wallyboag

I agree, this should probably be in the RCI board.

We purchased the 50% off award and looking at the cruises and the prices, kind of sad that it's not really that good of a deal. Typically the kind of prices this award will get you are prices that are available during cruise sales or special travel agent deals. We're going to be returning this award and using our hard-earned points for something else.

We really feel kind of bait-and-switched. We thought we were going to get 50% off the prices listed on the page, but when we called to book the discount was more like 10% off the prices listed (sometimes only 5%!). Not a good deal at all!

It is possible he was pulling double duty, either by choice (to make more money) or by assignment, if the ship was short staffed. That's the only reason I can come up with for this seeming discrepancy.

He was definitely our waiter back in December. When I read the name I thought "I'm sure there's a lot of people with the same first name..." but when I saw the picture, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, so yes, I'm sure it was him that we saw every night at dinner.

He was extremely nice to us and always smiling when he came to our table. I would never in a thousand years imagine him to be homicidal.

Anyways, back to the point I have seen waiters working other parts of the ship (lido, water distribution when coming back from port, etc) so it wouldn't be surprising if they have to work room service delivery shifts as well, which would have given him access to her cabin.

I guess another question is about "master keys." Does every room service attendant have one of these? Are they able to get into a room whether that person has ordered room service or not? Is there really such a thing as a master key? It seems to me that no single person should ever have access to all rooms on the ship!

Are we absolutely certain he was a Room Service steward?

He was our waiter for assigned seating in the main dining room at dinner time. I'm sure he had other responsibilities during the day which may have included room service, and thus access to any cabin on the ship, no?

That was our waiter on the NA back in December. I am in such shock right now. Thinking about being on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean with really no law enforcement or way of protecting yourself. A crew member who had access to our cabin, knew us by name, and obviously had homicidal tendancies... Imagine if my family or I had said the wrong thing to him! He seemed like a great guy. Very friendly. Always smiling. Very weird feeling right now.

When I saw the headline, I was upset.

When I saw that it was on the Nieuw Amsterdam (which I was on three months ago) I was astounded.

When I saw the picture and realized it was our assigned waiter who was nothing but respectful, kind, and a great person to me and my family, I was creeped out beyond belief.

Very scary. I know that this sort of thing could happen to anyone, anywhere, but the fact that it happens on a cruise ship which is out in the middle of the ocean and with so many people having access to your cabin... and knowing that someone who you saw every day could have snapped and done this to us if we happened to say the wrong thing... wow. I don't know what to say right now.

$200 a day each, or for both?

That price is per person, not per cabin. So $200 per person per day.

Thanks for the specifics. This helps the discussion a lot. If you don't mind reporting, what did you pay for this trip and what cabin level that created these higher expectations?

On this 7-day R/T from Seattle we paid $1399 pp plus port fees for VD cabins (we picked the cabins, not GTY cabins)

Did HAL compensate you for the balcony you were unable to use for the entire duration of your cruise? Seems only fair.

We reported it to our cabin steward the first time we saw him. Wasn't fixed when we got back from dinner on the first night so we called the front desk. Maintenance didn't fix it until two days into the cruise. Because of the issues we brought up, HAL gave us a future cruise credit (which we are using on this upcoming cruise)

Sorry your travel agent over-sold your expectation on this mainline cruise line experience that should never have been presented as a premium luxury cruise line. Hope you change your travel agent for that unnecessary blunder.

It wasn't the travel agent's idea. We went seeking HAL as they advertise themselves as a more upscale line. "Signature of Excellence" and all that. The price was quite a bit higher than other similar itineraries on other cruise lines, so we figured we were paying a higher price for a higher standard of quality. Now looking at HALs rate tactics, we see that we just bought the cruise at a high point and that in reality their rates are similar to Carnival and Norwegian rates.

How did your cocktail get "made incorrectly"?

The cocktail (The Wine Country Collins which I see is still on the menu, she'll be happy about that) was a favorite of my sisters after she discovered it. She had one every night with dinner. On the fifth night of the cruise, it came out bitter and tasting awful (I even had a sip to confirm). We asked our server to send it back and have it re-made, and he said he couldn't do that, he would have to get permission from the beverage manager, so it sat there on the center of our table all the way through the main entree. We all kind of stared at it sitting there in the center of the table, almost a symbol, the straw that broke the camels back so to speak, of the poor service we had been experiencing on the cruise up to that point. This sort of thing should be a no-brainer. If the drink is bad, dump it out and make it again, but for some reason with HAL it was an issue.

Again, these things would be expected for a bargain-priced cruise, but at a premium price I don't expect heat when we ask for a drink to be re-made and I expect the cabin to be clean and the balcony door to work!

They need to improve service for both food and wine in the MDR. Quit charging top dollar for early bookers and giving away the farm at the end. Start with a lower price point and they will have less to give away at the end.

THIS I think is the most important part of the issue here.

We booked an Alaska cruise well in advance and paid top dollar for it. We were told HAL was top of the line in terms of service and quality. What we got in terms of service and quality was far closer to Carnival. Service was really bad. Cabins were left dirty on arrival. The lock on the balcony door was broken and there was no way to get out on the balcony that we paid a premium price to use. A drink was made incorrectly and when we asked to get it replaced our server told us he couldn't do that. Needless to say, we were very disappointed.

Currently booked on another cruise with them and we're paying 1/4 the price we paid for the Alaska cruise for the exact same category of cabin. Now our expectations are lowered. I don't expect premium service when I don't pay a premium price.

If they want to charge reasonable rates across the board and provide reasonable service, that is fine. But because of fare competition, the quality of the service does not match the price paid when booking in advance. The fire sale prices are going to drag the quality of the line under.

I do not recommend pre-paying for the unlimited laundry. We did this and because the room steward was supposed to put a "special" laundry bag without prices on it in our room, we wound up without a laundry bag for three days and had to call twice to get one. When it did come, it was the list with the prices, so we checked "unlimited laundry package" on the bottom and wound up being charged a second time for something we pre-paid for. This meant we had to go to the front desk to clear it up (and it was cleared up, but still a pain to clear it up).

Had we not pre-paid we theoretically would have had the laundry bag waiting for us when we checked in and would not have had to wear dirty clothes into port one day. We also would have had the laundry service for the whole seven days instead of only five days of the cruise.

Pre-paying for the option only led to confusion and did not add any value to the proposition.

The pricing, I must say, is a good value. We paid $49 for a 7 day cruise, and because of this we saved $100 in airport baggage fees by packing less, and our clothes were less wrinkly than they would have been packed in luggage the whole time.