Matt O has left Princess Cruises

[Outerdog]

5 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

but this latest set of moves was ill-conceived and terribly executed

 

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? Genuine question.

[Waynetor]

We had Matt for 58 nights around South America just before the shutdown - He was fantastic at all the game type events.  He had been on vacation for just a couple weeks when he got a last minute call to come back do that cruise.  

[katisdale]

I will miss Matt. When we did the circle South America on the Royal he was the CD. I have been using a wheelchair for many years and had never attended a dance class as I obviously cannot dance. He did these sessions and I attended to watch Matt O and his interactions with the cruisers. I had a great time.

[ceilidh1]

5 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

In my 40+ cruises on Princess the cruise director has never had an impact on my cruise. What am I missing?

I suspect you have never had a truly outstanding cruise director on your sailings, which is why they had no impact on your cruise. I have over 30 cruises on Princess and remember the names of only 3 cruise directors - the others had no impact on me at all (in fact, rarely even saw most of them). I would say the vast majority of people who have sailed with Matt would agree that his genuine love for what he did, along with his personality and energy made him pretty unforgettable. Believe it or not, some passengers started up a "Matt O Fan Club" on FB and he has quite the following across social media. In addition, many actually book sailings he is on just to sail with him. It's a huge loss.

[Outerdog]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I hope I gave you some insight as to what you asked.  I could go on, but will leave it there.  

 

Very insightful, thank you. I was trying to understand your comment in this threads context. I'm "IT oriented" myself, so I get what you're saying.

 

I've never had a CD make much of a difference. although I can't say I've never noticed them. Good ones seem to be everywhere and are personable, spontaneous, and entertaining. I can see how reading what amounts to scripted ads and marketing materials all the time in an attempt to polish the turd that is the MC experience would be awful for the guest and the CD.

 

Thanks.

[richsea]

18 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

In my 40+ cruises on Princess the cruise director has never had an impact on my cruise. What am I missing?

In a word, Matt.
We always felt the same about the CD; some good, some ok, but never a big difference maker. Then we cruised with Matt, & only once, for 20 nights, & he only made the first 10 nights, due to illness, but he was a difference maker.

[weedpindle]

18 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

In my 40+ cruises on Princess the cruise director has never had an impact on my cruise. What am I missing?

My thought also

[1emerald1]

He was the CD on my last cruise and I found him too frenetic, my opinion, no hater's please.  I also noted that he conducted all passenger dance lessons in the atrium, passenger games etc.  Usually those are done by the staff and asst. CD.  As he was an officer maybe Princess thinks he should be more value added to the brand.  I've been on 30 cruises and prior to the last one I usually only saw the CD in the evening announcing the shows and moving around the lounges.

 

Just my opinion, I see he has a tremendous following.

[AnyMajorCruiseDude]

31 minutes ago, 1emerald1 said:

He was the CD on my last cruise and I found him too frenetic, my opinion, no hater's please.  I also noted that he conducted all passenger dance lessons in the atrium, passenger games etc.  Usually those are done by the staff and asst. CD.  As he was an officer maybe Princess thinks he should be more value added to the brand.  I've been on 30 cruises and prior to the last one I usually only saw the CD in the evening announcing the shows and moving around the lounges.

 

Just my opinion, I see he has a tremendous following.

Not just you.  We agree

[mrstmaxx]

I guess I was missing something because he was about the worst CD I've ever sailed with.   I saw him be rude to passengers in front of a theater of people.  Also, he should know the names of the ports - it's Cabo San Lucas - not Cabo San Luca.  But everyone has their favorites and we are all different.   Well, he may not be the worse -  there was that guy on another cruise and I can't recall his name but he was a jerk.  he made fun of my husband because he wears a strap on his glasses.  But people loved him too.  Everybody likes different things.  But I wish him well on his future endeavors

[dickinson]

Before the position of ED (entertainment director) was created, the cruise director was mostly seen as the MC at the end of a show in the Princess theater.  Maybe a few other places.  With an ED, the cruise director is out and about much more often and more involved with the passengers  at the shows and games.  Maybe some people who don't cruise often are thinking of the  previous way when there was no ED and the CD was busy being the scenes.

[pms4104]

2 hours ago, 1emerald1 said:

He was the CD on my last cruise and I found him too frenetic, my opinion, no hater's please.  I also noted that he conducted all passenger dance lessons in the atrium, passenger games etc.  Usually those are done by the staff and asst. CD.  As he was an officer maybe Princess thinks he should be more value added to the brand.  I've been on 30 cruises and prior to the last one I usually only saw the CD in the evening announcing the shows and moving around the lounges.

 

Just my opinion, I see he has a tremendous following.

I understand, and I agree with you.

[leck57]

I found Matt to be a great Cruise Director and he made us laugh a lot. He was very hands on.

 

However, everyone has a boss, and as someone who has worked in a range of high positions, I suspect Matt would be "high maintenance". I only saw him as someone who I thought was great at his job, but had no idea of what goes on behind the scenes.

[richstowe]

I'm in the , CD doesn't really impact my cruise in any way , camp . Occasionally I've had an opinion and it was at odds with what most of CCers felt .

Having read Matt's adios letter it seems that there is some pain there . This pandemic was very hard on many . 

 

 

[Lucky TGO]

Tony

[GonzoWCS]

GL to him.  Not a show stopper for us.

 

Cheers

[Thrak]

I think our favorite CD to date was Dave Clark. Lots of energy and a fun guy.

[Kay S]

6 hours ago, 1emerald1 said:

Just my opinion, 

Everybody has one.  There isn't a thing on earth that everyone will agree on.  

[hobbyfarmer2]

On 7/22/2021 at 1:05 PM, TNTLAMB said:

I remember Matt O. The job of CD has evolved a lot since we started cruising in the 90's. far less of a "host/entertainer" and Stage personality and much more a manager and requiring a strong staff leadership role and the quirky out front personality more fitting to the ADC's. Reading his post which is a bit disjointed I get the impression this was a situation/example of the Peter Principle at work and difficulty adapting to the administrative responsibilities more than anything. It is indeed a sad loss. Even sadder is he appears to have burned his bridges with the industry.

I had the same impression on reading.  He sounded fairly upset.  Wish him all the best.

[hpeabody]

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

I think our favorite CD to date was Dave Clark. Lots of energy and a fun guy.

Michael, I recently discovered that Dave And Angela both went over to Celebrity.  She a CD, he something call Activities Manager.  So sad that they are gone from Princess.   Something internally not so good at Princess as I said in another post.  They are losing so many great people.

[Thrak]

13 minutes ago, hpeabody said:

Michael, I recently discovered that Dave And Angela both went over to Celebrity.  She a CD, he something call Activities Manager.  So sad that they are gone from Princess.   Something internally not so good at Princess as I said in another post.  They are losing so many great people.

 

Well poop. Thanks for the info.

[TNTLAMB]

On 7/23/2021 at 11:13 PM, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

Perhaps it's just industry musical chairs or something.  And maybe Princess has managed to poach highly regarded talent from other cruise lines.  This sort of things happens regularly in all industries.

You are correct "The Grass is Greener Syndrome" effects all industries. The interesting thing is that the ones who move the most frequently have strong outgoing personalities and are "upfront" sorts. People respond to that thinking they are better than they really are and the person begins to believe it himself, and overtime becomes dissatisfied leading to parallel moves.  I'll disagree with some. The Cruise director makes a huge difference in a cruise. But what we see publicly has very little to do with how good they are. The best managers are great at delegating duties, building up and supporting their staffs, promoting their brand through their efforts. They are seldom seen as they are busy doing their jobs. When you have a strong personality seen everywhere  doing everything, that is a strong clue they aren't often a good manager. I suspect Matt was "coached" to do do the managerial stuff over the up front stuff and didn't take it well. That in part (I know this first hand) is why they have added an ED who has assumed the non public roles. He is the person between the CD and Assistant hotel manager.

[ceilidh1]

To add a little perspective...imagine being a passenger and having the cruise director constantly promoting Medallion Class and pushing sales/products via the app/medallion. This is what the the new "scripted" cruise director is expected to do, and why Matt O walked away from the job he loved. 

[1emerald1]

22 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

To add a little perspective...imagine being a passenger and having the cruise director constantly promoting Medallion Class and pushing sales/products via the app/medallion. This is what the the new "scripted" cruise director is expected to do, and why Matt O walked away from the job he loved. 

If that's the case I would imagine there would be a lot of customer survey responses post cruise.  I know I would.

[Steelers36]

On 7/27/2021 at 5:31 PM, ceilidh1 said:

To add a little perspective...imagine being a passenger and having the cruise director constantly promoting Medallion Class and pushing sales/products via the app/medallion. This is what the the new "scripted" cruise director is expected to do, and why Matt O walked away from the job he loved. 

Maybe they should have got the art auctioneer to shill for Princess.