Decline in quality??

[allen.crawford]

Just spoke with my mother who got off the Rotterdam a couple of days ago. Her impression was that the quality of service and food has degraded from the last time they were on a Dam ship (Oosterdam) back about a year or so.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has seen the same?:confused:

[sail7seas]

HONESTLY....I REALLY AM NOT KIDDING......

 

About 2 years ago, we started to see some decline. Subtle at first and not that noticeable but it was becoming a bit more so. Then.....within the last year, we have been incredibly pleased on our cruises.

 

We have had wonderful service. WE have not felt our stewards were overworked. We think the menus have improved after having declined for a while.

 

MAYBE we have been lucky and chose the right ships to cruise but we have been VERY happy.

 

[When I sensed decline, I said so here. So, hopefully, you will take this as my honest observation of the cruises we were on and the service WE enjoyed.]

 

Most particularly, the ships that I think are doing a GREAT job are Veendam and Maasdam. Really......

[JimVrhovac]

We have noticed that the crews on the Vista CLass ships seem to be more overworked than the crews on the older ships.

 

When you talk with the crews many of them will openly say that they want to go back to the older ships.....

 

Size does matter and not always for the best.......

 

Jim & Ruth

[obriendan]

Our food and service on the August 2nd Maasdam Rotterdam to Boston cruise was excellent. It seemed the same or better than we had on our first HAL cruise six years ago.

[JimVrhovac]

Rotterdam is one of the smaller ships and until recently was the flagship of the fleet.

 

Jim

[iceman93]

Rotterdam is one of the smaller ships and until recently was the flagship of the fleet.

 

She still is, right? Along with the Amsterdam? :confused:

[bruceh4]

Rotterdam is one of the smaller ships and until recently was the flagship of the fleet.

 

Jim

The Rotterdam still is the flagship which she shares with the Amsterdam. If you go to the HAL website and click on the fleet button and then select either the Amsterdam of Rotterdam, it says the Rotterdam is the Flagship of the Atlantic and the Amsterdam is the Flagship of the Pacific.:)

[Candy]

She still is, right? Along with the Amsterdam? :confused:

According to HAL's website, the ms Amsterdam is the 'Pacific flagship' and her sister flagship, the ms Rotterdam, is the 'Atlantic flagship'.

 

Candy

[JimVrhovac]

I learned something tonight, Thank you ........

 

Jim

[dougnewmanatsea]

On the "flagship issue":

 

ROTTERDAM and AMSTERDAM are considered "dual flagships" if you will.

 

The Atlantic/Pacific thing has showed up in some HAL advertising material, but makes little sense, or won't soon, since in Summer 2006 both ships will be in Europe (Atlantic) and in 2007, AMSTERDAM takes over the world cruise (which hits both oceans).

 

On decline in quality:

 

I can honestly say that I feel there has been an increase in quality at HAL recently. Certainly, comparing my HAL cruises in 2003 and 2005, my more recent cruise was superior in all respects.

 

So if there is any decline, it is not a general thing at all.

 

I feel that there was probably a bit of a decline during the period where the Vista-class ships were introduced. In fact as I recall, HAL so much as admitted this in explaining their rationale for the "Signature of Excellence" program and general attempts to bring quality back up to the previous standard.

 

However in the context of the very recent past, 2004-2005, I feel that there has been a definite increase in quality, doubtless owing to some of the various "Signature of Excellence" enhancements and the general period of change that HAL went through as they transitioned to the leadership of Mr. Kruse who seems to be doing an excellent job running the company and refocusing on HAL's core market segment which, I think, they strayed from a bit with the introduction of the Vistas.

[RevNeal]

I suspect that the reason quality has improved is because the staff situation is finally back up to proper levels ... and maybe a bit over as they're trying to get the fleet-wide staffing levels up so that they won't cripple ships when they staff the new Noordam next Feb.

[localady]

Doug-

I can't agree with you and S7S more! I was a bit disillusioned by what I'd heard was a dimunition of quality at HAL. I can honestly say that we have not found this. Each of our cruises just seem to get better and better, our "best to date" in four weeks ago on the on the Prinsendam! :D In fact we noticed that the staff and crew of the Prinsendam seemed genuinely enjoy their work and each other, which reflected throughout the Ship! :cool:

[xpcdoojk]

You guys are making me very happy this morning. Usually, I see these kinds of threads and I get the O O feeling in the pit of my stomach. Since my first HAL cruise is less than 3 months away, I am getting very excited about it. :)

 

 

jc:cool:

[sail7seas]

xpcdoojk......

 

I'm getting excited about our upcoming VODM cruise, as well. For a while, we had held off making too many future bookings until we saw how things went.

 

After we returned from two really wonderful weeks aboard Maasdam, we proceeded to book five future cruises. No way we would have done that if we were not very pleased with the experiences we had (most recently) on Veendam and Maasdam.

 

I think our docs should just about be arriving at my TA's. :) Hope so. :)

Enjoy your countdown.....I really hope you have a great cruise and are not disappointed. (don't think you will be. )

[irislady]

We just got off the Rotterdam on Wednesday. We had never sailed with HAL before, but had been told to have very high expectations. Service was excellent with 1 minor exception in the Lido Cafe. There was one bus boy who was downright rude, questioning my sister has to why she had chosen a table for 4 when she was by herself (the rest of us were waiting on line for omelets), and then later he questioned my B-I-L as to why he wanted another cup of coffee when he had one in front of him. (B-I-L had accidentally used milk instead of creamer and didn't like it in his coffee.) Other than that the crew was extremely friendly and seemed genuinely concerned with our comfort. We thought it was very nice that the Indonesian crew in the dining room are so proud of their heritage and put on an Indonesian show and also sang us a farewell song in their native language.

 

I did not care for the food on HAL as much as on Princess, but I am a very picky eater who prefers simpler fare. Most of the HAL dinners were just too fancy for me, and "always available" simpler choices are not available on HAL. I didn't consider this a problem, since there was always food available upstairs on those evenings when I only picked at my dinner in the dining room. I do have to say that their beef, with the exception of the Prime Rib and the Beef Wellington, was usually quite tough. Even the Beef Wellington had too much pate and not enough beef. DH and I slightly preferred the food in the Princess Horizon Court to that in the Lido Cafe on HAL. DS and B-I-L preferred Carnvial's Lido food to HAL's. Bar service was far superior on the Rotterdam, and we enjoyed hearing fewer PA announcements. As on Princess we got excellent service in the onboard shops, particularly in the jewelry store.

 

We noticed the Rotterdam handled the high winds far better than any of the other ships we've been on, but we had far more engine noise in our stateroom than on any Princess or Carnival ship. I had to use ear plugs our first 2 nights. We were on a much lower deck, however, which could account for a great deal of the difference.

 

The production shows on the Rotterdam seemed very amateurish compared to Princess and Carnival, but we found other things to keep us entertained and thoroughly enjoyed our time onboard.

 

Princess remains our favorite line, but we would definitely sail on HAL again. The Rotterdam is a wonderful size. We just wished she had more balconies. The verandah staterooms were all booked before we could make our reservations.

Shae

[sail7seas]

Thanks for posting your comments. That Lido Steward needs a bit more training, I would say.

 

I'm surprised that you did not have 'always available' choices on the dining room menu. We sailed on Veendam in January and Maasdam in June and on both those ships, every night they had "always available" sirloin steak, chicken breast and salmon. I assume you are sure it wasn't on Rotterdam's menu but that is odd.

[Sage]

Of course it is hard to voice any complaints when we travel in the PS and S categories. Everything is always perfect. But there have been subtle changes, and hopefully the SOE will improve some of these minor areas. Would I not travel on HAL due to the changes? I have two b2b's scheduled next year on the Volendam for a total of 27 days. We love HAL, and just like we have our bad days and good days, so does HAL. But then it is hard to quibble over service when so many have been made homeless by Katrina.

[eldercruser]

We were on the Rotterdam in June for 24 days with three other couples. I mentioned to the Maitre d' on more than one occasion that we found the food quality to be vastly improved over cruises we had taken in the past couple of years. Our dining room service was excellent. On a couple of occasions we found the Lido a little overwhelmed but food quality was very good.

 

During a Q and A session with the ship's officers, the hotel manager said in response to a question, that the increasing difficulty in obtaining visas and requirements for th Indonesians in particular to reregister with US immigration (in US ports) was putting a strain on operations.

[mrskmirolla]

We were just on the Rotterdam this last May for Venice to Rome for 10 days and it was just wonderful. The cabin steward was one of a kind and our room was always clean! Our dining room waiter was excellent as was the wine steward and Maitre D(SP??) in fact the whole staff couldn't have been nicer or accomodating. The Pinacle was fabulous, the Lido was just great oh heck we just had a super time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We have NEVER had a bad cruise with HAL. You know if you treat people like you want to be treated you would have no problems.

 

Kathy

[Rotterdam]

As to the comment about it being difficult to get visas for certain nationalities...thats a joke. I had cruised on HAL since the mid 1970's - those days are certainly gone. But until this past May, my last HAL cruise was in 2000 & 2001.

 

On one of those cruises(both 10 day in high carib season the ship & crew were fine but on the Zaandam - it was horrible & I gave up on HAL after years of decline in service & food. It was nite & day compared to my Volendam cruise just months before.

 

With Carnival taking over( a HAL cpatain said the Seattle office keeps as much distance as possible from Carnivore in more than one way).

 

More than likely to keep HAL competitive, Carnivore came up with the improvements & marketing changes - after all - all those regular elderly passengers go to cruise heaven one way or another. So now instead of quiet areas we have kids programs......all built on Carnivore style ships.

Do i hear the chant...ECONOMIES OF SCALE>>>

 

This past May I returned to HAL to sail on the PRINSENDAM. It was the 14 day NY - Barcelona crossing. I loved the ship - it sailed beautifully & the size & low density passenger compliment made it feel like a private club.

 

The dining room was beautiful - the service ok & food average to bland. I ended up eating dinner in the diningroom only 8 of 14. What was truly annoying was the management herd mentality - this was never a problem with HAL before.

 

The brown lettuce in the lido & mold in my shower were firsts. A steward that cleaned the room late in the day & informed that he would be out all nite & don't expect much the day after were also firsts. THe diningroom passengers chant of NO JELLO NO JELLO - because it was a joke that it was pushed by the waiters.

 

I'd like to sail on the AMSTERDAM once & other than that...bye bye HAL.

[sail7seas]

During the time you did not sail with HAL, were you sailing with other cruiselines or did you stopped cruising entirely?

[LizB1]

sail...on our very recent 35-day (not so elegant) Maasdam cruise they changed the "always available" selections at the bottom of the menu from steak, chicken and salmon to ONLY two salmon dishes. They also took off the choice of Caesar salad. This happened after just a few days into the cruise. Hope this isn't a sign of things to come!!

[dougnewmanatsea]

Sail - I too was surprised at the lack of always available choices.

 

As Liz mentioned, we had two "HAL Goes Wild On Fresh Norwegian Salmon" choices each night instead (different each night).

 

Ceasar salad was available every night (not listed as an "always available" choice) except the last night. On that night, despite it not being on the menu, I asked for and received Ceasar salad anyway. I do not usually care for HAL's salad options, with a few exceptions, and on this cruise I think I ordered Ceasar salad every night we ate in the dining room.

 

I really do like the new menus, but I was puzzled at the lack of "always available" choices.

[Two Ells]

Sail7seas has got to be HAL's greatest fan. I used to be until it became Carnivalized. I chuckle at her replies - no matter what anyone says negative about their cruise, she raves about hers. I believe she is always in a suite, where you do get pampered and invited to dine with the Captain (we've been there too) and that is not always the fairest comparison to someone who cruises once every few years. I think it's wonderful that she gets so much enjoyment from her cruises but let's not diss everyone who has a legitimate complaint!

[Randyk47]

Overall I'd have to rate this as a good news thread. No secret about it, we were very disappointed in the service on the Oosterdam in March 2004. So much so that we tried Celebrity this year. We're back to HAL and the Volendam next February, not out of disappointment with Celebrity but more because of timing, itinerary, and cost. Very pleased to hear that, generally, the service on HAL seems to be on the upswing.