BigMattT

It’s a travesty. I still begrudge that between the two world wars the tuxedo largely supplanted the tailcoat as standard evening wear. My TRUE formalwear has been relegated to the all too rare occasions I have to be received by royals. How will anyone tell me apart from a footman? Or worse… from a tenant or the working class? It’s almost as if there is a sinister force at play… working to remove the distinction between classes. Ripping privilege from our grasp! What’s next? Soon anyone will be able to afford to cruise and pretend to be able to appreciate the finer things.

As promised, the problem cabin was: 4183. I am disappointed HAL is continuing to sell this cabin. Very grateful for HAL changing us to another cabin (5150), which was super quiet. The issue with such severe vibration at high speeds on Westerdam makes us unlikely to sail again on a Vista class ship. Even in the dining room; it was shockingly loud/jarring. There were also plumbing issues in both cabins: very slow shower drain and toilet that wouldn’t flush in first cabin, and low cold water pressure and again a toilet that wouldn’t flush in the second cabin. She’s an old ship, so I understand that happens on occasion… but 5 out of 7 days isn’t really reasonable.

Thanks, I’m aware of that. That wouldn’t fit me either. HAL does not carry robes in my size. I carry my own robe and sandals in my bag to and from the spa unless I’m in a Spa cabin. In a spa cabin, I wear my robe over my bathing suit to walk from cabin to spa, as I don’t need to pass through any other guest areas which might have other attire requirements (or customs). I’m sorry he didn’t follow the rules requiring proper attire in the lido. Despite that, I make an effort not to make comments about the size of people’s body parts. After all, I wouldn’t want someone reading my comment to wrongly interpret I was denigrating them for how they looked.

Am on her now. It was the nicest port call in Juneau I’ve ever had. Perfect weather for a walk to the Roberts Cross. Sail away at night was so incredibly calm— cedar and faint smell of smoke in the air, gorgeous sunset. We were at the spa and went on the forward observation area on deck 9 in our robes and bathing suits to enjoy the view.

The robes provided in your cabin are intended for in-cabin use, but no one will stop you from using it ship-wide. The Spa robes don’t fit me, so I bring my own spa robe from home, since I use the spa almost daily. It just so happens my home robe is almost identical to the in-room robes. I wouldn’t overthink it. No one cares unless you’re barefoot (not allowed anywhere but inside the pool areas), or shirtless/wearing swimwear in dining venues. You’ll see it all.

Deck 5 is probably fine. Deck 4 sticks out quite a bit farther aft than deck 5.

Thank you everyone for your tips. Guest services was fantastic this morning, and thankfully were able to move us to another cabin. This morning at breakfast, we happened to be seated at the aft facing window directly under where our original cabin was… and it was amazing how focused the vibration was at that specific table vs slightly port/star, or even forward two tables. Jurassic Park ripples in our orange juice, lid of the metal coffee pot bouncing and clanging. Harmonics are wild. For privacy reasons, I’ll wait until we disembark to post the cabin number, but I’d definitely recommend avoiding it. There was barely a hesitation from Guest Services about it, and there was extra foam inserted around some surfaces and such… so clearly this isn’t the first time there’s been an issue with this cabin. Sad to lose the aft view, but elated how well they handled this. Bravo HAL. (Service has been exemplary overall, as well.) Onward to Juneau!

We’re seasoned cruisers and travel with earplugs, but the shaking and deep bass vibrating noise is so bad in this aft-facing Westerdam cabin on deck 4 that we can’t sleep… we’re easy going folks, but honestly it’s unpleasant to even be in the cabin with this shaking. After dinner, we reported it to guest services, and the rep accompanied us back to the cabin.. but of course the ship slowed down to about 14 knotts by the time we got back to the cabin, and the vibration had completely stopped. We said we would see what happened tonight… but sadly here we are… and it’s relentless at this high speed. This is unlike any cabin vibration I’ve ever experienced. (Not our first time in a deck 4 aft cabin.) Any suggestions out there how to handle this or what/who to ask? A really unfortunate start to a vacation.

I’d splurge for the Thermal Suite. While the pool was never rowdy or full of kids on our spring break Rotterdam cruise… the spa was always the quietest option

Absolutely. HAL has been our goto for relaxed quiet ships. Nice spas. Well behaved kids. And only spring break out of FL has had any “awkward” situations with fellow passengers. Group cruises on Royal (but not buyouts) if we want a more lively time.

This thread was a fascinating read. Random thoughts: 1) My husband and I (now in our 40s) have been taking cruises for 15 years... sometimes we feel like socializing, sometimes we're trying to escape anything resembling an obligation. Over the years, we've had reasonably pleasant experiences meeting people at FoD/Pride/LGBTQ meetups when we've felt like going. There's always a couple or a solo traveller who comes to the meetup and sits off to the side or nervously lingers at the entrance... and while it's not anyone's responsibility... mindfully offering inclusion to stragglers is largely free of cost and feels wonderful. It's as easy as... "If you're here for the 5:30pm event, we'll be happy to pull up another chair when you're ready." I say be the person who does that if no one else is. 2) Attending the meetup definitely seems like it gives license for other attendees to act far more familiar with us than when we don't attend. Friendly greetings are fine... conversations if we see you on an excursion, at a show, or in a bar are of course fine... the very nature of those activities is gathering and being somewhat social... 3) We've definitely experienced people getting overly friendly in various ways. Let me read in peace. Let me sit in the spa in peace. Please ask permission before joining me at a table. Please take no for an answer to any advances. 4) I would FAR prefer someone to have RBF than to be masking and/or inauthentic. Some folks are even cute with a curmudgeonly grumpy face. My husband tells me that all the time 😉 5) Marriage doesn't mean monogamy, but enthusiastic consent is sexy and fairly obvious. The sauna is for sweating; your cabin is for canoodling; both are fun.

Depends if you’re eating with me and how fast you are with a bone spoon 🙂

It’s interesting how the price change impacts perception of value… We’ve ordered caviar each time… and honestly the accompaniments and service are hit or miss. At $70 on the Koningsdam two times, the blinis were great, the serving ware was correct, and it felt like something special at a great value. At $70 on Eurodam, almost spherical blinis, which had raw batter in the middle, were served to us along with the normal tiny jar, lid still on, floating in an enormous bowl of ice set into the “second floor” of their rack used for seafood towers. At $50 on Rotterdam, same odd ice bowl tower thing, blinis were “ok”, and jar lid removed. At $50 on Zaandam, thank god no crazy bowl suspended above our heads, but blinis were overcooked sponges, and instead of chopped chives… a line of dried parsley flakes. (Someone was clearly trying. The server even chuckled somewhat apologetically.) Caviar was still delish though. Back to that idea of perceived value… I think we were eating the same grade/type of caviar each time. Like the vast majority… I can’t discern between really amazing caviar from merely great caviar. It’s a “sometimes thing” for us. At $70 we had mentioned the odd service… and had the price not subsequently dropped to $50, we probably wouldn’t have ordered it again. “They didn’t seem like they knew what they were doing, and so how good could the caviar be?” At $50, we ate our caviar happily and ignored the shortcomings. Now at $80, if the service isn’t right, we’ll probably stop purchasing it going forward. I’m guessing HAL has a better idea than any of us what their price elasticity in up-charge food demand is… But I’m hoping they understand just how much the value (and expectation) is comprised of the service delivery itself vs the commodity.

Yes, they still allow you to call room service within the first hour of dining room service to have your meal delivered to your room. I’ve cruised a few times with people who use wheelchairs intermittently— and I would fairly strongly recommend checking if a wheelchair-friendly cabin is available. If it’s not available, it’s good to know that you’d be fine with a standard cabin… but the auto-opening doors and wider spaces in room layout can help a lot with feeling confident with balance and stability on a moving vessel.

Hullo— They’re lovely cabins, provided your expectations are in line with what is listed on the inclusions page on HAL’s website. Vistas are a “little bit” bigger than Verandahs; are laid out to make 3rd passengers much more comfortable, but do NOT receive full suite services (which HAL, mostly, calls “Club Orange”). Deck 4 is lovely on Koningsdam. Some cabins on that deck have very nice sized balconies. Check out halfacts.com for specific cabin reviews. (It’s free and requires no signup.)

Yeah, absolutely. In writing or it doesn’t count. 🙂

Thank you. Trusty PCC just got back to me and said it can be done onboard… essentially turns the HIA credit to refundable OBC.

A few months ago, we booked a shore excursion (Hubbard excursion) using our credit card. That excursion is now sold out. We have just added "Have It All" to our booking, which grants us $100 each toward shore excursions. We have independent plans for all other ports and cannot use it toward any other HAL excursion. Does anyone have any recent experience getting the HIA Shore Excursion Credit applied to an already booked (and in this case sold out!) excursion once onboard? I'm fairly certain I've read this is possible in prior threads, but can't seem to unearth it via search.

Has she been getting in on time on this itinerary lately?

So glad your cabin worked well! Thanks for following up!

Unfortunately, “Top box scoring” methodologies and metrics are too often employed nefariously to incentive programs in hospitality. Usually under some guise of rewarding teams that “go above and beyond”. I’ve seen number crunchers ruin so many reasonably profitable and extraordinarily artful guest experiences to squeeze the slightest bit of “improvement” out of an asset… and it’s extremely disheartening to see when it’s increasingly service workers being the assets squeezed.

We’ve received multiple asks for “top scores” on surveys on every HAL cruise we’ve taken. Most of the time it’s at dinner the last night… where they’ll give a pleasant/standard reminder that we’ll receive a survey. Hard asks for confirmation that we’ll give them top scores usually sour my expression… but I understand the motivation. So much rides on it for them. Their corporate offices don’t care about the things that can’t be easily measured. I absolutely abhor the idea that hospitality workers’ incentives and career prospects are based upon these kinds of surveys. As anyone can see in threads on these boards, expectations of the traveling public are wildly different… and some MBA statistician’s idea that anything less than a 9 or 10 on a survey is a “fail”, is unbelievably problematic. There’s a recent WSJ article about the very idea of customer satisfaction surveys have become meaningless in America because now people dole out perfect scores on every app despite awful service because they know humans are being scored by algorithms. Similarly “1’s” are used as revenge for not getting something for free after complaining. On our last voyage, we encountered both room stewards outside our cabin on the last night of the cruise. I saw the one being trained get encouraged to approach me. He nervously said hello and started “the speech”. I let him finish his whole nervous but heartfelt appeal. (He’ll need the practice.) I thanked him for letting me know about the survey, thanked him for his stellar service for the week, and handed him the envelopes we always prepare with additional cash gratuities. Their names were the first I added to my running list on my phone I keep during a voyage. I wouldn’t dream of “penalizing” a crew member by intentionally not mentioning their name just because they asked. It’s part of their reality and livelihood that they’ll never get rewarded for their stellar service unless they also tell you a bit about how the screwed up system works. We’re all agreeing to play by these rules by cruising.

Deck 9 forward. It’s a great thermal suite. The thalassotherapy pool is huge so never feels crowded even on very busy days. Plenty of tile loungers with a great view. Only once in 3 sold out cruises did I have to wait for a lounger more than a few minutes. The nicest thing about HAL’s spa versus our experience on NCL is that other patrons seem to respect the quiet/serenity part more. No loud chatting etc. Overall, the ships are WAY more chill than NCL, so you won’t feel quite as bombarded by life when you step out of the spa, too.

I will second that the premium wifi was a waste of money. Last month on Zaandam, there were so many outages (supposedly due to fog) that we mostly relied on shoreside cell signal when we were near enough to the coasts. Fortunately, that was a great deal of our itinerary. When it was working, mornings tended to be the worst for bandwidth, and evenings at dinner were the best times to connect.

The lamb was the best thing on their menu. What a shame.