Disappointment on Whisper in Venice

What has happened to Silversea?? Just a year and a half since our last cruise (on the Wind) and we are sorely disappointed in the level of service we are having. We have been on board since 4:00pm local time. Room was ready and luggage had been delivered. After 5:00 mister, we went to shower. No word from the butler until we called him at 10 minutes to dinner. He was rushed and unprepared. We had informed through email that my husband is on CPAP and were told there was an outlet by the bed. No outlet. We asked how to set this up and after dinner a power strip, still too short, was on the desk. We called and waited for him for over 45 minutes. I’m afraid to order breakfast for fear we won’t get it in time for our tour tomorrow! Our mini bar had not been serviced and our drink requests were noticeably missing.Dinner in La Terrazza was also lacking in the service department. We had to ask for wine, and our water was never refilled.

Hope they get on their game, or tomorrow we will be going to complain.

I think you should raise these issue with HD if they continue.

I am no fan of the butler system. But they are very busy and generally well-meaning and hard working. They service multiple suites, and it is especially trying to deal with all guests promptly on embarkation day. Some guests may even ask the butler to unpack their bags, thus taking up lots of precious time.

It's important for guests to understand that the butler is not dedicated to one's suite -- like the household butler most guests employ on land. :)

Breakfast is particularly challenging for butlers -- esp. when on port days when many guests want their customized breakfasts at the same time (90-60 minutes before tours depart?) On such days, I always go to La Terrazza for breakfast and don't rely on a harried butler.

So sorry you are disappointed. I sailed her in July and had a fabulous trip. Being afraid to order room service? Not good. I agree with the previous poster and would suggest a calm chat with Head of Housekeeping concerning the room. Or as mentioned, tell Guest Relations you would like an appt with the Hotel Director. Oh, for food and service in La Terraza, personally I would speak with Maitr'd about it.

Normally, I try to go to the correct person for the specific dept before seeing the H.D...…….but that is just me.

I think you should raise these issue with HD if they continue.

Appreciate this added background information from Observer, especially the key suggestion for contacting and talking with the Hotel Director. It's their responsibility to work on and solve these types of issues. My past experiences from a couple of different times is the HD like to hear about any situations needed fixed or improved. Good luck!!

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Lisbon, NWSpain, Bordeaux/Brittany: Finished June 2017 sailing on the Silver Spirit from Portugal to France along the scenic Atlantic Coast, plus great pre- and post-cruise experiences. Now at 24,753 views. Many interesting pictures and details on history, food, culture, etc., from my live/blog at:

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2511358

So sorry you are disappointed. I sailed her in July and had a fabulous trip. Being afraid to order room service? Not good. I agree with the previous poster and would suggest a calm chat with Head of Housekeeping concerning the room. Or as mentioned, tell Guest Relations you would like an appt with the Hotel Director. Oh, for food and service in La Terraza, personally I would speak with Maitr'd about it.

Normally, I try to go to the correct person for the specific dept before seeing the H.D...…….but that is just me.

I agree that going to Maitre d' or Head of Butlers, etc.,makes more sense in the first instance and makes fewer waves for hard-working staff.

It's not that I am "afraid" to order room service breakfast on port days when lots of tours are departing early. I go to La Terrazza to relieve a bit the load on the butler who may be stretched trying to serve lots of hot, customized breakfasts (white tablecloth and all) within a small window shortly before tour departures.

Good morning, Observer, the original poster was saying they were afraid to order room service...…….that is what I was responding to;)…….I love La Terrazza for breakfast......the views can be lovely!:)

We ordered coffee and pastry only and it came on time. We had a mostly lovely tour today in Slovenia.

Service seems hit or miss on the whole ship. We are used to the smiling and welcoming attitudes from the staff. Not so much on this sailing. The staff seem stressed and worried. There is definite tension in the air everywhere!!!

I am a psychologist with a specialty certification in body language. I read people’s stress response for a living.... there is something seriously odd going on here that I have never picked up on with any cruise, let alone Silversea! We are not going to let it ruin our cruise, but this is definitely not the attitude of Silversea we love and enjoy.

Another hiccup.... last night the shower was draining very slow. It flooded the floor. This morning still water. We didn’t shower this morning and now at 4:30pm (sailing away) we still have water, lots of water, swishing away on the floor. It’s coming in from somewhere..... Butler has no idea. Sending an engineer..... hope they can fix it. The ship is sold out!!!

I agree that going to Maitre d' or Head of Butlers, etc.,makes more sense in the first instance and makes fewer waves for hard-working staff.

 

It's not that I am "afraid" to order room service breakfast on port days when lots of tours are departing early. I go to La Terrazza to relieve a bit the load on the butler who may be stretched trying to serve lots of hot, customized breakfasts (white tablecloth and all) within a small window shortly before tour departures.

It's not your job to worry how many suites the butler has to service. If Silversea can't provide the butler service they advertise they shouldn't offer it.

It's not your job to worry how many suites the butler has to service. If Silversea can't provide the butler service they advertise they shouldn't offer it.

Agreed!

I believe that our butler has way more suites than he can reasonably handle. We have seen him servicing rooms on 3 different floors!!! This seems outrageous. We are not “needy” by any means! I prefer to pack and unpack myself. All I really expect is a timely response to the necessities, a clean room, and fresh towels when needed. The water problem is not our butlers fault, nor his job to fix it. However, Silversea reception kept sending our concerns to the butler.... this should have promptly gone to maintainence.

We ordered coffee and pastry only and it came on time. We had a mostly lovely tour today in Slovenia.

Service seems hit or miss on the whole ship. We are used to the smiling and welcoming attitudes from the staff. Not so much on this sailing. The staff seem stressed and worried. There is definite tension in the air everywhere!!!

I am a psychologist with a specialty certification in body language. I read people’s stress response for a living.... there is something seriously odd going on here that I have never picked up on with any cruise, let alone Silversea! We are not going to let it ruin our cruise, but this is definitely not the attitude of Silversea we love and enjoy.

We experienced the same level of apparent employee stress on our Shadow cruise to Alaska. The ship had just failed a CDC inspection.

I wonder if the takeover by RC is having a stressing effect on the crew now. My experience with corporate takeovers is there is usually a period of 'evaluation' of existing staff, following by a 'housecleaning'. Most SS crew are on contracts, which may be up for renewal soon. They're probably all very stressed!

Our discussions with crew on previous sailings has indicated that working for SS means they get (got?) paid a decent wage and don't need to depend on tips for their livelihood. Far more important to them is a good review on the customer evaluation, so that their contracts will be renewed.

My previous experience with corporate takeovers involved a family owned business being taken over by a large corporation which was profit driven. (Very similar to what has happened with SS and RC.) With the family owned business, everyone was happy as long as they made money. It was a happy place, with a 'win/win' attitude. Customer service was considered very important. When the private owners sold to the corporation, the whole corporate attitude changed. Instead of being happy with just a profit, the new corporate owners needed to maximize the profit in order to keep the shareholders happy. A period of evaluation took place for the first three months of ownership. At the end of those three months there was the first cleaning out of what the new owners considered to be 'deadweight': employees who were not pulling their weight or executives with many years service who were being paid hefty salaries. Middle managers were assigned jobs for which they were not really qualified, but could be paid lower salaries than the (now departed) executives. Instant ROI.

Next, they evaluated the 'on the ground' employees, and amalgamated services to achieve maximum efficiencies. The 'personal touch' went out the window, and was replaced with a CRM (customer relationship manager) computer program. Customer service, instead of reacting to the needs of the customers, reacted to the algorithms of the CRM. Customer service agents did data entry instead of dealing with clients. During this time the existing staff were extremely stressed.

I believe this might be what is occurring on the ships now: RC has sent someone to oversee the operations and write some sort of evaluation. This is stressing out the existing staff.

The other possibility (this is purely conjecture - I have nothing to back it up) is that RC is in the process of refining the contracts with the SS employees to match their contracts with RC employees. This would be part of the streamlining. SS employees might be offered lower compensation packages (with the thought that 'tips' will make up the difference, seeing as even though the cruises are advertised as 'including tips', but many cruisers tip on top of that, so they can cut back on employee payment). Or, they might be worried that they're about to be bumped from their jobs by RC employees with more seniority. Again, this would be very stressful to existing employees who have been used to 'private' ownership, and are now part of a much larger corporate structure.

The first year of a corporate takeover is usually very stressful. I'm not surprised it's showing up onboard, especially if there haven't been reassurances from upper management. Silence from above, when you're a working minion, is terrifying.

We experienced the same level of apparent employee stress on our Shadow cruise to Alaska. The ship had just failed a CDC inspection.

Your post is filled with a good deal of speculation about the effect of the RCL purchase of a majority share of Silversea.

But I was struck by your assertion that Shadow failed a CDC inspection this summer. This was (alarming) news to me.

So I checked the CDC webpage and can find only that Shadow was inspected on May 26, 2018 and earned a quite respectable -- and certainly not failing -- score of 93.

Were you on a later cruise that was inspected and failed? Would you kindly share the source of your information that Shadow failed a post-RCL purchase inspection by CDC.

An assertion like your needs to be factual.

Some guests may even ask the butler to unpack their bags...

I'm not used to luxury cruising, but I find that bizarre... because I want to know where all my 'stuff' is after it's unpacked.

Your post is filled with a good deal of speculation about the effect of the RCL purchase of a majority share of Silversea.

 

But I was struck by your assertion that Shadow failed a CDC inspection this summer. This was (alarming) news to me.

 

So I checked the CDC webpage and can find only that Shadow was inspected on May 26, 2018 and earned a quite respectable -- and certainly not failing -- score of 93.

 

Were you on a later cruise that was inspected and failed? Would you kindly share the source of your information that Shadow failed a post-RCL purchase inspection by CDC.

 

An assertion like your needs to be factual.

I must be going blind.

Where did MLeh say that the cruise was in summer and after it was taken over by RCL?

I must be going blind.

 

Where did MLeh say that the cruise was in summer and after it was taken over by RCL?

MLeh's post begins:

"We experienced the same level of apparent employee stress on our Shadow cruise to Alaska. The ship had just failed a CDC inspection."

Seems simple to me.

SS Alaska cruises on Shadow are only in the summer -- May through September. You are correct in that we don't know what year that cruise was, but readers (like me, perhaps like Observer) might reasonably assume 2018, in which case it was after the RCL purchase.

If MLeh's Shadow Alaska cruise was prior to 2018, then her introductory paragraph is about crew stress in general, and the not potential RCL-induced stress that she discusses later in the post. That first paragraph can be read either way. Both interpretations are legitimate.

I’m sure that Observer will clarify.

I’m sure that Observer will clarify.

Or... could have the butler to do it. ;)

Or... could have the butler to do it. ;)

Nice one!

I'm not used to luxury cruising, but I find that bizarre... because I want to know where all my 'stuff' is after it's unpacked.

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I think the advice to contact the Hotel Director is spot-on.

I truly believe that if something is not to your liking and could spoil your cruise it is very important that you raise the issue to someone who can address it for you. I am sure this will be an easy one to solve.

Have a great cruise.

Keith

Seems the water issue has been fixed. Breakfast has been timely, and the cabin kept clean. Maybe it was first day jitters with our butler??

Atmosphere onboard is still of stress and rush. Last night at dinner in The Reataurant, we witnessed 4 “collisions” of food, water, etc being spilled by hurried staff.

Tour today has been good, except for the boards of school children that seemed to follow our tour to the beach area. :mad::mad:

We were on the Venice to Monte Carlo voyage, one cruise before yours (I think).

Our butler and steward looked after us and others on deck 5 as well as several suites on deck 4. But were always responsive and pleasant.

We agreed our sailing was one of the best we’ve had for a while; much of this was due to the friendliness and professionalism of the crew. Perhaps some of the crew changed over at some point between our cruise and yours and are finding their feet?

However we did observe two instances of leaks during our trip. The first was water pouring through a light fitting above the stairs on deck eight. The second was when the wheelchair accessible suite on deck 5 flooded. There was also quite a whiff around the Venetian lounge at times particularly in port. The leaks were fixed, the whiff wasn’t.

Hopefully your cruise experience will continue to improve from here!

. Last night at dinner in The Reataurant, we witnessed 4 “collisions” of food, water, etc being spilled by hurried staff.

:mad::mad:

Interesting ... it was only three collisions on the other thread you are running about this cruise ...

Interesting ... it was only three collisions on the other thread you are running about this cruise ...

One was more of a slip and a save... :confused:

I'm glad to hear things have improved.