Changes in the last ten years?

[curtdesilets]

We do also. We had a winter cruise booked on the Westerdam and after the recent incident in June involving the Westerdam we cancelled it. I no longer felt confident sailing on the ship. We can see when cost cutting trumps quality, but it is much more difficult to see when cost cutting trumps safety. In our case, having a fire break out and then learning that the fire suppression equipment malfunctioned was too many incidents for us.

 

BTW, on our August 30th Westerdam sailing, the fire alarm went off. There was a bit of panic all over the ship. Eventually it was determined that some exhaust from the engine room set off the fire alarm. Captain made several announcements and he sounded troubled and quite in emergency mode. I still do not think they have fixed the problem.

[cbr663]

BTW, on our August 30th Westerdam sailing, the fire alarm went off. There was a bit of panic all over the ship. Eventually it was determined that some exhaust from the engine room set off the fire alarm. Captain made several announcements and he sounded troubled and quite in emergency mode. I still do not think they have fixed the problem.

 

Thank-you so much for providing this update. I can understand the panic all over the ship.

[Lizzie68]

Hmm. Not very reassuring. My next cruise is on the Westerdam.:(

[cruz chic]

Hmm. Not very reassuring. My next cruise is on the Westerdam.:(

 

Happy I've cross it off the list. It's not my favorite ship.

[Lizzie68]

Happy I've cross it off the list. It's not my favorite ship.

 

Yeah, I remember your posts about it - was hoping things have improved since then, change of crews, etc. But the underlying maintenance is a bit worrisome.

[chrispb]

You do realize that to "suppose" means "to hold as an opinion"?

 

So to paraphrase, you read my saying that "It's my opinion that folks shouldn't complain too much" to somehow mean that I have said people have to ask permission to complain?

 

Or, to use a different example, if I had said "I suppose one shouldn't eat too much," you would interpret that as me having said people need to ask permission to eat? ;)[/quote

 

I simply read it as you meant it. It is sometimes used as a standard response when asking about someone's health. "Mustn't complain/can't complain" I'm sure we've all heard it said at some point.

[curtdesilets]

Thank-you so much for providing this update. I can understand the panic all over the ship.

 

It happened when we were in the stores. Fire alarm went off, and everyone sort of stopped in their tracks. Some crew were running down the hall at full speed, but in a couple moments, the Captain came on to (hopefully) reassure us that it was nothing, or practically nothing.

 

I'm not so sure however, as he went into high detail as to what caused it, and sounded a bit nervous or anxious. I'm not a ship engineer, but I could imagine that the fire/smoke detector was on a very sensitive mode and picks up any minute trace of smoke, which might be a good thing. He described it as similar to when an engine backfires and creates a plume of smoke. These are diesel engines, so I was imagining one of those old Mercedes Diesel Cars you sometimes get behind that leaves a smoke bomb. Anyway, all was back to normal in a manner of minutes.

 

My worry however was that I was aware of the previous incident earlier in the Alaska season that forced the Westerdam to return to Seattle. We were somewhere in the middle of the Inside Passage when this current incident occurred. I guess Juneau would have been our destination were the ship to become disabled.

 

Also in 21 sailings, I've never heard a real fire alarm go off on a ship, just the routine drills that they always do.

 

But we did have a worse time once. We were stuck for 4 hours in the middle of the Gulf of St Lawrence with a downed Azipod. That was a bit more harrowing. It was in 2002 on the brand new Brilliance of the Seas, and it was only our 2nd cruise. They never got the thing running, so we had to limp back to Boston at half speed and miss a port. Just an inconvenience really, but sometimes you wonder.

Edited October 1, 2014 by curtdesilets
Clarification

[cbr663]

<snip>

 

My worry however was that I was aware of the previous incident earlier in the Alaska season that forced the Westerdam to return to Seattle. We were somewhere in the middle of the Inside Passage when this current incident occurred. I guess Juneau would have been our destination were the ship to become disabled.

 

 

Thanks for expanding on your comment. It is worrisome.

 

My DW and I had the discussion of suppose we took the cruise and something terrible happened. How could you explain to anyone why you took a cruise on a ship with a recent history of problems?

 

I can't tell you how many times we have visited the HAL site this year and nearly booked a Canada/New England cruise. My DW even booked vacation time from work for September. But, we wouldn't book because of the history with the Veendam and Maasdam. I also can't tell you how many times we wondered were we being foolish and over-reacting, yet, now the Veendam is taken out of service for propeller problems.

 

I guess it is fair to say that the changes in recent years have certainly affected our confidence sailing on certain HAL ships. Others have certainly echoed these same feelings in this thread.

[SeagoingMom]

Are you equating HAL with Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc?:rolleyes: HAL used to be considered a premium line, and still tout their "Signature of Excellence". Darn, I never realised they had officially downgraded to the level of Walmart.

No, not at all. Just using stores as an example of places we may or may not choose to patronize, and which folks generally consider to have varying levels of quality. HAL is my favorite cruise line, but how I rank it personally is not relevant to how others may rank it. I was simply saying that whatever the quality level one perceives in a cruise line (or store, in my analogy), it seems inconsistent to complain about it as being inferior if one chooses to patronize it! And however one ranks a particular cruise line, there are undoubtedly lines which one ranks either above or below the one under discussion. My "Goodwill to Bergdorf Goodman" analogy of ranking was to include all possible opinions of all possible cruise lines, not any one in particular.

[Folk Singer]

Just like most cruise lines, the cuts are an effort to save money.

 

One that stands out in my mind is the disappearance of the Chocolate Buffet. Another is trays in the Lido. We can live with that one, but sometimes, I wish I had a third hand.

 

 

:) Good comment. Like the Flag. Things change and some times for the better and sometimes we think things are not right, but it is just a matter of perspective.