Why do people make a big deal about Cruise Directors???

[PescadoAmarillo]

I can answer this with my own experience. We took our very first Princess cruise, a B2B, this past winter on the Emerald Princess. On the first 10 day leg we had a cruise director exactly as the OP described. He introduced the acts in the main theater and hosted the morning show. We never saw him otherwise. I have completely forgotten his name and he was not memorable in any way.

 

At the end of that leg, he left and Kelvin Joy replaced him. It was truly like night and day how different the entire mood of the ship became, including the attitude of the rest of the cruise staff. I won't detail all of the fun things about that second leg, but believe me the cruise director makes a HUGE difference. :D

 

It was a bit of whiplash, wasn't it? :p And definitely proves the point. I never heard a peep from the Deputy CD Adam, who had been there for weeks, until Kelvin came on board.

 

I agree that a good CD makes a difference...but, like food and entertainment and every else, people can have widely variant views about the same CD. There are some who are soundly dissed on CC every time their name comes us, but we spent many enjoyable cruises with them. Others who appear more popular are not our cup of tea.

[SeagoingMom]

We don't particularly care about the CD, but I fully understand why others do. We are quiet folks who mostly cruise to spend time with each other. However, I know that others cruise to enjoy the social activities onboard -- games, competitions, entertainments, etc., and the CD seems to be so much a part of that that his/her personality becomes, in some sense, the personality of the ship. All I know is, when I have to listen to announcements made by the CD, and watch or even hear him/her run various competitions/games/entertainments, etc. in various public areas of the ship, if the CD is not an engaging personality (with a voice I can stand to listen to), I am not particularly happy. And I am really not involved in most of these cruise activities at all! Imagine how much those who are involved in these things have invested in the personality of the CD!

 

I also think that the CD is the one person of some importance on the ship that pax may feel comfortable coming up to and talking to. It makes a huge difference for these pax, I think, how this sort of interaction turns out. An engaging CD makes all the difference, I should think.

[hospvol]

Generally I do not pay much attention to cruise directors. However, on our recent cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse our cruise director was Sue Denning. Without a doubt, she was the best we ever had.

[Ethel5]

It's a shame that we tend not to notice the good CDs until we get a bad one.

[KruzPrincess]

The CD doesn't make a big difference to me because I don't do a lot of activities, but it's easy to see the difference in how the ship is run when there's a good one vs. a not so good one. Dave Cole and Richard Joseph are the best I've run into. Some people love getting involved with all the activities and want to get to know the staff, so I think it is important to them.

[evandbob]

My favorite CD's are the ones with laryngitis.

[tip]

My favorite CD is the one who is NOT allowed to use the ship's PA system!;)

[CaptData]

Here is a great job description by the one and only Richard Joseph longtime CD from the Island Princess. He posted this a few years ago, enjoy.......

 

 

There seems to be so many posts in regards to Cruise Directors, which I have enjoyed reading over the years. I guess it is normal to want to discuss people in such a high profile position, and I am just thankful that the vast majority of critiques are usually very nice, and the one or two odd ones that are just plain nasty are always self policed by fellow cruise critic members pointing out different opinions and sometimes reminding the poster that perhaps they are being a bit too harsh.

 

While you may see posters trash a particular CD and then the inevitable question as to why the cruise line employs such a person when there are negative comments on the board, it should be kept in mind that the cruise lines look at the Cruise Director’s rating by ALL the passengers each and every cruise. For a CD to keep their job they must maintain a satisfactory rating from the passengers. My point being - because a CD is not well liked by a few people posting on a web site – there are thousands of other passengers each cruise who have given the CD a positive rating in their comment cards. These ratings are the true indicator of the Cruise Director’s performance and actual popularity among the passengers.

 

Cruise Directors, like any other position vary greatly in style. Some passengers like the over the top “A personality” omnipresent CD, while others despise this type of approach and greatly prefer a softer, classier sort. I, after 31 years at sea and 25 years as a CD have experienced many changes as I have matured as a Cruise Director. The younger newly promoted CD may tend to be the omnipresent sort that after a few years of experience will certainly mellow, and become more of a Manager and less of a game show host type. In the last ten years or so I have taken great pleasure in mentoring my teams and training, helping and watching the less experienced team members flourish, and getting them promoted through the ranks. At this stage of my career that is the most satisfying aspect of leading the team. I don’t feel the need to always be the one on the microphone. While I greatly enjoy hosting the major events & shows, I feel the other activities afford excellent training opportunities for the less seasoned team members, after all how will they ever get the experience if the CD never gives them the opportunity. If you don’t see me on stage, have a look you will usually see me or my Deputy in the lounge monitoring how the events are being hosted, with a post activity debrief for training purposes.

 

Over the years as the ships have grown, so have the teams that the CD manages. In the mid-80’s the ships were in the 30,000 ton range, had one show lounge with 800 or so passengers and a Entertainment team of under 30. On today’s 80,000 plus ton ships there is an entertainment team of usually over 130 and over 2000 passengers, with at least 5 or more entertainment venues. So the Cruise Director’s role has become much more administrative. Having said that I do have five managers assisting me in the task of running the entertainment and activity programs and managing the team. They are the Deputy Cruise Director who is my 2nd in charge, the Line Captain who is in charge of the Production Shows, choreography, costume maintenance, and Dancers, a Senior Production Manager, who is responsible for the lighting and sound in the various entertainment venues, the Band Master who manages all the Musicians, and the Youth Activities Coordinator responsible for the kid’s program. These 5 Managers follow the programming as set forth and are directly supervised by the Cruise Director.

 

I have mapped out a sea day for me this season here aboard Island Princess.

 

7:30-7:55am Public Area Walk-through to be certain that all is prepared for the day and that music levels and lighting are at the proper levels

8:00-8:45am Captain’s Executive Committee Meeting

9:00-9:30am Passenger Services Director’s Hotel Meeting

9:45am Morning Rundown announcement

10:00-10:45am Port Talk or Disembarkation Briefing

10:45am Office Session work my way through 30 emails, while meeting with various team members discussing the issues of the day.

11:15am Try and get to Bingo to call the first couple of games and have some fun with the passengers.

11:45am 45 minutes of socializing with the passengers in the high traffic areas just to say hello to as many people as possible and be seen.

12:30pm Entertainment Department Manager’s meeting

1:00-2:30pm Lunch and Afternoon Break.

2:30pm Afternoon Rundown announcement

2:35pm 40 Minutes of socializing

4:00pm Various Administrative Tasks –(These can include safety committee meetings, health and welfare conferences, crew recreation meetings, disciplinary hearings, etc.)

4:30-5:30pm Office Session again trying to wade through the emails which have now grown to 50, and office hours with an open door policy for any team member.

5:30pm Record the Morning TV Show for the next morning

6:00-6:45pm Dinner and change into Evening attire

6:45pm Public Area Walk-through to be certain that all is prepared for the evening and that music levels and lighting are at the proper levels

7:00pm Captain’s Welcome Party or Captain’s Circle Party or Most Traveled Passengers Party, or Private Group Cocktail Party, or Cruise Critic Party, etc.

8:00pm Host first show in Theatre

9:00pm One more attempt at clearing the day’s accumulated emails

9:30 Socializing & another check all venues are operating as directed, lights are set for proper ambience, any game shows are being presented to prescribed standards, etc.

10:00pm Host second show in Theatre

11:00pm A walk around the Lounges for socializing before heading back to the office to conclude any unfinished administrative work

 

A very busy day and I absolutely love most of it!

 

Keep in mind that the above schedule is only on sea days. The port days are significantly less busy and give us the chance to catch up on administration and get some time ashore.

 

I hope this has provided an insight into what your Cruise Director may be doing during the course of the day. What makes the days so special are meeting many wonderful people as we make our way around the ship. We also get to enjoy the same wonderful sights and scenery that our passengers do. And of course the inevitable interaction with someone who may not be so wonderful, which is a good chance to exercise our public relations skills and do our best to put a smile on their faces, or assist them with a problem or issue they may be having.

 

So a huge thanks to all the great friends I have made over the years that have said so many great things here on Cruise Critic. You are the folks who can see the big picture – that the CD is responsible for the presentation of each and every aspect of the entertainment and activity programs – even if not physically hosting the event. I am so proud of the teams that I lead, and I realize without them I could never do it all on my own.

 

 

All the best!

Richard Joseph

Cruise Director

 

This will give everyone an idea of how busy the CD's are. This post was May the 6th this year. Although this is not our CD (and the actual post was a few years ago), I think it helps to understand what they do and how they keep their positions.

Edited May 26, 2014 by CaptData

[Hlitner]

We have an easy way of rating cruise directors. Any more then 1 PA announcement per day knocks them down to a major annoyance! For us, CDs are the people that interrupt our peaceful sea days with drab announcements that only repeat what is already on the written schedule. And now, many CDs also have to promote various "sales" and "promotions" so they sound more like Used Car Salesmen/Saleswomen then activities directors.

 

We have been on numerous cruises (close to 3 figures) and can only remember 2 CDs! One was a Princess CD named Janet Edwards who loved to say "Ciao for Now." The other (our favorite CD of all time) was Tom Faulkner of HAL who during his first shipwide announcement said he would only make a single announcement every day (at the time of the Captain's daily report) because he assumed that everyone was capable of reading the daily schedule delivered to their cabin and available at numerous places around the ship.

 

On our most recent Princess Cruise we had an annoying CD who ended every announcement (3 to 4 per day) by saying "If it isn't in the Patter is does not matter." We hoped he would add that since it is all in the "Patter" there would be no more annoying announcements...but this CD seemed to love the sound of his own voice. We have only been off the ship about 1 week and have already forgotten his name.

 

Hank

[AE_Collector]

This demonstrates how everyone is different. If we are in our room and hear announcements outside of our room we quickly change the TV to channel 49 if it is on and if not we quickly open our cabin door to hear the announcements. The more information we have the better we are able to plan our busy day onboard.

 

I know that others don't want this and have always thought that a switch in the cabin that allowed the passengers to determine if they would like to hear lower priority messages in their cabin as well would be a good idea. Celebrity M class ships have a non functional switch on the wall that I finally determined was for this purpose but no longer appears to work.

 

Terry

[pris993]

Why do so many people here on CC make such a big deal about who the Cruise Director is on the cruise ship they are about to go on? I don't get it. To me the CD it just the guy I see every morning on the TV wake up show and every now and then in passing on deck.

But on the other hand it is the rest of the cruise staff that as passengers that we deal with day and night in the many many activities around the ship, from bingo, to crafts, dance lessons, games, trivia and too many other activities to name.

On our previous cruises it is the cruise staff that we have made friends with and it was those members of the crew that we had to say goodby to when we left because it was the cruise staff that made our cruise not the CD. Just our opinion...

 

 

You are not alone, we have over 50 cruises and I don't get it either. We could care less. We don't participate in a lot of on board activities either, we love being at sea and simply enjoy sitting on our balcony, we take in an evening show now and then. So I guess we are not the typical cruiser.

[Wehwalt]

I rarely notice who the CD is but I will notice if trivia isn't run well.

 

Trivia in my view is rarely run well, but I don't want to hijack the thread!

 

I agree with those who say that the cruise director is, important as he is in setting tone and making sure all is run smoothly, not who one sees and interacts with on a daily basis. At least not me. I've rarely spoken with one more than passing, though I've seen them have extended conversations with passengers, with others hovering waiting their turn. It's not really my thing.

 

You are not alone, we have over 50 cruises and I don't get it either. We could care less. We don't participate in a lot of on board activities either, we love being at sea and simply enjoy sitting on our balcony, we take in an evening show now and then. So I guess we are not the typical cruiser.

 

I have only about 20 cruises, and I entirely agree. Aside from trivia (mostly because I've been playing organized trivia of one sort or another since I was 18), I rarely go to an activity. I'll go to a show if I think I'll like it. Watching the waves go by on my balcony ... watching amazing lighting at sunset as we pull away from the Florida coast ... stars and distant storms while walking the jogging track in the wee hours all alone. I want the crew to enhance the experience.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Wehwalt

[shredie]

CDs do make a difference. But it is most notable when a great one is compared to a not so great one.

 

Our first CD, Gavin Chandler, was great.

 

Agree!

 

 

Our next cruise had Neil Roberts, who was apparently at the end of his contract. He did his job -barely.

 

 

I have to laugh! You are so right about him!

 

I watch the Wake Show most mornings while I drink coffee. A good CD is obvious, a bad one even more so.