I just read a post by Rick (f-mattox) in another thread about this topic. It was discussed here some time back as they were playing with the new policy. They went from smoking allowed always to no smoking ever overnight. Then due to some pressure from their regulars on both sides they made a compromise and some nights were for smokers and other nights smoke free.
Does anyone know what the end result was and what the policy actually is? Is it different on different ships? Have they ever released anything with a real policy again. I actually called HAL and they could not tell me what their own current policy was. What has been everyones experience recently on the ships?
I haven't been on HAL in the past 2 years. They may be doing what Princess is doing. On formal nights there is no smoking allowed in the casino on Princess ships.
Thanks for the update Gary. I'm left to wonder if they play it by ear. Seems sometimes there is still no smoking and on other sailing some nights smoking and other night no smoking as Rick experienced. Funny that they can pull it off doing it different on different sailings. Must depend on how many complaints they recieve onboard, I just don't know. will keep scrathing my head until I get another announcement. Makes it hard to advise clients.
Maybe it depends on how much casino traffic they have. On the Emerald Princess, the non-smoking nights, the casino was almost empty. There were only a few people at the tables and almost no one on the slots, on smoking nights you could hardly walk. I guess you could tell your clients that there is an area near the casino where they could smoke for smoking clients and for non-smoking clients advise them that they at least have non-smoking areas in the casino.
Originally posted by penny3333: I haven't been on HAL in the past 2 years. They may be doing what Princess is doing. On formal nights there is no smoking allowed in the casino on Princess ships.
Maybe this was just a trial on certain ships? On the Golden Princess January 12th there was smoking. There are signs no cigars, pipes, or chewing tobacco though.
on the Zuiderdam in october 2006 they advertised 2 no smoking nights; neither one was no smoking. The casino staff had no explanation and di not seem to care since the people in the casino were primarily smokers.
Reading the last post and the previous one from Penny, it looks like no smoking casino nights might not last. If they can't fill the casinos on non-smoking nights but stay packed on nights when smokers are welcome there will certainly be smoking allowed in the casinos in the future.
On the Grand P there was 1 non smoking night just last week. I don't know if it was as crowed or not as we won't go near the casino when they're smoking but it certainly did smell better.
Talked to a friend last night who is going on the Noordam 24 day Trans-Atlantic and she said something about no smoking in the Casino until after 10:30pm.
Each ship seems to be different, and I think each cruise seems to be different......you can be on the same ship and one week it's NO smoking and the next it could be smoking or 2 nights NO smoking.
We were on the Zuiderdam recently, but I can't remember if there was smoking or not.
Maybe it all depends on the age group traveling at the time or possibly they're testing the waters for future cruises. I can tell immediately if a casino is having a non smoking night or not - almost before I step into the entrance.
