Sarcastic Staff

[PescadoAmarillo]

Not trying to make excuses for the poor behavior, but speaking with a staffer on my recent Crown Princess cruise, I was absolutely floored to hear about their lives aboard the ship. It's a pretty rough life working 10 hour days, 7 days a week.

This comes up a lot, and, yes, the life of a crew member is not an easy one. But compare it to the life of the average professional in the US (where a 40 hour work week is akin to milk for $1 a gallon)...

 

Work: 50-60 hours per week (at the office)

Commute: 10 hours per week

Cleaning: 4 hours per week

Grocery shopping: 2 hours per week

Cooking meals/packing lunches/cleaning up after: 10 hours per week

Laundry gathering, sorting, folding, putting away: 5 hours per week

Work (brought home from the office) 10-15 hours per week

 

And, at this point, kids have not been cared for and chauffered to appointments and sports, let alone nurtured, and the grass still hasn't been mowed.

 

For the crew, their commute is 2 minutes each way and their duties outside of their working hours are minimal. No, they do not get any days off (which I would think would be the hardest part), but ask the average working mother when the last time is she had a day off and she will likely laugh at the thought.

[Doughnut Dolly]

I have a genuine question -- response from Rejeana or "one" person will suffice. We had a beautiful older person (our age) with a beautiful dress and hat on a recent cruise excursion with 8 persons. I could not resist saying to her: "You look exactly like my image of "A Southern Belle". She just smiled. She was from the South. My question to someone from a real southern town -- Was this compliment OK to give? DW & I have been bothered that it may not have been the right thing to say. I have never visited any typical southern towns but read quite a few novels set in the South.

 

You were not being rude at all. If you live in or are from the South, being told you look like a Southern Belle is a lovely thing to hear. All Southern ladies like to hear lovely comments like yours. I have a shirt that causes alot of comment. It says GRITS and stands for

"Girls Raised In The South" it gets remarks all very nice, but is I hear something not so nice we Southern Ladies usually say.."Well, Bless Your Heart" can be taken many ways.

[docksider21]

I have problem staff all the time -

 

The waiter brings my usual coffee before I get to order it.:eek:

 

When I get back from breakfast, the bed is already made

and I wanted to take a nap. :rolleyes:

 

And, I can't ever get to the bottom of my glass, they

are always refilling it, darn it.:D

[boone2]

We had this happen only once in 10 cruises on Princess. We had stopped at a taverna in Mykonos and we appeared to be the only passengers in a crowd of ship's crew. We understood them, they spoke with British, American and Canadian accents, (I have a really good ear as I'm from the UK originally) and they were totally dissing the passengers on the Emerald complete with profanities, we felt very uncomfortable.

The only rudeness or sarcasm I have heard on ship is from passengers, mainly American, - on our last cruise on the Ruby to Europe, I was stunned by how rude passengers were towards the crew. I had to bite my tongue many times as I can't abide rudeness.

Terry

[Cruisin' Chick]

I'll do some checking to verify, but preliminary indications are that photographers are not part of the tip pool but they participate in an overall bonus scheme based on total photos sold. They also apparently get direct commission on photo equipment sold when they are working the desk. Not sure on albums and the like.

 

I'm sure management also notices which photogs have better sale rates, but have no way of confirming this easily. I'm not even sure if the system tracks which photog uploads a given image, I've never seen the backend of that piece.

 

Total side note - I wish Princess would use this new toy I just saw demoed instead of wasting chemicals on all those prints. With this new kiosk, you step up to it and it uses facial recognition to show every photo you are in in the database which you can scroll through and pick and choose which ones to print. One of the reasons I think photos are so expensive is to cover the spoilage rate of unsold pieces.

 

Wouldn't it be great if this system is used? I always wonder about how many trees were cut down for one cruise's worth of unbought photos.

[Sapphire723]

Wouldn't it be great if this system is used? I always wonder about how many trees were cut down for one cruise's worth of unbought photos.

 

RCCL uses that system (but also prints some photos out too). It was great, except that they only had four kiosks and two of them were broken, so there was a wait to use them. However, it usually takes us a few minutes to find our photos anyway, so it almost balanced out.

[BettyCruiser]

Wouldn't it be great if this system is used? I always wonder about how many trees were cut down for one cruise's worth of unbought photos.

 

 

As I understand it the NCL Epic and Disney Dream both use this system.

[BosoxI]

I have a genuine question -- response from Rejeana or "one" person will suffice. We had a beautiful older person (our age) with a beautiful dress and hat on a recent cruise excursion with 8 persons. I could not resist saying to her: "You look exactly like my image of "A Southern Belle". She just smiled. She was from the South. My question to someone from a real southern town -- Was this compliment OK to give? DW & I have been bothered that it may not have been the right thing to say. I have never visited any typical southern towns but read quite a few novels set in the South.

 

I can'timagine how being called Southern Belle could be taken as anything but a compliment. Life today involves too much walking on eggs,

[BosoxI]

As I understand it the NCL Epic and Disney Dream both use this system.

 

And Celebrity, too. A photog did tell me that the unpurchsed pix are recycled

[BosoxI]

As I understand it the NCL Epic and Disney Dream both use this system.

 

Just returned from the Star Princess FLL to Rome. While obtaining envelopes from the purser's desk I overheard a passenger, one of a very long line, in conversation with a desk member. The subject was (what else) mandatory HOTEL CHG. The staff person said, "Then you want to reduce your daily tip to each of your waiter and cabin steward to one dollar a day?" He immediately responded "No, not EACH per day, it's for both" The staff person then confirmed that he wanted to leave a daily tip of fifty cents per day.

 

Is it any wonder there are verbal retaliations heard aboard?

 

I was on that same cruise and while sitting on my balcony in Barcelona, I think, I noticed many passengers exiting the rear doors of the tour buses and beating a hasty retreat to security with out tipping the guide. Now, there may be occasions where such paucity is justified, but we took 6 private or Princess tours on that trip and found our guides to be quite good. If a person can afford a cruise, surely he can scare up a few bucks for an honest worker.

[mr green]

I have heard of one case, but if I were you, please don't worry. In over twenty cruises,the only rude remarks that I have ever heard have come from the passengers.

 

john

[boating girl]

I asked for grapefruit juice in the buffet on the Emerald. The waiter repeated, "Grapefruit juice?" I said yes and he looked at me and rolled

his eyes. He looked like "Lurch" from the Addams Family Show. My

husband and I had to suppress giggles every time we saw him after

that. I don't know why but rolling his eyes just tickled us instead of

annoying us.

[sultan_sfo]

On a very recent cruise, we were at a large table. Sitting across us was a couple who asked for grapefruit juice. After the waiter had left I mentioned to the couple that it would take a bit longer because unlike OJ the grapefruit juice had to ordered from inside. So when the waiter brought their grapefruit juice they were not annoyed at the waiter.

 

I asked for grapefruit juice in the buffet on the Emerald. The waiter repeated, "Grapefruit juice?"

...

[geoherb]

I had one incident on another cruise line where a very friendly spa staffer during the first half of the cruise turned cold during the second half after we said we were not interested in having pool-side massages.

 

I always try to treat everyone with dignity and respect. I've worked menial jobs and know that how much a small act of kindness can go to make someone feel good.

[pablo222]

For the crew, their commute is 2 minutes each way and their duties outside of their working hours are minimal.

 

I'm sorry, but there are many, many commitments outside

of their working hours -- at least for dining staff.

 

Drills, training, meetings, and other work.

 

For instance, some one from dining has to staff afternoon tea,

and someone has to be the liquor police on port days. This

is in addition to your normal duties, and is usually partly, or

fully during you 'time off'.

 

Lots of training that pax don't even know about. USPH training,

wine training, etc. Drills that pax see, and drills that you

don't see. (like a drill for everyone on in-port manning)

 

It would be really nice if these things occured during your

normal working hours, but they usually don't.

 

Additionally, you get to work an extra hour or two in the dining

room for 'deep cleaning' after service -- before any US port, just

in case there is a USPH inspection.

 

Or, you might finish dinner service at 22:00, clean your station,

and then have to go to the lido and fold napkins for two hours...

[GBeret]

In all our Princess cruises we haven't had any problems with snide/crude remarks, etc. from crew members.

 

On the other hand we have observed plenty of passengers displaying rude behavior, making unnecessary and/or rude/crude remarks to both crew members and fellow passengers on occasion.

[boating girl]

On a very recent cruise, we were at a large table. Sitting across us was a couple who asked for grapefruit juice. After the waiter had left I mentioned to the couple that it would take a bit longer because unlike OJ the grapefruit juice had to ordered from inside. So when the waiter brought their grapefruit juice they were not annoyed at the waiter.

 

 

I wasn't annoyed. As I said, kind of thought it was amusing. I don't

ask for much extra on cruises but do like grapefruit juice. Other waiters

promptly brought it and were very pleasant.

[Artrina]

You're kidding right?

 

My son is a waiter in an upscale steak house in a large US city. He tells me that at least 1 time a week he sees that done by people who feel they've gotten poor service. When the bosses see a waiter receive tips like that more than 1 time that waiter is not working at that restaurant long.

[ONT-CA]

I was on that same cruise and while sitting on my balcony in Barcelona, I think, I noticed many passengers exiting the rear doors of the tour buses and beating a hasty retreat to security with out tipping the guide. Now, there may be occasions where such paucity is justified, but we took 6 private or Princess tours on that trip and found our guides to be quite good. If a person can afford a cruise, surely he can scare up a few bucks for an honest worker.

 

While aboard one of these busses, we noted a gentleman(?) in the second row make his way all the way back to the read door in order to avoid encountering the guide and driver, as well as his own embarrassment, for not offering a least a pittance for their excellent work. And in his hand he held at least three plastic bags containing his purchases made at the tour locations. When gratuities are openly added to tour prices we hope we will understand why

[helpmesailaway]

I saw this also and was appalled. It was more than a few people and I was disgusted. :( Most of the guides want to insure that you enjoy their home and have a great visit. Show some appreciation!