Holland America Volendam Review (Worst Cruise Ever)

[wdw1972]

6 hours ago, tjcox9 said:

I believe I read the OPs comment correctly about going to the Lido at 9:00 PM for dinner. I thought it normally closed at 8. Perhaps that has changed????

Nope - that was another troubling untruth or inconsistency from the OP. Unless the ship is in port and makes the decision to keep Lido open later due to late arriving excursions, the Lido closes at 8pm and will reopen for an hour at 10:30pm.

 

Sue/WDW1972

[kelliebiz]

Trying to imagine a wife crying due to standing in line waiting for a table and over billing errors. Was she crying perhaps about casino losses and a raging husband? Really unfortunate you had such a terrible experience. 

[Desert Cruisers]

For all those who said that the OP should have made dinner reservations....

 

We were on the Oosterdam TA in November from Barcelona.  Upon boarding, we attempted to make dinner reservations for 7:15-7:45 nightly. Unfortunately, the earliest time slot every night was 8:15pm or later.  When we questioned the maitre d' about this, he was embarrassed to admit that, because there were so many in-transit passengers from the prior sailing who had access to reservations earlier than we did, passengers boarding for the TA were out of luck and would have to queue for available space. With the help of the DR staff, we were able to be accommodated in the fixed seating area which was mostly empty after the early fixed dining crowd left.

 

We did e-mail the C-suite about this situation but never received any reply even though I sent the e-mail to both the C-suite and Customer Relations. 

[shandryl]

On 7/3/2024 at 10:53 AM, ColonyGirl2 said:

I guess I am just a "thrifty" cruiser, as the most amazing thing I got out of this post, was that you spent $6,000 on stuff on a 7 day cruise.  

[Ferry_Watcher]

On 7/3/2024 at 3:17 AM, Cruiser Sean said:

Daughter wasn't much better. This morning I went to excursions, which was not open. My wife, myself and 1 daughter toured Quebec. Hurt daughter stayed on ship.

You have described your daughters as both 'children' and 'teenagers'.  Did you actually leave an injured minor alone on board a ship while the rest of the family toured Quebec?  

Does this mean that you trusted the horrible staff/crew enough to watch over your 'home alone' child/teen daughter, and assist her if she needed help in your absence?

[Shire12]

38 minutes ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

You have described your daughters as both 'children' and 'teenagers'.  Did you actually leave an injured minor alone on board a ship while the rest of the family toured Quebec?  

Does this mean that you trusted the horrible staff/crew enough to watch over your 'home alone' child/teen daughter, and assist her if she needed help in your absence?

I wish there was a thumbs down or dislike option button.  This comment was downright unnecessary and very rude in my opinion.  

[3rdGenCunarder]

On 7/3/2024 at 1:12 PM, terrydtx said:

Again you lost your credibility, I seriously doubt you were told this as it has not been required in over 10 years by HAL, maybe you should have done some pre cruise research on dressing for dinner. Did you ever go into battle without doing some research as an Army 1SG? BTW wearing shorts are never allowed in the MDR at night and not in the smart casual dress code. 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I have not read through all five pages of posts. But I need to respond to this post because this comment (boldfaced text) was my first thought after I read the opening thread. OP posted two minutes after joining Cruise Critic. So many times we see an unhappy review as a first-time post. Usually they're one-hit wonders, so thank you, @Cruiser Sean for coming back to clarify some points. 

 

If you had come here before your cruise to ask questions like "how hard is it to get a table for 4 in open dining?" you would have had clearer expectations. I don't know why you were told that a suit or tux was required, unless it was his first day on the job with bad or no training. 

 

Frankly, I'm surprised you chose Volendam for a cruise with two children. Aside from the kids' place (Club HAL?) and two small pools, there isn't a lot for kids on a small ship like Volendam. Again, research on the ship would have helped, and your daughters would have been happier.

 

As for the casino, spa, and excursions, you got stuck in the finger-pointing. As has been explained, they're outside vendors and the front desk has no control over them. The front desk staff were not blowing you off--issues with vendors have to be resolved with them individually. 

 

I'm a pretty low-key cruiser. I don't do spa treatments and I don't gamble (and have no expectation of free drinks), so I can't speak to those issues. I do take shore excursions and have had mixed results. I agree that they need to be open more. Or, failing that, have their own "contact us" function on the Navigator. I understand that you were angry that the front desk couldn't cancel (and credit) shore excursions for you within 48 hours. But they told you the truth. They can't do that. I know that it took longer than you wanted, but shore excursions did respond to the issue of your daughter's injury and credit you for the cancellation, even though they didn't have to per the rules. 

 

I'm sorry you were unhappy with HAL. Sometimes you try a line that's new to you and it doesn't work out (been there, etc). Best to move on with a line that will serve your needs.

[terrydtx]

17 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

I don't know why you were told that a suit or tux was required, unless it was his first day on the job with bad or no training. 

We all know that would not have been the case, No untrained crew member would be put into the that position. The OP had zero creditability IMO. The OP seeing people in shorts being turned away from the MDR proves that point.  My gut feeling is the OP wanted to wear shorts in the MDR.

[Cruiser Sean]

This will most likely be my last response to this review as it is no longer productive between people like Terrydtx straight up calling me a liar, people stating things like, no wonder your wife was crying in the hotel, I would be too if my husband spent 6k on a cruise, or any of the other personal type attacks, unhelpful comments or just straight out assumptions. So if you want to read my responses, here they are:

 

- I absolutely did A LOT of research prior to booking this cruise. I absolutely knew that it was a smaller ship, that there wouldn't be as many activities, or that this wasn't a line that caters to teenagers. I looked up the "dressy" night attire and saw exactly what Terry posted regarding slacks and a collared shirt being acceptable in the HAL policy. I saw MANY reviews across the web, that were positive and I saw many reviews that highlighted the negatives. We ultimately chose HAL 90% for the Canada, Maine and Boston port stops and 10% due to the smaller size. My family and I specifically went in to relax, enjoy each others company and pamper ourselves with Spa treatments. We weren't first time cruisers. This was our 7th. MANY of the issues we encountered we have never experienced with another cruise line and weren't things you could research. Not a single review of HAL mentions that their Spa, excursions etc. are 3rd party and could be problematic because of this. As reference, we have absolutely had billing or other minor issues on other cruise lines. They were resolved EVERY other time within 15 minutes.

 

- Excursions. While many have now pointed out that this is a 3rd party, the policy remained the same. Cancel within 48 hours. I knew the policy. That is why I went to Guest Services the instant I boarded the ship on Day 1. The process explained to me was Guest Services submitting an email to excursions (covering hours when excursions was not open). Excursions was not open early on Day 2, when I would have canceled our excursions and was still within 48 hours. When excursions opened on Day 2, the agent was immediately rude when I mentioned a cancellation. When I told him he should have an email from Guest Services, and he didn't have that email, he immediately accused me of lying about going to Guest services. His exact words, "Well I do not have an email, so you must not have went to guest services." At no time was I rude or combative. I let him go through his process of cancelling the excursions that we had booked that were more than 48 hours, before we revisited the excursion that was not. Since the agent wasn't budging, I ultimately asked to speak to a Manager. The manager reviewed everything and reiterated that there was no email and they would not refund. At this point we had been working the issue for 30 minutes. I was absolutely going to either leave it be or check-in with the guest services agent I had spoken too, at some other point during the cruise. By shear luck, the Guest Services agent I had spoken to on Day 1, replaced another agent and I noticed it. I pointed this out to the Manager and the excursions agent. The manager spoke to the guest services agent, returned and verified that I had spoken to them and due to a miscommunication on their part, excursions never received the email. There was no apology for accusing me of never going to guest services. They refunded the last excursion and that was the end of our interactions with excursions. Now lets keep in mind. This was our FIRST HAL cruise. This was a situation that other cruise lines handled within 5 minutes. Being called a liar and then not even acknowledging that when the HAL manager verified I was not....this was not a great start to our relationship with HAL.

 

Spa. As I mentioned before we prepaid for a bunch of Spa services on Days 1-3 (our day at sea). 4 massages, 3 haircuts, 3 facials, 3 mani/pedis. We were very happy with the actual services and ultimately signed up for the added "relaxation room" add-on and 8 more massages. Day 4 is when I noticed the double billing and additional charges for some of the services involving our teenagers. This wasn't me not understanding that they issue a credit and then charge the account again. This wasn't not understanding us adding additional tips. This was absolutely errors on their part. The total errors exceeded $1200. Once I pointed this out to the Spa, it took 2 hours to fix our account because they ultimately had to print ALL of our services and go over each one individually, to figure out where the errors were. The Spa manager Oleg, was wonderful. Was apologetic and he did end up identifying all of the errors and issuing credits back for the $1200 in errors. He also comped 2 massages for my teens. The spa in itself was incredible. It was the length of time to correct errors (due to the shear extent of mistakes in billing) and this being now another issue on the cruise was becoming problematic.

 

Casino. I gamble on EVERY single cruise. So does my wife. We each have a pretty healthy budget and we never go over our budget. We are also very prepared to lose what we budget. Of the 6k that we spent in our cruise account. 1k was casino gambling. So if you want to subtract that out of what I counted as spending with the cruise line....it was still 5k. I've already detailed the issue with Casino not comping drinks from Day 2 on. I already stated that by Day 4, this was over $500 in charges that should not have been added to our ship account. The back and forth between the Casino and Guest Services again highlighted a large miscommunication issue between departments within the cruise line. This was also now the 4th cruise department where there was an issue requiring me as the cruise guest, to spend time resolving. 

 

Dining. I can only assume that Terrydtx is a major HAL apologist or he works for HAL because I would NEVER comment on a random cruise review and call someone a liar regarding their experience. I know what was said to me and my family. I have 3 other witnesses who heard the exact same thing. To rehash. In 6 previous cruises, we have NEVER encountered such extreme wait times to eat in the MDR, while having "anytime" dining. It would never even have occurred to me to make a reservation, with anytime dining. In NO review of HAL during my research did a single person mention excessive wait times. As for the suit/tuxedo issue. I was NOT wearing shorts. I had a collared shirt and slacks on for every attempt we made to eat in the MDR. The ONLY reason I even asked about the attire for "dressy" nights, was 1. We saw someone turned away for wearing shorts. While I completely understand shorts are not allowed, I've also seen other cruise lines be more relaxed on that issue. 2. The collared shirts I brought were short-sleeved polos. While this was obviously fine for normal nights...I wanted to make sure that it was acceptable for a "dressy" night. This is when I asked the MDR person handling check-ins. This is when we were told that HAL "dressy" nights were full suit or tuxedo. Missing 2 nights of MDR, would have been no issue at all. Missing 3 additional nights due to wait times or spending time fixing cruise account issues is where it was soured. This was made worse in our minds by the food being the worst we've had on any cruise. The totality of everything is the only reason I mentioned dining in my review.

 

To summarize. By the time Day 4 ended, we had issues with Guest Services, Spa, Casino, Excursions and to some extent dining. We had spent over 6 hours resolving account issues. On Day 4 alone we spent over 4 1/2 hours (from 4:30 to past 9) and missed the MDR. My wife is NOT a big fan of eating from buffets. She absolutely prefers the MDR. She was also completely exhausted after having spent all day at PEI, having spent 4 1/2 hours dealing with issues and having to eat the scraps that were left on the Lido buffet at 9 p.m. That is why she had a breakdown and was crying. My family and I are extremely close. My children, seeing their mother in tears, were clearly impacted and that is when they requested to leave the cruise early. That is when I went back to Guest Services. Requested the manager meeting AND requested that HAL submit the paperwork for us to leave the cruise in Maine (Day 6). 

 

Additional points. It definitely felt like the manager only contacted me on Day 5...because I returned to guest services. It didn't seem coincidental, that I received a call from Eduardo, 10 minutes after I returned to my room, after visiting guest services again. If you read my early posts you'd have also noted that HAL never sent our request to leave early in Maine. This was just another issue in our experience and wasn't surprising given our earlier issues with communication by HAL staff. The amount we paid for the cruise and the amount we spent onboard, had nothing to do with our negative experience. We actually allotted 20k for this trip (cruise, onboard spending, shopping, port stops etc.) and came in under budget.  

 

I agree that each issue on their own would not have been a big deal. But I will reiterate. We had some sort of issue with nearly every department we interacted with. Each additional issue clearly made it worse. The total compilation of poor communication, time spent resolving issues, being called a liar and everything else, made this the worst cruise we have ever taken. A poor offer of resolution (no matter if you think a steak dinner or $250 was appropriate, we did not) just solidified that HAL is not a cruise line we would ever use again. 

 

Lastly, I did not post this review immediately after the cruise ended. I reported our experience through the official HAL channels and then I waited 10 days. I only posted after HAL failed to respond. It has now been nearly 2 weeks since the cruise ended and I've received nothing from HALs end. If you have had 100 great HAL cruises, I'm very happy that you had great experiences. It doesn't negate our personal experience. We had 1 cruise with HAL and it was our worst experience in 7 cruises. 

Edited July 5 by Cruiser Sean