Just off the 7-25 POA

[Palmist]

The waiter we had for the last dinner in Crossings (who was very good) also told us he was leaving for a 5 week vacation the next day. He said he had been on the ship (Sky) since March with only 1 day off. He wasn't sure if he was coming back or not.

The omelet person on the deck 11 told us he was only staying around because he was being transferred to Pride of America and wanted to see Germany, but was going quit as soon as that ship got back to Hawaii.

Following one of the shows Patti, the entertainment director gave an emotional speech acknowledging the service and problems. She said the crew was working hard and they were going to make the POA a success, but we got the impression she was worried about whether that would be possible.

At the Lattitudes party when my husband was shaking hands with the housekeeping manager he mentioned our room still hadn't been cleaned at 6:30 PM. He wrote down our cabin # and when we got back from dinner the room was clean. Other than that day, our steward was pretty good. We introduced ourselves to him the first day and he tried very hard to do his job. It was obvious he was overworked as were all the crew.

[Anchovy]

Does anyone know the name/address to where I could send a letter to NCL (and hopefully get a response)? I'm looking on their website but not finding anything.

Norwegian Cruise Line

7665 Corprate Center Drive

Miami, FL 33126

 

I suggest you send any correspondence certified mail return receipt.

 

Cheers,

Anchovy

[thomasale]

Yikes!!!

[gardencat]

thomasale

Are you booked on this ship in the future?

[royaloakie]

Hi Patty, We got our free drink coupons under the door. My older son (32) was in the bar that night and said several teens were very drunk and they had to call security about their behavior, it seems they had stolen a lot of drink coupons and had been drinking all day. It would seem that is what happened to your free drinks. I think we are going to write NCL and see what they will do about our complaints. Judy

[ssindy]

Aloha everyone,

i was a former crew mwmber on the POA and i was told by Mr Deering that he would be on the POA until around October and the take a month off or so and head to the Pride of America. So, hearing that he is not there anymore is shocking to me. Maybe NCLA has finally figured out what the problems are on the ship and are addressing them.

but, does anyone know why Mr Deering is not there any more?

Mahalo

[royaloakie]

Mr. Deering was also not on the 7/18 cruise!

[buchie614]

Packing peanut butter and crackers for the 8-8 cruise. At least it will be fresh, and I will not have to wait in long lines to eat it.

[gardencat]

[QUOTE]
Packing peanut butter and crackers for the 8-8 cruise. At least it will be fresh, and I will not have to wait in long lines to eat it.
[/QUOTE]

buchie614

Let's just hope NCLA doesn't confiscate it at the dock in order to force you to use the alternate dinning venues and give them more money!

[Jeconk]

[quote name='Palmist']We were told we sailed with a crew of 700 and there should have been 950 according to NCL's website. The staff worked really hard but the inexperience showed. They were working 16 hours a day.[/QUOTE]


I seem to remember a post about a week ago from Cruise News Daily on here that said the POA was up to full staffing. Sounds like either Cruise News Daily's person is either being lied to himself by NCL or they are trying to help cover up NCL's problems with the POA.

I doubted that post from the start, but didn't say anything without proof. This is proof from NCL themselves that they are short staffed. It now also validates all those reviews of the June 20, July 4, 11 and 18 cruises that said they were short staffed as well as the comments by former Pride of Aloha crew members who have been posting on here.

[royaloakie]

That isn't so far fetched. They were confiscating any food not sealed. They were taking fast food bags away from those boarding. They do not allow fresh foods to go from the main land to any Island in Hawaii and to go from Island to Island. The Lady in Hilo had a pile of apples, bananas and Mc Donalds bags at her station. I think by Hilo everyone was hungry. She said no fast food could go aboard the ship. Watch out for that peanut butter.

[gardencat]

buchie614
Guess you'd better get those individual little sealed packets of peanut butter and jelly instead of one big jar.

Probably better anyway, you could strap those little packets to your body under your clothes if you wanted to increase your chance of getting them on:D

Seriously though , I guess royalokie's posting means that you couldn't take anything off the ship either, like an apple from the buffet or anything from room service.

[dzubke23]

[quote name='Anchovy']Norwegian Cruise Line
7665 Corprate Center Drive
Miami, FL 33126

I suggest you send any correspondence certified mail return receipt.

Cheers,
Anchovy[/QUOTE]

Thanks so much for the info. I have been meaning to send a letter and finally have some downtime to do so.

[awatt]

It is usual for Customs not to allow fresh produce on or off a ship. this happens in the Carribbean and elsewhere,not just Hawaii. And its not an NCL thing. This,in theory,reduces spread of plant diseases among other things.

[Zeno]

Hawaii has very strict quarantine rules concerning plant matter - considering the signs posted everywhere about this I am surprised more people are not aware of it.

[Big Al B.]

I remember getting off at Port Canaveral from the Dawn last year and they had a large collection of various fruits and sandwiches they had confiscated. Also a large sign saying it was a $10,000 fine for bringing food off the ship.

[sbcs5390]

Now if they collected that fine on everyone they'd be doing really well!

-Brian

[planman]

I used my post for another tread
Sorry to tell you if you’re looking for fun this doesn’t seem to be the ship to be on. On our cruise all lounges closed early and there was only 2 left by 1200 a.m. Very little of activities on board. There’s was no show on Thursday of Friday night - cant remember and they show a movie. There is only one singer (includes ships band) on board and a piano player, magcian and the normal dance/singing group they do a Broadway review which we heard was pretty good.. Were not big on entertainment so I missed whatever shows they had. We had a party of 10 so we ate in shifts to avoid the 5:30 or 9:00 time they could accomdate our group in the main dinning rooms I was watching the boards and had hoped that everything that was being said was not so. well it was. The crew is very short staffed. ON ours I talked to an officer and they were 43 people down in the waiter staff alone. Of the 3 pay for restaurants one was closed until Wednesday because of no staff and finally was opened after the complaints. We ate in 2 of the 3 and were very happy. One night 2 of the chicken dinners came out raw and we were giving 2 free bottles of wine after the waiter complained to the boss.
Take notice of the carpets in the stairwells and the elevators. There getting stained and no one is around to clean them.
Freestyle dinning you can keep it on this ship the average wait time for a table was an hour plus.No just our group but all. People are lined up and just sit in front of the dinning rooms waiting to get in
We even received letter on our last day apologizing for the long waits and everyone received a 50 percent reduction in the 10 dollar fee.
There’s no bingo (no gambling) and very little activities going on board.
There’s no midnight buffets and no famous chocolate night that NCL is famous for.
This was our 10th cruise 2 on NCL, 5 Celebrity, 2 Carnival, and 1 Royal.
We traveled with our 2 boys 17 and 19. Their room upon arrival still had rotting food in their refrigerator. Ours at 2:30 wasn’t made up. If the Stewarts past you room at night they wouldn’t return so there was no turn down service. (Just the little things) I could go on and one.
However all in all I would say the crew remained friendly but very frustrated.
The L in NCL stands for LONG LINE so get use to them. They’re everywhere.
The Islands were great.
Hey anyone has any questions you can email me at planman@ optonline.net
Still trying to adjust to the time difference (were in New York) so excuse any typo's

[gardencat]

Thank you planman. I appreciate your taking the time to post. I'm sure many people will have questions for you. Sorry your cruise was disappointing. Maybe by your posting you will help to keep someone else from wasting some of their money.

[Traveler39]

You would think that NCL would either staff the ship at 110 % or reduce the passenger load to 70%..... Offer passengers a chance to move their reservation to another ship to be sailing Hawaii in the next three years and give at least a 50% reduction in their fare.... Those still sailing should receive a $200 ship board credit per person.... My opinion, my suggestion...

I bet none of the above or anything like it will ever be considered by ncl!

Yes I know that they are having problems retaining employees and that the US Coast Guard rules are slowing down the replacement of employees... But never forget.... NCL knew all of the problems of running a US Flagged ship in Hawaii... So somebody at the home office really dropped the ball... No excuse... Make a decision NCL or get out of the business... Let Princess or RCI take over the route....

Mr Deering not on the ship? wow..... Either way it is a problem... He has been replaced or is on vacation? again... wow.... Can you imagine the stress and hard work that is being done by those crewmembers but the big man can not handle it? wow......

[gardencat]

Traveler39
[color=red]In my opinion,[/color]If NCL had been proactive and done something like this at the first sign of problems, they might have had a chance to fix this but, once again, NCL seems to be doing what,[color=red] in my opinion,[/color][color=blue] is their typical response to a problem... put their heads in the sand and hope that if they pretend it is not there and tell enough people it is not there it will go away.[/color]
[color=#0000ff][/color]
[color=#0000ff]Now, it seems to me, they are really up the creek. The good staff that they had [/color][color=red]it seems [/color][color=blue]have been worked into the ground. Now many of them appear to have quit and many others are going on vacation. Thank heavens I'm not in charge of fixing this because I would have no idea what could be done to salvage this now.[/color]

[Palmist]

Another issue I forgot to mention is the very limited hours the restaurants are open. We came back from a 6 hour excursion on Kauai and were hot, tired and hungry. It was ten to nine and by the time we got the long awaited elevator and showed up in the buffet area everything was closed. No food for us. We saw someone delivering room service pizza in the elevator on the way down to our cabin. We thought what a good idea, and asked him if we ordered a pizza from room service approximately how long a wait. He replied usual is 30 minutes but that evening there were twenty orders ahead of us and it would be at least a 2 hour wait. Lucky we had candy in the cabin. That was our dinner! If you go ashore on the two overnights you had better eat while you are there because there is NOTHING available for anyone after 9 PM.

If you have an early excursion or want to leave the ship early there is nothing available for breakfast but coffee and rolls or cold cereal. Breakfast is over at 9:00. So if you like to sleep in forget about eating until lunch time.

[awesomecruise]

Seattle Times just had an interesting article on the POA:

[url]http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2001991501_hawaiicruise01.html[/url]

[patandcd]

Perhaps the ultimate NCL plan is that people will love the islands so much that they will forgive "forget" the ship's service issues?

[gardencat]

[QUOTE]Perhaps the ultimate NCL plan is that people will love the islands so much that they will forgive "forget" the ship's service issues?
[/QUOTE]
patandcd

I don't know if it was 'the ultimate plan' but I think it might have figured into a decision to just try and brazen out the (in my opinion) poor service and food situation.
Let's face it if you want an all Hawaii cruise NCL is the only show in town so, they might have felt, people would put up with a lot because there is no real competition in this market.