Concierge Guests Viewed As Potential Thieves?

[Feelin' Nauti']

It's simple a ship turns all of its rooms in basically a few hours. No hotel will ever empty all if its rooms only to fill them again in such a short period of time. The cruise line has to take steps a hotel would never have to in order to get this done.

 

You can't have it both ways. expect to get in to your cabin by 1:00 on embarkation and expect the crew to do no prep work the night and morning before debarkation. It is part of cruising..... deal with it..

Cabin steward removes items to clean the night before this way they are ready for the next passengers.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

[irishayes]

I seriously cannot believe this thread has gone on this long about such a silly thing. The reason has been explained for why they did it. And it is a reasonable explanation.

 

If something like this stresses you out to the point of tears, you really don't have much to stress about in life.

[Cruise Junky]

It's simple a ship turns all of its rooms in basically a few hours. No hotel will ever empty all if its rooms only to fill them again in such a short period of time. The cruise line has to take steps a hotel would never have to in order to get this done.

 

You can't have it both ways. expect to get in to your cabin by 1:00 on embarkation and expect the crew to do no prep work the night and morning before debarkation. It is part of cruising..... deal with it.

 

B.

 

That's not really my problem, it's Celebrity's. If they cant turn it around on my morning of disembarkation then hire more staff.

[KatnipKris]

I understand where the OP is coming from. I am a frequent cruiser who normally cruises with Royal Caribbean, the last one was on the Allure in February. We had an excellant stateroom attendant throughout the week. Not only was our room kept spotless, but he was very personable too.

 

On the first day, he asked if we wanted ice once or twice a day. I requested twice as we drink a lot of water. Also on the Alllure they place chocolate on the pillows at night when they make up the room after dinner.

 

I am used to the last night after tips are handed out you normally won't see your stateroom attendant anymore. We had the tips placed on our account during the week, then the last night handed out the vouchers in envelopes with additional added where we felt needed. Due to being so pleased with our room steward we added another twenty dollars to his original tip plus wrote on our guest survey his name and how pleased we were with him.

 

Then after dinner when we got back to the room, I thought my family was teasing me when our beds had no chocolate on the pillows (you have to understand, that little chocolate makes my day with cruising). Then checked the ice bucket and it was mostly water with no fresh ice. The funny thing is, I told the room attendant before dinner he could remove the robes as that my husband didn't even use his, but the robes were still in our room.

 

I called and asked for ice (the only time I called him all week). When he brought it he said he was sorry, they were cleaning the ice machine earlier and it wasn't available. That did not explain the lack of the chocolate on the pillows.

 

In some ways it was a small thing, but it was the final impression left on a customer before debarkation.

 

Now that we have been home a few weeks, it seems inconsequencial overall. At the time it was very upsetting.

 

Overall, we loved the Allure and everything else about her. Our next cruise is on the Century on May 14th doing the Pacific Coastline.

[lysolqn]

With all due respect to the OP, I'd list his/her complaint in the "Top Ten All Time Much Ado About Nothing Cruise Gripes." Considering the number of threads I've seen over the years about smuggling booze on board, sharing drink packages, and avoiding tips to dining room staff when eating at the buffet (thievery? perhaps not in the literal sense but questionable behavior nevertheless), is it any wonder Celebrity and every other cruise line with which we've sailed finds it necessary to remove certain tempting "souvenir" items from cabins on the last night of each cruise to prevent them from being pilfered a la hotel towels, soap, shampoo and now-extinct ashtrays? (Don't bother retorting with "those things are there to be taken;" that widespread mindset of many pax only supports the cruise lines' efforts to retain what rightly belongs to them.) If you can't make it through the last few hours of your cruise without being 'stressed [to the brink] of tears' because you were 'mistreated' to the extent of being denied flowers, binoculars, fruit, an umbrella and a faux leatherbound ship directory, you're best off booking your next cruise on a private luxury yacht.

[lysolqn]

The point is, I shouldn't have to. I pay additional to have fruit in my room, the fruit I want and specifically have asked for. (I'm allergic to a lot of other fruit). What is available at the buffet might not be anything I can actually eat.

 

I might have a blood sugar issue and need that immediately, not 30 minutes later from room service.

 

I have a unique name, and the passenger after us had a unique name. I wouldn't want anyone googling me, finding my address, and knowing I'd be gone 10 days. It's a long shot, but it wouldn't make me happy. And it was annoying to search around for a pen.

 

 

I always find it humorous that cruise pax sometimes always say "Put yourself in the role of the steward...think about how little they are paid. I don't see anyone in their hometown putting themselves in the role of the underpaid waitress with six kids, and they stiff her a tip because she didn't fill their water enough, or putting themselves in the role of the woman cleaning rooms at a land based hotel, and leave her barely anything compared to the per diem they would give a room steward.

 

I just don't see the same compassion and "logic" used applied to staff at any land based conversation.

 

Do you mean the same "compassion and logic" for Chilean Sea Bass you hoped to arouse in X cruisers by means of your recent thread?

[Cruisematic]

7 day cruises are at best 6 1/2 day cruises because the last morning all you get is breakfast and a tedious wait for an elevator to get to the gangway. Not much of the cruise experience is still to be had while disembarking. The fact is there are probably a few (especially newbies) paxs that aren't shy to confiscate any loose item of value in the room on the last night. It is probably a policy put in place to preempt a multitude of complaints about revised charges to your account during disembarkation.

[cruie4ever]

This thread is dealing with bascically two issues.One is peoples feelings & feelings are important. The other is business practices & the cruise lines profitability .That being said imo this thread has been exhausted in both ways.

 

I personally believe in customer satisfaction ;however, there are limits .As far as thievery aboard a cruise ship is concerned ;obviously it has & will continue to occurr by yes thieves .Thus ,it is up to the cruise line to blend good customer satisfaction with protecting their properties . I personally don't take it personally & again ,if someone feels that they have been harmed in any way ,then those issues need to be taken up with the cruise lines land based management .

 

To contact any publicly listed corporation ,just go to http://www.yahoo.com ,click finance ,next put in the company stock symbol ,then click on profile on the left column & you will then see all the corp officers names ,their corp .address & tel # .

[mafig]

Well, DO they sterilize the binoculars? I would never even thought of that, but now that someone mentioned it as a possibility, I wonder if they do. Anyone know?

[Booyakasha]

That's not really my problem, it's Celebrity's. If they cant turn it around on my morning of disembarkation then hire more staff.

 

Would you be willing to pay extra? Staff costs a lot.

 

Would you be willing to wait until 3:00 or 4:00 to check in to your room like a hotel?

 

How about not get on the ship until 1:00 until the rooms are ready, an empty ship gets cleaned faster.

 

Celebrity puts a lot of effort in to striking a balance between what is best for passengers getting on and getting off and how much a cruise costs and how much profit they make. You have to take all of these things in to consideration.

 

Your statement is misinformed.

 

B.

[patty1955]

Isn't it possible that previous cruisers have mistakenly packed the binoculars? The issue may not be that they are stolen, but taken in error. Flowers and fruit being removed after a week seems okay to me. I'm sure I wouldn't even notice the cover being gone, especially with packing to be done

And I don't mean to be snarky, but it reduced the OP to tears? Really? Their travels must be a lot smoother than ours if that is the worst that's ever happened.

[excitedofharpenden]

Would you be willing to pay extra? Staff costs a lot.

 

Would you be willing to wait until 3:00 or 4:00 to check in to your room like a hotel?

 

How about not get on the ship until 1:00 until the rooms are ready, an empty ship gets cleaned faster.

 

Celebrity puts a lot of effort in to striking a balance between what is best for passengers getting on and getting off and how much a cruise costs and how much profit they make. You have to take all of these things in to consideration.

 

Your statement is misinformed.

 

B.

Bingo!

 

Phil

[Rick-cruiser]

I cannot stand, in all venues of life - not just on cruise ships - being treated like a criminal just because of the few rotten apples that actually do steal.. Prosecute them to the full extent, but do not make outwardly overt scrutinizations of every passenger --> to the extent that they feel uncomfortable and offended.

 

As an example, on a cruise to New England on the Carnival Victory, you could not walk from one end of the main Entertainment deck without having to pass through a narrow metal-detector-like structure, causing extreme bottlenecks and long lines.. Scooters and wheelchair-users could not fit through these passageways....they had to turn around, find an elevator to go up or down a deck, travel the direction they were heading, then find ANOTHER elevator to go BACK to the Entertainment deck...

 

Why did they make everybody pass through these contraptions?. Because at that point on the Entertainment deck you had just passed the photography area... and they were checking each and every passenger to make sure that they hadn't stolen a photograph.....

 

There is a certain point, a threshold if you will, in which the attempt to catch a criminal oversteps the bounds of the general passengers' treatment and respect.. As a business, you do not want that to be a lingering cloud over what was otherwise a wonderful vacation.

 

- Rick

.

[Cruise Junky]

Would you be willing to pay extra? Staff costs a lot.

Would you be willing to wait until 3:00 or 4:00 to check in to your room like a hotel?

 

How about not get on the ship until 1:00 until the rooms are ready, an empty ship gets cleaned faster.

 

Celebrity puts a lot of effort in to striking a balance between what is best for passengers getting on and getting off and how much a cruise costs and how much profit they make. You have to take all of these things in to consideration.

Your statement is misinformed.

 

B.

 

There's nothing misinformed about my post. If Celebrity can't cope, maybe they need to take a page from HALs book. They are now deploying extra staff to help clean the rooms on embarkation day so clients can have access to their rooms right away.

[tip]

I seriously cannot believe this thread has gone on this long about such a silly thing. The reason has been explained for why they did it. And it is a reasonable explanation.

 

If something like this stresses you out to the point of tears, you really don't have much to stress about in life.

 

 

Well said. This is what I would call a classic Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"!;)

[Ma Bell]

There was a thread on the boards yesterday asking us if we might be considered high maintenance. Seems like this thread has done a good job of answering the question.;)

[Tucker in Texas]

I read (or maybe heard from a "striper" on a ship) that they lose about $4K a week in things that "walk." Whole sets of dinner china and flatware are accumulated through the week. Even toilet paper and kleenex in the public bathrooms are not sacred.

 

Tucker in Texas

[tip]

There was a thread on the boards yesterday asking us if we might be considered high maintenance. Seems like this thread has done a good job of answering the question.;)

 

For once, Ma Bell, we are in agreement!:D

[bellybutton530]

Disregard post. I put it in the wrong thread.

[bighairtexan]

In some ways we're all treated as potential thieves, perhaps not quite as pointedly. Every grocery store, every department store builds a certain margin into all their products' costs to cover losses from shoplifters. So in some way I think you could say we're all treated as potential thieves because 90% of us are honest but the actual stores don't assume we're honest and tell us that we don't have to pay the extra "theft margin". Sad but true.

[kitty9]

I just wonder if those who's cruise is ruined by the taking of flowers, fruit, binoculars and leather binders would feel if they got to keep all that stuff, but then, because the crew looses so much prep time the night before disembarkation, that embarkation were delayed by three hours? Seeing how so many cruisers would love to board as early as 9, I just wonder if X were forced to start boarding at 2, would the ones who want to keep all that stuff would change their tune? Still, I just don't get it. In addition to not using the binoculars at night, by the end of a ten night cruise, those flowers are probably looking really nasty and are ready for the trash can.

[seasearider]

Interestingly enough, when we first noticed missing objects on the last night, the explanation was they needed to be sterilized for the next guests. Seem reasonable and prudent to us.

[DizzyDallasDi]

I hate to let this overshadow an otherwise perfect vacation but it does. It caused me a lot of stress on the last night when I already had enough having to pack and get ready to disembark. I was literally in tears that evening after dealing with all of it.

 

Seriously??? This extremely minor event brought you to tears? How do you react when faced with a real crisis?

[dzcruisers]

There's nothing misinformed about my post. If Celebrity can't cope, maybe they need to take a page from HALs book. They are now deploying extra staff to help clean the rooms on embarkation day so clients can have access to their rooms right away.

 

 

I've been on several X cruises and we have been fortunate enough to usually cruise in Concierge. By the time they take the flowers out, they usually aren't so beautiful anyway and I guess we've not looked for binoculars the last night. We usually take our own but they are packed by this time. But I've never thought about it as casting dispersions on my character but as a convenience to the state room attendant and those boarding next who also did this the week before for us so that we could get in more quickly and that all would be great for us. I've never been made to feel anything but comfortable and service has been great to the end. I do put the do not disturb sign on my door the last day until we are out of the cabin for the last time. Flowers and binoculars on the last night do not a cruise make.

[ChucktownSteve]

If it had happened to me, I'd just be glad the cabin attendant didn't put me through the airport TSA pat down type search.