Members writing poor HAL reviews

[jtl513]

How did you find that. I went to "Members List" at the top of the page, then "Search members" and entered "alatecruiser". This is the response I got: "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms. "

Well, maybe the search isn't working right currently. Click on my name to look at my profile, and Show All Friends. Click on the name there to see his profile.

[rafinmd]

Well, maybe the search isn't working right currently. Click on my name to look at my profile, and Show All Friends. Click on the name there to see his profile.

 

Thanks, interesting. The search has worked the way it does now for a long time, at least months. I'm guessing most of the people who post the reviews in question do not have many friends.

 

Roy

[RuthC]

The search has worked the way it does now for a long time, at least months.

You really can't be sure of that.

Search was not working at all recently, and was fixed in increments. There were other things going wrong at the same time. I'm not convinced that everything is back exactly the way it used to be. Just this morning something else stopped working the way it always has.

[RetiredMustang]

Well, this is an interestiing thread to me. I have reviewed one cruise, and done several "live from" blogs that people seem to enjoy.

 

I started on CC by lurking: I was researching on Google for reviews of the b2b Westerdam cruise I had booked, and a few of the top returns were to CC threads -- I read many as research, and found a lot of information; some great, some OK, and some I knew to be possibly inaccurate based on previous HAL cruises I had taken, but still I appreciated the different viewpoints. Almost none were viscious. This was in 2007; I had cruised HAL since 1996, but was a newbie to web chat rooms/whatever category CC falls into -- an experienced cruiser, but a real web tyro at the time.

 

I joined CC after my cruise, and posted a long review. It was not presented well, because I had not learned how to change fonts, or even break up paragraphs, so it was one long dreadful wad of prose. Several people said they liked it, though, so I stayed on CC. I read the threads and gleaned some very good info (thank you), and also read some dire posts; luckily I've learned to ignore or get past those -- I have posted some quite definite opinions now and then, but hopefully have not attacked anyone personally.

 

I read several "live from" blogs and enjoyed them, so I thought I would try my hand at those. I don't have quite the facility with humor that some have, and whose blogs I love reading, but I do seem to have a knack for straight-forward reporting. I like HAL, and have generally had a good time every time, so I suppose some may consider me a HAL cheerleader, but if I find something odd or off, I do report it. I don't report, for example, the one time on a cruise the scrambled eggs were runny in the Lido because it's not important and would in my mind sound like whining. I did point out that the chairs in the Pinnacle bar on Eurodam in 2009 were very uncomfortable, but have never (thank goodness), experienced loud noises from the galley, overflowing toilets or other really bad situations that others have reported.

 

So, I try to report honestly on what I experience and leave out the boring bits. I started with an avatar of an ancient statue of Ulysses, since my sig quotation is from Tennyson's poem about him, but shifted to an actual picture. Sapper1 told me it was an improvement, which is encouraging -- it's nice to know that I look better than a centuries-old, weather-beaten stone guy.

 

But, that means people on board the cruise/some cruise staff know who I am. Once, I even blogged my cabin number while I was on board (I was trying to help Joanie with photos of the cabin for her web site and forgot that anyone on board reading CC now knew as well who/where I was.) Oh well, nobody seemed to take any notice, which is a good thing. I get the impression that some of the staff know I'm the guy on board who is live blogging on CC, but no one has made any comment or, so far as I can tell, treated me any differently on the several cruises I have done so. I have never received anything from HAL HQ or the ship I was on that was offfered because I was blogging on CC. I've gotten perks because I am a 4-star Mariner or was in a deluxe verandah suite, etc., but not because I blogged on CC.

 

Once I was invited to a cocktails-with-the-captain-and-HotMan reception that was not related to Mariners, suites or other category, but I realized that it was for reps of groups on board that cruise and it was the one for which I had set up the CC meet and greet, so I was invited because I "organized" a group of CC members -- which seems to me like saying I was herding frogs; as if I had any influence over what anyone in the group did: I was just the guy who reserved the Crows Nest and invited staff officers. The free wine was good, though. :D

 

But, after all the live blogging, I find that when I get home after a cruise I just never seem to get around to posting a review to the reviews section. Oh well.

 

Dave

[Windsailer]

While I have found the HAL board helpful in answering my questions over the past few months, I wouldn't post a review of my cruise on this board (just in the CC review section) if I had anything to say that was factualy, but not entirely, positive. I think there are CC members on this board that are mean-spirited and rude when faced with a review that has negative, but factual, comments in it. It's not a matter of the glass being half full or half empty, it's a matter of a particular person stating what has actaully happened to them. Perhaps it didn't happen to you 4 years ago on the same ship, but that's really neither here nor there. I see no reason to engage anyone in a "conversation" about what I saw and what happened to me.

 

And RetiredMustang, I found your "live from" to be very interesting and helpful. Thanks!