Thread: HAL slipping lately?

We cruised HAL (Volendam) in '06 and loved it so much that we determined HAL would be our line from then on. HOWEVER, I've been reading reviews lately on this forum and others that indicate that HAL is slipping as far as service, cleanliness and condition of furnishings and especially dining are concerned. We are in the beginning stages of planning a Mediterranean cruise and are wondering if there reallly is a problem with HAL or could it be that all the lines are in the same boat? No pun intended!!

Originally Posted by BarbR

We cruised HAL (Volendam) in '06 and loved it so much that we determined HAL would be our line from then on. HOWEVER, I've been reading reviews lately on this forum and others that indicate that HAL is slipping as far as service, cleanliness and condition of furnishings and especially dining are concerned. We are in the beginning stages of planning a Mediterranean cruise and are wondering if there reallly is a problem with HAL or could it be that all the lines are in the same boat? No pun intended!!

Looks like I picked the wrong forum for this question. Will try to find the answer elsewhere.

Originally Posted by BarbR

Looks like I picked the wrong forum for this question. Will try to find the answer elsewhere.

Hey Barb

I think you would get better readership of this question if you posted it on the HAL forum.

In this particular forum, you're likely to get only input from TA's.

With that said, I'll give you my impression; we've traveled HAL on many occasions and consider it our personal favorite. Whenever we're just taking a cruise for fun, which doesn't happen that often, we prefer HAL to others. We've always had a wonderful cruise and even our worse HAL cruise beat the others. The food, service, and ships have always been wonderful when compared to others.

However, over the last many years, I feel the overall quality of cruise lines has diminished. It's not just HAL, but all of them, with the exception of the luxury cruise lines like Crystal, Seabourn, Windstar, etc. My feeling is that it's like the airlines; they're having to change the way they do business to keep costs down so they don't have to raise prices so much. And in keeping costs down, they are shortchanging passengers and causing a drop in quality.

Obviously, this is just my personal opinion and is subject to debate with others, but I'm speaking from personal experience over the last many years and 31 cruises. Of course, as I always say, what one person loves, another will hate.

Overall, I feel like you will find your Med cruise great with HAL. You can also look at Celebrity and see if they have something that meets your needs.

Pete

Thank you so much, Pete. That was my feeling also - that it wasn't just HAL but the moderate priced cruise lines across the board.
I will take your suggestion and look at both HAL and Celebrity when the time comes. We did Alaska on Celebrity in '99 and liked it very much. We loved the Volendam on our southern Carribean cruise and would really like to do the Med on a ship of that approx. size but I do understand their reasoning for using the bigger ships.
Wish we could afford something like Crystal but didn't retire that high up on the ladder! But we consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to cruise at all and 3 cheers for my DH who allows himself to be talked into it even tho "on the water" is not his favorite place to be! Thanks again.