After all the good things we heard about HAL from friends we took our first HAL cruise on the Konningsdam Thanksgiving cruise out of San Diego. Not memorable.
We did a follow up cruise on the December 10th to 17th sailing on the Konningsdam out of San Diego to see if the Thanksgiving Cruise experience was an anomaly and ended with better results.
Did it get better? Marginally at best. Possibly due to a lighter passenger load, but no wow factor.
Overall food quality on both cruises was poor. Even our dinner in the specialty restaurant Pinnical on the second cruise was not up to what we experienced on the first cruise. We actually deferred. to eating in meals in the Dutch Cafe. Not what you would expect on a high end cruise line, but compared to the other complimentary dining for meals, this ended up as our “go to” dining location for breakfast and dinner.
The Ocean Bar Lounge was one of the highlights for a pre dinner cocktail, but where was the piano player? Nowhere to be found. Only a sign on the piano players stool for the two cruises saying “do not sit here”.
We have another HAL Panama Canal cruise booked in April on the Niew Amsterdam for the itinerary. It disembarks in San Diego where we live. However, if things don’t get better after that cruise with food and entertainment it will most likely be our last HAL. We’ll shall see….