Is there a way to refuse advertisements onboard?

[TwinMommyByGrace]

We all chuckle when we hear HAL say things like, "In an effort to go green we will no longer be providing printed recipes cards at the ATK demos." and then bombard us with a tree's worth of PAPER advertisement during a week long cruise! My question is has anyone successfully stopped the delivery of these adverts? I had thought of either attaching a sign to our 'mailbox' asking to be passed by or by contacting someone in guest services or perhaps letting the concierge know our preference. We don't purchase anything from the specialty stores or use spa services, etc so these ads never interest us and waste paper so if we can stop them, that would be great! 

[avian777]

14 minutes ago, TwinMommyByGrace said:

... My question is has anyone successfully stopped the delivery of these adverts? ...

 

No, but then I've never tried to have them stopped.

[Crew News]

1 hour ago, TwinMommyByGrace said:

We all chuckle when we hear HAL say things like, "In an effort to go green we will no longer be providing printed recipes cards at the ATK demos." and then bombard us with a tree's worth of PAPER advertisement during a week long cruise! My question is has anyone successfully stopped the delivery of these adverts? I had thought of either attaching a sign to our 'mailbox' asking to be passed by or by contacting someone in guest services or perhaps letting the concierge know our preference. We don't purchase anything from the specialty stores or use spa services, etc so these ads never interest us and waste paper so if we can stop them, that would be great! 

 

Since all of the junk mail is delivered by your Room Steward, tell them to trash it before delivering it to you.

[TwinMommyByGrace]

1 hour ago, Crew News said:

 

Since all of the junk mail is delivered by your Room Steward, tell them to trash it before delivering it to you.

Thank you.  I will try this. 

[richwmn]

53 minutes ago, Crew News said:

 

Since all of the junk mail is delivered by your Room Steward, tell them to trash it before delivering it to you.

 

Just now, TwinMommyByGrace said:

Thank you.  I will try this. 

Unfortunately asking your Cabin Steward to trash it for you doesn't prevent it from getting printed, just prevents you from seeing it.

[wwcruisers]

OP -- if it makes you feel any better, RC and X are just as bad. Every night, the tiny trash can in our cabin overflows with fliers for art auctions, spa treatments, jewelry sales -- you name it! We've been complaining on those lines for years, but nothing ever get done about the problem. Sad to hear that we get to look forward (not) to encountering it on our upcoming HAL cruise, as well. 😣

[TTFromSommersTown]

I will be on a 34 day cruise in December and I think that I will save up all of the junk mail and then once a week I will hand deliver it to the Spa etc. when I am on my walk about and ask them to dispose of it. They generated it so they can recycle it. Also it will save my room steward some time. If enough people do this they might get the message.

[IllinoisGirl1978]

We would toss the flyers in the recycle side of the trash can.  There's no need for that much paper.

[canadianbear]

3 hours ago, TTFromSommersTown said:

I will be on a 34 day cruise in December and I think that I will save up all of the junk mail and then once a week I will hand deliver it to the Spa etc. when I am on my walk about and ask them to dispose of it. They generated it so they can recycle it. Also it will save my room steward some time. If enough people do this they might get the message.

On our Celebrity cruise in March there was no recycling box in our cabin so I collected it all week and at the end took it down to customer service and gave it to them asking them to recycle it.  Told her on HAL they have a spot in the cabin for recycling.  

[3rdGenCunarder]

Someday I'm going to keep all of it and then mail it to the home office at the end of my cruise.

 

[rhblake]

I am sure you all realized that the flyers are for specialty stores, spa services and art purchases. None of these services are owned or run by the cruise line. The cruise line simply offers the printing and delivery of these flyers for a fee, think income stream.

[ghstudio]

HAL does not put packets of sweetners like saccharin on tables for coffee, tea...you have to ask for them.  I asked...and was told it was to save paper.  What a joke....    

[DaveOKC]

• I agree - this makes no sense.  Cruise lines talk about saving energy and resources and then they plaster us with alot of needless junk mail!!
•  

[ghstudio]

Does anyone else wonder about the signs in the cabin bathrooms to "save water".......water that is desalinized on the ship using exhaust heat....or in pressure systems, by perhaps burning (very) slightly more fuel to create power for the pumps in filter systems which doesn't save water, but at least mathematically saves fuel.....and how does re-using your towel save water on a ship?

 

 

[DaveOKC]

I often think that very often recycing efforts in the business world are more about saving money than anything else.

 

[avian777]

22 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

I often think that very often recycing efforts in the business world are more about saving money than anything else.

 

And that's a good thing IMO!!!

[AmazedByCruising]

2 hours ago, ghstudio said:

Does anyone else wonder about the signs in the cabin bathrooms to "save water".......water that is desalinized on the ship using exhaust heat....or in pressure systems, by perhaps burning (very) slightly more fuel to create power for the pumps in filter systems which doesn't save water, but at least mathematically saves fuel.....and how does re-using your towel save water on a ship?

 

 

 

The signs I read were not about saving water but "the environment" in general. I can think of detergents, etc. But of course water is not "free" even if exhaust heat is used. The same heat might be used elsewhere. The filters need to be cleaned and replaced. Quality needs to be checked. Storage costs money. The washing machines themselves need power and repairs and replacements. Towels that are washed daily will need to be replaced very quickly. And you need crew for all of that, and they expect food and berths and flights and a bit of your fare.

 

I absolutely don't need a complete set of fresh towels every day. Even if it was just about money and nothing else, whatever they put on the signs, I'm OK with the very simple instruction to put towels I want renewed to be left on the floor. 

Edited October 26, 2019 by AmazedByCruising

[VMax1700]

Recycling is a big money making business!

 

[DaveOKC]

2 hours ago, avian777 said:

And that's a good thing IMO!!!

As a shareholder I agree - but I just dislike how they "frame" it.

[bEwAbG]

I would imagine that the ability to advertise to a captive audience is part of the contracts with the concessionaires, so the ship staff may have no say in the matter.  You'd be better off writing to the corporate headquarters rather than putting it on the day-to-day staff to resolve.  There are similar complaints across many cruise lines, if that makes you feel better, and I found the volume much higher on Celebrity versus HAL.

[TheJurea]

We walk around frequently, it relieves my claustrophobic anxiety. 
So every morning we return everyone’s’ flyer, unless I kept it to use.

I slid them under doors and in cracks because they aren’t open yet.

If they are open I just hand them back and say no thanks, I don’t need this, so I’m returning it for reuse/recycle.

My husband thinks that’s mean.

I say, I’m walking by them anyway, and maybe they’ll get a clue if everyone returns certain flyers.

 

[DaveOKC]

18 minutes ago, TheJurea said:

We walk around frequently, it relieves my claustrophobic anxiety. 
So every morning we return everyone’s’ flyer, unless I kept it to use.

I slid them under doors and in cracks because they aren’t open yet.

If they are open I just hand them back and say no thanks, I don’t need this, so I’m returning it for reuse/recycle.

My husband thinks that’s mean.

I say, I’m walking by them anyway, and maybe they’ll get a clue if everyone returns certain flyers.

 

I do not think that is "mean"  but I do think that "resistance is futile" in this case.

[Lovely other]

I found on my cruise this month there was a lot less junk mail turning up ... a lot of the offers seem to be printed on the When and Where or whatever it’s called now ... I found that to be a positive step forwards 

[sevenseasnomad]

11 minutes ago, Lovely other said:

I found on my cruise this month there was a lot less junk mail turning up ... a lot of the offers seem to be printed on the When and Where or whatever it’s called now ... I found that to be a positive step forwards 

Yes, noticed this on our last cruise too.  Maybe at long last someone understands what a waste of paper all those ads are.  We are to the point that the only ones we pay attention to are those advertising future itineraries/cruise deals.  The rest, unread, go into the recycle. 

[ellie1145]

I heartily agree with condemning all the waste of paper, printing ink etc. It is horrifying to think of the amount of waste that one cruise generates. Imagine if we all saved these useless pieces of paper and dumped the on the quayside st the end of a cruise, it would be a mountain!

 

But I’m afraid that cruise lines say one thing and do another, like the Save the Waves campaign. They pay lip service to saving the planet, but in reality they churn out thousands of pieces of unwanted junk mail each day on every ship.

 

We were very shocked when on Allure of the Seas in January, as in the dining room our butter was in small plastic containers with a foil lid. What a catastrophic decision someone made to order those! Even if people use only one per day that’s over 6,000 of these pointless containers. But in reality it must be much more than that.

 

It may be quicker for staff, and more hygienic maybe, but they are adding to the mountain of plastic waste that has to be disposed of somewhere.

 

I think the silliest example of ‘saving the planet’ was on Majestic Princess when I asked where the little peppermints wrapped in a tiny bit of paper were, as we departed the dining room. Their answer was we are cutting down on waste. Well as we’d had a pile of unwanted paper delivered daily I could not get the reasoning behind stopping the mints. IMHO it was a money saving exercise, no more, no less.

 

 

 

 

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