Real NHDOC

I meant we’ll probably never know the reason for the most recent issues with this band. The crew member death was widely and openly discussed as you said.

Well, like so much of what comes out of the mouths of HAL employees it just doesn’t jibe with reality. If you don’t care about happy hour then why do you follow this thread so fanatically?

From the replies here and my own personal experience on the other ships all of the other ships have 50% off happy hours and some have multiple hours per day. Only NS offers 25% discount at 3pm.

My experience is that HAL just isn’t so sophisticated as to adjust their happy hour to meet supply and demand. What’s more likely is there’s nobody aboard the ship who knows how to change the system so it’s what it’s always been for the past couple of years and how it will stay until the 12 year old who understands the accounting program changes it.

Well your theory makes no sense because the Rotterdam was also at capacity and yet offered 50% off drinks at a better time of day and the happy hour was always packed. Plus we spent 85 days last year on NS when it was far from full snd the happy hour was the same ss it is now. So it apparently is nothing to do with the liquor sales. It’s just a policy set by the particular beverage manager.

Like I said, I hope they improve. We’re staying on for the next couple of months. We chose these cruises because we enjoy BBK so much usually. The trumpet player we recognize from prior cruises but none of the other band members are familiar.

I think you might be thinking of this ship. It was one of the dancers who died at Curaçao port call early this month. On that cruise they didn’t perform for several nights but that was a couple of weeks ago. While I am sure that was traumatic I can’t imagine they are still so affected by it to be causing this most recent problem. But one thing is for sure, we’ll probably never know the real story.

And to add another thing - I recall reading some recent reviews of prior cruises mentioning similar issues where they cancelled shows or band members just were missing. Something strange is going on.

We’ve been on our first week and were told initially there was a band member out sick (the female singer) so for the first couple of nights they played abbreviated sets of 30 minutes with 30 minute breaks in between. Basically they played two instrumental numbers and three songs with singing per set. Then both singers were on but still short sets and they seemed to stretch out the songs and played songs at slower tempo than normal which is noticeable when trying to dance to them. On Wednesday night they didn’t sing a single danceable song during the entire set we watched. Then last night they skipped the early sets completely because of “participation with the stage show” but in the past this has been limited to one singer and they usually don’t cancel the shows. Their first show was 10pm. This band has noticeably less enthusiasm and energy than the band on Rotterdam who was just outstanding in every way. Hoping things improve but so far the band on Nieuw Statendam has been a bit disappointing.

I have not had any luck getting changes made to the happy hour aboard this ship. We have been onboard for almost a week and not bought a single cocktail so their policy has worked on us! I heard a new beverage manager is coming on soon. Hopefully they will be more receptive to improving the H H but if not we’ll just save money and enjoy our wine package all the more!

Wifi calling with T-Mobile works on both Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam.

When you get aboard it will appear on your shipboard account as a refundable credit in the amount of the mariner’s discount. If you don’t spend enough onboard to use it they credit whatever they owe back on your credit card once the cruise ends. It seems like each ship does it differently and sometimes it takes a day or two to appear but if it doesn’t appear then I just send a note in through the navigator and they quickly resolve it. No standing in line necessary.

On the Nieuw Statendam. If you read the fine print on their website it says they cannot guarantee that space will be available in the kids club.

We had lunch in the Pinnacle yesterday next to a table with two children. I heard the mother tell the waiter that the kids club onboard has a capacity of 34 for ages 3-17. They have 240 under 18 aboard and she said it’s first come first serve so they start lining up early. Apparently they didn’t get there early enough so the kids had to join them for lunch in Pinnacle. Until the brownie came they seemed to be having a pretty awful time. They had special meals for the kids that looked like they were from the MDR. The parents seemed pretty disappointed with the experience. So if HAL wants to attract families they’re doing everything wrong.

They allow children in first class too, unfortunately.

Just realized that according to the policy kids under 12 get a better discount than 5 star mariners in Rudi’s (50% vs 25%) and Nami Sushi (50% vs 0%). Nice!

The lazy stewards say that and if you don’t ask for evening turn down service you don’t get it but if you simply said we would like our cabin serviced twice daily you would have gotten it. We were aboard Rotterdam from 2/15-3/18. Our steward on deck 1 (Deny) had 18 cabins to clean without any assistance and did everything including twice daily cleaning, towel animals every night and never had to be asked for anything. Twice daily was a given with him. Always greeted us with a broad smile and when he wasn’t cleaning cabins he was cleaning the hallways. The room was always immaculate. After our 21 days we gave him a $100 tip. For our last 10 day leg we moved to a neptune suite on deck 7 which had two stewards and found stained sheets on the bed on day 1. No towel animals, ice bucket not filled, chair cushions left outside overnight and dust in every nook and cranny you looked in. So it’s not consistent. Ironic that we got the better treatment in the cabin costing a small fraction of the cost of the neptune suite. This pair of stewards got no extra tip. BTW, since the restart chocolate is only given out on dressy nights. If you’re nice to the stewards and ask for it they will give you more but they have been told it’s now policy to limit it to those nights only.

I discovered on Nieuw Statendam they actually account for the mariner’s discount for preorders the same as buying on the ship, so no advantage here. On Rotterdam and Zuiderdam they handle it differently and credited back a full 50% of the total paid but on NS they credited back the full cost and charged the customary discounted rate which included 18% gratuities on the full price.

We noticed that HAL has also apparently stopped enforcing any sort of dress code for children in the MDR. Teens and younger were plentiful last night in shorts. Not sure if the relaxed code extends to adults too but I know they used to send anyone who arrived in shorts away.

All three Pinnacle ships have the exact same toilet issues. If you pay for a neptune suite you can get a toilet that you can sit on normally otherwise you will have to open the shower door and sit sideways (and it’s still awkward, even for short people!). Every category under neptune suite that we have had has the same design. Maybe the signature suite is different but we have not had one. Vista suites are the same sideways toilet however.

…And in 2022 we spent 135 days aboard various HAL ships alone. I go out of my way to meet and greet the various officers who have the power to make changes. Sometimes they just don’t realize something isn’t being done the way the other ships do it. If they change it, great, if not then we’ll live with it. But we’ll be Rotterdam until May and so maybe it will change. We’ll see!!

Most people would appreciate when someone speaks up and recommends a way to improve a policy that could be improved to the way all of the other ships in the fleet handle happy hour. That’s harassment?? I’m not “demanding” anything. Just telling the people who can affect change that other ships do it better.

My point, exactly.

They never promoted the 3/4 guest as a “kid’s cruise free” until fall of 2021. Prior to that the promotion wasn’t targeted to bring children per-se. Targeting a promotion using that term was new. And it’s working. To the detriment of those who liked HAL for the way it was.

And they found the magic bullet last year - give them free passage. Until then the number of children aboard non holiday cruises was minimal. Now we’re on Nieuw Statendam and there are 240 children under 18 aboard. So great success for HAL but most of the kids are bored senseless, so not so good for them. Hopefully this will just be another learning experience for HAL