cruise or two.  

     For our own situation, we were booked on the Aug 9 cruise, 14 days.  Due to the revised itinerary we couldn't visit Cork, and changing our planned excursions was not always possible due to shorter port times.  We were offered $100 for our inconvenience.  We had refundable air arrangements. so we canceled the trip without penalties.  

     My complain here is that HAL has not been transparent about the problem, and that the inconvenience compensation is inadequate.      I will say that HAL was quick to refund our deposit and payments we had made for excursions,  Club Orange, and premium meals.

[VMax1700]

5 hours ago, Balliett said:

we couldn't visit Cork,

Sorry to hear you will not be visiting us!

The itinerary changes are disappointing.  I wonder will they update their website to show the new itineraries or will they wait until people book again before advising them of the itinerary changes?  Even shortened port times will have a major effect on the viability of visiting many European ports.

[SueMo]

The OP hasn't given the full itinerary changes for the August 9th sailing.  As a matter of fact, it's a completely different cruise!  Four ports of call were deleted--St. Peter Port, Stornoway, Kirkwall, and Cobh, three ports were added--Lerwick, Holyhead, and Portree, and all other ports had the dates and/or times of our visits changed.  A date change for our overnight in Edinburgh had people on our roll call scrambling because many had ordered tickets for the Military Tattoo, which are nonrefundable  (but everybody has had good luck in getting the performance ticket date changed, thank goodness!).  Most of us had nonrefundable airfare already booked to/from Copenhagen so cancelling the cruise was not an option.  

[washiotter]

How did you find out about the changes to your itinerary? Did you receive a letter, or did they change the info on the website? We are sailing on NS in June. 

[VMax1700]

16 minutes ago, SueMo said:

The OP hasn't given the full itinerary changes for the August 9th sailing.  As a matter of fact, it's a completely different cruise!  Four ports of call were deleted--St. Peter Port, Stornoway, Kirkwall, and Cobh, three ports were added--Lerwick, Holyhead, and Portree, and all other ports had the dates and/or times of our visits changed.  A date change for our overnight in Edinburgh had people on our roll call scrambling because many had ordered tickets for the Military Tattoo, which are nonrefundable  (but everybody has had good luck in getting the performance ticket date changed, thank goodness!).  Most of us had nonrefundable airfare already booked to/from Copenhagen so cancelling the cruise was not an option.  

Thanks for that info.  Looking at the HAL website and they have updated the itinerary to show the ports you mention.  

Good luck for Lerwick.  It is a tender port and a lot of times the wind/swell is too much for safe tendering.  

[sltgator]

We are sailing her in July and have received no notice of changes or changes on the website. 

[washiotter]

33 minutes ago, sltgator said:

We are sailing her in July and have received no notice of changes or changes on the website. 

Same for our June cruise, which is really puzzling! 

[sltgator]

Maybe for our itinerary the ports are close enough together so it is fine?

[SeaCapt]

We're aboard 24 days in July, no changes.

[Hflors]

We just got off NS on 4/1.  Our ports on a 7 day cruise were changed because of an Azi-pod problem.  Looks like it wasn't fixed!

[Banditswife]

We were on the NS from 3/25-4/8, 2023.  As Hflors posts there was an Azi-pod issue. captain announced this issue on the 3/25-4/1 segment, changing our itinerary significantly.  We went to all our ports- but times & dates were changed, causing a bunch of shore ex to be either canceled or changed.  Captain said that they were going to fix the problem in Aruba.  Evidently this wasn't a complete repair.  We didn't notice any major itinerary changes on the 4/1-4/8 segment.  The ship was headed to Barcelona on 4/8.  Wondering if that cruise went as planned.  

 

If we were on the cruise headed to Barcelona, I'd be a bit worried.  We were on a Carnival ship several years ago that lost propulsion power, making us miss 2 ports & slowly sailing back to Miami.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Banditswife
added text

[Taters]

We are booked on NS for 14 nights to Norway beginning May 14th, and so far no changes have been announced.  I sure hope they don't cancel Hammerfest and Honningsvag, as those 2 ports are the northernmost on our itinerary and we're really love to see them.  At this late date and due to prior experience, I imagine that if there are any itinerary changes, they'll let us know once we're onboard.  I hope I'm wrong and that we can reach all of our ports.  

[waiting2retire]

Currently on the NS transatlantic and will complete the cruise in Barcelona tomorrow morning. We have had absolutely no propulsion issues and in fact were doing 21 knots easily one evening. That having been said, there were divers in the water in Cadiz (I think) so something may have needed to be checked. 
 

it has been a wonderful cruise!

 

[Riversider]

10 minutes ago, waiting2retire said:

Currently on the NS transatlantic and will complete the cruise in Barcelona tomorrow morning. We have had absolutely no propulsion issues and in fact were doing 21 knots easily one evening. That having been said, there were divers in the water in Cadiz (I think) so something may have needed to be checked. 
 

it has been a wonderful cruise!

 

It is just possible that the azipod issue affects maneuvering (docking) in ports and does not affect the speed at sea. I, too, am looking forward to visiting the northern Norwegian ports and will be more than disappointed if these are dropped from the itinerary. 

[L454S]

Am on the NS now heading for Barcelona at a posted 18 knots. Have not noticed any problems or timing changes across the Atlantic or in any stops up to now.

 

No announcements of any kind either.

[SueMo]

8 hours ago, washiotter said:

How did you find out about the changes to your itinerary? Did you receive a letter, or did they change the info on the website? We are sailing on NS in June. 

I found out about the changes 6 weeks before we were notified because I started to see discrepancies between our supposed itinerary and the official port authority websites.   When I was checking in Cobh to see if we were docked in Cobh or Ringsakiddy, it showed NS in port a different day than what was on our itinerary.  I emailed Cobh port authority, and the assistant harbor master responded that the change was requested by HAL just that week (this was the first week of February).  Well, that meant that the Dublin date would have to change, and when checking their website, sure enough, we were anchored (not in port as described in our itinerary) in Dun Laoghaire on a different date.  This led to a chain of changes as this is a very port intensive itinerary.  A couple other people on my roll call got on board and found us docked in Holyhead and Lerwick (not on our original itinerary.)  Other people on my roll call got upset with us as they called HAL and were assured there were no changes in the works and accused us of starting unfounded rumors.  Not pretty.  It wasn't until March 21 that we got official notification via our TA.  The info on the website didn't change for another week or two.

By the way, I haven't been convinced that these changes were due to propulsion issues.  It was suggested by one person on my roll call that NS was never listed on the official cruise ship schedule for Edinburgh, and that there may have been a scheduling mistake that could have caused these dramatic itinerary changes.  I would be surprised if we ever found out the real story.

[Balliett]

Yes we on the Aug 9 cruise received an email with the new itinerary on March 21, although there were those rumors as SueMo notes.  I see that the Aug 9 revisions now have six tender ports.  It may be that the problem NS is having is a maneuverability problem rather than a speed problem.  The tender ports require less manuevering, I suppose.

 

On the scheduled Aug 2 NS cruise, the roll call posts show passengers received this message by email on February 21  

 

• 
   

"Please be advised that due to operational considerations, the call dates to Geiranger, Norway and Alesund, Norway have been reversed. Nieuw Statendam will now call to Geiranger on Saturday, July 29, 2023 from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Alesund on Sunday, July 30 from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Additionally, we will no longer call to Bergen, Norway on Monday, July 31 and instead will spend the day at sea. As a result of this change, we have added a call to Gothenburg, Sweden on Tuesday, August 1 from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM."

 

[Balliett]

Correction: I am referring above to the July 26-Aug2 cruise.

[VMax1700]

13 minutes ago, Balliett said:

The tender ports require less manuevering, I suppose.

I don't know if that is completely accurate as the ship needs to manoeuvre so that the tenders are in the lee of the ship and they also use azipods in conjunction with the dynamic positioning system which they use instead of anchors.  

[Riversider]

Based on the  reports above, speed at sea is not an issue. If there is an azipod issue it seems to be related to slow speed maneuvering (control and turning of the azipods)  as when docking.

 

Now if someone onboard could observe entrance to Barcelona tomorrow and report back, we should know if there is an issue. If tug(s) are required...there is a problem. If the ship can be swung around on its own using the azipods, it would seem the problem has been resolved.

 

 

 

[Torquer]

17 hours ago, Balliett said:

HAL says "operational difficulties." I believe that the NS can't sail at her usual speed due to mechanical difficulties which can't be repaired until they cancel a cruise or two.

Is there any evidence there is currently an azipod issue on NS?  It seems there was back in March, but unless I am missing something, it seems that the OP just assumed there still is a problem and that was causing the itinerary changes for their August cruise.  Operational issues could be any number of things.  Have itineraries significantly changed on any other cruises?

[L454S]

When we were leaving Gibraltar on Wednesday, the Captain made the departure announcement and included the fact that they might require tugs for assistance because of the high winds(and there really were high winds).

 

The Bay of Gibraltar is littered with anchored merchant ships right up to near the docks. He said the thrusters could only handle winds up to XX and they were right at that point.

 

We did some sideways and spin moves within close proximity to other vessels and when pointing out to the straight he just went on out. Never saw a tug pushing or pulling?

 

The ship went out and got just to the east of the rock in the straight and did a 360 for photo ops.......

[Balliett]

I was wrong about significant changes to all NS cruises this summer, but examples of what some passengers found to be "drastic" changes were on NS 7-26 and 8-23 itineraries.  Besides the 8-9 cruise.  

[ukpylot]

Interesting, am about to get on in a few hours so will see if anything obvious stands out. Our itinerary also had some (minor) changes a couple of weeks ago, all but two of our arrival times in port were pushed back an hour.

[jakkojakko]

I  just did a port authority search on our cruise to Norway only three weeks away in may. As it is, our itinerary matches exactly with the information of all the official ports websites. No changes at all. You would think that if problems were structural we would know by now especially if cruises in august are affected.

To me this means that  all the changes to the august departures have nothing to do with the ship itself.

Edited April 22, 2023 by jakkojakko
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