avian777

Easter blessings to you, Father, and to all Christian CCers

Happy Passover to all Jewish CCers.

16 hours ago, Fouremco said:

Thank you for the clarification. As the clam shells normally come with two loungers in them, when you said that you were in the clam shell, it never crossed my mind that you weren't sitting on a lounger.

Ditto here.

12 hours ago, Fouremco said:

Am I right in understanding that you had staked a claim on four loungers for the two of you and were upset when another couple sat in the pair you weren't using? 

👍👍👍  Spot on - great use of the rhetorical question!!! 

16 minutes ago, BCCRUSINGCOUPLE said:

I have been on 30 plus cruises and I can count on one hand how many times people
At out table ordered extra food. Second they talk about lots of waste there is no way to keep track of waste the only thing they can monitor is how many orders are placed. The bottom line is all they want to do is cut to save more $$$ they already have record profits.


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Assuming you are correct in your assessment of HAL's motivation for charging for extra MDR entrees, I can only add, Thank you, HAL, and keep up the good work.  We CCL shareholders appreciate your efforts to protect and enhance our investment in CCL!

28 minutes ago, catl331 said:

I suspected that might be the problem.  Maybe HAL could offer "sampler platters" with a small portion of each choice as a single entree much like a lot of seafood chain restaurants. Or a "combination" dish where one could choose three items.

👍👐👌  Great idea, catl331 - thanks for suggesting it.

1 hour ago, *Miss G* said:

Wow.  Who knew there were so many people ordering multiple entrees?  I would prefer not to subsidize someone else’s extra meals so I hope they find a way for those people to receive the charges and not me.

👍👍👍  Spot on, Miss G!!!  Great insights about subsidizing other people's extra entrees.  IMO if some one wants (or "needs") an extra entree or more, he/she should pay something extra for it.

On 4/5/2019 at 7:44 PM, whogo said:

Yes. And $20 for the third, $30 for the fourth, $40 for the fifth, etc.

Great idea - I'll be sure to include it on my next HAL survey response.  👍👍👍

3 hours ago, iancal said:

I think the challenge on asking this board is that many are old timers (as am I)  and HAL loyalists (I am not) and they never want to see any change.  Does not matter if it is ship, entertainment, dress, price or whatever....they do not want change. 

 

They claim they are willing to pay more but it seems to me that they still stick with HAL instead of paying more and moving from this mass market line.   They want what they had in 1990 but they want to pay the same but in 2018 dollars!  Go figure.  

 

They are not even willing to pay, in inflation adjusted dollars, what they paid 20 years ago.  Instead, they expect HAL to swallow the expenses and include it in their Mariner benefits.  Life is not like that.  You need to pay for what you get.  I am not a HAL or any other cruise line booster but I do know my way around a P&L and we do travel about four months a year.   Either the price increases or the product offering decreases.

👍👍👍 Thanks for this very perceptive Post.  For the record, I admit to being a HAL loyalist who is especially grateful to CCL for providing a very good value for the money.  And given a choice of having service cut-backs or price increases, I'll take price increases every day because, after adjusting for inflation, my cruises cost less today than they did when we started cruising over 25 years ago.  As a CCL shareholder, I expect HAL to do what is necessary to make a profit, so I wholeheartedly support HAL charging for 2nd entrees.

35 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

LOL. Nice try, but the OP edited the initial post within a minute of posting it last Sunday, and you didn't cast your first (!) vote until four hours later. 

How right you are - however, I looked at OP's Post when it first appeared (before being edited) but only got around to posting my initial "vote" until about 4 hours later.  So I'm returning your "LOL. Nice try" with one of my own!!!

8 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

 

Seems pretty clear to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for quoting from OP's (edited) Post # 1.  I did not go back to look at it after he/she edited it and thus did not know that he/she intended it as a bona fide poll.  If I had seen the edited version, my comments would have been in a different (and much less jocular) vein.

AAR congrats on your great insight.

16 minutes ago, catl331 said:

Yes, that is a loophole, but of course you know that it is cheating the intent of the thread.

I most assuredly do not know what OP's intent in starting this Thread was (as I am not able to read other people's minds) but I seriously doubt that OP intended to take a bona fide (that is, a real) poll of CCers, and more likely just wanted to take the pulse of CCers on this (really unimportant) issue.  JMO

I highly recommend iancal's Post #167 above - he gets it!!!

On 4/1/2019 at 11:43 PM, billbunger said:

I think HAL is the only one that can answer that question. You might want to call them, I am unsure how anyone on this forum could accurately answer your question.

👍👍👍  Great advice!

3 hours ago, catl331 said:

AND Sunday, 8:39 pm 

... AND again today, 3:59pm

4 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

NO FAIR VOTING TWICE. (You voted yes on Tuesday, too)

 

And here's yet another "YES" vote from me, as I do not find any rules against "voting" more than once (or twice or thrice) in a non-poll such as this Thread.

Easy-peasy:  OP, since the itinerary differences don't matter to you, I'd say take the Eurodam cruise because the Eurodam has Tamarind and Oosterdam doesn't.

Here's another "YES" vote!

28 minutes ago, TomBeckCruise said:

...Hopefully HAL will change the smoking policy before the fall of 2020.

Change "the smoking policy" in what specific regard?

Yes!

1 minute ago, WpgCruise said:

I’ll put this out there as food for thought as to why the H.A.L. Board and Roll Calls may not be as active as others.

 

I don’t think the changes to the format is a significant impact, given the  continued volume of posts on Cruise Critic Boards such as Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, N.C.L. to name others I follow.

 

Instead I suspect the decline in H.A.L. Cruise Critic postings from new and existing members is simply resignation. People ask a question or post an opinion and are denigrated by the regulars who seem to do their best to run off new members. This carries over to Roll Calls as perhaps people would prefer not to associate with bullies who appear to be give the impression they are interested in discussing how much they know, Mariner status, their posting numbers on Cruise Critic, and how much better things were in the good old days ...

 

 

 👍👍👍  Thank you for the excellent Post, WpgCruise - very insightful and IMO 100% on target!!!  Unfortunately, I doubt that it will produce any meaningful improvement, as IMO those CCers who are responsible for the uninviting/hostile atmosphere on CC either do not recognize their complicity in making it so or do but just don't care.  In any event, I'm not going to stand on one leg or hold my breath waiting for them to change their online behavior.  Thanks again & smooth sailing.

On 3/26/2019 at 3:33 PM, sandyss said:

Isn't CC owned by TripAdvisor (or vice versa)? 

 

TripAdvisor has completely changed their format which used to be so easy to use.  They have monetized it.  When you look for things to do, you get ads for tours. It is now almost impossible to see "Traveler Ranked" things to do.

 

When you look for hotel recommendations, the first thing that comes up is "Recommended" or "Best Value" hotels.  It is necessary to use a drop-down box to request "Traveler Ranked".

 

I now use TripAdvisor much less than I used to.

 

I wonder what CC will do to monetize the CC Community Forums?

👍👍👍  Great Post, sandyss - thanks for sharing your insights.

1 minute ago, Bella0714 said:

You're right, we're going to have to agree to disagree! But I appreciate your point of view. I agree that there are probably multiple reasons and objectives, but the skeptic in me doubts that any of them including cutting down on waste.

👌 👍 😎 Good luck & smooth sailing, whether or not you choose HAL.

8 minutes ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

I do now! My apologies! I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, just a bottom dweller

NP ... BTW I seriously doubt your "bottom dweller" claim, as I have never run across you there ... and I can assure you that I have been there much, much longer than you have.  Smooth sailing always!!!

1 hour ago, Bella0714 said:

avian,777 are you at least a little offended by HAL pretending that they're trying to cut down on waste when what they're really doing is trying to increase profits? If they really cared about cutting down on waste, they'd serve better food in the dining room so people weren't always trying one entree after another just to get to one that's satisfactory. I know they can't come out and say, "We're trying to make more money," but they also don't have to insult our intelligence with this "cutting down on waste" line.

If this were truly an "either-or" situation, I would be (a little) offended if HAL used "waste reduction" to  justify its actions when its real objective was to increase profits.  However, I know that most corporate actions are based on more than one reason and have more than one objective.  IMHO and based on my experience in business, this is a classic example of a corporation having multiple reasons and objectives.

1 hour ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

Then why ask for a source?

April Fools' pranks work both ways, you know ...

9 minutes ago, drowelf said:

...  I think there are plenty of other was to cut down on waste other than charging for a 2nd entree. I think of all the photography paper and flyers that end up in the rubbish bin on each cruise. 

Good idea - my preference is for HAL to do both: start charging for a 2nd (& 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.) entree and eliminate a lot of the photography paper and flyers that (actually) are recycled.