"This might be YOUR vacation, but it's MY life"

[LMaxwell]

I just returned from the Freedom of the Seas on an eight night voyage. The first night my travel companions and I ate in the dining room, our server rudely interrupted our conversation to give her speech about her survey scores. In addition to the standard spiel, she informed us of the next night's menu and that we would not like it at all. She told us we should eat the Italian at Giovanni's as the primo ingredients are reserved for the specialty restaurants and therefore, the meals in the dining room were not good.

 

We did not eat there the next night as directed. The following evening, we were once again rudely interrupted and given the same speech. She told us that if we didn't give her perfect scores, she would be sent to the back corner of the dining room.

 

We were so shocked and appalled by her behavior, we felt we were forced out of the dining room. I have never had such rude service ever... On or off the ship.

 

 

Danielle

 

You don't have to tolerate that. I would not. That's the opposite of good service.

[Haoie]

Just off the Radiance and I never got the hard-sell for 10's all round.

 

The maitre'd and my waiters did recommend that I complete the survey and that was it.

[apocalyps3]

We just completed our first RCI sailing this Saturday (on the Harmony) and never once received a comment from any staff about giving 10's or anything about filling out survey's. Overall we had a great time. We had one bad experience with our room steward, but I think that may have been more a cultural thing than him really intending to be rude so we tried to overlook it.

 

I have to ask though, not having sailed RCI before (we've only done 1 Disney cruise before), is it typical for the other cruisers to be so rude and abusive (to other cruisers and the staff)? We were blown away by the behavior of our fellow cruisers and to be direct, it was almost entirely the older people (65+) who were by far the worst. Line cutting, seat saving, seat stealing, rude comments, hitting us with wheelchairs/motorized carts, yelling at each other during and after shows, standing in the middle of hallways and walkways and refusing to move, complaining... constant complaints about everything. We expected the children of the cruise to act like this, but they were far more polite and well behaved than the seniors on the cruise. It was so bad we would seriously think twice before booking another RCI cruise unless we knew for sure the average age would be lower than what we saw on the Harmony.

 

Is this typical of that age group and Royal Caribbean in general? Or did we just get a bad group of people? We still had a great time on the cruise, but it was a very eye opening experience living with this group for a week.

[kerrycoco1]

Ye they'll run you over if you don't move lol

 

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[impatientlywaiting]

I just returned from the Freedom of the Seas on an eight night voyage. The first night my travel companions and I ate in the dining room, our server rudely interrupted our conversation to give her speech about her survey scores. In addition to the standard spiel, she informed us of the next night's menu and that we would not like it at all. She told us we should eat the Italian at Giovanni's as the primo ingredients are reserved for the specialty restaurants and therefore, the meals in the dining room were not good.

 

We did not eat there the next night as directed. The following evening, we were once again rudely interrupted and given the same speech. She told us that if we didn't give her perfect scores, she would be sent to the back corner of the dining room.

 

We were so shocked and appalled by her behavior, we felt we were forced out of the dining room. I have never had such rude service ever... On or off the ship.

 

 

Danielle

 

You should have immediately gone to the head waiter and put a stop to that. And if that didn't work, you should have gone to the Maitre D. That kind of attitude is totally UNACCEPTABLE.

[davekathy]

I just returned from the Freedom of the Seas on an eight night voyage. The first night my travel companions and I ate in the dining room, our server rudely interrupted our conversation to give her speech about her survey scores. In addition to the standard spiel, she informed us of the next night's menu and that we would not like it at all. She told us we should eat the Italian at Giovanni's as the primo ingredients are reserved for the specialty restaurants and therefore, the meals in the dining room were not good.

 

We did not eat there the next night as directed. The following evening, we were once again rudely interrupted and given the same speech. She told us that if we didn't give her perfect scores, she would be sent to the back corner of the dining room.

 

We were so shocked and appalled by her behavior, we felt we were forced out of the dining room. I have never had such rude service ever... On or off the ship.

 

 

Danielle

 

I would have showed her the hand signal for zero as she was pitching her spiel.

[davekathy]

You should have immediately gone to the head waiter and put a stop to that. And if that didn't work, you should have gone to the Maitre D. That kind of attitude is totally UNACCEPTABLE.

 

...and maybe the Chef and advised him what the waiter said about not liking the next evenings menu at all.

[smootsdce]

I would have showed her the hand signal for zero as she was pitching her spiel.

 

 

My husband told her she was number one while holding up a single finger. (Got that idea from a poster here...thank you!!!)

 

We didn't think to go to management, but wish we had. They had their hands full of irate folks the first night.

 

 

Danielle

[perkli25]

We just completed our first RCI sailing this Saturday (on the Harmony) and never once received a comment from any staff about giving 10's or anything about filling out survey's. Overall we had a great time. We had one bad experience with our room steward, but I think that may have been more a cultural thing than him really intending to be rude so we tried to overlook it.

 

 

 

I have to ask though, not having sailed RCI before (we've only done 1 Disney cruise before), is it typical for the other cruisers to be so rude and abusive (to other cruisers and the staff)? We were blown away by the behavior of our fellow cruisers and to be direct, it was almost entirely the older people (65+) who were by far the worst. Line cutting, seat saving, seat stealing, rude comments, hitting us with wheelchairs/motorized carts, yelling at each other during and after shows, standing in the middle of hallways and walkways and refusing to move, complaining... constant complaints about everything. We expected the children of the cruise to act like this, but they were far more polite and well behaved than the seniors on the cruise. It was so bad we would seriously think twice before booking another RCI cruise unless we knew for sure the average age would be lower than what we saw on the Harmony.

 

 

 

Is this typical of that age group and Royal Caribbean in general? Or did we just get a bad group of people? We still had a great time on the cruise, but it was a very eye opening experience living with this group for a week.

 

 

We just got off Oasis and honestly did not encounter a lot of rudeness. But the times we did encounter it was from the older crowd and it was directed at our 16 mos old daughter. In the windjammer one evening she was crying because she was hungry. While my husband was getting her food, I picked her up to calm her which took all of 2 minutes and she stopped crying. There was an older woman next to me who kept giving me the evil eye and another older couple who got up and moved tables. Another incident was when my husband was picking our daughter up from royal tots. An older couple walking by said "with such nice children's facilities, why do we even need to see them anywhere on the ship?" My husband who is more vocal than I told them if they didn't want to see children then take a 65 and older cruise [emoji15] I would have died of embarrassment if I had been with him.

 

All that said, we encounter many courteous and friendly people on the cruise. Our overall experience was very positive. We got asked to complete the survey but not told to give 10s specifically. However we never ate dinner in the MDR.

 

 

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[Deemih]

When is Royal going to wake up and realize its time to change! Every cruise we hear the same thing about the surveys and how to rate them. Being a frequent cruiser we find the Service is usually outstanding and the servers suffer and yes some times lose their jobs because the quality of the Food they are serving has dropped in taste and presentation. Regardless of what type of dinning you do its seems Royal is pushing everyone to go to the Specialty Dinning so they can get more money out of you and even then that Quality is not there. During our last cruise on the Oasis the main dinning room was so POOR but Service was outstanding, we had to go to the Windjammer. The Coffee Café has now even changed their deserts to a very limited offer and they are poor quality.

Holding a Diamond Plus status it is a shame to say we will be using other cruise lines since RCL isn't Listening to their Customers. Even the best can fall fast.

:mad:

[TheTides]

This has bugged me as well. On our last cruise on the Empress, honestly the food was really bad. The buffed rotated 5 or so dishes, and there were multiple nights that I would eat because I was hungry in the MDR, not because I enjoyed the meal. With that being said, the last 2 nights of the 5 night trip, they interrupted dinner from the head waiter to the bar staff to stress the importance of 5 stars. Honestly to me 5 is exceptional, and while the service was good, I wouldn't call the service exceptional on this particular cruise. I don't understand why NCL, Celebrity, Disney, and Princess can ask others to complete surveys without putting this stress on their lives depend on it. I agree they work incredibly hard in a challenging environment. Yet to stress how hard their lives are and how they need 5's turns me off from the whole dining experience.

[mek]

What was the CDs pitch?

 

He just mentioned that we would have a survey to complete when we returned home and to rate the entire experience, not on just "one bowl of soup that might not have been hot." DH and I had to laugh at that comment because food temperature in the MDR was an issue most evenings, (which IMHO, seems to be a universal problem on most cruises.)

Edited December 20, 2016 by mek

[davekathy]

He just mentioned that we would have a survey to complete when we returned home and to rate the entire experience, not on just "one bowl of soup that might not have been hot." DH and I had to laugh at that comment because food temperature in the MDR was an issue most evenings, (which IMHO, seems to be a universal problem on most cruises.)

 

A little reminder like that is acceptable. We've also had CDs do the same no matter the Cruise line or ship we're sailing on.

[AdoraBelle]

We just completed our first RCI sailing this Saturday (on the Harmony) and never once received a comment from any staff about giving 10's or anything about filling out survey's. Overall we had a great time. We had one bad experience with our room steward, but I think that may have been more a cultural thing than him really intending to be rude so we tried to overlook it.

 

I have to ask though, not having sailed RCI before (we've only done 1 Disney cruise before), is it typical for the other cruisers to be so rude and abusive (to other cruisers and the staff)? We were blown away by the behavior of our fellow cruisers and to be direct, it was almost entirely the older people (65+) who were by far the worst. Line cutting, seat saving, seat stealing, rude comments, hitting us with wheelchairs/motorized carts, yelling at each other during and after shows, standing in the middle of hallways and walkways and refusing to move, complaining... constant complaints about everything. We expected the children of the cruise to act like this, but they were far more polite and well behaved than the seniors on the cruise. It was so bad we would seriously think twice before booking another RCI cruise unless we knew for sure the average age would be lower than what we saw on the Harmony.

 

Is this typical of that age group and Royal Caribbean in general? Or did we just get a bad group of people? We still had a great time on the cruise, but it was a very eye opening experience living with this group for a week.

 

I don't think it's specific to an age group. I was on the Royal Princess in October, probably the oldest crowd I've sailed with, and everyone seemed fairly pleasant if not downright affable. I have, however, seen people screaming at the staff on various lines (Celebrity and NCL, for example), and they were typically what I would call "middle age", possibly late middle age, not elderly. With a few of these situations I've been the next person in line at the bar or guest services, and I lead with: "just so you know, I'm not going to scream obscenities at you". I can usually get the just-screamed-at person to at least crack a weak smile.

 

(All this said, the survey thing would drive me INSANE.)

[apocalyps3]

I don't think it's specific to an age group. I was on the Royal Princess in October, probably the oldest crowd I've sailed with, and everyone seemed fairly pleasant if not downright affable. I have, however, seen people screaming at the staff on various lines (Celebrity and NCL, for example), and they were typically what I would call "middle age", possibly late middle age, not elderly. With a few of these situations I've been the next person in line at the bar or guest services, and I lead with: "just so you know, I'm not going to scream obscenities at you". I can usually get the just-screamed-at person to at least crack a weak smile.

 

We ate at Chops one night and the two elderly women next to us were so horrible to the server that after the end of our meal and the restaurant was mostly empty, I outright asked the server how could he stand all these rude older cruisers. His face lit up and he seem so happy that someone else recognized the problem. He even pulled over a supervisor and they commiserated with us how bad it had been lately. We even tipped him more than we might normally just because we felt so bad for him putting up with these people.

[stlgreg]

I am a little afraid this is going to get lost in this thread but ANY survey you take for a (restaurants, hotels, cable company, etc.) company that does not have the highest rating (5,10, whatever) is a HORRIBLE thing and bad things will happen.

 

If you are on the 5 scale and you are giving out 4s you are hurting them. Costing them raises or worse their jobs. You may think you are being honest but your scale and their scale are different.

[Aquahound]

I am a little afraid this is going to get lost in this thread but ANY survey you take for a (restaurants, hotels, cable company, etc.) company that does not have the highest rating (5,10, whatever) is a HORRIBLE thing and bad things will happen.

 

If you are on the 5 scale and you are giving out 4s you are hurting them. Costing them raises or worse their jobs. You may think you are being honest but your scale and their scale are different.

 

So if its not truly deserving of a 5 (10, whatever), we're supposed to lie for the sake of those who failed to provide that level of service?

 

No. I don't think so.

[Paulxyz2004]

I am a little afraid this is going to get lost in this thread but ANY survey you take for a (restaurants, hotels, cable company, etc.) company that does not have the highest rating (5,10, whatever) is a HORRIBLE thing and bad things will happen.

 

If you are on the 5 scale and you are giving out 4s you are hurting them. Costing them raises or worse their jobs. You may think you are being honest but your scale and their scale are different.

 

While I don´t dout your words about this I have to say if companies act like this they either Need to stop giving me Surveys as they obviously are not interested in my honest opinion, or they Need to Change the scale to only two Options - Excellent and failed.

 

If they don´t accept anything in between, why have it?

[Strophic]

So if its not truly deserving of a 5 (10, whatever), we're supposed to lie for the sake of those who failed to provide that level of service?

 

No. I don't think so.

 

Sorry but I can't stand your attitude in this comment. The problem is that the way you approach a rating scale is completely different from how RCI does it.

 

Imagine that you get great service on your cruise and you want to reflect that in your survey, but in your mind "great service" means 4 stars. When RCI reads that survey, they do not get the message of "great service." They read "failure." You have not gotten your intended message across at all, and in the process have actually hurt the people you wanted to commend.

 

Should it be that way? Absolutely not. But you have to work within the reality that exists, not the ideal that doesn't.

 

You now know from reading this thread that rating less than 5 stars hurts the careers of the people you rated. So from now on, the way you should approach the survey is not "What was my level of service from 1-5?" Because that is not the reality. The reality is "Does the level of service I received warrant my server being hurt (1-4 stars) or not? (5 stars)"

 

It's an absolutely stupid system. But you can't do anything to change it, so you have to work with it. If your intended outcome is not to hurt your server, you should be rating 5 stars regardless of your own arbitrary, individual "rating scale" that only exists inside your head.

 

It hurts you a lot less to "lie" and be generous than it would hurt your server if you didn't. You'll live.

[molsonschooner]

Sorry but I can't stand your attitude in this comment. The problem is that the way you approach a rating scale is completely different from how RCI does it.

 

Imagine that you get great service on your cruise and you want to reflect that in your survey, but in your mind "great service" means 4 stars. When RCI reads that survey, they do not get the message of "great service." They read "failure." You have not gotten your intended message across at all, and in the process have actually hurt the people you wanted to commend.

 

Should it be that way? Absolutely not. But you have to work within the reality that exists, not the ideal that doesn't.

 

You now know from reading this thread that rating less than 5 stars hurts the careers of the people you rated. So from now on, the way you should approach the survey is not "What was my level of service from 1-5?" Because that is not the reality. The reality is "Does the level of service I received warrant my server being hurt (1-4 stars) or not? (5 stars)"

 

It's an absolutely stupid system. But you can't do anything to change it, so you have to work with it. If your intended outcome is not to hurt your server, you should be rating 5 stars regardless of your own arbitrary, individual "rating scale" that only exists inside your head.

 

It hurts you a lot less to "lie" and be generous than it would hurt your server if you didn't. You'll live.

 

Well, I have to disagree with you here. Aquahound said " So if its not truly deserving of a 5 (10, whatever), we're supposed to lie for the sake of those who failed to provide that level of service?" To me, if I feel a person deserves top marks I will give them top marks but if the service was not top notch then the rating should reflect that. I am not into giving false scores just so I don't hurt some one who's performance was less than i expected.

[John&LaLa]

If they are even close to a 10, I say mark it, but no way would I give a 10 if I could not get something resolved. And if the food or service is bad, they have to be told or we just become complacent. You can either talk with the survey or walk with your wallet.

[Strophic]

Well, I have to disagree with you here. Aquahound said " So if its not truly deserving of a 5 (10, whatever), we're supposed to lie for the sake of those who failed to provide that level of service?" To me, if I feel a person deserves top marks I will give them top marks but if the service was not top notch then the rating should reflect that. I am not into giving false scores just so I don't hurt some one who's performance was less than i expected.

 

You should only give less than full marks if there was actually a problem that you were not able to have resolved, it was something within the control of the person you are rating, and it was severe enough that it actually had a real negative impact on your experience.

 

If you knowingly hurt someone's job by marking them down for stuff like "didn't go the extra mile" then you're just a jerk on a power trip.

[molsonschooner]

You should only give less than full marks if there was actually a problem that you were not able to have resolved, it was something within the control of the person you are rating, and it was severe enough that it actually had a real negative impact on your experience.

 

If you knowingly hurt someone's job by marking them down for stuff like "didn't go the extra mile" then you're just a jerk on a power trip.

 

I am only talking about the quality of the service. Should there even be a problem with that.

[RaiderDuck]

If I ever had a cruise line employee try to pressure me into giving all top marks, I would immediately go to the Customer Service counter after leaving the restaurant/lounge/whatever and ask to speak with a manager. These surveys are supposed to accurately measure our satisfaction and I WILL NOT be told to lie simply to make someone else look good.

 

Now, if someone mentions the card and says "If you have any reason to not give top marks, please let us know right away," that's different: they're just letting us know to say something if our experience isn't ideal.

 

But emotional blackmail like "This is MY life"? Forget it. I work in an industry (telephone technical support) where we're partly evaluated by those surveys and if I ever tried to emotionally manipulate someone into giving me good marks, I'd be fired immediately. And my employer would be correct in doing so.

 

On a more helpful note: When filling out an online survey, I try to make a comment as well. Why? Because the surveys don't always record correctly. If I complete a survey of you, your boss reads it and it has all zeros, you might be fired or at least written up. But if it has all zeros with a comment like "Jenny was a wonderful server," your boss will know that either I didn't enter the numbers correctly or they weren't recorded correctly. Either way, you're less likely to get in trouble unless your boss is a total jerk.

[Fouremco]

You should only give less than full marks if there was actually a problem that you were not able to have resolved, it was something within the control of the person you are rating, and it was severe enough that it actually had a real negative impact on your experience.

 

If you knowingly hurt someone's job by marking them down for stuff like "didn't go the extra mile" then you're just a jerk on a power trip.

I think you're being a bit unrealistic. The average passenger doesn't read CC and has no idea that RCI's scoring system, as described by some people here, is essentially pass/fail. In the real world, when marking on a 1-5 scale, 1 would be poor, 3 average and 5 exceptional (or similar terms). There's not a lot of sense in trying to convince CC members to rate an average server as a 5 when the vast majority of passengers, lacking your insight, would score a 3 or 4.