Why did Ms. Koningsdam get so many bad reviews? How is the dance venue on this ship?

[gam888]

We are considering sailing on the new Ms. Koningsdam at the end of September. Surprisingly, we are seeing a lot of bad or so so reviews. I can overlook some of the issues like ship designs that might not be what everybody likes, but could someone please comment on the food, service and entertainment on this ship? Although we are not extremely fussy eaters, but it is important for us to enjoy good quality meals, and friendly service. We also like to dance, ballroom and club dances. How many live bands are onboard? For sure there is one at the BB King club, what about a second or third house band that plays in another lounge? What type of music do they play? Is there a DJ that plays in a club somewhere? Last time we sailed on the Nievw Amsterdam, the band that played at the BB King club was very good, but there was another house band that played at another venue that was totally bland and had terrible music selection for dancing. Did you find the shows innovative, or were they same old songs and dance performance that involved many costumes changes but nothing new. Could anyone please share their experience on this ship, thank you in advance.

[DeeniEncinitas]

LAFFNVEGAS I believe did the inaugural voyage and had a wonderful write up of all the pros and cons with great pictures included!!

I am sorry but it was probably a month or so ago. Do a search to find her review!!

I hope some of our wonderful CCers will chime in for you!!!

Good luck!

Denise:)

[808lady]

I think from reading these boards for the past couple of months that many of the regular HAL cruisers do not like a lot of change. I read about "feeling at home," "the HAL I know and love," etc. Konigsdam is not just a new ship, but a new class of ship. I just got home on Sunday from a week on her and I am a huge fan. (You can read my review.) I will happy to answer any specific questions I can.

 

BB King's did three sets per night, six of the seven nights. They did a variety of numbers, STAX, Motown, current R&B hits. Most nights there were 50 to 100 people dancing. This is more than I have ever seen on any of my other cruises. I do not think there was another venue for dancing in the evening. I don't know about the Crow's Nest. There could be music up there. People may have danced at the Piano Bar, but no one did the one set that I sat through. I think there is ballroom dancing one or two afternoons in association with the high tea.

 

We found the service to be very good and very friendly. I think many cruisers like to think they have a relationship with the staff. I did not feel that was possible on this cruise. It is the first time I have done anytime dining, so there was no regular waiter/assistant waiter to befriend. We barely saw our stewards (although they took excellent care of our room.) I personally spoke to Jonathan, the cruise director, and Nikki, the assistant cruise director, more than I have ever spoken to any other CD. I just happened to run into them in several different venues and chatted for a moment. I don't cruise to make "friends" with the staff, so this was perfect for me. The MDR staff did seem a bit harried at times and service was slow, but every special request I made was honored with no problems.

 

If you are not comfortable with technology some things might seem strange. I downloaded the app on my iPad so I didn't have to carry around the paper dailys to remember what started when. The musicians used tablets to display their sheet music. The waiters carry digital ordering devices and punch in your order.

 

I think if you keep an open mind and expect a modern ship you will have a good time. Let me know if you have any questions and I will answer them. Good luck!

[Chris86]

I think from reading these boards for the past couple of months that many of the regular HAL cruisers do not like a lot of change. I read about "feeling at home," "the HAL I know and love," etc. Konigsdam is not just a new ship, but a new class of ship. I just got home on Sunday from a week on her and I am a huge fan. (You can read my review.) I will happy to answer any specific questions I can.

 

BB King's did three sets per night, six of the seven nights. They did a variety of numbers, STAX, Motown, current R&B hits. Most nights there were 50 to 100 people dancing. This is more than I have ever seen on any of my other cruises. I do not think there was another venue for dancing in the evening. I don't know about the Crow's Nest. There could be music up there. People may have danced at the Piano Bar, but no one did the one set that I sat through. I think there is ballroom dancing one or two afternoons in association with the high tea.

 

We found the service to be very good and very friendly. I think many cruisers like to think they have a relationship with the staff. I did not feel that was possible on this cruise. It is the first time I have done anytime dining, so there was no regular waiter/assistant waiter to befriend. We barely saw our stewards (although they took excellent care of our room.) I personally spoke to Jonathan, the cruise director, and Nikki, the assistant cruise director, more than I have ever spoken to any other CD. I just happened to run into them in several different venues and chatted for a moment. I don't cruise to make "friends" with the staff, so this was perfect for me. The MDR staff did seem a bit harried at times and service was slow, but every special request I made was honored with no problems.

 

If you are not comfortable with technology some things might seem strange. I downloaded the app on my iPad so I didn't have to carry around the paper dailys to remember what started when. The musicians used tablets to display their sheet music. The waiters carry digital ordering devices and punch in your order.

 

I think if you keep an open mind and expect a modern ship you will have a good time. Let me know if you have any questions and I will answer them. Good luck!

 

Im wondering if the age denographic has mixed a little more. We are 30 and cruise princess mostly and occasionally celebrity. The Hal pinnacle ship looks more refined and appealing than princess. However feedback from others mention hal has a far higher starting age than princess. Is this true for koningsdam?

[wander]

In my experiences, I do not agree that "HAL has a far higher starting age than Princess". Now, I only take cruises over 14 days, and usually over 20 days minimum, so that may impact my experiences. I also don't to pure Caribbean cruises. Again that my impact my experiences.

 

My observations have come from over 10 Princess cruises and over 25 HAL cruises.

 

Once when talking to a member of the entertainment staff on Princess, he mentioned that the length of the cruise and the itinerary had a major impact on the age of the passengers and their interest in activities, particularly evening entertainment. He said even he could not "believe" the differences in the atmosphere for the 7 day cruises and the 14 day ones.

[808lady]

Im wondering if the age denographic has mixed a little more. We are 30 and cruise princess mostly and occasionally celebrity. The Hal pinnacle ship looks more refined and appealing than princess. However feedback from others mention hal has a far higher starting age than princess. Is this true for koningsdam?

 

I can only tell you from our experience. Of the passengers we met on Konigsdam around half or so were already retired. Of the ones who were not, many were in some way tied to the academic calendar (professors, teachers, etc.) Many of the people were we met were on their first or second HAL cruise, like us. I have sailed mostly Celebrity and Royal Caribbean. There were many Europeans on board. It is only my guess based on what I have read, but I would guess we sailed with a younger average age crowd than is typical on a HAL ship. I would guess that is because it was during American school holidays and because there were a lot of Europe residents (like us) who drove to the port and just took a one week cruise.

 

By the way, I didn't meet one live person who articulated negatives about the ship. Everyone we talked to seemed to be having a great time. Reading the boards here you would think the opposite.

[CruiseLady88]

Well, if you like ballroom dancing, K will disappoint you even though the ship has such a beautiful dance floor.

 

When we cruised on K in late May for 14 days, there were only two high tea ballroom dance with the ship's theatre band. Very good music for ballroom dancing. Waltz, foxtrot, Cha Cha, rumba, tango (we requested it), jive. Too bad that there were only 2 high tea ballroom time out of our 14 days cruise. The rest of regular afternoon tea, some of the music can be danced. But mostly for Viennese waltz dance with very low volume. I guess they didn't want people to dance during the regular afternoon tea time.

 

At night time, the BB King Blue music can't be used for ballroom dancing. Sometimes you may be able to dance hustle, west coast swing. But most of the times you can only just move your body according to the rhythm only. We were there for few nights and finally gave up on the band. We went back to our room to watch movies instead. We met a dance couple from Belgium and they were so good dancing Lindy Hop. They told me that they wrote a very long letter to the cruise director complaining about the lack of ballroom music for dancing for such a beautiful dance floor. The letter didn't seem to change their program and hope that their program changes after our cruise.

 

We were on Nieuw Amsterdam and enjoyed our cruise so much. We can dance before dinner and danced after dinner in the Ocean bar (The Band was excellent and very accommodating.) We met few couples on the dance floor and we still maintained contact after the cruise. I told them not to bother with K due to the lack of ballroom dance music. The cruise director really doesn't know how to make good use of the beautiful dance floor. Just get some hours and play some recorded ballroom music. This is not too much to do.

 

In term of food, this was the highlight of our cruise on K. We ate at MDR and enjoyed all the food we ate. When K arrived at Alesund, we saw a big fishing vessel beside K. That night, we had the best King prawns we've ever tried. Should have ordered double (2 on the plate). Our server told us he ate 4!

 

The K's own production shows in the theatre were quite good. Other invited performers were hit and miss. Make sure to change seats if you hear people coughing behind you or beside you. I got a viral bronchitis at the end of the cruise (didn't change seats when a gentleman coughing hard behind us). So, be careful.

 

Will I come back to this ship? I like the dance floor. If they put more time slots for ballroom dancing with good dance music, we would. If the programs stay the same, we would not return. We would rather go to Princess or Queen Mary 2 or even celebrity ships.

Edited July 15, 2016 by CruiseLady88

[gam888]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Although we would normally select a cruise based on it's ports, the evening dancing venues are very important to us. We usually manage to do a bit of dancing every night on various ships, but for a 14 day cruise, we usually really miss the ballroom dancing after a week or so. Not that we are good ballroom dancers by any means, but we just enjoy having a balance of ballroom dances, as well as the more free styling kind of club dancing we also like to do. Thanks again everyone, we will continue to do our research before making a decision.

[Member]

On our June 2016, 7-days Nieuw Amsterdam Alaska sailing, HAL eliminates the stationed Ocean Bar live band completely in lieu of the its 5-member theatre band. They played ballroom music there (only 4 nights) alright but no singing at all. Pretty quiet there in general. It seems HAL is cutting more cruise entertainment/activity budget than ever. Very limited at-sea activities this time too. Will see what our 09/18-30 Kdam sailing turns out.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Member

[Carnevale]

CruiseLady88 summarized the dance situation very well - sadly, if you like to dance, you should not consider sailing on K'dam. On our 13 night sailing we had exactly 2 hours of ballroom dancing which, as CruiseLady88 described, happened during high tea (and we almost missed one high tea as we relied on the onboard app for daily info and it was wrong!).

 

Staff onboard have no interest in responding to requests for dance music. We expressed our concerns via that 2 onboard surveys, a discussion with customer service at the desk, and by sending a letter to the CD. None of that worked hence the conclusion that HAL really doesn't care to respond to the interests of those who like to dance or watch ballroom dancing while they cruise. This is sad as all it would take is some canned music and wait staff to sell drinks during times the Queen's Lounge isn't being used by the BB Kings (e.g., before dinner dancing would be great). True, canned music isn't as good as having musicans, but it would be much better for dancing than the BB Kings since overly loud, long jazz and blues songs aren't intended for ballroom (although we tried as best we could to make it work).

 

I've read that on some cruises there have been many dancing to the BB Kings' music but that wasn't the case on our sailing as we often were alone on the floor or with one or 2 other couples. A large % of the time there were no dancers on the floor.

 

Dance classes were held on our sailing and they were well attended - its too bad there were no opportunities for people to try out their new moves! (e.g., they did a class on tango but there was only 1 tango played the entire cruise and it was during a high tea prior to this class).

 

The rest of the experience? For us, it was not up to the quality of experience we've enjoyed on Vista class ships. While there are some nice new things (Dutch Cafe, NY Deli, lounging area on the upper level around the pool, etc.) the list of things we didn't like was much longer than the things we liked.

 

From the reviews it seems people either really like or dislike K'dam which isn't surprising given it is a new direction by HAL.

 

Re the post from Member: I'm concerned about what you experience on NA and hope it isn't a trend across the line!

[teamflames]

Ship was generally good, food mostly excellent (specialty restaurants definitely better than md), service very mixed - good in restaurants, terrible in bars, so so at guest relations, excellent by room stewards. Only dancing at bn kings, a lot of people were looking for a venue to dance or listen to music after the live performances, not sure why they don't use crows nest.

On our first cruise few people danced at bb's ... 2nd cruise of b2b dance floor was jumping each night

 

 

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Edited July 18, 2016 by teamflames

[Carnevale]

Ship was generally good, food mostly excellent (specialty restaurants definitely better than md), service very mixed - good in restaurants, terrible in bars, so so at guest relations, excellent by room stewards. Only dancing at bn kings, a lot of people were looking for a venue to dance or listen to music after the live performances, not sure why they don't use crows nest.

On our first cruise few people danced at bb's ... 2nd cruise of b2b dance floor was jumping each night

 

 

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I wish they could use the Crows Nest as an option for dancing but there isn't a dance floor on K'dam (as there is on other HAL ships). The K'dam Crows Nest seemed much smaller than expected given the number of passengers and had large furniture which meant it was often difficult for us to find space to sit there on our cruise and no opportunities to dance there.

[teamflames]

I wish they could use the Crows Nest as an option for dancing but there isn't a dance floor on K'dam (as there is on other HAL ships). The K'dam Crows Nest seemed much smaller than expected given the number of passengers and had large furniture which meant it was often difficult for us to find space to sit there on our cruise and no opportunities to dance there.

 

 

 

Agree completely, have said elsewhere that this is a poorly designed space. They try to use it for sail away but it is not a tiered floor and the bench seats in front of glass are higher than seats behind. Huge red side sofas block side views.

Further they are trying to make it a bar plus a cafe plus a games area plus a library plus a computer area and have private functions ... Madness.

I remember the equivalent on X was much larger, tiered and simply a bar.

 

 

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[poinsettiaplate]

If you want to dance, Crystal is the best. They go way out of their way to have a band and dancing opportunities at least 3 times every night. Plus free dance classes with a teaching couple whose only job is that, plus performing in the shows.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

If you want to dance, Crystal is the best. They go way out of their way to have a band and dancing opportunities at least 3 times every night. Plus free dance classes with a teaching couple whose only job is that, plus performing in the shows.

 

Another option would be to take a segment on the Grand World Cruise - they usually have 6 dance hosts and plenty of options for ballroom dancing.

[gam888]

Thanks everyone for replying. I have to say it sounds pretty discouraging for me so far in regards to the dance venues on K. So let say if I am not expecting too much Ballroom, (although it would be nice), what about the BB King lounge, can you do some West Coast Swing or East Coast Swing to the music? Last time we went on the Nieuw Amsterdam, we managed to do some West Coast Swing at the BB King club. Although a lot of time they played good listening soul or blues music but it was hard to dance to them.

 

So there is no other house band other than the band that plays in the BB King club that plays top chart current music that you can free style to?

 

Is there a "Disco" that has a DJ playing taped music?

[Carnevale]

Thanks everyone for replying. I have to say it sounds pretty discouraging for me so far in regards to the dance venues on K. So let say if I am not expecting too much Ballroom, (although it would be nice), what about the BB King lounge, can you do some West Coast Swing or East Coast Swing to the music? Last time we went on the Nieuw Amsterdam, we managed to do some West Coast Swing at the BB King club. Although a lot of time they played good listening soul or blues music but it was hard to dance to them.

 

So there is no other house band other than the band that plays in the BB King club that plays top chart current music that you can free style to?

 

Is there a "Disco" that has a DJ playing taped music?

 

Sadly, the BB Kings is it plus 2, one-hour teas dances - there were no other ballroom dance opportunities. There is a dance floor that is round and is 12 feet across so is too small for dancing in the Ocean Bar. And when we sailed we asked the pianist in the OB to play in dance tempo but he wouldn't - said it wasn't in his contract. So the BB Kings is all there was and even they didn't play every night.

 

We really tried to dance to the BB Kings but it just doesn't work. They are not only extremely loud, they play very long songs with almost no variety in tempi. We did some west coast swing (not much), some cha cha and we force fit some fox trot even though it absolutely didn't fit the music (we were desperate for some variety).

 

Be prepared to do what cruiselady88 suggested - you'll have to bring your own canned music and speakers and see when the floor is available for you to create your own dance time if you want to go on K'dam.

[Max Circus]

We were on Koningsdam July 10th. Speciality dining was fabulous. Definitely check out Sel De Mer and Dean Librije (pop up in Pinnacle). Main dining room was a nightmare. We gave up on night two getting a table (we had anytime). There simply aren't enough cabins for all the crew they need to manage all the venues. We spoke at length with both the marketing manager and hotel director and they don't seem to know what they will do. Hard to recommend this ship even though the speciality dining and service was exceptional.

 

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[Karennella]

According to our dining room steward, on the Christening cruise some of the crew were accommodated in vacant passengers' staterooms. On the next cruise to Norway, some had to leave the ship as every stateroom wa booked. We found the second cruise much more crowded and uncomfortable with more passengers and possibly less crew.