On a Scale of One to Ten......

[Typhoon1]

If there is a problem with something specific. I don't hesitate to write Seattle. I think I written twice in the last ten years.

 

There is always some type of explanation given, and a generous token of apology for use on your next cruise.

[sppunk]

66 days sailed, 1 letter. From August 2012 Veendam experience.

[brucory]

I am of the belief that businesses cannot improve without customer feedback - good and bad! I certainly think it is better to let HAL know of a bad experience than let it go!

 

We sent an email off to HAL's head office once about a shore excursion that was nothing like its description. It had cost nearly $200 per person, so was not a drop in the ocean to us at least. While we were grateful that it was refunded in OBC, our main purpose of writing was so that the advertising for it be changed. As many of our fellow trippers had been dissapointed, it would be awful if no one said anything. Hopefully they changed the tour, or amended the blurb!

 

 

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[DeepWaterMariner]

We've never written to Seattle but we have sent letters (actually e-mail) once to Royal Caribbean and once to Princess. That is only twice in over 70 cruises. In one case we didn't received an end of cruise survey which we felt may have been withheld to avoid negative comments about a leak in our cabin that was never solved during the cruise despite lots of communication with the front desk. The other was after a cruise where the cruise line's standards had slipped significantly. Both instances resulted in detailed responses and offers of compensation.

[boze9999]

Greg question and positive answers. We find HAL to be very responsive to positive observations, virtue and suggestions - especially via their end of cruise surveys. I would like to pat myself on the back when I see HAL has implemented some of "MY" suggestions! Of course the 1000's of other duplicate suggestions didn't matter!!LOL! Bottom line- they do take those surveys seriously. Be prudent, objective and realistic...and we ALL benefit!

[ASIWISH]

I refuse to read or respond to this thread because it contains the word "scale".... I'm still carrying a little cruise weight, and I'm sensitive. (from March 2008):D:D

 

We have never written to Seattle... except once to request that a crew member be assigned to our ship (on an upcoming cruise) so we could celebrate her birthday with her. Amazingly, they transfered her from the Eurodam to the Nieuw Amsterdam, and wrote us back to say it was their pleasure.

 

At the time, I think I was maybe a one star Mariner.... I can't believe they did it!

 

(Obviously, our friend was fine with this... her boyfriend was transferred to the NA and was thrilled to finish her contract with him!)

[RandyinDEN]

I have only written once, and that was after our 14 day B2B that ended last week in the NA. I woke up at 4 in the morning with 2 inches of water in the room from a broken water pipe in the bathroom. After enduring 48 hours of fans, de-humidifiers and staff checking on the progress they offered us $200 OBC. That seemed a slap in the face since that is the same amount I would have received after booking another cruise with them. They did offer to move us but turned it down since we had only 3 days left and the work of packing twice more seemed too much. I am still waiting to hear from Seattle.

[ASIWISH]

I woke up at 4 in the morning with 2 inches of water in the room from a broken water pipe in the bathroom.

 

Are you serious???? two inches????

 

I would have been afriad we were sinking!!!

 

Glad our cruise this month on the NA went well!!!

[sail7seas]

I have only written once, and that was after our 14 day B2B that ended last week in the NA. I woke up at 4 in the morning with 2 inches of water in the room from a broken water pipe in the bathroom. After enduring 48 hours of fans, de-humidifiers and staff checking on the progress they offered us $200 OBC. That seemed a slap in the face since that is the same amount I would have received after booking another cruise with them. They did offer to move us but turned it down since we had only 3 days left and the work of packing twice more seemed too much. I am still waiting to hear from Seattle.

 

 

They offered you the best possible solution........ TO move you to a dry, comfortable cabin and you refused. I am confused as to why you now seek something for your inconvenience of putting up with fans and de-humidifiers when you could have avoided it entirely? It was your choice to remain in that room.

 

I hope you realize how easy a move would have been.

Your steward would have brought a rolling rack for all your hanging clothes and drawers are interchangeable between cabins.

All you would have had to bother with would have been your bathroom articles and whatever things you had on your countertops.

 

You made the choice to remain in that circumstance, I don't think they owe you much of anything. The $200 covers it IMO

 

I KNOW this is not a popular response but it is my honest reaction to this circumstance.

 

What are you seeking from them? How much would you think it worth seeing you could have moved?

 

All that being said, I am sorry this happened to you.

 

[Krazy Kruizers]

I have only written once, and that was after our 14 day B2B that ended last week in the NA. I woke up at 4 in the morning with 2 inches of water in the room from a broken water pipe in the bathroom. After enduring 48 hours of fans, de-humidifiers and staff checking on the progress they offered us $200 OBC. That seemed a slap in the face since that is the same amount I would have received after booking another cruise with them. They did offer to move us but turned it down since we had only 3 days left and the work of packing twice more seemed too much. I am still waiting to hear from Seattle.

 

Sorry that you had a problem on your cruise with a broken water pipe.

That was very generous of HAL to give you $200 shipboard credit and offered to move you. JMO -- I would have been thankful if they offered to move me under those conditions. We has to move once on a Cunard cruise for a different reason. Our old cabin steward and new cabin steward were great us moved.

Not sure why you are writting a letter to Seattle when the ship offered to move you and gave you shipboard credit. That seems bery generous to me. JMO

[mamaofami]

We called once after our Veendam cruise in June which was a disaster. We tried to talk to the HM while on board but he was never available. We were very pleased with Hal's response to us.

[bobpell]

Because of the short survey form on the third day followed by the long form on the last day, and phone calls/visits to the front desk, we have never had to write to Seattle to be satisfied for a problem we encountered.

Maybe that's why as a mild mannered Canadian cruisers we enjoy HAL and like a duck let little problems slide off our backs and laugh at life's little experiences!!

Bobpell

[Hlitner]

When we encounter a major (and some less then major) problem on any cruise we try to immediately deal with the issue onboard. Most times on HA we have been able to resolve any issue with a quick trip to Guest Relations. On one occassion when that was not sufficient we simply elevated the issue to a higher level (Hotel Manager) and things were quickly resolved. It never made a lot of sense to us to wait until we got home to write a letter.

 

By the way, it is interesting to hear about the issues that generate complaints. On HA the major complaints (we got this info from a Guest Relations manager) are primarily related to cigarette/cigar smoke and shore excursions. But what can be very comical is to hear about many of the other complaints such as "the ship rocks," "the weather is bad and we want compensation," "we want to have more time with the Captain," "it is too cold," "it is too hot," etc etc. If you get friendly with some of the Guest Relations staff (or senior Hotel staff) they can have you in stitches with the complaint tales.

 

Hank

[cmdchiefthom]

I wrote a letter to Stein Kruse following my last cruise aboard the Zuiderdam. I was positive about the cruise itself, but very specific about certain issues about the physical status of the ship. I received a personal reply, as well as certain gifts to enjoy while on my upcoming cruise aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam. I didn't ask for compensation, just presented my concerns over the maintenance, or lack thereof of the ship.;)

[Taxguy77]

I guess we are lucky or very easy to please LOL. We have been on about 15 cruises on three different lines and have never had a bad cruise. Some had some things better than others. We had a great time on all of them. Hope it will continue. :D Bill

 

With your attitude, it probably will. We have had about 10 good cruises, one being the major changes on NCL several years ago that made it the last cruise on that line, but it was an OK cruise considering it was during 9/11/01.

[kjw869]

Only once in all our HAL cruises. It was earlier this year thanking them for a wonderful cruise on the Noordam, with great food, great crew and wonderful itinerary.

[Ineke]

We wrote twice, about the same cruise, and both times the answer was not to our satisfaction, as they really did not address the issue we were unhappy about. Both times they sent us compensation, which we never used because we were not inclined to travel with HAL again for a good long time, and didn't for about 7 years. It's the only time we had a major issue with any cruise line. Well, that's not true, we did the Hawaiian cruise with Norwegian, and it was a joke, but we had been warned by many people not to do it, and did it anyways for the itinerary, so we did not feel it was any use to complain, it was our own fault.

[Minoushka]

I had a problem with my first cabin on Noordam . i spoke to purser ...she fixed it ....iI never wrote Seattle ...to me prolem was taken care of on board ....as it should be

GGGood job hHAL

[janmcn]

I've written them twice…once after my husband was stabbed on shore on a beach next to where the tenders parked which was apparently known to be a drug haven (in those days), but they hadn't warned us about it. (All turned out well, the ship handled it OK and did their best to give us a good time.) We thought we should have been given a warning about it along with the "where to buy diamonds and watches" ;-) They agreed.

 

The second time was after a cruise that had so many outstanding crew we felt we needed to write Seattle to praise many of them individually.

 

In both cases, we received return personal letters.

That's it.

 

We continue to enjoy HAL ships and crew…not to mention passengers!

[Krazy Kruizers]

I have enjoyed reading this thread - an interesting one.

 

 

I found it interesting that at least one post directed to me was removed.

 

 

Not to worry - I did get to read it -- copied it for personal reasons.

[kazu]

I have written Seattle twice - once for some of the problems on the Nieuw Amsterdam and once for the prinsendam.

Two totally different scenarios. I Wrote on the NA due to numerous issues but the awful shore excursion of Fado which was ridiculously priced (over $300) for the quality received, dangerous (one lady was nearly run over) and just horrific. Shore excursion desk was totally unresponsive and nearly rude. (I'm being kind). Shore excursion surpervisor supported her staff person - heck we all know the customer is NEVER right:rolleyes:

This was just the straw that broke the camel's back on this cruise. I'm not going to go into a litany - but I do believe that if corporations don't know they can't fix it.

My second letter was when I returned from the Prinsendam. Yes, I sent a letter on this ship - although I did the survey, I felt that there were employees there that I would like HAL to be cognizant of and that's exactly what I did. it was basically a thank you letter for a great cruise and great staff with special acknowledgements to certain staff members who were exceptional (IMO of course). Now, here's the really weird thing - I sent the glowing letter to help people and yet I got this really nice reply and a little something from HAL! (was not the intention at all)

Now, if you want to have fun - let's compare the reaction to when I wrote Princess (before the day of email - either fax or snail mail) when we had no tickets to get onboard - don't worry we were told you will have them by December 31st(duhhhhh - our cruise was on January 2nd and out of Australia and we live in Canada - how did you think we were going to receive them - we were out of here). Well somewhat nice I felt there letter was trite and that was being talked down to. We were told back then that if we didn't have our tickets we weren't boarding - I asked if we could pick them up there - told no - Lo and behold when we go to board (with not tickets) they have them there for us no biggie. I won't get into the other crap that happened on this cruise - but of course it was all worth it with the huge $100 obc they gave us (after nearly losing a year off my life worrying - not to mention the long distance bills back then).

Last letter was to Celebrity - there reply was basically they didn't care - I lost around 5 pounds on that cruise. Service in the MDR was abysmal to say the least. The absolute worst service I have ever seen. Amenities that were supposed to be included were never seen :eek: I know, I know, ships change from week to week and ship happens. While the ship can happen on this ship without me. Oh and the reply from their HO? tough ship (I think you get the drift).

So, don't complain about the comments from Seattle - based on my limited experience - they are much kinder in their responses and while part maybe 'canned' they have read the letter.

[Tricia724]

I have written one letter to Seattle and it was a thank you for upgrading us from an oceanview stateroom to a balcony stateroom for our Christmas Antarctic cruise on Amsterdam. (the only upgrade we've ever received on any cruiseline) We enjoyed that cruise tremendously, and I felt like (and said) that the balcony upgrade made a great contribution to our enjoyment of the cruise and that we considered it a wonderful Christmas present. I also complimented the ship and staff. In return, I received a form letter of acknowledgment, but that's fine because the whole point was to thank them not to have them thank me.

 

Other than that, I've never written a letter of complaint. I did formulate a letter for a problem we had with Princess and the HotMan, but I never did send it. None of our other concerns have ever been significant enough to warrant a letter. We always fill out the cruise questionnaires, though, and give them the "good news" and "bad news" about our cruise. Mostly it's good.

 

To answer your question, S7S.....I would have to say that our problem would likely have to be a 9 or 9-1/2 before I would write to complain. The deciding issue would be whether the staff/crew on board made a good-faith effort to resolve the problem. If they did, we might let it go. If they blew us off, I'd probably consider registering a complaint.

[sail7seas]

I've found this thread interesting. Thanks those who shared.

Sometimes I hear about things folks experience and the lengths they go to registering their complaint and truthfully, it amazes me. I am the first to speak up at the moment something happens that I don't like but I forget about it in five minutes unless it is extreme and 'extreme' VERY rarely happens, thankfully.

 

I really was interested to hear how often the 'average' of us writes to cruise line headquarters with complaints.

 

Thanks. :)