Customer Service

[jkbec101]

We're cruising on NCL Escape in June on the NCL boards there are a ton of complaints about the service once on board (slow service, running out of various items, etc.)  

 

I'm curious if other cruise lines are having the same issues. 

[mom says]

Have you tried looking at the forums for all the other lines?

[hallux]

I cruised on that ship a month ago and didn't see a significant deficiency in service.  Keep in mind - we're coming off big Spring Break weeks where there are lots of families cruising.  There were 1,000 more kids on the cruise before mine than there were on mine (accounting for most of the difference in passengers on board).  Were a couple things late?  Maybe one or two, but overall I felt service was about equal to previous cruises.

 

Also consider that the cruise industry as a whole is experiencing employment challenges, other lines may have similar issues.  Yes, there was the recent review from the Bliss where the person had horrible service experiences. 

 

Additionally - consider that someone that experienced a problem is going to report that problem in full, possibly embellishing a little in their rage (I'm not saying the Bliss review was embellished, the person seemed very level-headed), and then nit-pick about EVERYTHING that was close to a less than desirable experience but people that are happy are not as likely to post their pleasure.  My theory on the Bliss experience - that ship was FULL (it wasn't when I did the same cruise on that ship in 2019 as it was about 2 weeks later then) and since it was going North for Alaska they may have just done a large exchange of crew to get fresh contracts for the Alaska season so they may have had a lot of new crew members on board and service suffered as a result.

 

When I returned a month ago I made a post about MY positive experience on the Escape. While there were over 4,000 other passengers on that cruise, I didn't see anyone post a negative rebuttal...

[CruiserBruce]

There will be, I promise you, someone complaining about customer service on every single ship. 

[Essiesmom]

I read the Carnival, Celebrity, Cunard, HAL, MSC, and Princess boards regularly.  I see the least complaints on Cunard, not too many on Celebrity, but the folks on the others can be very vocal.  EM

[Oakman58]

I would take the cruise and if you experience less than satisfactory service, never cruise with that line again.  When I began cruising with NCL 10 years ago I put them at the top of the list for being a great cruise line.  Since Covid, I now put them at the bottom of the list.  

[kelkel2]

Honestly, there’s chats all over about poor service, cut backs, etc etc. the reality is, cruise companies are trying to recover from the long shut down and the loss of revenue. All cruise lines were hurt, maybe some more than others, but they all are hurting. We just cruised in January on Carnival. There’s been tons of complaints, and service isn’t the same as before the pandemic but I wouldn’t say it’s bad. We had a fantastic time. If I listened to every complaint I’d never have gone. I’m glad we went and formed our own opinion! 

[shorne]

3 hours ago, kelkel2 said:

the reality is, cruise companies are trying to recover from the long shut down and the loss of revenue.

 

Alienating people with bad service is no way to foster that recovery.

[kelkel2]

7 hours ago, shorne said:

 

Alienating people with bad service is no way to foster that recovery.

Oh I don’t disagree with you. For instance, we weren’t thrilled with our cabin steward. We were in a suite so allegedly we have the best of the best stewards. But, we only saw him once, we had to seek him out. We were supposed to be given a choice of morning or evening service but no choice was given. He didn’t seem to have any set time to clean and often we would return to the cabin after lunch and it still wasn’t clean. I’m sure that a lot of that cutback related, more rooms, fewer stewards. But that’s where we personally noticed it and not in a good way. We still love cruising and won’t let one experience stop us, but someone else may. They can’t afford to lose customers over something like that.