| As far as you problems with air package this is not unusual. The air
package for all cruises is one of the areas that receive the greatest
complaints. The main reason is the pricing is so aggressive. This
has been noted in a major cruise magazine. Typically the air add
on which usually includes all transfers and luggage handling to ship
is priced lower than you can make your on accomadations. Many of
the bargain cruise only packages out of Boston offer $99 air
add ons for round trip including transfers. Obviously you cannot
beat this or the typical $250 air add on in brochure. It would be
easy to have the same problem you had on any cruise. The only way
around it is handle your own reservations which will normally cost
a lot more. I think overall most do a reasonable job considering
how cheap it is. It's the same old problem, if you want to fly
cheap thing expect to be treated like cattle. I always think of
the first and last day of cruise as more like a pain, all travel.
I think of a 7 night cruise as a 6 day vacation. The first and
last days are work, not vacation. Hope you have better luck next
time.
I've been on 8 cruises before, 4 with RCCL. I get RCCL magazines
for repeat cruisers and they offer coupons. They generally make
it out to be a previlege for members only. My own experience is
just like yours, anyone walking off the street can get the identical
price. There are some cases where you get a little better deal but
only sometimes. It just something you have to deal with. But don't
feel to bad. My first cruise was in 1985, I had a lousy room with
upper lower bunks and it cost over $2600 for two. Now I am cruising
8 years later with better rooms at a better price.
I had a question on your cruise. Are there discos or more modern
music played on the ships ?? Not rap and stuff, more like 60's to
90's stuff. I was interested in trying Holland in the future but
am not interested unless they have nightly entertainment late
into the evening or even a disco style. What was generally available
for dance music ?? Thanks for any info.
Harold C.
way to improve it is for the cruises to
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| All of the entertainment on the Westerdam was excellent! The nightly
shows were first class - very professional. There was a piano bar
which was nice and quiet for after dinner conversation. There were at
least 2 other bars offering dance music. One was disco/rock - we
didn't check this one out! The other has a young band who were
excellent - the young Philipina singer sounded like Linda Ronstad
doing the Gershwin stuff, but they also did the classic rock'n'roll-
Elvis-50's thru 80's. No heavy metal. They packed it in at around
1 am, but the Disco went till the wee small hours. We usually went to
bed early as we took full advantage of everything the ship had to offer
in the way of activities and very much filled our days.
Although I haven't tried other cruise lines, I am very impressed
with H/A. In reading these notes, it appears that most people
cruise on RCCL or NCL - I haven';t seen many notes relating to H/A.
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| Holland is an excellent cruise line. It is more upscale, and a bit
pricier, than RCCL or NCL. It aims for a traveler who is a bit more
sophisticated and demanding.
Holland trains all of its own service staff and has very little
turn-over in the ranks. It prides itself on running spotless ships. I
toured the Westerdam a year ago and was on board when the government
sanitation inspection was done. During lunch the captain and the
inspector entered the dining room to tell us that the ship had received
a 100% rating that day. Most impressive, since anything over 70% is
passing. The dining room full of travel agents gave the ship a
standing ovation!
BTW, Carnival really has the market covered in every price range with
its Carnival, Holland America and Wind Star cruise lines.
-jer
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