Epic Embarkation today 1/8

[Grumpella]

Started down the road to the ship at 10:15. It took us 30 min to reach the parking lot, and our taxi driver was running over curbs and going down service roads.

 

In line now inside building for checkin, waiting for it to start. About 200 in building. The rest have to wait outside.

 

We were told, after I asked, that checkin will begin after the ship is cleared. We will then board the ship after checkin, there is no other waiting area.  So far, 35 min in this line.

[Grumpella]

Just started checkin at 11:22.

[SeaShark]

You'll have to let us know how the delayed start affects their ability to check in and board all the guest before sailaway.

[Grumpella]

Checkin finished at 12:05. Then had to wait outside to board ship. Long line, boarded at 12:40.

 

Went to Box Office, Burn the Floor on Monday and Wed, 7 and 9 pm.

 

Priscilla on Thurs and Fri, 7 and 9 pm. 
 

Going on vacation mode, will post when I get back.

[vacation44]

Thank you for the update and have a great cruise!

[G-DawgMN]

2 hours ago, Grumpella said:

Just started checkin at 11:22.

 For our cruise in a couple weeks the earliest check in time is 11am. I’m guessing this terminal doesn’t open earlier like a lot of other ports with really causes the line to get long. 

[Grumpella]

I am signing back in for 1 more comment before shutting down.

 

i was afraid this would happen. Our room steward told us today that because he doesnt have to do nightime service now, he has 22 cabins to clean instead of the previous 15 cabins.

 

Our cabin was not ready until 3 pm. I think passengers will start seeing more and more of this. I felt so bad for him, shame on NCL!!!

[SeaShark]

12 minutes ago, Grumpella said:

I am signing back in for 1 more comment before shutting down.

 

i was afraid this would happen. Our room steward told us today that because he doesnt have to do nightime service now, he has 22 cabins to clean instead of the previous 15 cabins.

 

Our cabin was not ready until 3 pm. I think passengers will start seeing more and more of this. I felt so bad for him, shame on NCL!!!

 

Please explain why you feed bad for him.

 

With 15 cabins when he had to do both day and evening service, that means he services 30 times per day.

 

Now with 22 cabins that he only services once per day, that is just 22 services per day.

 

Seems like his workload has decreased by almost 27%.

 

Plus, he now gets the DSC from 22 cabins instead of 15, so that is an increase in pay.

 

Less work, more money...and you feel bad for him?

[Sixer]

Maybe there is a different way to look at it.  Assuming double occupancy, if he had 15 cabins before and 22 now, he was cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now.  I would expect that cleaning the same cabin twice a day is easier than cleaning.2 different cabins in the same day.  Maybe the extra pay covers the extra work, but it does seem like extra work to me.

[SunshineGal2022]

3 hours ago, Sixer said:

Maybe there is a different way to look at it.  Assuming double occupancy, if he had 15 cabins before and 22 now, he was cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now.  I would expect that cleaning the same cabin twice a day is easier than cleaning.2 different cabins in the same day.  Maybe the extra pay covers the extra work, but it does seem like extra work to me.

Also, knowing how management works, he probably wasn't given much extra time to service the extra 7 cabins and was still expected to finish before a set time in the morning. 

[mking8288]

Typically, a good & efficient houskeeper can clean the average "hotel" room in about 20 minutes, maybe 25 to 30 minutes if more work is needed (families with infants, children or teens, piles of extra disposables, food plates & cups, etc.)

 

Good luck if one of "your" stateroom is #20 or 21 on her/his list of assigned cabins to be cleaned - especially you like to return to a clean room for an afternoon power nap after a nice lunch, or just to relax & read a book, or catch the ocean breeze on the balcony.  Because, it is going take, easily, 7 to 8 hours, when your friendly & busy steward begin her/his workday at 8 or 8:30 a.m. starting with preparing the carts, supplies & prep work - to get to you (20 cabins x 25 minutes = 500 minutes ... about 8 1/2 hours later, even if s/he doesn't take a 30 minutes meal break to rest.  

 

We've seen plenty of sloppy housekeeping work at 4 and 5 stars land hotel struggling with their post-Covid recovery mode, cutting corners and not wiping down certain surfaces - and maybe only when the guests checkout after a multi-day stay.  

 

[travelmama06]

Great to see the shows being offered this week 

hopefully they will both be available on Jan 15 - 22 cruise itinerary 🤞🤞

[vacation44]

8 hours ago, Sixer said:

Maybe there is a different way to look at it.  Assuming double occupancy, if he had 15 cabins before and 22 now, he was cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now.  I would expect that cleaning the same cabin twice a day is easier than cleaning.2 different cabins in the same day.  Maybe the extra pay covers the extra work, but it does seem like extra work to me.

I agree.

[SeaShark]

12 hours ago, Sixer said:

Maybe there is a different way to look at it.  Assuming double occupancy, if he had 15 cabins before and 22 now, he was cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now.  I would expect that cleaning the same cabin twice a day is easier than cleaning.2 different cabins in the same day.  Maybe the extra pay covers the extra work, but it does seem like extra work to me.

 

It might seem that way, but only because of a fault in your math.

 

You neglected to include the fact that 15 cabins were serviced twice daily, and the 22 cabins will only be serviced once daily. Serving 30 people twice daily is equivalent of serving 60 people once daily.

 

As a result, your "cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now" has to be corrected to "cleaning up after 60 people before and 44 now".

[minka34]

On 1/8/2023 at 9:22 AM, Grumpella said:

We were told, after I asked, that checkin will begin after the ship is cleared. We will then board the ship after checkin, there is no other waiting area.  So far, 35 min in this line.

Thank you Gumpella - I logged in today just to find Epic boarding info.  Was happy to find your post!

[rnfulk]

2 hours ago, SeaShark said:

 

It might seem that way, but only because of a fault in your math.

 

You neglected to include the fact that 15 cabins were serviced twice daily, and the 22 cabins will only be serviced once daily. Serving 30 people twice daily is equivalent of serving 60 people once daily.

 

As a result, your "cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now" has to be corrected to "cleaning up after 60 people before and 44 now".

The math is a bit flawed because the amount of time it takes to do a full room cleaning in the morning and the amount of time for turn down are not equivalent. 

[Langham1865]

18 hours ago, Grumpella said:

I am signing back in for 1 more comment before shutting down.

 

i was afraid this would happen. Our room steward told us today that because he doesnt have to do nightime service now, he has 22 cabins to clean instead of the previous 15 cabins.

 

Our cabin was not ready until 3 pm. I think passengers will start seeing more and more of this. I felt so bad for him, shame on NCL!!!

 

My parents were on Holland America and I think they are no longer doping a PM servicing of rooms and are up to 33 rooms!!!!!

[BirdTravels]

18 hours ago, Grumpella said:

Our cabin was not ready until 3 pm. I think passengers will start seeing more and more of this. I felt so bad for him, shame on NCL!!!

Your room steward should be happy. As it was with 15 rooms, they would spend all day cleaning, go have a meal, change to night uniforms, and start over with the 15 rooms, taking them long into the evening without a long break. Now, they will do one pass and be done. 

[SeaShark]

2 hours ago, rnfulk said:

The math is a bit flawed because the amount of time it takes to do a full room cleaning in the morning and the amount of time for turn down are not equivalent. 

Hence why they only added 7 cabins instead of doubling it.

[MSP_CRUISER]

3 hours ago, SeaShark said:

Hence why they only added 7 cabins instead of doubling it.

Your not accounting that they still turn down rooms with 3+ guests. The sofa bed and/or pull downs still need to be made up for sleeping, which adds to the work load. At the end of the day, it's likely close to the same amount of work.

 

[Sixer]

11 hours ago, SeaShark said:

 

It might seem that way, but only because of a fault in your math.

 

You neglected to include the fact that 15 cabins were serviced twice daily, and the 22 cabins will only be serviced once daily. Serving 30 people twice daily is equivalent of serving 60 people once daily.

 

As a result, your "cleaning up after 30 people before and 44 now" has to be corrected to "cleaning up after 60 people before and 44 now".

My point is that there aren’t 60 different people.  Previously, there were 30 people, twice daily. Now there are 44 people only once.  Assuming a person in both scenarios is roughly the same (on average), there are more people to deal with now.  Doing 2 services in the same cabin each day is not the same as doing 2 cabins once a day.  There is absolutely more work now.

 

And add the point from MSP_CRUISER that they will still do turn downs for some, it is even more work.

[zqvol]

35 minutes ago, Sixer said:

My point is that there aren’t 60 different people.  Previously, there were 30 people, twice daily. Now there are 44 people only once.  Assuming a person in both scenarios is roughly the same (on average), there are more people to deal with now.  Doing 2 services in the same cabin each day is not the same as doing 2 cabins once a day.  There is absolutely more work now.

 

And add the point from MSP_CRUISER that they will still do turn downs for some, it is even more work.

Don’t assume that they will do a turn down as MSP_CRUISER suggests, they are more likely to leave the beds made as beds the whole time. 

[SeaShark]

3 hours ago, MSP_CRUISER said:

Your not accounting that they still turn down rooms with 3+ guests. The sofa bed and/or pull downs still need to be made up for sleeping, which adds to the work load. At the end of the day, it's likely close to the same amount of work.

 

You act as though a room will have a fixed number of guests. It can be 1, 2, 3, or 4 in a typical cabin. So by guest count only a stewards workload could vary wildly. Yet the cabins remain the same, the number of hours in a day doesn't change, and you're now just stumbling onto something that was taken into account when setting the workload.

[SeaShark]

1 hour ago, Sixer said:

My point is that there aren’t 60 different people.  Previously, there were 30 people, twice daily. Now there are 44 people only once.  Assuming a person in both scenarios is roughly the same (on average), there are more people to deal with now.  Doing 2 services in the same cabin each day is not the same as doing 2 cabins once a day.  There is absolutely more work now.

 

And add the point from MSP_CRUISER that they will still do turn downs for some, it is even more work.

Why do you think they'd have to be different people? 30 people twice a day is still 60 customer point of service contacts...44 people once per day is still 44 customer point of service contacts.

 

While there are more different people to deal with in a day, you gain the time spent dealing with 30 of them once. 30 people twice daily and 44 people once daily. You can't get around the math.

[J0Y0US]

11 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

Why do you think they'd have to be different people? 30 people twice a day is still 60 customer point of service contacts...44 people once per day is still 44 customer point of service contacts.

 

While there are more different people to deal with in a day, you gain the time spent dealing with 30 of them once. 30 people twice daily and 44 people once daily. You can't get around the math.

 

30 people twice a day is possibly less work than 44 people once a day. Be interesting to ask them in a couple months.

 

The evening service from my view was never an actual cleaning just a quick tidy.

 

So would you rather have to do full cleaning of 14 rooms or a quicker turndown service for 30 rooms is the question?

 

Also think about port intensive cruises and lots of people are likely hardly touching their rooms between the morning and evening service.