Cruise Director bashes Cruise Critic at Meet & Greet

[phoenix_dream]

Despite the shock of being at the gathering where this message was given, think about why this issue came about. Think about all the heated negative threads that have appeared here over the last six months. Perhaps someone at Celebrity is musing about the impact of this web site and the value of enabling these meetings to take place on board.

 

Another thought is that Celebrity reads all the negative threads lately and realizes they need to make some changes either to what they are doing, or how their message is being perceived. While Cruise Critic is a microcosm of the entire cruising population, they are arguably the most vocal and very effective at spreading opinions. If anything, I imagine they would want to, therefore, use the CC parties as a positive messaging opportunity rather than cancel them.

 

On the topic of that Cruise Director - shame on him if that is what he said. It is never appropriate to insult your guests. On the topic of selling tours - this is absolutely bad form, rude, against rules, whatever you want to call it. I think it is fine after the other discussions are held for people on Roll Calls to identify themselves to make it easier for their fellow travelers to meet up with them for whatever reason. Definitely not ok to be trying to sell space on tours, or for that matter even to mention private tours as part of a public announcement. As to setting up tables, I think the ships should shut them down. If someone wants to exchange payments in their cabin, or discretely somewhere - fine. But to do so in a public space as described - no way.

Edited July 16, 2014 by phoenix_dream

[cruisead]

Ok, while I agree that JC's comments were awful and unnecessary, I just don't know what those of you who want a change in shore excursions expect. You've got anywhere from 2200 to 2800 passengers on the ships, you're visiting ports with limited services such as buses, and in many ports you're competing with as many as 5 other behemoth ships in port at the same time. So, how can they have smaller tour groups, and charge less for those tours, when it might be physically impossible? Where do they get all the necessary transportation vehicles to run these smaller tour groups? How would the infrastructure in these ports handle the increased traffic?

 

While some of you say that these tours are expensive, and in some cases I concur, take a look at the cost of tours on lines like Seabourn and Crystal. Yes, their groups are smaller, but their tour prices make Celebrity's prices look like bargain basement.

[Esprit]

I was at this party and it happened exactly as presented. It was very uncomfortable and pretty shocking. A real mood killer and this party broke up pretty quickly.

 

I stand corrected

[chefcaw]

We've had something similar on a RCI cruise from the activities manager but it wasn't a general announcement. He just told us we couldn't make any announcements about private tours at the M&M. We know a fellow cruiser who was dragged into a interrogation, sorry meeting with the hotel manager when it became known he had organized a private tour for a bus full of CC members. They threatened to put him off the ship amongst other things.

 

I was on that cruise with Jo. The person that the cruiseline threatened to put off the ship was not the original person to begin planning the shore trips. There were many private excursions on that cruise. The shore excursions from the ship were more than double the cost of private excursions. It was an unpleasant experiences for all of us. That cruise was fraught with unpleasantness from the senior management for most of the trip.

 

Chris

[Wine-O]

I can't understand what the CD was thinking. Something or someone must have prompted him to making those comments.

 

I was told that only about 5% of the entire ship is made up of cruise critic/Roll Call pax, and even less on some sailings considering the size of the Roll Call.

[WpgCruise]

Before condemning either Celebrity or the C.D., I'd prefer to know the rest of the story.

 

While I don't doubt the comments were made as has been described, was this a "Message" from Celebrity and the C.D. the one who delivered it?

 

Was this "Message" the result of previous Celebrity sponsored Meet & Greets where open solicitation for privately organized tours happened? Has Celebrity had enough of people using their facilities, generosity in setting aside the resources for our Meet & Greets to compete with them for tours?

 

There is a lot about this we don't know and to jump to hasty condemnation of anyone may well at best be a knee jerk reaction.

 

I recall a thread on the Princess board from a while back where a similar situation occurred. Here's a link. It makes for interesting reading.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1790564

[micruiser12]

We were on an early June Constellation Baltic cruise with JC and Capt Tasos and attended the Connections Party. At that gathering JC did not say anything like that(thank goodness!). The officers were there including the Capt, but did not speak, just were introduced. Throughout the cruise we found this was the friendliest staff including the very humorous Captain we had experienced in 10 cruises. To hear that JC said that at a Cruise Critic Party seems so out of line. Makes me wonder if he was told by headquarters that he needed to say something regarding private tours (which we take most of the time too). If he took that on himself he should be reprimanded as that was inappropriate (like inviting all of your most loyal friends to a party and then insulting them). However, if he was told he had to address this, then can't blame him as much as whomever's orders he was following.

 

Let's hope that Celebrity is not going in that negative direction. I would rather think it is the stupid comment of one cruise director rather than the whole ship's attitude.

[ny cruisequeen]

Hello Everyone:

 

I'd like to thank NYCruiseQueen for bringing this specific issue to our attention. If anyone else has experienced this, please write to me directly at: community@cruisecritic.com.

 

That said, we believe that the sharing of shore excursions in small groups is one of the best features of participating in a Cruise Critic roll call! We do have these rules published in our guidelines:

Cruise Critic's ROLL CALLS are one of the most popular features within our community. In an effort to keep them fair and as safe as possible, the following is in effect:

 

 

SHORE EXCURSIONS

- Sharing shore excursions is fun and can help you save money.

- Get to know the other members in a Roll Call before attempting to get them to tour with you.

- Shore excursions should be arranged so that payment is made directly to the tour operator, do not be the collector of funds for a shore excursion.

- Do not arrange any shore excursions/tours if you are not going to be taking them yourself. In other words NO THIRD-PARTY arrangement of shore excursions are allowed. This includes people who are not participating on the Cruise Critic ROLL CALL *for whatever reason*.

- Travel agents may not arrange shore excursions on ROLL CALLS.

- Anyone attempting to "fill a bus" or making money from the sharing of shore excursions on our forums runs the risk of losing their membership.

- Do not post your email address so that someone can email you information about a shore excursion. If they have important info, they should be willing and able to post this information on the forum. We will remove posts, at our discretion, that are nothing more than requests for emails OR posts providing email addresses.

- Do NOT arrange to collect funds for shore excursion shares at any Meet & Mingle or Meet & Greet so graciously provided by the cruise lines. In the case of Princess Cruises, they have stated you cannot solicit other passengers for any reason once you have booked your cruise. If they observe you arranging tours on board, you run the risk of being asked to debark your cruise at the next port (verified via Princess Cruises March 2013)

***************************

The above shared, I will be contacting Celebrity later today to clear up this issue. Know that we can and do contact individual members who aren't adhering to the above.

 

As with all things, there are always people who just do as they please. We always do our best to ensure Roll Calls and resulting parties/events work well for everyone.

 

Laura

 

Thank you for your response and for clearing up some of my confusion! This is what I was looking for: guidelines.

 

Just to be clear...on Princess you can look for others to share a private excursion on the Roll Call but NOT onboard? I have never seen anyone solicit for any excursion once onboard on any cruise.

 

I have also always thought that emailing privately about excursions was the correct thing to do...two or three individuals discussing their own excursion was called "hijacking" on some previous Roll Calls. In trying to do the "Right Thing" these guidelines are very helpful for the future.

 

Thank you again for your assistance. I love Cruise Critic. I have met the best people through this site, and learned invaluable travel information.

 

Even more important, We have made lifelong friends who We met through private excursions - total strangers who signed up to share them with us...on a Roll Call!

[JezzaC]

I understand cruiser director's comment if someone was selling their own private excursions during the event.

 

However if not, then comment is quite weird - it is not cruise line's business what passengers are doing in the ports. If they want more revenue for their own shore excursions maybe they should develope those to be more appealing on quality and pricewise.

[richstowe]

Hello Everyone:

- Do not post your email address so that someone can email you information about a shore excursion. If they have important info, they should be willing and able to post this information on the forum. We will remove posts, at our discretion, that are nothing more than requests for emails OR posts providing email addresses.

 

The above shared, I will be contacting Celebrity later today to clear up this issue. Know that we can and do contact individual members who aren't adhering to the above.

 

As with all things, there are always people who just do as they please. We always do our best to ensure Roll Calls and resulting parties/events work well for everyone.

 

Laura

I just want to point out that many of us have more then one email adress that we use for corresponding with strangers.

Isn't personal info shared on CC less safe then info shared by email ?

I love everyone here but don't feel secure sharing private info on Cruise Critic.

 

There is a current Celebrity thread on what kills a roll call. It has many comments by those hating the endless

posts by those arranging a private tour. By necessity these tend to go on and on

padding the roll call into hundreds of posts.

 

I would have sent this to you privately but I don't know how to.

Edited July 16, 2014 by richstowe

[LauraS]

I posted my email address in my posting. It is community@cruisecritic.com

 

I didn't say you should post personal info on the roll call. I said that you shouldn't post your email address so that someone could email you info on the tour.

 

The info about the tour should be posted, so that you can contact the vendor directly to inquire, and then book, on your own.

 

Laura

[helpthejuggler]

If he took that on himself he should be reprimanded as that was inappropriate (like inviting all of your most loyal friends to a party and then insulting them).

 

However, if he was told he had to address this, then can't blame him as much as whomever's orders he was following.

 

 

If the source was in Miami it will spread to all ships.

Whoever is suggesting these remarks is wrong, whether the CD or the person in Miami.

 

When cruise lines charge a premium price for an item, we accept that they are in the business to make money.

 

Passengers are in the business to get good value from the money spent.

 

If X need to make more money from shorex, Improve the offering through more competitive prices and/or better tours.

They already have a big advantage having contact with passengers in advance and having prime access to people onboard.

A ship excursion should be hard to beat. Sadly at the moment it is rarely the best way to go.

 

 

Attempting yet another guilt trick on passengers is the wrong way to greet your customers. I hope this was a one-off.

Edited July 16, 2014 by helpthejuggler

[Gunnerpup]

He should not have brought that up. it's simple competition and if you've priced yourself out of it..that's not our problem.

 

That being said, we usually just book via the boat due to laziness. Saving $40 is not important to us after dropping thousands on the trip overall. BUT I understand others doing it.

 

Finally, it is verboten to try and set up a large group to use private tours while on board. You can get in major trouble. I don't agree with that angle from the cruise line but it's the way it is. You have to keep it on the sly and don't bring it up to a group at your meeting out loud.

[parallax]

I'm very indifferent to this issue. I think that we are overly sensitive when a Celebrity staff member says something negative about Cruise Critic or some of the passengers activities. Was it the smartest thing to say? No, but move on. It is not the end of the world.

 

While I'm sure that Celebrity and other cruise lines appreciate certain aspects of Cruise Critic, I'm positive there are certain aspects that they detest. There are discussions about gaming the system, complaints about the type of fellow passengers (kids) and making a mountain of a mole hill on minor changes.

[olemissreb]

In my last 3 cruises (since discovering CC), I have never seen anyone hawking private excursions at any of our M&G's. Everyone from CC just sat around getting to know each other and put names to faces from the Roll Call. Yes, our conversations included which excursions we were doing, but not trying to get people to sign up or exchanging money.

 

Our first X cruise, we had 4 excursions planned - 1 private in Grenada (our first one ever) and 3 through the ship. Only 1 of the ship excursions happened and we didn't receive notification about the other 2 until the night before we were scheduled to dock. Yes, we got our money back, but it was too late for us to plan anything else and I hadn't learned enough on CC yet to have a Plan B.

 

Since that cruise, all but one of our excursions we have booked independently because of the small group size and the very personal service. We've met some great people through those excursions and we've learned so much more than we ever would have on a ships excursion. In Aruba on RCI, we took a TomCar tour and saw way more of the island than those on the ships excursions - mainly because those little TomCars could go places that Jeeps and buses couldn't - all in a half day tour. My inlaws were a little jealous when we told them all that we saw in comparison to their ships tour.

 

I agree that the CD was out of line in his comments - doesn't matter if it was a directive from Miami. There is a better way to phrase things that doesn't alienate customers. If those comments were made as a direct result of someone setting up a table to collect payments somewhere, then I do think that that person should have been spoken to about violating the terms of service.

 

I usually start looking at what excursions are offered by the cruise line and then go from there as to what might interest me. CC and TripAdvisor have been tremendous assets to help me find small excursions that are totally different from the cruiseline offerings. You don't usually find things like I found in Aruba nor a cooking class in an islander's private home as cruiseline offerings. Until I can find small, unique offerings from the cruiseline at reasonable prices, I'll continue to book independent excursions, that way I can afford the higher end cabin that I book on the ship!

[Can'tstopcruising]

I posted my email address in my posting. It is community@cruisecritic.com

 

I didn't say you should post personal info on the roll call. I said that you shouldn't post your email address so that someone could email you info on the tour.

 

The info about the tour should be posted, so that you can contact the vendor directly to inquire, and then book, on your own.

 

Laura

 

Perhaps that is not a reasonable request.

I, for one, like to remain anonymous on Cruise Critic. So, the only way for me to plan anything with a roll call member would be through email.

[FolsomMike]

Hello Everyone:

 

I'd like to thank NYCruiseQueen for bringing this specific issue to our attention. If anyone else has experienced this, please write to me directly at: community@cruisecritic.com.

 

That said, we believe that the sharing of shore excursions in small groups is one of the best features of participating in a Cruise Critic roll call! We do have these rules published in our guidelines:

Cruise Critic's ROLL CALLS are one of the most popular features within our community. In an effort to keep them fair and as safe as possible, the following is in effect:

 

 

SHORE EXCURSIONS

- Sharing shore excursions is fun and can help you save money.

- Get to know the other members in a Roll Call before attempting to get them to tour with you.

- Shore excursions should be arranged so that payment is made directly to the tour operator, do not be the collector of funds for a shore excursion.

- Do not arrange any shore excursions/tours if you are not going to be taking them yourself. In other words NO THIRD-PARTY arrangement of shore excursions are allowed. This includes people who are not participating on the Cruise Critic ROLL CALL *for whatever reason*.

- Travel agents may not arrange shore excursions on ROLL CALLS.

- Anyone attempting to "fill a bus" or making money from the sharing of shore excursions on our forums runs the risk of losing their membership.

- Do not post your email address so that someone can email you information about a shore excursion. If they have important info, they should be willing and able to post this information on the forum. We will remove posts, at our discretion, that are nothing more than requests for emails OR posts providing email addresses.

- Do NOT arrange to collect funds for shore excursion shares at any Meet & Mingle or Meet & Greet so graciously provided by the cruise lines. In the case of Princess Cruises, they have stated you cannot solicit other passengers for any reason once you have booked your cruise. If they observe you arranging tours on board, you run the risk of being asked to debark your cruise at the next port (verified via Princess Cruises March 2013)

***************************

The above shared, I will be contacting Celebrity later today to clear up this issue. Know that we can and do contact individual members who aren't adhering to the above.

 

As with all things, there are always people who just do as they please. We always do our best to ensure Roll Calls and resulting parties/events work well for everyone.

 

Laura

 

Thank you for this clarification. I think it would be helpful if this was posted on every Roll Call.

[hcat]

We've had something similar on a RCI cruise from the activities manager but it wasn't a general announcement. He just told us we couldn't make any announcements about private tours at the M&M. We know a fellow cruiser who was dragged into a interrogation, sorry meeting with the hotel manager when it became known he had organized a private tour for a bus full of CC members. They threatened to put him off the ship amongst other things.

 

Not sure why folks cannot make announcements, have gift exchanges and set up a table to organize themselves...for Cruise line excursions or otherwise. We only do cruise line excursions but unless it is abused no reason to limit others...there are plenty of travel groups on bd that post announcements and have tables for their groups .

 

but the main point of thread is in appropriate comment by staff..on their own or at cruise line directive...sounds like a hard edged approach, if that happened as described.

[Smiles3usa]

I recall a thread on the Princess board from a while back where a similar situation occurred. Here's a link. It makes for interesting reading.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1790564

 

Thanks for the link. Interesting reading indeed.

[hcat]

Hello Everyone:

 

I'd like to thank NYCruiseQueen for bringing this specific issue to our attention. If anyone else has experienced this, please write to me directly at: community@cruisecritic.com.

 

That said, we believe that the sharing of shore excursions in small groups is one of the best features of participating in a Cruise Critic roll call! We do have these rules published in our guidelines:

Cruise Critic's ROLL CALLS are one of the most popular features within our community. In an effort to keep them fair and as safe as possible, the following is in effect:

 

 

SHORE EXCURSIONS

- Sharing shore excursions is fun and can help you save money.

- Get to know the other members in a Roll Call before attempting to get them to tour with you.

- Shore excursions should be arranged so that payment is made directly to the tour operator, do not be the collector of funds for a shore excursion.

- Do not arrange any shore excursions/tours if you are not going to be taking them yourself. In other words NO THIRD-PARTY arrangement of shore excursions are allowed. This includes people who are not participating on the Cruise Critic ROLL CALL *for whatever reason*.

- Travel agents may not arrange shore excursions on ROLL CALLS.

- Anyone attempting to "fill a bus" or making money from the sharing of shore excursions on our forums runs the risk of losing their membership.

- Do not post your email address so that someone can email you information about a shore excursion. If they have important info, they should be willing and able to post this information on the forum. We will remove posts, at our discretion, that are nothing more than requests for emails OR posts providing email addresses.

- Do NOT arrange to collect funds for shore excursion shares at any Meet & Mingle or Meet & Greet so graciously provided by the cruise lines. In the case of Princess Cruises, they have stated you cannot solicit other passengers for any reason once you have booked your cruise. If they observe you arranging tours on board, you run the risk of being asked to debark your cruise at the next port (verified via Princess Cruises March 2013)

***************************

The above shared, I will be contacting Celebrity later today to clear up this issue. Know that we can and do contact individual members who aren't adhering to the above.

 

As with all things, there are always people who just do as they please. We always do our best to ensure Roll Calls and resulting parties/events work well for everyone.

 

Laura

 

Thanks for posting the guidelines... alot of good common sense and safe practices included

 

someone who volunteers to research and organize tours for one or more ports, and who follows the guidelines seems not to be in danger of violation of the cruise contract..

 

sad to hear that such a nice event has engenered "issues"

[AntjeG]

Given how I feel about the prices and variety of ship sponsored shore excursions, I might have felt compelled to stand up and say something less than pleasant to the CD in front of everyone.

 

Yep - you are absolutely right. I´d love to book more cruise line excursions if I could only afford them. Often you get the same itinerary for 50-70% of the price the cruise line charges. Sure, they want to have some money for organizing and printing tickets and don´t want to give the whole price to the tour companies. But if they would maybe charge the price of the tour and 10% or a fixed 5 Dollars per ticket no matter what the tour price is for their expenses I´m sure more people would be willing to book with the cruise line. I find it quite stressfull to organize everything on my own but if I can save more than 300 Dollars on excursions on a 12 nights cruise for the same itinerary in the tours I do so.

[Kevnzworld]

Celebrity allows for and hosts one CC meet and greet per cruise. It's generally scheduled at an inconvenient time. I see no reson, that those that have arranged private tours shouldn't be allowed to use the mic to gather and or organize members of their tours.

This isn't being advertised to the ships passengers, that would be rude. It's just among those in the roll call that are at the CC meet and greet.

The ability to be part of private tours enhances my cruise experience, and incentivises me to cruise MORE on a mass market ship like Celebrity.

I don't like gathering in the theater, getting in line to board a bus, and then herded around with a sticker. The worst is when the tour diverts to a souvineer store, who pays the tour company a commission...so obvious.

CC, roll calls and private excursions are ultimately beneficial for the cruise line.

[ghstudio]

In the case of Princess Cruises, they have stated you cannot solicit other passengers for any reason once you have booked your cruise. If they observe you arranging tours on board, you run the risk of being asked to debark your cruise at the next port (verified via Princess Cruises March 2013)[/b]

 

 

Laura

 

Does this mean that if we book a princess cruise, we can't use the roll calls to find one or two other couples who might want to share a private tour at a port? I'm curious because we are about to book a princess cruise and I always try to get a guide in each port and share the cost with another couple or two.

[In Retirement]

Greetings!

Isn't Lois wonderful for starting this discussion? I bet we can come up with many more who can report on this threatening experience.

 

"Discovered" Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor in 2008 when my impending retirement led to some "serious" vacation planning. (Thought I was making a "unique" contribution by this activity of serious travel post-retirement! How very silly of me.) A really active Roll Call with serious and experienced fellow members adds value to trip-planning: defining options, issues to consider, problems to avoid). Who doesn't visit TripAdvisor to insert name of each port as well as to ask questions at TA Forums?

 

Everyone should acknowledge that different people want different port experiences. My assumption is that just as buying a travel guide supports such a position, that Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor provide value to participants in this manner and then constitute a known population that allows the sale of advertising. However, I now have no understanding of where Cruise Critic falls in this process.

 

My experience is that people I tend to associate with view travel as an educational experience and plan to maximize these experiences. I don't necessarily think that saving money is primary, rather the difference between a bus ride through a city and visits within a city's buildings reflects whether you are being introduced to Rome or whether your day will be spent following a historical period or the works of one or two artists. So, different strokes for different folks?

 

Hopefully, Cruise Critic will continue to be that resource. Our 27 June Celebrity Constellation experience included direct revelation that Celebrity monitors its Roll Calls (sort of like Eric Snowden/NSA). Indeed, the CD commented on use of "labels" such as my use of "In Retirement" and asked the 60-some of us "who do you want to know the identity of?" and my receiving a round of applause led to my regretting that I raised my hand! Obviously, my general guideline to post only on a Roll Call discussion material appropriate to all readers and to leave individual discussions among a limited few to private email is very necessary (we are all quite annoyed with two people hijack a Roll Call).

 

Please consider that we are talking about maybe 50 English-speaking passengers when large contingents of Dutch, German, Belgium, and Israeli passengers are onboard. Is Cruise Critic a threat to a cruise line's bottom line? Do cruise line's contribute the degree of planning necessary to attract a group of retired teachers? Does Celebrity provide tours in German, Flemish, Dutch, and Hebrew? Have no idea of how to influence a travel corporation with a lack of the necessary talent to determine how to improve port excursions (or whether the effort to produce such experiences would be worthwhile).

 

I realize that this may seem extreme to those of you who did not participate in our (really quite wonderful) Roll Call, but this Cruise Critic meeting experience was no different from the CD making a request that we all buy drink packages (yes, even the alcoholics or diabetics) or gamble in the casino (shouldn't this space and equipment and all of those bored employees represent adequate return for capital?). Inappropriate IS inappropriate. As an aside, would observe that the "walking tours" provided by my first (maybe last) river cruise days before suffered from the same lack of intellectual effort -- was quite surprised that we were a small group, but put into a structure where we were all supposed to do the same thing and given little time to develop other experiences.

 

Have no idea of how to reach Celebrity. Discovered they are in Miami and their call center is in the midwest (at least not in Asia?). I am a RC stockholder and was truly horrified at this experience. I give some of those around me credit for support to get through this and I must admit that I was extremely pleased with all of our eight port calls (honored to be on Celebrity's last Norwegian cruise RT Amsterdam).

 

DJ

[LauraS]

Does this mean that if we book a princess cruise, we can't use the roll calls to find one or two other couples who might want to share a private tour at a port? I'm curious because we are about to book a princess cruise and I always try to get a guide in each port and share the cost with another couple or two.

 

This is off topic here; but essentially no one should be conducting tour excursion business on board, *especially* at a party the cruise line sets up for you. In discussions with Princess they confirmed to us that this is in violation of their cruise contract which you entered into when you purchase the cruise.