Waitlist w/ large group onboard?

[CowPrincess]

I booked a cruise on the Westerdam in late April 2015 for April 2016 and was waitlisted for main dining (and all I need is one seat!). When my TA called many months ago she was told there was a group on board. The only group I have been able to find is a Road Scholar group numbering 20-30 people. My e-docs now show that I am confirmed open seating which I do not want. My TA was supposed to call and see what the problem was on Thursday but I haven't heard back so I am expecting the worst. Has anyone had any luck getting changed to main dining when they get on board?

 

That's the only group I can find, the Road Scholar group, for your sailing. (Not to say there isn't another, but that is a long cruise. Most groups don't take such long cruises.) We were waitlisted for Main one time, and by the time we got onboard we had been assigned Main. Personally I'd keep after your TA to make it happen. If that doesn't work, try when you get onboard. But if your TA can get you assigned to Main, that is one less thing you have to deal with when you board, right?

[Scrapnana]

That's the only group I can find, the Road Scholar group, for your sailing. (Not to say there isn't another, but that is a long cruise. Most groups don't take such long cruises.) We were waitlisted for Main one time, and by the time we got onboard we had been assigned Main. Personally I'd keep after your TA to make it happen. If that doesn't work, try when you get onboard. But if your TA can get you assigned to Main, that is one less thing you have to deal with when you board, right?

 

Thanks for checking. I've googled and could not find any other group on board. I thought maybe they were a large group but one of them is on the roll call and said it was only 20-30.

 

I have been bugging my TA since last summer when I changed from 30 to 33 days. She usually does well going to bat for me but is not doing so well this time. Sent her another email on Saturday.

 

I truly cannot believe every single seat is taken for main sitting so I hope this can be fixed ahead of time but I am not above begging onboard.:D

[kazu]

I booked a cruise on the Westerdam in late April 2015 for April 2016 and was waitlisted for main dining (and all I need is one seat!). When my TA called many months ago she was told there was a group on board. The only group I have been able to find is a Road Scholar group numbering 20-30 people. My e-docs now show that I am confirmed open seating which I do not want. My TA was supposed to call and see what the problem was on Thursday but I haven't heard back so I am expecting the worst. Has anyone had any luck getting changed to main dining when they get on board?

 

Kathi,

 

According to the shipboard co-ordinator - there is one "large" group on board - about 170 of them -they are..... our roll call :). We are considered a group with our meet and greets, lunches, etc. ;)

 

I was told we were the only large group on board - FWIW

Edited February 29, 2016 by kazu

[summer slope]

Kathy, as soon as you board go to the dining room manager. He was sitting outside the MDR last time we were on the W. We were assigned late dining which we didn't want and he got us changed to early, a 6 top which we didn't want either. Stayed with that family for the first week and got our 2 top for the second week.

[Avery's Gram]

On our Eurodam cruise with a large group(over 900!), we were also planning to choose our own time for non-fixed dining. It turned out that all we were allowed to "choose" was 5 til 6:45 pm......anything later was reserved for the large group. So if late dining is very important for you, keep this in mind.

 

Hope things work out for you! We made do with 6:30, but it annoyed the heck out of us!

 

Barbara

[Cruising-along]

Large groups onboard that take preferred MDR time from the rest of us is bad enough, but when you combine that with booking the Pinnacle for lunch every day it gets beyond maddening.

 

On our last cruise we tried to have lunch in the Pinnacle on our 15-day cruise. We asked for any day during the whole cruise. The (few) days it would have been available, it wasn't because "a group had booked it". Not a good experience at all. :(

[summersigh]

A HUGE THANK YOU to CowPrincess, Krazy Kruizers, Hlitner, RuthC and and all of you others who gave such patient and knowledgable answers about the HUGE group on my Oosterdam Dec 9th cruise.:D

 

Thanks to your good info we're now booked a week later -Dec 16 - same cabin area and same itinerary. I contacted my jewel of a TA this morning and it's a done deal.

 

This cruise would have been a nightmare - I can see it now. And I can't even imagine how DH would have gotten along with everything :rolleyes:

[Lizzie68]

A HUGE THANK YOU to CowPrincess, Krazy Kruizers, Hlitner, RuthC and and all of you others who gave such patient and knowledgable answers about the HUGE group on my Oosterdam Dec 9th cruise.:D

 

Thanks to your good info we're now booked a week later -Dec 16 - same cabin area and same itinerary. I contacted my jewel of a TA this morning and it's a done deal.

 

This cruise would have been a nightmare - I can see it now. And I can't even imagine how DH would have gotten along with everything :rolleyes:

 

I think you made the right decision.:) Now you can relax and look forward to your cruise.

[summersigh]

and a bit more info

 

http://www.nationcruise.com/picts/pdf/application.pdf

 

http://www.nationcruise.com/

 

CowPrincess:

How did you find these? :confused:

I checked the thread here (and now have sent the info to that wonderful poster) but there wasn't anything yet.

Then I spent a good bit of time with Google but found nothing there for the Dec 9 sailing.

When I clicked the 2nd link that you sent above I knew we HAD to change our reservation :D

[sail7seas]

A HUGE THANK YOU to CowPrincess, Krazy Kruizers, Hlitner, RuthC and and all of you others who gave such patient and knowledgable answers about the HUGE group on my Oosterdam Dec 9th cruise.:D

 

Thanks to your good info we're now booked a week later -Dec 16 - same cabin area and same itinerary. I contacted my jewel of a TA this morning and it's a done deal.

 

This cruise would have been a nightmare - I can see it now. And I can't even imagine how DH would have gotten along with everything :rolleyes:

 

I think you made a great choice to change your sail date. Happy you were able to do so.

 

Hope you have a wonderful cruise and now can look forward to it without the stress of fearing how many 'group inconveniences' you may have encountered.

 

You have a good TA. :)

 

[Hlitner]

Glad the OP was able to switch their cruise dates :). This particular type of group is exactly what we avoid (like the Plague) when we cruise. If you read their web site where they are accepting group bookings they make it clear that only those who book through their group will have access to the many activities and speakers on the cruise. If this group is large enough to take over an entire sitting they will also take over the main theater, Crows Nest and other venues for their "private functions." This means that the other non-group cruisers are denied access to major venues on the ship!

 

Personally, we think this kind of thing is just WRONG. When you book a cruise you do not expect to lose access to many venues. And the cruise lines (not just HAL) do their best to keep these group cruises a secret. We have long thought their should be a Federal Regulation requiring cruise lines to fully disclose the presence of very large groups on their ships. As much as we dislike "federal regulations" or intervention...the cruise industry has made it clear (over many decades) that they have no interest in full disclosure under these circumstances.

 

Hank

[CowPrincess]

CowPrincess:

How did you find these? :confused:

I checked the thread here (and now have sent the info to that wonderful poster) but there wasn't anything yet.

Then I spent a good bit of time with Google but found nothing there for the Dec 9 sailing.

When I clicked the 2nd link that you sent above I knew we HAD to change our reservation :D

 

 

I found the first link probably 3 or 4 pages into the Google Search results. Once I had the name the other links were easy to find.

 

A couple (or a few?) years ago someone else was trying to find out about a rumored group on their cruise, and I managed to find it, well down in the Google results (it was insurance salespeople on a "reward/bonus" trip).

 

I'm glad you got the info you needed to make the best decision for you and your DH :)

 

(As an aside, did you watch the video? ;) )

[RuthC]

I'm happy you were able to find a satisfactory alternative to this cruise with the large group. I hope it works out well for you.

[Windsailer]

Call 1-888-425-9477

I expressed my concern to HAL several years ago (on FB) when it appeared that a large group would be on a cruise I was scheduled to take. I received a letter saying that HAL Group Administration Dept would be happy to let me know if a group would be onboard. They did let me know and I cancelled my reservation.

[TiogaCruiser]

Call 1-888-425-9477

I expressed my concern to HAL several years ago (on FB) when it appeared that a large group would be on a cruise I was scheduled to take. I received a letter saying that HAL Group Administration Dept would be happy to let me know if a group would be onboard. They did let me know and I cancelled my reservation.

 

Are you the one who posted on that about 2 or so years ago? Did they give you details, such as how many were expected and what venues would be reserved?

[Windsailer]

Are you the one who posted on that about 2 or so years ago? Did they give you details, such as how many were expected and what venues would be reserved?

 

Yes, they did. I can't remember the exact details but it was a large - 500+ group - so I cancelled.

 

If you call them...just tell them the HAL President's Office said to call to find out. It worked for me.

 

I haven't been on a HAL cruise since where I would be too concerned (i.e. Alaska and long cruises) but if I was going to the Caribbean again I would check for sure.

[K&RCurt]

OP - glad you were able to find out about this and switch.

 

Our first cruise had a large group of fans of a baseball team on board. While meeting Albert Pujols on an elevator was OK, the way these fans took over the ship was not. They had the Queen's Lounge on the Westerdam reserved for the entire cruise just for their use. Both sea days they had the aft pool area reserved just for their use. There were so many of them that they were spread throughout all dining times, upstairs and down...This was when HAL actually had formal nights in the MDR (actually it was the whole ship then) and their idea of formal wear was jeans, sneakers, baseball jersey and baseball hat.

 

Just my opinion, but when a group gets to be beyond 1/3 of the ship's capacity I just don't want to be on with them. No matter if I like the 'basis' of the group, agree or disagree with their politics / philosophy etc. It is just too big of an impact. I think if they are going to deny the use of what is advertised as public areas of the ship, they should advise potential passengers, which would result in a discount in cruise fare reflecting the lessened experience.

[summersigh]

Glad the OP was able to switch their cruise dates :). This particular type of group is exactly what we avoid (like the Plague) when we cruise. If you read their web site where they are accepting group bookings they make it clear that only those who book through their group will have access to the many activities and speakers on the cruise. If this group is large enough to take over an entire sitting they will also take over the main theater, Crows Nest and other venues for their "private functions." This means that the other non-group cruisers are denied access to major venues on the ship!

 

Personally, we think this kind of thing is just WRONG. When you book a cruise you do not expect to lose access to many venues. And the cruise lines (not just HAL) do their best to keep these group cruises a secret. We have long thought their should be a Federal Regulation requiring cruise lines to fully disclose the presence of very large groups on their ships. As much as we dislike "federal regulations" or intervention...the cruise industry has made it clear (over many decades) that they have no interest in full disclosure under these circumstances.

 

Hank

We totally agree with you ... in fact at dinner tonight DH voiced the same thought that there should be disclosure and expressed how displeased (to put it mildly) he's be if we were restricted from areas due to large group activities before I'd even told him about your post.:)

[summersigh]

I found the first link probably 3 or 4 pages into the Google Search results. Once I had the name the other links were easy to find.

 

A couple (or a few?) years ago someone else was trying to find out about a rumored group on their cruise, and I managed to find it, well down in the Google results (it was insurance salespeople on a "reward/bonus" trip).

 

I'm glad you got the info you needed to make the best decision for you and your DH :)

 

(As an aside, did you watch the video? ;) )

 

Yes ... I did go and watch it ... and as we have been heard to say in the south "Oh My !" ;)

[summersigh]

These groups are really impacting the rest of us in unhappy ways. HAL may like them (and the other cruise lines) but the guests not a part of the group are superfluous with a large group aboard. You might think we were sailing for free...... :rolleyes:

 

That cruise Dec 9 would have been a real example of how bad all this could have gone ... we're feeling a lot more relaxed tonight than we were last night.:)

 

Sail7seas

(as an aside ... after what you went through with the snow the winter of 2014-15 we were rooting for you this winter and would watch the weather hoping it didn't drift head high for you :eek: )

[Hlitner]

We totally agree with you ... in fact at dinner tonight DH voiced the same thought that there should be disclosure and expressed how displeased (to put it mildly) he's be if we were restricted from areas due to large group activities before I'd even told him about your post.:)

 

For the record, this has not happened to us on HAL (but we tend to take longer cruises). We first ran into this problem on a very large ship (Sovereign of the Seas) about 27 years ago. We had booked a 7 day cruise and had confirmed early dining (we were cruising with our young child who would not do well at late sitting). Around final payment time RCI changed our "confirmed" early sitting to late sitting with no explanation. I called RCI (then RCCL) and got to a supervisor to get it fixed and she told me that there "is a large group that has taken over the entire early sitting." She refused to tell me the nature of the group, but advised me that "if it were me I would change to different dates." We were able to change to the following week and, in those days, changing our air was not a big problem.

 

When we went on the cruise we learned from a crew member that half the ship was full of a very conservative religious group who harassed other passengers for things like wearing skimpy swim suits. They also took over many venues for their private activities (they actually had brought their own entertainment aboard) and were a group that did not use alcohol which really hurt all the bar/waiter staff who got a lot less tips during that cruise.

 

Hank

Edited March 1, 2016 by Hlitner

[summersigh]

Just my opinion, but when a group gets to be beyond 1/3 of the ship's capacity I just don't want to be on with them. No matter if I like the 'basis' of the group, agree or disagree with their politics / philosophy etc. It is just too big of an impact. I think if they are going to deny the use of what is advertised as public areas of the ship, they should advise potential passengers, which would result in a discount in cruise fare reflecting the lessened experience.

 

DH said to tell you ... he totally agrees with you!:D

 

(I've been reading posts aloud over breakfast LOL)