The Virgin Celebration Cruise Re-Cap

[CruisingWalter]

A nice recap from Richard Branson (or whoever wrote this for him) on the Virgin Celebration Cruise that's wrapping up today I believe. I didn't realize they corrected their mistake with Donovan Tildesley and it's great to read he is now consulting with VV on accessibility improvements. And I do love the idea of remote working from cruise ships, I actually do this every time I'm on a ship, but I think 41 Voyages on VV would be a bit much for me. I need to mix it up and try out new ships. 🙂 

 

Here's the full article from Virgin's website.

[cantgetin]

Interesting......when I sent a snail mail to Tom McAlpin concerning an accessibility improvement that would not require any construction, I received an email 4 months later with a copy  of their disability policies/features.  Not even a "thank you for your concern."   While I doubt that Tom ever saw the letter, the people he seems to surround himself with did a very poor job!

[CruisingWalter]

21 hours ago, cantgetin said:

While I doubt that Tom ever saw the letter, the people he seems to surround himself with did a very poor job!

 

The fact that you even got a response is remarkable in itself. I don't know how many communications Tom's office receives daily, but for the most part you're lucky just to get a response from the executive offices of any cruise line, or any major corporation. I worked for one of the largest casinos in the world for a few years in the marketing dept. and it was mind boggling how many letters came in each day to our department with "I have a suggestion for you....." So it's not that the people around Tom are doing a poor job, it's just they have a method to get through the communications as quickly as possible and if they feel something is worth passing on to the engineering and design team, they will. If not, you get a stock answer.

 

What happened to Donovan was very public. He was wrongly thrown off one of their ships, and when something that public happens, a good company is going to take the time to listen and figure out how they can do better. It's not that Donavan caught their attention to become an advocate, it was by circumstance his voice is now being heard. I applaud Virgin Voyages for doing more than just making it up to him with a free cruise or 2. 

[cantgetin]

That's interesting,..I've only contacted  the head office of a company twice before, and in the other two instances, long before email was a big thing, I received a personal reply.  One said it was from an aide to X and addressed my suggestion and why they legally couldn't accept suggestions from outside the companies for legal reasons.  It was nice, but had I not gotten a response I wouldn't have been surprised.  The other was to DCL following the maiden voyage of the Disney Magic 25 years ago.  I sent.a 4 page letter saying that if they just wanted to know they had an unhappy customer, they could stop reading after the first paragraph, but I was taking the approach that if I didn't tell them where the problems were, they couldn't fix them...and went into detail.  I received a letter supposedly signed by the head of the cruise line thanking me and saying that my letter was being taken to their executive committee at the next meeting,  and included a coupon/certificate good for a significant discount on any cruise in the next 18 months.  A week or so later, I got a large box of DCL and Disney merch--my daughter was delighted. FWIW, we waited almost the 18 months to use the coupon.  While I didn't walk around with a list, everything the we rememvered as a problem had been fixed. and DCL was our then favorite cruise line....until we grew up and switched to VV.  
 

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

The fact that you even got a response is remarkable in itself.

 

As much as I hated Princess post-covid, they at least had an executive response team that would handle any emails from passengers addressed to execs.

It might take them 6-12 weeks to reply, but you'd eventually get a phone call from the team to address your concerns/issues.

[cantgetin]

2 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

As much as I hated Princess post-covid, they at least had an executive response team that would handle any emails from passengers addressed to execs.

It might take them 6-12 weeks to reply, but you'd eventually get a phone call from the team to address your concerns/issues.

They also have a very active sales team.  I've gotten snail mail, email, and a voice message on my phone starting with "Since you have expressed interest in a Princess cruise,,,"  Trust me, I have not expressed interest in a Princess cruise in MANY years and based on current changes, will likely never again.

[CineGraphic]

18 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

I've gotten snail mail, email, and a voice message on my phone starting with "Since you have expressed interest in a Princess cruise

 

Sign in to your Princess account online and under "my profile"  you can opt out of from being contacted via phone, mail, and email via the heading, "receive news and offers"

 

[cantgetin]

thanks

[aviators99]

On 9/1/2023 at 7:28 AM, CruisingWalter said:

A nice recap from Richard Branson (or whoever wrote this for him) on the Virgin Celebration Cruise that's wrapping up today I believe. I didn't realize they corrected their mistake with Donovan Tildesley and it's great to read he is now consulting with VV on accessibility improvements. And I do love the idea of remote working from cruise ships, I actually do this every time I'm on a ship, but I think 41 Voyages on VV would be a bit much for me. I need to mix it up and try out new ships. 🙂 

 

Here's the full article from Virgin's website.

Chris is really living his best life, working on the ship.  He's a web programmer, so it is very condusive to working remotely.  He also seems to be pretty close with Elesha, which may also be condusive to not wanting to leave?

[Lustate]

5 hours ago, aviators99 said:

Chris is really living his best life, working on the ship.  He's a web programmer, so it is very condusive to working remotely.  He also seems to be pretty close with Elesha, which may also be condusive to not wanting to leave?

From his insta he does appear “pretty close” with quite a lot of people. 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Lustate