MDR and Lido need dramatic improvement.
Gym is great.
Room Stewards great.
Bar Service mostly excellent.
Furniture in suite is old and one should not be asked to sleep on springs.
Embark and debark is top notch.
Enjoyed Concierge and Tamarind.
Entertainment was pretty good.
Park Rangers were awesome.
Breakfast in the Pinacle was terrific
Would like more variety in the entertainment
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
MDR was noisy; chaotic; rushed; understaffed; food served cool or warm; never hot; tough to get wine or cocktail service despite drink packages; portions smaller than you'd expect; buffet was awful; crowded; dirty; tough to find seat; many tables not bussed; we wiped and bussed ourselves a few times; RAW poached salmon served that was disgusting; only exception was Tamarind which was excellent. We loved the breakfast at the Pinacle with great service there. Bottom line: MDR and Lido need major improvement. Seems like HAL wants to push people to pay for the restaurants on board. Canaletto is a joke -- with some space carved out in the buffet -- shrinking buffet space and charging passengers for ordinary seating with a table cloth
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Fitness center top notch; hot tubs very small and crowded;
Entertainment
3 out of 5
BBKing and Classical were very good. Just needed more variety. Dueling pianos were boring; humanity show was disjointed; walked out after 15 minutes; comedian and magician were very good.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Heru and Tri, room stewards were excellent, top notch and great ambassadors for HAL. Krystle at the sea view bar was excellent as were two other bar tenders there; the maitre'd in the MDR refused to seat us for dinner because we were 5 minutes late after an excursion in Juneau, so I give him low marks because there was still a lot of service in the MDR taking place. He sent us to Lido which was over crowded with many stations closed and little food available. Concierge very helpful and we appreciated the coffee service in the AM.I woiuld rate the stewards as a 5 and the LIDO staff a 3 because it was never clean; I wold rate the MDR maitre'd a 2. So it is tough to come up with a rating. The steward made this as high as it was as did the staff at Pinacle and the bar tenders at the sea view bar
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Very clean (except for LIDO which was substandard). However ship is tired and need of a face lift in many places. The back pool deck is large and nice; the lounge in front is great for viewing
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
Great Cabin because of the stewards. HAL should be embarrassed by the sofa bed, however. For suite customer to sleep on springs, not a mattress, is just plain wrong. Thankfully, I asked the steward for a mattress topper pad that made sleeping tolerable on the sofa bed. it was big enough for one person. Thankfully we were 3 and not four people.The room is tired with the carpet frayed. I loved the size of the room and the verandah. They were great and the two main beds were comfortable. Hereu and Tri were excellent stewards who kept the room clean. Bath facilities were excellent
Kayaking excursion to eagle island was fun. I would have like more time on the water. guides really did not want us to have single (not tandem) kayaks -- even though we are very experienced.
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