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Originally posted by sissy:
The crew never for a moment allowed the passengers to feel what was happening...

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Hi Sissy, I'm glad that you had such a good experience. The crew were obviously extremely professional.

There are still a number of other smaller more intimate ships around, so all it not lost. For example, I had a great cruise on the 'Black Watch' in August 2000. Although much older than the 'Crown', the Black Watch is about a third bigger than Dynasty, but has a very similar passenger capacity, plus more crew. The food, service and entertainment were excellent in my opinion.

Maybe we will see the 'Crown Dynasty' and her crew return and work for a different cruise line?

This year we spent our time at sea on smaller ships. We almost made it on Rembrandt, but the line went Kerpluie.

Pacific Princess to Bermuda in October was perfection.

In november,Sundream offered a good trip with one of the best itineraries I have ever experienced. If only Air Tours would clean up its act on the plumbing and air conditioning then my rating would go from good to excellent.

February 01 will see us on Bolero. At under 20,000 tons, this ship is more like a private yacht.If history repeats, this ship is well maintained with friendly and enjoyable passengers and crew.

We took this road after seeing what we considered to be rapidly deteriorating environments on the larger and newer ships.

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Originally posted by topgun:

February 01 will see us on Bolero. At under 20,000 tons, this ship is more like a private yacht.If history repeats, this ship is well maintained with friendly and enjoyable passengers and crew.

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Topgun,

Let me know how your cruise is. My husband and I went on the Bolero in March 2000, and had a rough cruise. She rocked so much (in calm seas) that we both had to take Bonine in the day, and Dramamine at night. Our Itinerary included Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Maarten, and Virgin Gorda. The islands were wonderful! Our favorite islands were Dominica and Virgin Gorda.

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Originally posted by topgun:
I have to agree with Malcolms comments about the older and smaller cruise ships.

This year we spent our time at sea on smaller ships. We almost made it on Rembrandt, but the line went Kerpluie.

Pacific Princess to Bermuda in October was perfection.

In november,Sundream offered a good trip with one of the best itineraries I have ever experienced. If only Air Tours would clean up its act on the plumbing and air conditioning then my rating would go from good to excellent.

February 01 will see us on Bolero. At under 20,000 tons, this ship is more like a private yacht.If history repeats, this ship is well maintained with friendly and enjoyable passengers and crew.

We took this road after seeing what we considered to be rapidly deteriorating environments on the larger and newer ships.

Having read Sympaticos observations on the Christmas cruise with Holland America, I am more than convinced that we are on the right track. I considered HAL to be the last bastion of classy cruising. The hooliganism reported shows that this line may unfortunately go down the tubes as well.

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Having sailed with them for over twenty years, I was initially dismayed by your report.

I had assumed that a fairly large mob would be needed to throw over 100 wooden deckchairs overboard. You now say only 2 were involved. Is this new information to tracking down the culprits.

If you are close to the Canadian border, I suggest that you might try again on the Sunbird. At about 40,000 tons she is much more stable and also much newer than Bolero. With over half the passengers being British, you get to know some really nice and interesting new friends. Ages range from 25 to 70. The median I would guess is around 40.

Checking the newspaper today, an outside cabin on the 27 Jan sailing goes for around $1050 US.This includes direct return air Toronto/Aruba and includes all taxes and shipboard gratuities. Cars can be parked close to the airport for less than $50 per week.

I am not an agent nor do I work for anybody, just like cruising and passing on opinions. My advice is free and many times worthless.
Regards

[This message has been edited by topgun (edited 01-06-2001).]

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Originally posted by Barryboat:
I spoke to passengers on the Christmas cruise aboard the Crown Dynasty and they said that the crew found out towards the end of the cruise...I think the 5th day out. After the crew found out that they were out of a job when they reach Aruba, service dropped dramatically, paper plates and cups were used, the ship started a cash transactions only system, the 5th and 6th days of the cruise there was no ice for some reason, activities ceased because the staff felt..."so what..we're out of a job when we reach Aruba so what's the point". Passengers were ashered off the ship as early in the morning as possible in Aruba, and then their flights did not leave Aruba till late that night....so there was nothing for passengers to do in Aruba but sit. No shore tours were offered by the cruise line of course because the line was bankrupt. Unfortunately the bankrupcy spoiled many passengers cruise experience.

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This is not consistent with our experience. I suppose it depended on the individual crew members you were dealing with. Our cabin steward, dining staff and bartenders were wonderful, given their situation. I was never served anything in a paper cup or on a paper plate, I was not want for ice and the cash system applied to the tremendous closeout deals in the shops (70% off), not the bars and I don’t think the spa or salon.

As for our arrival in Aruba, they always kick you off the ship at the crack of dawn on these things, and the tours were offered, you simply had to pay the tour operator instead of charging it to your room. I will admit this payment had to be in cash or traveler’s checks which did cause some people a problem; but we went on an Island tour and then spent the afternoon on the beach. Even if you couldn’t get on a tour, there was nothing to keep you from getting a cab and going over to one of the hotels for the day. The beach in Aruba is spectacular and the hotels are beautiful.

Unfortunately, some people were so completely panicked that they thought they should get to the airport right away to make sure they had a seat on a plane. This even though the flights were not scheduled until late afternoon/early evening. We were told the charter company was honoring our tickets, but some people just didn’t believe it. Since we were on a small charter, I’m not even sure who they thought they were going to talk to at the airport in the AM with the not scheduled to arrive until late in the day. Upon arrival in Aruba a quick call to our travel agent confirmed our flight was coming and our tickets were good and we went on to quite enjoy the day.

You know you got to make what you can out of these situations. Unfortunately some people were simply irrational. This situation was really not bad for the majority of the passengers, so we missed a port (Bonnaire), we had an extra day at sea, and I guess someone was served a drink in a paper cup of all things!!! The crew were out of a job and not getting paid!!! And they still performed for the most part. I thought it was quite surreal that last night in the dining room, all the passengers dressed up, eating steak and salmon, cooked and served by unemployed and unpaid staff, on CHINA PLATES by the way. We then returned to a cabin with turned down beds, a full bucket of ice, and a chocolate on the pillow, again prepared by an out of work unpaid steward.

At the time I thought it would make a good study for some human behavior student, the way the order of things didn’t break down. I mean these people could have simply refused to go to work and we’d all have been sitting around making our own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, drinking tap water and sleeping on dirty sheets!

The only passengers that were truly dramatically inconvenienced were those who boarded, and so planed to disembark at a port other than Aruba. I know one family was out of St. Lucia and another from Granada. Also, there was a Dutch couple who planned to spend a second week on the ship. All these people were turned out in Aruba, but I believe the charter company arranged transportation for them back to their ports of embarkation.