First HAL Cruise, Not Impressed

[C 2 C]

We just finished sailing on Zuiderdam for 14 days and our 14th HAL cruise in the last 13 months.

The food has never been better.

We had many minor issues with room maintenance and billing errors, the worst in our cruise history.

 

 

 

[Mary229]

24 minutes ago, C 2 C said:

We just finished sailing on Zuiderdam for 14 days and our 14th HAL cruise in the last 13 months.

The food has never been better.

We had many minor issues with room maintenance and billing errors, the worst in our cruise history.

 

 

 

The onboard accounting system seems to be a mess.  

[Abe3689]

5 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

The onboard accounting system seems to be a mess.  

They assigned two parties to the same room. How is that even possible? When we finally got it straightened out at the front desk they didn’t even apologize. 

[Roz]

In fairness to the OP,  I think the mac and cheese and chicken and waffles are pretty bad. 

 

I wouldn't give up on the entire cruise though.  

[Abe3689]

33 minutes ago, Roz said:

In fairness to the OP,  I think the mac and cheese and chicken and waffles are pretty bad. 

 

I wouldn't give up on the entire cruise though.  

Thank you. Yeah dinner last night was actually very good. The quality of ingredients is just not very high. I’m at the breakfast buffet, and you can just tell they’re trying to cut costs so much that the ingredients aren’t fresh. It’s the second day. So far not great, but it’s not terrible. Let’s see once we get on the cruise after San Diego with the long term guests if it improves.

 

Im new to serial cruising. We use to go when I was younger, 15 years ago. So I don’t have the experience a lot of people on here do.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Abe3689

[Laminator]

11 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

Thank you. Yeah dinner last night was actually very good. The quality of ingredients is just not very high or good. I’m at the breakfast buffet and you can just tell they’re trying to cut costs. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible. 

I assume since you received a casino offer it was from a land based casino as you have not sailed HAL in the past. Would that assumption be correct?
I am a little confused regarding the quality of the food. It's not too often people on the HAL boards complain about the quality of the food. And these folks have hundreds of days sailing HAL. 
It's even more rare that the Lido breakfast is an issue. What is not up to par with the breakfast offerings? 

[Roz]

I've found the food on HAL to be very fresh.  Any specific foods that lack freshness? 

[Tampa Girl]

2 hours ago, Abe3689 said:

Dinner was really good, so I suppose that lunch was a one off. I don’t know why the lunch was so bad, but I’m never going in the dining-room for lunch again. 

 

We never have lunch in the dining room, so I can't comment on that.  However, we did forego breakfast in the DR on our VOV cruise because the service was slow and the food arrived lukewarm and was totally unappetizing.  However, to be fair, our evening tablemates did not experience the same conditions at breakst.  But. . . dinner in the MDR was almost always wonderful.  So much is dependent on the serving staff, and it seemed that our DR breakfast staff was still being indoctrinated, while the dinner staff knew what they were doing.  Just IMHO, of course.  

[Bxc53]

Here’s hoping the OP’s cruise experience continues to improve. On our last cruise (RCL Vancouver to Honolulu) we arrived relatively late on embark day, hungry, and went to the buffet. I grabbed a hamburger and fries. Absolutely nasty.. probably had been in the display for hours.. dumped it and had a salad ( assembled by me), it was fine. The overall chow improved considerably after that for our 10 day cruise.

Embark day ( turnaround for the crew) stretches everyones resources and patience. 

[Abe3689]

50 minutes ago, Laminator said:

I assume since you received a casino offer it was from a land based casino as you have not sailed HAL in the past. Would that assumption be correct?
I am a little confused regarding the quality of the food. It's not too often people on the HAL boards complain about the quality of the food. And these folks have hundreds of days sailing HAL. 
It's even more rare that the Lido breakfast is an issue. What is not up to par with the breakfast offerings? 

I have an independent casino rep that’s been in the business for 40 years. He was able to speak to a representative at Carnival and get them to comp the cruise, and I paid $860 in taxes and fees (as well as the gambling I will be doing). 
 

The breakfast buffet’s ingredients just were not fresh. It was an egg mix, not real eggs. Even the people at lunch yesterday who were serial cruisers said the food was awful. 

[Copper10-8]

2 hours ago, Abe3689 said:

Dinner was really good, so I suppose that lunch was a one off. I don’t know why the lunch was so bad, but I’m never going in the dining-room for lunch again. 

 

Perhaps, give the Pinnacle Grill a try for lunch on one of your upcoming sea days! Warning alert! There is a charge for the PG! It is not comped! Hoping the remainder of your cruise is without anymore K-9 nourishment

 

[VMax1700]

9 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

The breakfast buffet’s ingredients just were not fresh. It was an egg mix, not real eggs.

Real eggs are used for fried eggs, eggs benedict and poached eggs.  You can watch them break open a real egg shell.

[Abe3689]

9 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Real eggs are used for fried eggs, eggs benedict and poached eggs.  You can watch them break open a real egg shell.

Thank you for that. Even at the buffet? I was at the omelette station. This is why I’ve come here, to learn the idiosyncrasies of HAL.

[VMax1700]

2 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

Thank you for that. Even at the buffet? I was at the omelette station. This is why I’ve come here, to learn the idiosyncrasies of HAL.

Even at the buffet.

[Blackduck59]

22 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

Thank you for that. Even at the buffet? I was at the omelette station. This is why I’ve come here, to learn the idiosyncrasies of HAL.

The eggs in the carton are real eggs just cracked and premixed. I think you will find the same product used at the omelette station on many cruise lines. It's not an "idiosyncrasy" of HAL or the cruise industry for that matter. It only takes a quick look at the other egg stations to see the flats of eggs.

[CruiserBruce]

43 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

Thank you for that. Even at the buffet? I was at the omelette station. This is why I’ve come here, to learn the idiosyncrasies of HAL.

On Celebrity, if you walk up to the buffet and say you want 3 eggs scrambled, you can watch them crack 3 eggs in front of you? Doable, obviously, but a slow process in a buffet setting.

[Hlitner]

58 minutes ago, Abe3689 said:

Thank you for that. Even at the buffet? I was at the omelette station. This is why I’ve come here, to learn the idiosyncrasies of HAL.

The dirty secret about most cruise lines, and many restaurants, is that they use boxed bulk pasteurized egg mix for omelets and scrambled eggs.  Real eggs are reserved for items that need to have a real yolk.  The boxed stuff (often in milk carton-like containers) have a longer shelf life and are easier to store/ship than real eggs.  
 

I used to ask the HAL (and other lines) cooks to please use real eggs for my omelets.  HAL cooks used to comply, but on our last HAL cruise (Mar - May) the cooks refused telling me they were not permitted to do it.

 

Hank

[Blackduck59]

I'm not sure it's a "dirty secret" that they use cartoned eggs for omelettes. The cartons are in plain view at the station. Keeping in mind the cartons contain real eggs, they are not "reconstituted" as some have implied on this subject on other threads. I enjoyed the omelettes I had and was fully aware of the egg product they use. Can you imagine the complaints of these same people complaining about cartoned eggs as they stood in the omelette line out into the lido pool as the single cook cracked fresh eggs for each order? I also enjoyed the fresh poached eggs as well as fried eggs when I had them. 

[Sea Hag]

We did our first cruise on HAL in late September, and we were really happy with it. Overall, the food wasn't as good as on Princess, but none of it was really bad. Some of it was very good. We booked an inexpensive cabin, one of the "insides with a window" on the Westerdam, and that cabin was great. All the staff were very good. We were disappointed that the catamarran excursion we'd booked for Hubbard Glacier was cancelled due to weather, but the ship got way closer to the glacier than has been our experience in the past. I'm very happy with HAL, and I'm looking forward to the two cruises I have booked with them in the future.

[islandgirlejfan]

My daughter is a chef and the liquid eggs are used for shelf life.  They have added citric acid added to them.  Personally, as someone who is really not wild about the texture of real eggs that these work for me.  
Bad food....well I've had things on Princess and Celebrity I didn't care for.  I just didn't eat it and moved on to something else.  We cruised on the Edge last year and because it was an intensive European itinerary, we pretty much found our way to the buffet daily.  I think we ate in the MDR a total of 4 times.  You can always find something you like there! 🙂

  

[Ken the cruiser]

Glad to hear HAL is using a “real egg mixture in a box” again. When we last cruised with HAL on the Zaandam in 2018 and then again later on the Maasdam in 2019, they had switched to premixed powered eggs, and we could definitely tell the difference as they had no texture to them what so ever. Prior to the change, they tasted like normal scrambled eggs like we enjoy on any other cruise line, past and present. 
 

And, yes, I can definitely tell the difference as I was raised on powered eggs. 😁
 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[dockman]

Do not judge an entire cruise or ship because you do not like one or two meals.  It is oh so easy to just order something else.

 

  IMO anyone who cannot find something very good and tasty to eat on a cruise ship is not looking very hard.  The size of my gut after a cruise is proof that I seem to find just plenty of things that i like to eat.

[WriterOnDeck]

20 hours ago, Abe3689 said:

The breakfast buffet’s ingredients just were not fresh. It was an egg mix, not real eggs. Even the people at lunch yesterday who were serial cruisers said the food was awful. 

They have egg stations in the Lido. You can just ask for an egg to be freshly prepared to your liking.

[StLouisCruisers]

37 minutes ago, WriterOnDeck said:

They have egg stations in the Lido. You can just ask for an egg to be freshly prepared to your liking.

 

On Zaandam in August we had fresh eggs prepared to order for us most every day.  They brought trays of small cups with the eggs already broken and ready to go.  Some had one, some had two eggs in them.  No need to waste time breaking an egg to begin cooking.  The fresh scrambled eggs were much better than the already prepared scrambled eggs most people had plated for them.  DH would order his scrambled eggs "dry" so they weren't all watery like they are sometimes prepared.  I think breakfast in the Lido is for the most part excellent!

[RD64]

Fresh eggs, sticky buns, and reindeer sausage - the Buffet Breakfast of Champions when going to Alaska.