Some thoughts from my TA...HAL vs X

[Danno]

The owner of the travel agency where I do business (too much business!!) just returned from a 4 day meeting with other TAs about cruising. While all TA's have their likes and dislikes, X scored consistantly high with their clients.

Oddly the biggest complaint about HAL was one I complained about several years ago on my only HAL cruise. NOT ENOUGH STAFF!! The staff that were there worked beyond hard but they just simply couldn't get the job done. At the time it was blamed on lack of staff due to immigration problems after 9/11, but I think that proved to be just an excuse.

I guess I have found a home on X...I just hope the standards are kept high, even if the price has to go up.

Dan

CenturyX1,GalaxyX2,HorizonX5,VolendamX1,

Zenith to Bermuda Oct/04
Century to E.Caribbean Feb/05

**email mrtnb(at)efni(dot)com

[Guest]

My parents first cruise was on NCL's Norway, and nearly ended any desire they had to cruise later!! Norway was a family reunion cruise driven by my sister's having gotten a free cruise. Since my husband and I were the only ones in the family who had cruised prior to Norway (we had been on Zenith), we were the only ones who realized how bad everything was on Norway and how much better it was on Celebrity. We did, however, adore the ports on Norway and had a great time....sometimes having to reach to find something good on board ship, but all in all enjoying our cruise.

Anyway, my parents had friends who asked them to take a Panama Canal cruise on HAL a year after our Norway trip. They nearly said no based on their experience on Norway, but several factors led them to book the trip. They had a fabulous time on HAL and couldn't say enough about how great that cruise was and how now they understood what my husband and I were saying about Norway.

About 2 years later, they ventured aboard Mercury for their final cruise prior to my father being unable to travel any longer. They immediately said the difference between HAL and Mercury was the level of service they received. Although they had no complaints about HAL's service, they felt that Celebrity was a notch above in that department. My mom even met a crew member from Hungary, where she was born, and had lively conversations with him throughout the entire cruise in Hungarian. She said this made her trip more special and thoroughly enjoyed the international crew.

Hilary

[gizmo]

Danno,

Interesting info from your TA. Thanks for posting it.

I remember you taking that cruise on Hal and talking about the service. I sailed around the same time as you, shortly after 911, and yes there was a staffing problem on my cruise also. All cruises after that I would rate good to excellent until this past April.

Things have changed recently on Hal which have had an impact on staff and service. There are multiple threads on the Hal board, "discussing the issues". You can amuse yourself with them, since they have people reporting things from excellent to slow service, (myself included), and also the usual suspects who refuse to believe anything negative about Hal.

A couple of changes are auto tipping and pooling of tips. There have been some reports of crew leaving because of this along with they now have to buy their uniforms and pay their own way home. Some of the pooled tips are going to behind the scene crew, according to Hal.

Dining times have been split into 4 times. Serving stations have been removed from the dining room possibly due to cutbacks in staff. There were less staff waiting on tables on my cruise and service was slow with lots of complaints from pax that had the 8:30 seating since some were not making the show because of the slow service. Cabin stewards have more cabins to service.
I think you get the picture.

[Tatka]

I'll post my comparisson review after I return from Zuiderdam. (although I heard that food and service varies from ship to ship on HAL and Z isn't standard HAL ship).

For our sake I hope this cruise will be FABULOUS and I'll say I liked HAL as much as Celebrity!!!

------------------------------
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Zuiderdam 8/21/04 FLL - Key West - Cozumel - Grand Caymans - Half Moon Cay - FLL
<LI>Splendour of the Seas 05/15/04 Barcelona - Marseilles - Villefranche - Livorno - Chivitavecchia - Naples - Barcelona
<LI>Century 07/12/03 Eastern Caribbean FFL-San Juan - St. Thomas - St.Maarten- Nassau -FFL
<LI>Komarno(Volga)07/91 Moscow - Astrahan' - Moscow (honeymoon)
<LI>Komarno(Volga)07/90 Moscow - Astrahan'- Moscow
<LI>Admiral Nachimov(or Nakhimov) (Black Sea)04/1986 Odessa - Batum [/list]

GO BRUINS!!!!

[gizmo]

Tatka,

Even with some slow service my cruise was great. I hope you have a good one too, and I look forward to reading your comparison between Hal and X.

[bac513]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Danno:

I guess I have found a home on X...I just hope the standards are kept high, even if the price has to go up.

Dan
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Our first meaningful cruise was July 4, 1992 on the 2-month old Zenith. Our TA twisted our arms to try Celebrity. We are glad she did. We had a quad cabin with a squeaky ceiling they could not fix. The second day, the Hotel Manager asked us if we would consider moving up a deck to 2 adjacent non-connecting cabins. Our kids (11 and 17) had a ball in their own cabin and we enjoyed the privacy and room, too. That was a very favorable first opinion of Celebrity (pre RCI of course).

Over the years we have tried to sample other cruise lines, but generally gravitate back to Celebrity. Yes, maybe there may have been some minor slippages in food quality and service (mostly customer service), but nowhere near enough to prevent our enjoyment of a Celebrity cruise. We have no bad experiences to speak of, just good memories, with the highlight sitting at the Captain's table on Galaxy the night of our 25th wedding anniversary. We too have found a home with X.

Regarding prices, we are paying 20% less for a Cat. 4 on Century on 7/3/04 than we paid for a Cat. 6 on Zenith in 1992. I too hope the standards are kept high - a reasonable price increase would still be a bargain.

Brian

Mardi Gras 78, Zenith 92,94
Majesty of the Seas 93
Mercury 99, Galaxy 02,03
Grand Princess 02
Galaxy 03,Century 03
Mariner of The Seas Jan 04
Century July 04

[gardencat]

I find the whole question of service level versus price level very interesting.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that my first cruise occured as a result of my sister and brother-in-law winning a free cruise for a family of four.

They had gone on a cruise for their honeymoon and in the intervening years had cruised again a few times. Although they had suggested several times that we join them, I never had, partly because of a husband who had a very bad experience with being sea sick on the Nantucket ferry in very stormy weather but largely because I couldn't quite justify to myself making the seemingly large payment for a cruise when there seemed to be so many other ways to spend that money.
When they won the 'family cruise' their son was already grown and unable to take vacation time so they did some finagaling with the TA and managed to turn it into a free cruise for the two of them and a very reasonable cruise for my son and I to join them. Of course once I took that one cruise on Royal Caribbean I was hooked.

I have cruised a few times since then and I'm now booked on a fall Century cruise ( my first on Celebrity). This cruise is, again, with my sister and her husband but this time I was the instigator.

As I have been reading these boards lately, I too have been thinking that I would prefer to pay higher fares and keep excellent levels of service, food and entertainment rather than to see all these areas decline as the result of a drive to keep prices low enough to attract the mass market.
In the back of my mind though, is the uncomfortable knowledge that had it not been for my initial ridiculously low priced cruise I would probably never have tried cruising at all. [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]