Different perspective on the Rotterdam (and it ain’t good)

[rjbean4]

All interesting reading. We last cruised on the Rotterdam for her 04 - 05 holiday cruise and we were so hurt and disgusted with everything that happened including me being falsely identified in a situation we made the decision to not cruise on the Rotterdam any more. It was so bad that we were actually told by one of the officers when they were trying to make up for our situation that they couldn't wait to get the ship back to Port Everglades to get everyone off to start over with the next cruise.  A very good friend of ours was with us and had her own complaints regarding things she witnessed and in my defense told a couple of the officers that at that time it was the 3rd generation of non parenting knowing that they might have kids and the problems during the cruise. There were just so many negative things that happened during that cruise that also included 2 medical emergencies, fight in the crows nest on new years night that involved at least on passenger  being put off the ship in our next port and someone else that died while diving at Grand Cayman who I have been told was drinking the night before which is a big no no prior to doing a dive. Till this day we still have not been back on the Rotterdam to cruise as there are plenty of other HAL ships to cruise on and we typically stay with the newer ships.

[daisy-mae]

14 minutes ago, rjbean4 said:

 A very good friend of ours was with us and had her own complaints regarding things she witnessed and in my defense told a couple of the officers that at that time it was the 3rd generation of non parenting knowing that they might have kids and the problems during the cruise. 

 

I'm sorry, rjbean4, but I can't even hazard a guess at what you mean by that statement.

 

... someone else that died while diving at Grand Cayman who I have been told was drinking the night before which is a big no no prior to doing a dive. 

 

Surely the cruise line can't be faulted for the passenger's lack of proper care -- unless someone held him down and made him drink with full knowledge that he would be engaging in a dangerous activity the next morning...

[ger_77]

What a major disappointment for you, BayWatching!  I wonder if you'd complained to anyone about your concierge service (or lack thereof) while you were on the ship?  Somehow, a bottle of wine doesn't make up for stinky sewage seeping into your cabin, no matter how much the wine cost!  I hope you'll pen a well-worded letter to head office, with positive results to bring back here.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

[fatcat04]

3 minutes ago, ger_77 said:

What a major disappointment for you, BayWatching!  I wonder if you'd complained to anyone about your concierge service (or lack thereof) while you were on the ship?  Somehow, a bottle of wine doesn't make up for stinky sewage seeping into your cabin, no matter how much the wine cost!  I hope you'll pen a well-worded letter to head office, with positive results to bring back here.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

My thinking as well. Going to the front desk while onboard and failing that writing a very thorough and honest letter post cruise seems a wise choice.

[SilvertoGold]

Since September the Captain has been Bas Van Dreumal according to Captain Albert.

[scubacruiserx2]

So sorry to hear this . Can the op tell us which cabin they were in please ?

Edited October 29, 2019 by scubacruiserx2

[BayWatching]

4 hours ago, DaveOKC said:

I was on the Rotterdam 18 months ago and also thought the Neptune conceirge was awful - worst we had in about 15 Neptune cruises.  She was gone about half the time, even on embarkation day - had to wait about 30 minutes for her to show up and only after I called the front desk.

This happened to us, too. Didn’t even rise to the level of poor service I remembered and documented! A wonderful food service steward went to the trouble of tracking the concierge down for us. 

[BayWatching]

17 minutes ago, scubacruiserx2 said:

So sorry to hear this . Can the op tell us which cabin they were in please ?

7039. 

[BayWatching]

39 minutes ago, fatcat04 said:

My thinking as well. Going to the front desk while onboard and failing that writing a very thorough and honest letter post cruise seems a wise choice.

I know a bit about the survey business. The details I provided should have been enough to raise alarm bells with the marketing and customer relations people. Whatever time I am willing to invest in communicating about this experience will be spent here, hoping to educate fellow travelers. 

[BayWatching]

46 minutes ago, ger_77 said:

What a major disappointment for you, BayWatching!  I wonder if you'd complained to anyone about your concierge service (or lack thereof) while you were on the ship?  Somehow, a bottle of wine doesn't make up for stinky sewage seeping into your cabin, no matter how much the wine cost!  I hope you'll pen a well-worded letter to head office, with positive results to bring back here.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

Tried talking to people on the ship. Including the concierge’s supervisor. To be honest, we felt a palpable lack of empathy from the senior ship staff. Almost as if they were consciously unconcerned. 

[ger_77]

1 minute ago, BayWatching said:

Tried talking to people on the ship. Including the concierge’s supervisor. To be honest, we felt a palpable lack of empathy from the senior ship staff. Almost as if they were consciously unconcerned. 

Wow, that is so unlike the service one normally gets while on HAL ships.  I can understand your not wanting to return!

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

[BayWatching]

2 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

People seem to want more given to them these days. And the internet is where people rush to whenever something happens or changes. After 50 years, the internet has become a way of life. (According to a 'puff piece' on the news this afternoon, the internet turns 50 today)

“People seem to want more given to them...”? 
Passengers were reacting to a chain of port cancellations. No one was asking to be “given” anything—except information. I theorized that a few hours of free WiFi might have given people a little comfort. (We’d already bought an internet package.) 

 

And the internet is where (many) people book shore tours, drivers, etc.

 

Focusing on this narrow point deflects from the larger point: the Rotterdam is an aging ship, not being adequately maintained, and for us, fell well short of the level of service we expected for what we paid. 

[Dunelm]

Had a completely different experience on the Rotterdam, so I am sorry that you experienced the opposite.  I hope, though, that you try a different line.

[rjbean4]

2 hours ago, daisy-mae said:

Surely the cruise line can't be faulted for the passenger's lack of proper care -- unless someone held him down and made him drink with full knowledge that he would be engaging in a dangerous activity the next morning...

 

I highly doubt that the passenger who lost their life was  being held down and made to drink. The day this all happened we were at Grand Cayman with another HAL ship and it was a joint tour between the two ships. So there were passengers from both ships together. Was the certified dive that was available to book through HAL. I had been told that I would have known this person by the bar staff after I had found out that it had happened. When the group was coming back to shore on the dive boat they were working to revive the person involved but unfortunately didn't make it. That's when I learned that when it comes to diving that a person should not be drinking prior to the dive. For how may hours before I am not sure and I don't think the amount matters as the consequences can be the same if its just one or a lot. This person obviously made the choice to drink the night before and didn't admit to it before doing the dive. So no HAL would not be at fault and  just sharing what had happened.

 

In regards to the other significant problems we had will only take the time to say that there was a very severe problem with families on board with their kids. They were so out of control and the parents didn't care. I was falsely identified in a situation and the officers that wanted to talk to me and when I told them what I had to say as it related realized that they had made a terrible mistake.  When our friend backed me up with the non parenting comment she also backed it up that she was a teacher. This shut them up real quick!!! Our friend was my witness because I was with her at the time of whatever it was I was falsely identified for.

 

Now its in the fine print of the cruise contract that passengers can be put off a ship during a cruise for unruly behavior and from that point people are on their own to get back home. Every once in a while I find stories of this sort of thing happening.

Edited October 29, 2019 by rjbean4

[AncientWanderer]

Thanks for posting, BayWatching.  It's always hard to give these reviews, because we're sad to have had the  experience and also there's always push-back from others.

 

In any case, I was agonizing over a Rotterdam cruise we have booked.  It's long and involves a transatlantic.  I'd heard of the couple of fires on another cruise, and now there's yours to add to it.  That, coupled with the pleasant sewage problem, is the last bit of info we need to make a decision.  I'm gonna start unraveling our plan.  There are other things to do out there.  I have no desire to be stuck on such a ship in the middle of the Atlantic.  Shame on HAL.

[AncientWanderer]

3 minutes ago, rjbean4 said:

 

I highly doubt that the passenger who lost their life was being being held down and made to drink. The day this all happened we were at Grand Cayman with another HAL ship and it was a joint tour between the two ships. So there were passengers from both ships together. Was the certified dive that was available to book through HAL. I had been told that I would have known this person by the bar staff after I had found out that it had happened. When the group was coming back to shore on the dive boat they were working to revive the person involved but unfortunately didn't make it. That's when I learned that when it comes to diving that a person should not be drinking prior to the dive. For how may hours before I am not sure and I don't think the amount matters as the consequences can be the same if its just one or a lot.

 

In regards to the other significant problems we had will only take the time to say that there was a very severe problem with families on board with their kids. They were so out of control and the parents didn't care. I was falsely identified in a situation and the officers that wanted to talk to me and when I told them what I had to say as it related realized that they had made a terrible mistake.  When our friend backed me up with the non parenting comment she also backed it up that she was a teacher. This shut them up real quick!!! Our friend was my witness because I was with her at the time of whatever it was I was falsely identified for.

 

Now its in the fine print of the cruise contract that passengers can be put off a ship during a cruise for unruly behavior and from that point people are on their own to get back home. Every once in a while I find stories of this sort of thing happening.

 

This is just all too "Jerry Springer" for me.  HAL didn't used to be like this.

[rjbean4]

56 minutes ago, BayWatching said:

Focusing on this narrow point deflects from the larger point: the Rotterdam is an aging ship, not being adequately maintained, and for us, fell well short of the level of service we expected for what we paid. 

 

 That's for sure. Certainly don't like the profile change when the work on the stern was done. Makes her look so ugly in the back. As the ships get older they tend to have more problems.

[rjbean4]

6 minutes ago, AncientWanderer said:

 

This is just all too "Jerry Springer" for me.  HAL didn't used to be like this.

 

 Believe what you want but the problems we had back on the Rotterdam 04 - 05  holiday cruise which was 2 weeks really did happen. We were there so we know. If our same friend was still with us she would back me up. There SERIOUSLY was a problem with the kids on board with their parents. I am not exaggerating. It was just a lot of bad luck. Nobody wanted to see everything that happened. The first of two medical emergencies caused a 5 hour delay in leaving from Half Moon Cay on the 1st day.  The 2nd caused a early arrival to Key West on our last day and that was only the beginning of the problems we had being at Key West. People made the choice to not get along in the Crows Nest on New Years night and fought leading to one going off the ship at our net port.  Then the dive incident. Some things happened that were unfortunate. Other things happened where people made bad choices.

[sevenseasnomad]

Sorry your cruise was a disaster.  Thank you for posting here to alert others.  You also need to write to Orlando Ashford.  Yes, passengers fill out surveys; however, I truly wonder if anyone at corporate pays much attention to them.  A letter, on the other hand, requires time and effort to write and to mail.  It carries weight (ask any person currently serving in Congress).  Our congressional representative has told us that he counts one letter as the voices of one-thousand voters.  Companies also view letters in a similar fashion.  I would encourage you to relate your experiences in a letter.  Whether you do or don't is up to you, but if nothing but problems dominated my cruise and the Front Desk failed to rectify them, I would be composing a letter to Seattle on my way home.

 

I hope you find another cruise line/land tour/resort which can build positive memories. 

[AncientWanderer]

2 hours ago, BayWatching said:

Tried talking to people on the ship. Including the concierge’s supervisor. To be honest, we felt a palpable lack of empathy from the senior ship staff. Almost as if they were consciously unconcerned. 

 

I've noticed a lot of polite yet glacial response from HAL employees lately.  You can't really blame them -- with poorly maintained ships and severe cutbacks in all areas onboard, they can't make things right.  All they can do is be polite and wait for the next person in line to complain.   It's sad for everybody.

[Himself]

I would write a letter to Orlando telling what happened on your cruise and everything that went wrong.  One poster did that and received a good response from the company.

[BayWatching]

1 hour ago, AncientWanderer said:

Thanks for posting, BayWatching.  It's always hard to give these reviews, because we're sad to have had the  experience and also there's always push-back from others.

 

In any case, I was agonizing over a Rotterdam cruise we have booked.  It's long and involves a transatlantic.  I'd heard of the couple of fires on another cruise, and now there's yours to add to it.  That, coupled with the pleasant sewage problem, is the last bit of info we need to make a decision.  I'm gonna start unraveling our plan.  There are other things to do out there.  I have no desire to be stuck on such a ship in the middle of the Atlantic.  Shame on HAL.

Although genuinely sorry—planning these trips is part of the enjoyment; unraveling less so—I truly am confident you’ll be better off. Hope you come back and share a great story about whatever you end up doing. Thanks for the supportive comment. 

[BayWatching]

23 minutes ago, Himself said:

I would write a letter to Orlando telling what happened on your cruise and everything that went wrong.  One poster did that and received a good response from the company.

Thanks. I’ll give it some thought. 

[cruisemom42]

1 hour ago, rjbean4 said:

 

 Believe what you want but the problems we had back on the Rotterdam 04 - 05  holiday cruise which was 2 weeks really did happen. We were there so we know. If our same friend was still with us she would back me up. There SERIOUSLY was a problem with the kids on board with their parents. I am not exaggerating. It was just a lot of bad luck. Nobody wanted to see everything that happened. The first of two medical emergencies caused a 5 hour delay in leaving from Half Moon Cay on the 1st day.  The 2nd caused a early arrival to Key West on our last day and that was only the beginning of the problems we had being at Key West. People made the choice to not get along in the Crows Nest on New Years night and fought leading to one going off the ship at our net port.  Then the dive incident. Some things happened that were unfortunate. Other things happened where people made bad choices.

 

I don't think people are necessarily doubting you -- but perhaps they question why you seem to be blaming HAL for what you yourself call "a lot of bad luck".  What you relate could have happened on any cruise line at any time. Avoiding HAL because of it doesn't seem to make sense on the face of it, unless there is something you are not explaining?

Edited October 30, 2019 by cruisemom42

[BayWatching]

30 minutes ago, AncientWanderer said:

 

I've noticed a lot of polite yet glacial response from HAL employees lately.  You can't really blame them -- with poorly maintained ships and severe cutbacks in all areas onboard, they can't make things right.  All they can do is be polite and wait for the next person in line to complain.   It's sad for everybody.

That’s EXACTLY what we experienced. Example: Neptune Suite customers are eligible for add-ons, like free room service upgrades. Two years ago, we could order a burger from the Dive-In to our suite at no charge. Now, it’s $5. When we asked the concierge about it, she said (unapologetically) that “...Carnival has made changes, and we have to make them too.” 
 

Wonder if that’s behind any of this. All I know is, our experience two years ago was vastly better. Vastly.