A terrible cabin steward. Have you ever?

[bigque]

We just stepped off the Allure last Sunday after a fantastic cruise. Loved the ship, ate a lots of different places, saw so many awesome shows and spots, it was just amazing.

 

The only negative point (but an important one) was our cabin steward. We had a female steward from Nicaragua who was not friendly, did NOT clean our room every day (we got a total of 1 towel animal) and made it a point of ignoring us when meeting us in the hall.

 

On day 4 I mentioned this to Guest Services who promised to look into it. Still no fresh towels, beds not made, etc.

 

I hate the fact that there are no more surveys (would be mailed after the cruise, but we haven't received any yet) so we can let RCI know about this.

 

Having sailed on several cruiselines and several time on Royal Caribbean, this is the very first time we didn't receive outstanding service.

It didn't ruin our vacation, but I do wonder how we can let her supervisor know this. (And yes, we have placed the "clean the room" card in the key slot and requested her to clean the cabin as we were at dinner).

 

Anyone ever experience this?

 

Did you leave the towels on the floor and if so did she just hang them back up??

[jenfromjersey]

I don't know that being female has anything to do with it. On our honeymoon cruise in December, we had the most amazing cabin stewardess who went above and beyond with her ability to make us feel like family. When my husband's suitcase arrived and hours later mine was still MIA, she tracked it down because she saw how anxious I was getting. I would be thrilled to encounter her again!

[LA_CA_GAL]

Wow, some amazing posts.

 

My routine has always been we get to the room, and we eventually meet our steward.

 

I bring a cooler, and I request that it be filled with ice each day. I also tell them that our sheets do not need replacement daily, twice in seven days is more than enough.

 

I find out their name, where they are from, and actually talk to them. I then give them $20.

 

Without exception, I have had the best cabin stewards imaginable.

 

If I ever encountered some of the problems noted in this thread, I would have gone right to guest services and removed the auto tips.

[Scottifer]

We had a cabin steward that told us that he was praying that "jesus would put a baby in my wife's tummy"

it was...odd

Edited May 9, 2014 by Scottifer
I can spell good

[Isa65]

Did you leave the towels on the floor and if so did she just hang them back up??

 

Always left the dirty ones on the floor. Always found them still on the floor. We had other family members staying elsewhere on the ship and just started borrowing towels from them.:D

[George C]

Have had a issue with a waiter once, we always have had cabin room cleaned twice a day on every cruise I have taken and last week was # 57. Last week room steward was also female and she was great, we left nice tip and will add info on comment card. I would have removed tip and made sure I compained until something was done.

[Debitoo]

I'm low maintenance. I make my bed everyday and pick up the room. On our Rhapsody cruise our steward stopped me in the hallway and asked that I PLEASE stop making the bed. He said "You are on holiday, you no work"! He was amazing!:D

[cruiselvr04]

We have some outstanding stewards in the past but the last few years it has been slipping generally. We "clean" our room on arrival and some are clean and some are downright filthy as evidenced by wipes we use. I know they are busy and have very little time on turnaround day to deep clean.

 

Last cruise our room was never vacuumed as we had sand early in the week on the floor that was still there at the end. I wanted to go get the vacuum myself but am always worried I will make someone mad and I have heard what stewards can do when they get in trouble or you make them angry.

 

If they are nice and friendly I honestly cut them some slack. If they are not and do not do a good job I comment on the comment card at the end but do not complain during the cruise. I require very little. Clean sheets and towels and any leftover dishes picked up, vacuum if needed. We keep our cabin very tidy ourselves.

 

We tip extra at the end for above and beyond but honestly have not seen that lately. We see more of this with the wait staff and almost always give great comments of them and extra at the end.

Edited May 9, 2014 by cruiselvr04

[Langley Cruisers]

...With the automatic tips, she received a whole lot of $$$ for doing nothing.

 

...This thread makes me re-think the auto pre-payment in favor of paying all appropriate tips in the last couple of days aboard...

 

Yes to both of these comments. This has me thinking as well. I was/am in favor of the auto-tip so no one gets "stiffed" and all the crew get what is rightfully coming to them, but, yeah... this makes you think...

 

I don't know OP Isa65 - the only thing I can think of is that she might have been coming to the end of her contract and simply didn't care enough. Or something devastating was going on in her personal life. Both are not excuses, but possible reasons, I guess..

.

[cjdixon4]

DH and I have been quite fortunate to have had some pretty nice cabin attendants. They've ranged from good to very good, but none like the OP described. That's outright "horrible"! Having a cabin steward who doesn't even speak to you in the hallway when you walk by, TO ME is a big no-no. In fact, I don't even like it when everyday people do it. The least they can do is put a smile on their face or nod their head to acknowledge you. I don't think that's too much to expect from a ship employee. Wow...

 

Maybe it's the native Chicagoan in me, but aside from Guest Services and the supervisor, I'll no doubt have some direct conversation with the employee about their attitude. Then I'll proceed with having the greatest vacation ever! ;)

[cjdixon4]

We had a cabin steward that told us that he was praying that "jesus would put a baby in my wife's tummy"

it was...odd

 

Eeeewww...

Really?!? Now THAT was beyond odd. Wonder what that was about... :confused:

[ABC Cruisers]

We had one cabin steward that just walked into our cabin the 2nd day of the cruise, no knock on the door, no make-up cabin on the door, just opened the door & walked in. Luckily I had showered and had finished getting dressed and was going over the daily guide to see what was interesting that day. He had no explanation of why he was there, I said I didn't hear you knock and he said he didn't. I told him I would be headed up to see my husband shortly and would be out of his way in a couple of minutes, he just stood there with his arms crossed and didn't speak to me again, just stood there by the desk staring at me, it was very uncomfortable. Hubby showed up and said hi to the guy, he didn't speak to my husband, he went around him and left. My husband said "well I guess he's having a bad day, not even a hi" and I told him the guy had let himself in and then just stood there watching me with his arm crossed and wouldn't speak to me either when I spoke to him other than confirming he hadn't knocked first. We went and made a complaint and asked for a different cabin steward if possible, to which they said no problem. The next night we were getting ready for dinner and once again the guy just let himself in and confronted us on how dare we make a complaint against him, he could come & go whenever he wanted to as he had a key to let him in. We told him we didn't want any trouble, we just didn't want someone coming in to our cabin without at least knocking. We called his supervisor who apologized and I'm not sure where they put him, but we never saw him again, but that was a week of never relaxing and never knowing when he was going to let himself in again....

[beej]

ABC Cruisers, that is really a scary thing. I'd sleep with a chair stuck under the door knob. Glad you got it resolved

 

For an addendum to our horror steward: She was changed immediately and never was to set foot in our room. We got the greatest guy you could ever want. We made sure he was well taken care of. I just hope that he told her what she lost out on.

[Wilda]

(And yes, we have placed the "clean the room" card in the key slot and requested her to clean the cabin as we were at dinner).

 

?

 

I'm curious, what time of day did you leave your cabin? I ask because I have read from other posters that if they don't leave their cabin until later in the morning and take a nap before dinner it might be hard for the attendant to get in the room....just asking.

 

We've only had so-so service once, and it was a woman. We pick up after ourselves and are pretty low maintenance. That said, we are out of the room very early in the morning and typically out early in the evening for dinner too. So I believe it is easy for our steward to gain access to the cabin.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Wilda

[Isa65]

Agree , it is a fabulous ship! I'm curious, what time of day did you leave your cabin? I ask because I have read from other posters that if they don't leave their cabin until later in the morning and take a nap before dinner it might be hard for the attendant to get in the room....just asking.

 

We went to dinner every night around 6 pm. In the mornings my son would prefer to stay in the cabin, so I told the steward on day 1 that he would just go play Nintendo on the balcony as she is cleaning so don't mind him. I suppose she used that as an excuse to never enter the room when he was there. I even asked my son if someone knocked or came by. The answer? No.

I asked her for daily ice and after day 1 we had to hunt down another steward down the hall for ice.

 

Someone mentioned it might have been a personal crisis. We saw her debarking in St Maarten with some other crew members, laughing and having a good time. So, she couldn't have been too sad...:D

 

But we did have a fantastic cruise, will sail on RC again and will probably forget this lady (and her attitude) very soon...

[torcruise]

My daughter peed in the bed and I removed the blanket so they could see the pee spot, and they didn't change the sheets!:eek: I called housekeeping right away. thats the worst I have had, but that was on carnival

[Wilda]

That's too bad. Glad you were able to work around the poor service and have a good time:)

[cruisinfanatic]

My sister and I were doing a "Girl's Cruise" on another line (ship's name was Star). The first full day on the cruise our room was not cleaned until it was turn down time. The second and third day same thing. Finally I called housekeeping and explained that this was unacceptable and they told me they had a new person. I told them that was their problem and certainly not my problem. They said the manager would be right up and when he appeared he could see our room had not been touched and we were getting ready for dinner. He left and the next thing we know is someone is knocking on the door and it was our attendant who entered the room yelling at us!!! She wanted to know why I would contact her boss. DAH!!! After that we went to guest services and they refunded the automatic tip. When we got home I sent a letter to their corporate offices and they actually responded and gave both of us $100 on board credit on our next cruise. That was not expected but appreciated. Did it ruin our cruise no, did we still have fun, yes.

I probably would have done as you did if I didn't see the attendant before 3 days went by. It wouldn't have in my cabin. The attendant had no right to be yelling, but if I were your attendant, I would have appreciated you telling me that there was a problem before going to the boss.

[Wilda]

I probably would have done as you did if I didn't see the attendant before 3 days went by. It wouldn't have in my cabin. The attendant had no right to be yelling, but if I were your attendant, I would have appreciated you telling me that there was a problem before going to the boss.

 

It's kind of hard to tell someone you are having a problem if you never see them. I say that because we are morning people and see our cabin steward first thing in the morning. We eat dinner early so we typically see them in the hall on our way to dinner. But if you are not on that schedule (sleep til' noon and nap through dinner) I bet it's easy to never see them.

[Ocean View]

The only problem I has was a few years ago. I'll be honest I was so blown away and I couldn't do anything about it we were running late day 1 I threw my bag and stuff on the closet floor my purse in the top drawer in the vanity I know the safe I know it was a quick stupid move. Had an envelope that said cash/ tips I know exactly how much was in it it was written on the front. When we came back from muster I was putting everything away and I was missing 100.00. Nothing I could do my word against theirs. I am very careful and exact when it comes to money. Lesson learned. I have to say I did tip that wk but I did tip a bit less

 

 

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[VernRDH]

Typically we have had good or excellent cabin stewards. The only bad one we had was on Explorer and he was an older American gentleman. We would go out to dinner (early seating) and come back and the room was not made up. And as we had two adjoining cabins and NEITHER was cleaned, it wasn't like we could hang out in the other one. One night DH wanted to just rest a bit after dinner and the bed was not done nor the towels. I had to ask him for towels for the morning.

 

Now the two young ladies across the hall, well he spent a lot of time in their cabin.........

 

Our best steward was on Jewel, I swear he was a ninja who slept under the bed. You could go down the hall, remember you forgot something and go back and the room was spotless, bed made, towel animals, everything. He was awesome!

[will work to cruise]

We've always had good ones, but the best ones were on our Serenade cruises.

[lady_cruiser]

We were on the Navigator of the Seas the week of March 2nd. We always cruised in a Jr. Suite but decided to save money and booked Cabin 9200, a Family Oceanview. It was right under the Bridge and we had a great view of the Helipad.

 

Everything about our cruise was great expect for the first time since we started cruising in 2005, was the service we received from our cabin attendant. When we first walked into our cabin every drawer and cabinet door was opened. Good we thought, he made sure that nothing was left behind. Except when my sister discovered one drawer, on the bottom, left closed. When she opened it to place from in it she found a paper bag with a half eaten can of tuna. Yes, tuna :eek:.

 

This is where it started going down hill. Even though we were not using the pillows on the bunk beds in the kids area (basically a closet with a curtain) he came in and took our pillows for the two people across the hall from us. Told us this after the fact and when we left the morning of disembarking we still didn't see them.

 

Twice he left us with only 1/2 a roll of toilet paper and no extra roll to be found, anywhere. Since he was long gone by the time we came back to the cabin at night we had to hunt another attendant down to get an extra roll of toilet paper (he wasn't answering his phone.) And we really didn't feel like calling House Keeping that late at night. We were lucky to find another attendant working down the hall from us that happily gave us an extra roll of paper.

 

On the last sea day we left our cabin at 8:AM and notice that all the doors around us had their "clean" cabin sign in the door slots. And, naturally we placed ours in our door too. When we came to the cabin around noon we noticed that all the cabins around us had been cleaned but ours. Ours was the only one that sill had the "clean" cabin sign still in the slot. Imagine our surprise when we walked in to find our beds unmade and the towels still on the floor. We put the "do not disturb" sign on the door and started packing. That night, after dinner we came back to finally finding our cabin cleaned.

 

The funny thing is that we always made sure that our cabin was left uncluttered. No clothes hanging around, no bags of souvenirs on the floor and except for the towels in a neat pile on the floor our bathroom was clean with everything (tooth brushes, paste, makeup, deodorant) kept out of sight.

 

All he had to do all week was make the beds and leave us fresh towels. Which at times he left one hand towel and one wash clothes for both my sister and I.

 

Did we take away the tips? NO. Did we give him an extra trip when we left? For the first time ever, NO we did not. Did we give him a bad review when we came back and got our survey by E-Mail. YES we did.

 

I have no idea what happened to him and I really don't care. I just hope I don't run into him on our upcoming August cruise.

[momzcruzing]

I had a cabin steward that drove me nuts in a slightly subtle way on a 15 Night Transatlantic cruise (on Celebrity). He was always friendly and smiling and promising to do whatever asked.... however...

 

I love ice and asked for it twice a day but he wouldn't bring it if there was even the smallest chip of ice in the bucket when he checked. This went on, till I started keeping the little ice he DID give me in the refrig to make it last longer. When he made up the cabin he put ice bucket on vanity, so the last bit melted. When asked he'd say "I always make sure there is some ice" (no matter how small or melted)

 

He would not remove dirty dishes, coffee cups, etc. A small stack of dirty items piled in the corner, repeatedly and he'd say "I didn't think you were done with them" Guess I needed to drink that last drop out of the coffee cup from 12 hours ago. :eek:

 

The flip side to the dishes was that on Celebrity the room steward delivers the room service coffee tray. I let him know that I liked to order coffee & spend the morning drinking it and reading (heaven) Thirty minutes after delivering the tray he'd phone & ask if he could pick it up. I'd repeat that I'd have it most of the morning. Thirty minutes he'd knock at the door. We did this every morning!! Finally I stopped answering the phone & door, next thing I know, he is at my balcony door! Gasp! Scared me to death!

 

He kept bedspreads in the closets and shelves & was repeatedly shuffling thru my items tho I asked him not to.

 

I also asked him for paper room service menus for breakfast and he said no, just order on TV. Imagine my jealousy at looking at all of the menus hung on doors at night.

 

There were other issues too.... I just thought I was going nuts since he seemed so smiley and friendly. I've been on almost 40 cruises and now know it was him & not me. Everyother room steward has been awesome!!

[Coralc]

We had a room steward on Brilliance quite a few years ago that wasn't particularly timely in his service and always seemed sort of stressed and distracted.

 

It was early afternoon. I was sitting out on the balcony reading, and I hear a woman loudly yelling, Help! Help! Can anyone hear us?"

 

I realized that it was the woman on the next door balcony. And I peeked my head around the partition and asked if there was a problem.

 

Apparently their steward had come in to clean, and they told him they were going out to enjoy their balcony while he straightened up the room. They fell asleep on the loungers and when they woke up, the balcony door was locked.

 

The room steward did their room, locked the door and pulled the sheers closed while they were outside.

 

I offered to go in and call security, and as I went to call she yelled, "Wait, Bob has the room card in his pocket."

 

So I went around and let them in from the balcony.

 

He was sort of marginal. I think it sort of disturbing if they actually talked to him before they went out there...and he totally forgot. But we have had a greater number of really outstanding stewards. :)

Edited May 10, 2014 by Coralc