HAL's New Luggage Tag System......Not Good, IMO

[kruzkeen]

This might have been a Volendam problem with the ship not arranging the bags by color and number or a FLL problem with the longshoremen.

 

The new system worked very well in San Diego last spring coming off the Statendam and in Vancouver last summer coming off the Zaandam. The bags were lined up in rows by color and number. We found them quite easily. I also thought it was easier listening for colors and numbers by the ship announcer than for disembarkation numbers which never seemed to come in sequence.

 

I somehow doubt that HAL got this idea from Princess. RCI and Celebrity have been using it for at least 5 years.

[willowoodf]

We just got off of the Ryndam on November 7 and we found the bag area to be very organized. Colors and numbers were perfectly segregated. Maybe the baggage handlers don't understand the system.

 

Jeff

[wander]

In most ports what happens to the bags once they leave the ship is up to the Longshoremen and HAL personnel have no role in how they are placed, organized, etc. They can off-load them from the ship in an organized manner, but from there on it is out of their hands. In my experience the bags for various lines are usually placed in fairly good order, but not always. On one cruise several years ago there was a work slowdown by the Longshoreman, and my what a mess the bags were in (not to mention the extra two hours it took to offload the luggage).

[sail7seas]

In most ports what happens to the bags once they leave the ship is up to the Longshoremen and HAL personnel have no role in how they are placed, organized, etc. They can off-load them from the ship in an organized manner, but from there on it is out of their hands. In my experience the bags for various lines are usually placed in fairly good order, but not always. On one cruise several years ago there was a work slowdown by the Longshoreman, and my what a mess the bags were in (not to mention the extra two hours it took to offload the luggage).

 

 

I agree that it most probably is not the fault of ship's personnel. But I think HAL confused the baggage handling by converting to this new idea of five numerals being 'subsections' to a single color.

 

The old system of green, black, red, red and white stripe etc was much clearer.

 

I think you are correct that it is shoreside longshoremen placing the bags.

 

They have always sorted by single color. Now for them to have to sort black tags into five sections isn't likely to happen. They see black and the suitcase is placed with black.

 

They aren't likely IMO to see black and then to bother looking if it is Black -1-, or Black -2- and place them accordingly. Even if they were inclined to do that, it would slow down the placing of the baggage.

 

IMO, HAL always handled baggage very well. The system wasn't broken. Why did someone feel they needed to fix it?

[Grumpy1]

The system SHOULD work, if bags are separated by color and number. If this is a recent change at FLL, it might take a little time to get it smoothed out. If the handlers have been used to sorting by colors only, getting them used to the idea of looking at a number also will take a few times around. The "I've always done it this way" mindset is hard to change for some people.

 

There may have been a lot of different personnel involved because of the hurricane, too.

 

Using a color/number combination gives more available combinations than a two color system, so, if sorted properly, the piles/rows could be smaller. This may be a case of needing to make changes to accomodate the larger ships and keep things uniform on all of the ships in the fleet.

[synman]

You can read the gory details in my recent Zaandam review.

 

Getting onboard a HAL ship is pretty smooth.

 

Being onboard a HAL ship is pretty wonderful.

 

Getting off a HAL ship is pretty much a pain in the patootie.

[smelkin]

We got a stencil and placed a stencil on all sides of our luggage with a silver speedo pen...works wonders on cruise ships, airlines, etc

[arzz]

We were with those who got off at Port Canaveral on October 26 -- the night before when I went down to the desk to pick up our new baggage tags (based on our new arrangements) they ran out of the green 3 tags and gave me some green 4 or 5 tags also -- when I questioned them I was told all the greens were the same

 

We seemed to have no more and no less difficulty finding our bags this time than on previous trips -- the green tags were called near the end, however. Since I tend to schedule later flights home to cover all possibilities of delay, we are always among the last called to leave -- until we are called we enjoy our last hour or two comfortable in our cabin -- and we leave relaxed when called with the knowledge that for us there is no real rush

 

The only difficulty I had was that there was someone on board (who even flew home with me on the same flight) that had an identical bag to mine -- though my bags are black, having an "exact sister bag" was new to me! -- but we easily traded bags at both the pier and our home airport and all was fine