Check your room cleanliness and press the issue

[BalekFekete]

T-minus 80 days until boarding the Anthem, and while I wish I hadn't stumbled across this thread until AFTER I finished eating lunch, I'm certainly going to A. bring some cleaning supplies with me and B. pay a hellva lot more attention to the state of the cabin upon arrival. I've been blindly unaware of the potential for this type of filth, but won't be moving forward. Thanks OP.

[LHARTWICK]

Holy moly, I'm no germophobe, but I think I'll be packing along some Lysol wipes next time!

 

Same here. We sail on Liberty in less than two weeks. I think I'll just try to avoid the temptation of checking the air filters/air intakes. After reading this thread, it doesn't seem like RCCL even cares anyway. Very disappointing, but my guess is most of the cabins have these issues. Same with hotel rooms. Thanks to the OP for bringing it to our attention. So sad...and disappointing. :(

[Yoshikitty]

That's not an RCI issue only.

We have been on Celebrity Solstice last year for a Tahitian Treasure (many seadays) cruise.

From day one, we both where dry coughing and had respiratory issues. On day 2 I have asked our steward to replace the air filter in the cabin and assumed that he did so.

 

Our coughing was constantly there, we felt ill and thus spent lots of times in cabin (and bed) to make sure that we where at least ok on Bora Bora and Tahiti.

 

We mostly needed NiQuil for the nights and put our health issues to bad luck.

 

After our first stop in New Zealand (day 14, only more days to go), I told my wife, that everytime that we had been on shore, our health was significantly better.,

 

I immediately confronted our cabin Steward with this and asked, if he had replaced the filter when I have asked him. He told me, that his supervisor told him to vacuum it and that's what he did.

 

A serious talk with him and his boss followed and the filter had been immediately replaced (I never saw how it looked like) and the entire cabin had been sanitized the next day.

 

Our problems suddenly and immediately disappeared!

 

We partly blame ourselfs not having followed our request up in the first place but we will make sure to demand a replacement of the cabin filter on our next cruise.

 

The airfilter basically ruined our long cruise.

[grapau27]

Lived in Florida all my life. The hottest I have ever been was in Columbia, South Carolina June-August. Army Boot Camp and no AC.

 

 

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The first time we went to Orlando was October 6th 1992 for 3 weeks and it was so hot we didn't want to get out of the car as the AC was great.

Now we tend to come across for Thanksgiving,or New Year and the latest was late February 2016 when we added in a Bahamas cruise from PC.

 

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[TravisP]

Lived in Florida all my life. The hottest I have ever been was in Columbia, South Carolina June-August. Army Boot Camp and no AC.

 

 

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Yes it does get warm here in the summer. I live just a few miles from Fort Jackson. Here is a advertisement the the City of Columbia did a few years ago.

 

 

[little britain]

I looked for my air vent in my cabin on Navigator this week. When I finally found it hidden behind the door, I though I would try the “finger test”.... spotless. I then tried a wet wipe... spotless.

Panic over. End of.

 

 

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[70s first]

OMG, we are cruising for the first time in August on an older ship. I have been reading so many negative posts I'm wondering if we made the right decision to cruise. If I find our cabin is less than I expect I will complain to?????????? Guest Services office, or who please?????

[carmenOH]

Good Lord, just go and enjoy your cruise. If you have a problem with the room mention it to the attendant if it’s not taken care of go down to guest services and then grab a drink at the pool bar

[time4u2go]

Good Lord, just go and enjoy your cruise. If you have a problem with the room mention it to the attendant if it’s not taken care of go down to guest services and then grab a drink at the pool bar

They did. Did you not read the original post?

 

It's a little difficult to "just go and enjoy your cruise" when one has difficulty breathing.

[carmenOH]

They did. Did you not read the original post?

 

It's a little difficult to "just go and enjoy your cruise" when one has difficulty breathing.

I was not referring to the OP. I was answering the questions to the post above and apparently did not hit “

[time4u2go]

I was not referring to the OP. I was answering the questions to the post above and apparently did not hit “

Ah got it! Thanks for clearing that up! :)

[marci22]

Pressure fit; no tools needed to remove that vent cover

 

Good to know. Glad you posted and brought attention to this issue.

 

Even after the recent refresh, our Adventure cabin already had dust buildup along baseboards and on the edge of the bedside tables. Smelled mustier than I would expect after a refurb and next cruise at end of summer I will be checking the filters.

 

After that I have no more cruises booked. Maybe I will feel better if I look and see a clean filter.

 

Have to say that a bad bedding experience really left a lasting negative impression on Freedom. My kids kept complaining of a bad odor coming from the bed. I finally pulled the sheets off and the bedding was really hideously stained with multiple large brown and yellow circles; it smelled terrible. They did locate a cleaner mattress and replace it that day but the memory does stick with you.

[grapau27]

Good to know. Glad you posted and brought attention to this issue.

 

Even after the recent refresh, our Adventure cabin already had dust buildup along baseboards and on the edge of the bedside tables. Smelled mustier than I would expect after a refurb and next cruise at end of summer I will be checking the filters.

 

After that I have no more cruises booked. Maybe I will feel better if I look and see a clean filter.

 

Have to say that a bad bedding experience really left a lasting negative impression on Freedom. My kids kept complaining of a bad odor coming from the bed. I finally pulled the sheets off and the bedding was really hideously stained with multiple large brown and yellow circles; it smelled terrible. They did locate a cleaner mattress and replace it that day but the memory does stick with you.

Not so long ago there was a thread on Bed bugs on Independence i think it was although some posted for other ships too.

 

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[rkkunk]

Not so long ago there was a thread on Bed bugs on Independence i think it was although some posted for other ships too.

 

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Bed bugs! My worst nightmare!

 

We also had a bad experience with bedding on the Allure in a GS. It wasn’t the mattress but the down comforter inside a not so clean duvet cover on the sofa bed. That comforter was so dirty it was almost brown. I was so disgusted, I threw it out into the hallway by the door. My poor son froze half the night.

 

I guess security made a report on it and the next day, not only did our room steward ask us about it, but the head of housekeeping came to our room. They brought clean everything for the sofa bed. We also received a bottle of wine. ( We didn’t ask for it, it was sent with an apology note.)

 

We always check the room now and the sofa bed bedding. Half the time we ask for clean bedding for the sofa bed because it just doesn’t look clean and we ask them NOT to put it back under the bed. They usually fold it and stack it at one end of the sofa, which is fine with us.

 

 

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[cruiselvr04]

The pics of the filthy wipes on this thread got me. I was on this same cruise deck 10. We wipe the room down every time with sanitizing wipes for our peace of mind. Our cabin on this cruise was very clean including baseboards. Our wipes had very little on them. The DH even commented that this was one of our cleanest cabins ever.

 

My point is the ops room was NOT clean to normal standards as his wipes were filthy. If we had had wipes that dirty I would have had to say something to someone. I can’t comment on the the air filters. To me it’s two different issues. One the steward has control over and the other is maintenance.

 

Or maybe they hadn’t had any anyone like me stay in that room for a long time! Lol. While I don’t like to clean on vacation it’s just something we do when we move in for 9 nights as this cruise was.

[rkkunk]

Like I said earlier, some room stewards are just better at their job and care more.

 

Just like at a hotel one time, our original room was not clean to our standards. We complained, they moved us to another room. Those two rooms were night and day!

 

 

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[grapau27]

Like I said earlier, some room stewards are just better at their job and care more.

 

Just like at a hotel one time, our original room was not clean to our standards. We complained, they moved us to another room. Those two rooms were night and day!

 

 

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My thoughts too.

We had a Chinese lady CS on Harmony and she moved the bed and hoovered underneath and the room was spotless.

I cannot understand why 99% of CS are young men when in hotels it seems 99% are women room stewards.

 

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[FionaMG]

I cannot understand why 99% of CS are young men when in hotels it seems 99% are women room stewards.

 

My guess is that it's simply easier for young men to be away from home for the long periods of time required by crew contracts than it is for women. A lot of the female cleaners working in hotels will be going home to take care of their families when their working day is done.

[grapau27]

My guess is that it's simply easier for young men to be away from home for the long periods of time required by crew contracts than it is for women. A lot of the female cleaners working in hotels will be going home to take care of their families when their working day is done.

Nowadays nothing stopping the men looking after the family.

Personally my wife and i agree our cabins have always been much cleaner and hoovered daily when we have had women CS and we are delighted when we have a lady CS.

We have often commented about things on the carpets which have been there all week when a hoover would have removed them instantly.

 

 

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[chengkp75]

My guess is that it's simply easier for young men to be away from home for the long periods of time required by crew contracts than it is for women. A lot of the female cleaners working in hotels will be going home to take care of their families when their working day is done.

 

Nowadays nothing stopping the men looking after the family.

 

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Unfortunately, this is a case of applying your cultural norms to others. While you are correct that in the US, the UK, and most of Western Europe, there is far less stigma about men being "Mr. Mom", that does not apply to many of the countries where the crew come from.

 

This is the reason that 98+% of merchant mariners today are male. The same with guest workership, where most are men.

[gatour]

Chengkp75 beat me to it. It is more of a cultureal thing. I wouldn't necesary call it a stigma, but an expectation. The husband is the primary bread winner while wife stays home and takes care of the children/household.

 

For example my wife is filipino. Her dad was in the Navy. After having several duty stations, he was assigned to Jacksonville Mayport base when she was 6. From then on when he was assigned to a different duty station, the family stayed in Jacksonville and he we would periodically fly back on weekends. I don't believe my MIL had any type of job. My wife's aunts and uncles were similiar. Although a couple of the aunt's did have part time jobs off an on.

 

For my wife's generation it is a mixture of both parents working full time and some where just the husband works.

[Dr.A]

I’ve waited some time to post this. I wanted to give RCI the opportunity to address this. They never did address to my satisfaction meaning they did not want to explain why we encountered this or why this is acceptable maintenance standards.

 

On the first evening of our 9 night Navigator cruise when we finally got to the room to unwind and unpack after a few minutes my wife complained that it was difficult to breathe. She went on the balcony and was fine but a few minutes after coming back in same complaint. It was approximately 845pm at this point.

 

I have about a dozen photos of the condition of our room but I’ll post these to start and let you form your own opinions. Many of the issues were discovered day one and taken to guest services where we were outright lied to by the Assistant Guest Service Manager Maria onboard Navigator as to how the situation would be handled. No one from RCI corporate disputes the fact that Maria mislead us.

 

I was able to meet on another day, with strong pressing of the issues, the Guest Services Manager Mr.Newell and his boss Hotel Director Mr.Davies. They chose to accept my photos and declined inspecting the room for themselves. Let me be clear; spending time on vacation in meetings is a WASTE of my vacation time. On day one we had maintenance workers in our room until 1130pm and on day two we were asked to vacate our room for several hours while workers tried to access the air handler and replaced trashed carpet.

 

If not for the efforts of the Diamond Concierge Patricia we would have left the ship very disappointed.

 

The first photo shows the cabin air filter as it was day one. The second photo shows the same filter after ship personnel banged it out and reinstalled the spent filter. The third photo shows the new filter they finally located and installed. More to follow. These are the exact same photos I provided onboard management and to Mr. Bayleys office and my travel agent. I was offered an FCC last Thursday but the terms on the FCC do not match what I was told verbally by the corporate office.

 

Would you expect to find this in a cruise ship room?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We found a pair of glasses left behind by a previous occupant on the floor of our room. Our stateroom attendant had obviously not vacuumed anywhere near the bedside table or curtains by the windows (we were in a balcony room). This was on the transatlantic cruise with Navigator and we found that cleanliness of the room was far worse than on the transatlantic two years ago.

 

That air filter is a health hazard and it is shocking that they allow them to get to state poor state.

 

 

 

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[grapau27]

Unfortunately, this is a case of applying your cultural norms to others. While you are correct that in the US, the UK, and most of Western Europe, there is far less stigma about men being "Mr. Mom", that does not apply to many of the countries where the crew come from.

 

This is the reason that 98+% of merchant mariners today are male. The same with guest workership, where most are men.

Maybe they need to expand their recruitment.

Every female CS has kept our cabins immaculate and just concentrated on her job.

 

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[chengkp75]

Maybe they need to expand their recruitment.

Every female CS has kept our cabins immaculate and just concentrated on her job.

 

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Unfortunately, given the wages, there isn't a lot of demand for these jobs outside the countries where they currently recruit. I believe you'll find that most female stewards are either young and single, or have grown children.

[Milwaukee Eight]

Maybe they need to expand their recruitment.

Every female CS has kept our cabins immaculate and just concentrated on her job.

 

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You know, of all our cruises, we have only had a female as a Cabin Steward one time. That was GS on 4 night EN.

 

We have had two CS males while in GS that their wife also worked onboard as a CS. Once they shared towel making responsibilities. In each case, the spouse worked on a different deck.