cruz chic

I was thinking items like See's Candies, secured packaged treats, things that they can enjoy between the room stewards or others. Ill bring more $$$ for them in addition to the regular gratuities.

I'll take the see's candies. Those are so good:D.

If you do ask for a special order, be prepared to eat a lot of it!

 

One cruise I asked if parmesan chicken would be served that cruise. Next night, there were platters of it served at the table. :eek:

 

On another cruise, I asked (this is just asked, mind you) if there was going to be the chocolate purse for dessert during the cruise. A night or two later, what did I have served to me? Two, yes 2!!! plates of the chocolate purse, with two on each plate. :eek:

 

And as if I hadn't learned my lesson, on another cruise, when the munchies were passed with cocktails, I declined while letting them know I would be interested when/if there were ever cheese sticks. You got it, one night they served me a platter of them. :D

You must know the right people. I wonder if it's too early to get my bitterballen order in for Apr 2014:D;).

A side of broccoli certainly is no big deal and nothing 'princess' about it . Actually, they now have 'steamed vegetables' on the menu as always available and broccoli is always offered. :)

 

Bringing a family's favorite recipe from home is a big deal, to my mind.

 

 

 

I never knew about the veggies. Goes to show you how carefully I look. I knew you could ask but I hated to do it. I love my veggies so I loaded up in the Tamarind. I agree, bringing recipes from home is a bit much. You might as well stay home if you want to do that:D.

Does every post have to end up talking about wine policies?

 

Talk about redundant:eek:

Of course:D. Is there a thread dedicated to wine policies only right now? I'm still trying to get caught up from holidays so I might have missed it. We might forget otherwise;).

Those who have sailed with HAL for years will probably remember that Bitterballen used to be served with the hot munchies in the bars in the evenings.

 

One cruise with Captain Albert we hadn't seen any bitterballen. We mentioned this to him at the (formerly) VIP party. He immediately lifted his hand and beckoned over the Culinary Manager and told him to see that we had some Bitterballen ( which was a bit embarrassing).

 

Every night for the rest of the cruise there was tray of Bitterballen brought to our cabin at 5pm without fail. Enough to feed six hungry people with several gravy boats of mustards on the side! Needless to say we got our fill of Bitterballen that cruise.

Oh, my mouth is watering:D. They had it on my Oosterdam cruise in August at the VIP party but there wasn't any on the Eurodam cruise in Oct. I'd like a plate of that for dinner:D;).

Hal could learn something from Princess. I've done quite a few cruises on Princess and they never struggle in the MDR like HAL does.

Please don't take this the wrong way, Lorene, but when the job gets so stressful it's time to retire or quit, before it kills you. I was one of the people left to handle the load when others were let go. I was like you in my job, the stress built more and more, the workload increased more and more. And in the end I decided I I didn't want kill myself lining someone else's pockets. I retired (not early, I was 63 then) and somehow, we have managed - and I still cruise:D Life is just way too short and precious.

That's easier said then done. I do not have another income coming into my house. I have tried unsuccessfully to leave but jobs are not plentiful for senior accountants. Companies would rather hire intermediates that sit on Facebook all day:rolleyes:. At 52 I'm a bit to far from retirement.

.

 

DH had 31 days per year Lorene (that's Canada). I had 25. So with a bit of work, a bit of no pay for a week or a leave of absence , it can be done :D

I'd be happy to take a leave with no pay. There is no appetite for that where I work. As it is I'm falling farther and farther behind at work. I also find it tiresome when people tell me how "lucky" I am to take the amount of holidays I do. I'm pretty sure not many people would trade places with me if they saw how much stress I've had with my job.

I've done a similar itinerary on the Statendam. Looking forward to your take on it.. Have a great cruise.

I always stop in and tell our TA the good, the bad and the ugly of our cruises when we return. She recommended HAL to us when we were in our 40s, and we've sailed with them since. She owns her own travel agency in a small town, so has to work hard to keep her business thriving. She has always worked hard for us and we appreciate her. A good TA may be hard to find.

And I agree, I'll take the "old fogies" on HAL over the young party animals on some other cruise lines any day.

I'll take the old fogies too. At 52 I find I feel more comfortable with 70 year olds then 30 year olds.

Define "longer". When I was working I got 32 "use it or lose it" vacation days per year. That's in addition to the 28 "carry over" days I was allowed to keep on the books. I routinely took cruises in excess of 30 days, as when you figure the weekends and holidays, they were much less than the 32 vacation days charged.

 

One time I did ask for time to take a cruise that was 63 days (I had enough days on the books), but the vacation time was denied. I didn't blame them, as I would have said "No" to my request, too ;).

I thought I had a lot of holidays. Wow, that is a lot. I think that is pretty unusual for folks living in the USA.

For 3 years I taught an agent at a well know TA office everything I could about HAL. :D Then I left her and started booking on my own.

I feel the same. My ta was supposed to be a cruise expert. I knew tons more than she did so it was time to say goodbye. I've learned a ton on here.

yebbut, yebbut..... all those 25 cents might add up to a cruise fare one day.:D

]

Yeah, especially if you book after final payment.

Can't believe the lengths people will go to to save 25 cents.

Thx for the updates.

Melodie, have a great cruise. I think it's similar to the one I did in 2008.

Careful, Lorene - I mentioned band aid fixes awhile ago on a Zuiderdam thread and got severely flamed for daring to suggest that HAL was not keeping up with maintenance. Apparently I was making it all up, LOL.:D

Of course. It's only a problem when the person has to deal with it. One thing I forgot to mention on my thread last week was that a panel fell out of the ceiling. I was getting my wine out of storage so I could take it to Canaletto that night. All of a sudden I heard a loud crash and a big chuck had fallen out of the ceiling. It looked really heavy. If someone had been standing under that it could have killed them or seriously injured them. How does stuff like that happen?

Well, even though our cruises on her have been free of any maintenance worries major issues on another ship could get him re-thinking. It's kind of ironic that the oldest ship in the fleet has been the most maintenance free for us;) It was the one ship I worried there would be issues and the complete opposite was true:D

I think it's because they care about that ship and they know they can charge top dollar for it. I'm really losing faith in Hal lately. They need to fix issues instead of putting band aids on them.

I don't know why Hal has to struggle so much when it comes to the food side. I get tired of hearing it's not the service they want to provide yet it happens over and over on pretty much every cruise I go on. There seems to be a lot of servers but they are so disorganized. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way they run the business. I know posters are going to disagree but Hal needs to stop apologizing and start fixing.

I'm jealous. I really want to do that amazon cruise but it's not likely to happen while I'm working. I'm looking forward to reading about it.

And ignorant. When I was on the Zuiderdam in September, I went to the spa to ask if they sold the Elemis lotion. The girl said she'd never heard of it. Huh??? So I took her to the display case across the lobby and showed her the Elemis stuff in there. She then said they don't sell that kind of lotion anymore. I gave up.

That is a special kind of dumb. Wow.

Spoken like a true business person.

I see nothing wrong with that. Most businesses are in it to make some money, correct? Would you work for free?

Where were there issues?

 

2 - Spa

 

FACT: We, as always, booked the cruiselong package for the Thermal Suite. This was offered for $249 per couple on this cruise...so we got two packages, one for us and one for my SIL and Mother. On the first evening we attempted to use the hydro pool and the temperature was HOT. Hot to the fact that if you walked in and then got out your skin was red. It was hotter than the hot tubs by the pools. We made the spa desk aware of this and they said that they were working on it.

 

The second day, none of the jets in the "bed" area of the hydro pool were working. Once again, they were working on it. The temperature of the water was correct at this time.

 

The third day, the temperature of the water was again HOT...so much so that you couldn't even get in...and they were working on it.

 

From the fourth day through the ninth day everything worked just fine.

 

On the last sea day when I go into the hydro pool, it was once again too HOT...so now we have 4 days that the service that we paid for was not working for us.

 

We had talked to the Spa Manager named Jalina. Each time that we brought something to her attention, she always over-talked us to say that it was being worked on. We asked if there would be any compensation back to us because we were not able to use the service that we paid for for the length of the cruise. Her response was that we already received it at a discount because we bought it for the length of the cruise.

 

Additionally...my Mother always gets her hair done in the salon on formal nights. On the first night she returned to the stateroom with a bag containing a bottle of lotion that was sold to her. I know that it is her responsibility to read a receipt before she signed it, but she didn't realize that the lotion was a cream that cost $125. In her defense, I will say that the printing on the spa receipts was very hard to read (the toner needed to be changed in their printer), but $125 for a cream that she really didn't want? I went directly back to the salon, returned the cream (via a void of the original transaction) and cancelled her appointments for the other 2 formal nights. Mother had placed an additional tip on the original receipt (in addition to the 15% that they already charge), but when I went back I was so angry that I did not include any additional tip. When we got our statement we saw that the amount of the tip was still being charged. I returned to the spa desk to inquire about this and they said that my Mother had originally put a tip on the transaction, but I told them that that transaction that included that tip was voided. They said that isn't normally their policy but they would do it for me. In all reality, they did not have a valid slip that included any tip.

 

OPINION: I know that the spa is run by an outside agency, but HAL really needs to have more of a control over these employees. They are not a good representation of HAL. We ran into issues with the spa on our last cruise on Eurodam but that was because we were in Code Red for much of the cruise (which I find absolutely acceptable). It shouldn't be such an issue to keep the temperature of the hydro pool consistent. Perhaps it was partially due to the demographics on this particular cruise, but there were hardly ever many people at all in the hydro pool...usually no more than 4-6 people...and MANY times it sat empty. I feel that people tried to use it and ended up not being able to because of the temperature issues.

 

If you do not have a service available that was paid for then you need to give back. The manager of this spa took no responsibility for the fact that half of the service that we paid for (because I know that it also includes the tiled loungers, etc) was not working for 4 of the 10 days of our cruise. For her to state that we received it at a discount already is a line of bull...it may be discounted but it is discounted to those who purchase it for the length of the cruise on EVERY cruise, so that is what it is.

 

Regarding the selling of product to my Mother, I believe I stated my opinion above. I feel that she was taken advantage of (even though, as I stated that it was her responsibility to properly read the receipt before signing) because of her age and also that the receipt was very hard to read.

 

In the end, we dealt with the front office on this issue as well and ended up getting $100 OBC back because of this...but I know that there were many others that probably received nothing back because they didn't go further than the spa desk.

Don't get me started on the spa. They are terrible reps for the ship. When I was having my pedicure done there was another lady having one done. She was completely mad because they had screwed up her appt time and then they blamed her. She was going to have her hair colored on the ship. I talked her out of it. There is no reason for these people to be so rude.

I am going to make one final comment because so many posters have gotten on a tangent that goes far astray from the point I was trying to make.

 

I purchased a small internet package towards the end of my cruise just to check on some emails. I had no need to print boarding passes or anything else. When I noticed a sign stating there was a 25 cent charge for printing boarding passes, my perception was this was kind of chintzy. Lets assume that the same percentage of respondents to this thread who agree with me (maybe 5%) feel likewise; that means that up to 100 guests come away with a negative impression of HAL. So, my point is why instill a negative image when it can be easily avoided by just eliminating the sign or just have it state 25 cents per page for printing? I frankly don't see how even HAL's most ardent apologists can argue with that.

 

P.S. When I have the time, I'm going to initiate a thread on the duty free store scams and can't wait for the flack I'll receive on that.

If that all it takes to give them a negative impression I wish they would go to another line. Those folks are way, way too needy.

Really?

 

We have cruised on RCI, Princess, NCL, Carnival, HAL, Celebrity, Crystal.

 

Only once have we had an AC issue in the last 15 or so cruises. That was a thermostat issue on an NCL trip last December....and we got tired of officers knocking on our door to see if the issue was resolved. Amazing customer service.

 

So is it only on certain HAL ships that cruisers leave balcony doors open, thus causing a AC issues???

Pretty much every room I've had on Princess has been on the warm side and I've met a lot of people that like to leave their door open. If people like it so much why not sleep on the balcony?

Thanks. Wasn't sure, but felt you can't expect pax to know the problem if there is not notification. It really should also explain why to keep the door closed and what happens in other cabins if it is open, and maybe it does. If it is not explained some may think it is just to save the cruise line money on AC costs and probably could less about that.

Yes, there is a note on every door. Plain and simple people don't care. When I've mentioned it to people they come up with every excuse in the book. One moron said he paid for his mini suite (Princess) and he was going to do what he wanted. I said "didn't the other folks pay for theirs too". At this point he decided to be very rude and shut me down. It's a me, me world.