CEO and team from Miami on Equinox

[Oville]

On 10/14/2023 at 8:44 PM, Orator said:

Today I disembarked from Equinox and the new CEO and team from Miami were on the ship. Some shadowed the crew and they wanted to learn the experience of passengers. I had a few conversations with Laura and found her to be charming. I detected a positive shift in corporate culture which is more positive to the passenger. I thanked Laura for returning the Zeniths to the Retreat Lounge and asked several questions which were all answered. Laura truly wants feedback from passengers. There will be changes to the menu in the MDR in November which will be bringing back items that were removed. 

Thank you for the update Charles.  Nice to read a positive poster on here bringing what hopefully is good news.  Katie

[Oakman]

On 10/15/2023 at 6:37 AM, horseymike said:

Hopespringseternal , but if the quality issues keep declining there will be a point where people say enough. Not only on X , but any cruise line where the experience keeps going the wrong way.

The same thing happens on land based venues. We used to really enjoy Disney years ago and didn't feel like we were being robbed to go. That ship has sailed ( No pun intended ) for us.

 

We were on this Equinox sailing as well with the executives. They chose to "assume staff duties" for what was an hour and seemed like only a photo op. We were having coffee at Cafe El Bacio when it was jammed, and the executives only created chaos. We left and came back later. After this cruise, we have decided, even as Elite members, that this was our last Celebrity cruise. It no longer can be classified as "Premium Cruising". The ship was always noisy and felt terribly tired.  It  seemed like now it is just a glorified Royal Caribbean cruise. We will be returning to Princess and Holland America.

[riredsox]

18 hours ago, tnm6217 said:

@Jeremiah1212 Was this something that was sent out to TAs? I'm very curious about the "fleet wine list update" because over the last 10 months it's been entirely downhill!

Actually the wine list is fantastic!  It would be even better if they had any of the wines on the list!

[jelayne]

21 minutes ago, riredsox said:

Actually the wine list is fantastic!  It would be even better if they had any of the wines on the list!

Our cruise in May we found the options of wines to be greatly improved from earlier in the year.  Hope it is tge same or better next month.

[paulh84]

Mass production wine from 2021 into late 2022 was a real mess. Supply should be improving this year but they will probably be forced to rework the wine offerings based on what they can reliably get in scale at a workable price. 

[JDPCruisers]

9 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Our cruise in May we found the options of wines to be greatly improved from earlier in the year.  Hope it is tge same or better next month.

We found the same last April on the TA (Edge). Might be because it was headed for Europe, not sure, but we didn't lack for anything we liked whether it was familiar or recommended by the Sommeliers. We'll see what Dec brings us on a smaller ship (Connie).

[Orator]

Time will tell!

[bikerunner]

27 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

Mass production wine from 2021 into late 2022 was a real mess. Supply should be improving this year but they will probably be forced to rework the wine offerings based on what they can reliably get in scale at a workable price. 

Still is overall with supply chain.  Yes it has slowly improved but still running pretty inconsistently, I talk to old coworkers who still work in the Hospitality industry and they have had to adjust on almost order to order basis for many things.  Just go to supermarkets/or big box stores and you will see plenty of outs there.  Still not enough drivers/workers for the industry to be fully back up and running if we ever get there.  

[cruisestitch]

Untrained executives doing crew jobs could only mean chaos.  I sure hope they weren’t cooking anyone’s food.

[Saturngrl]

I'm glad the leaders went to the Gemba (where the work is done).  However, in a true Lean enterprise (eliminating waste), I believe the leaders should have gone separately on several Celebrity ships and merely shadowed the workers, not try to do their jobs to show off.  In shadowing, they could better obtain the "voice of the customer".  Additionally, it would be beneficial if each leader sailed a ship incognito.  They would become the customer, obtain the voice of their customers and observe where the waste is.  Eliminating waste would reverse the elimination of quality.  

 

I have pointed out numerous sources of waste from my experiences on the Reflection.  Example:  Celebrity has never figured out how to optimize "Select Dining".   Their antiquated seating system in the MDR requires three crew members to seat passengers.  One is the greeter, one walks the room and radios yet another crew member to identify open seats.   Another example:  breakfast service in the MDR.  The coffee server does three times the work of the pastry tray server.  You can eat three pastries before the coffee server ever comes to your table.  I say re-assign two pastry servers to coffee duty.  No loss of jobs, just leveling the workload.  

[riredsox]

45 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

Mass production wine from 2021 into late 2022 was a real mess. Supply should be improving this year but they will probably be forced to rework the wine offerings based on what they can reliably get in scale at a workable price. 

They didn’t have half the wines on the list before 2020 so it can’t be blamed on that.  

[~Jewels]

4 minutes ago, riredsox said:

They didn’t have half the wines on the list before 2020 so it can’t be blamed on that.  

Always our experience too. Particularly the premium by the glass wines.

[mrgabriel]

44 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Untrained executives doing crew jobs could only mean chaos.  I sure hope they weren’t cooking anyone’s food.

 

My career has been in customer-facing service related industries and this is always the case. My last employer sent my boss - a C-level exec - out in the field a couple of times and he created chaos in customer homes because he had no idea what he was doing. Fortunately, he recognised this and would step back. But more importantly, he also was one of the few executives I've worked with who treated customer-facing employees with enough respect to actually LISTEN to what they said and trust that they would provide solid, actionable feedback. He wound up having a great relationship with the guys he rode with and they would call him up to give confidential feedback on new initiatives or changes. 

 

I really doubt anyone in Miami is listening to the stateroom attendants, cooks, bartenders, servers or maitre d's ... Executives always know best. 🙄 (that's said with a heavy dose of sarcasm)

[the penguins]

1 hour ago, Saturngrl said:

I'm glad the leaders went to the Gemba (where the work is done).  However, in a true Lean enterprise (eliminating waste), I believe the leaders should have gone separately on several Celebrity ships and merely shadowed the workers, not try to do their jobs to show off.  In shadowing, they could better obtain the "voice of the customer".  Additionally, it would be beneficial if each leader sailed a ship incognito.  They would become the customer, obtain the voice of their customers and observe where the waste is.  Eliminating waste would reverse the elimination of quality.  

 

I have pointed out numerous sources of waste from my experiences on the Reflection.  Example:  Celebrity has never figured out how to optimize "Select Dining".   Their antiquated seating system in the MDR requires three crew members to seat passengers.  One is the greeter, one walks the room and radios yet another crew member to identify open seats.   Another example:  breakfast service in the MDR.  The coffee server does three times the work of the pastry tray server.  You can eat three pastries before the coffee server ever comes to your table.  I say re-assign two pastry servers to coffee duty.  No loss of jobs, just leveling the workload.  

I'm no expert but talking to a Maitre De one of the biggest issues in Select is spreading the passengers so that the Waiters get an equal number of "heads". This is critical for the staff as the central tips are based on the "heads". If you arrive at the table without being escorted just watch how fast the waiter heads off to the Check in Desk to collect the slip as it's their only record to check that they are paid the correct amount.

We sailed on Silhouette last year with just 800 passengers and to help manage this situation the Waiters were given whole days off (unthinkable and impossible with a full ship).

[rowval]

56 minutes ago, mrgabriel said:

 

My career has been in customer-facing service related industries and this is always the case. My last employer sent my boss - a C-level exec - out in the field a couple of times and he created chaos in customer homes because he had no idea what he was doing. Fortunately, he recognised this and would step back. But more importantly, he also was one of the few executives I've worked with who treated customer-facing employees with enough respect to actually LISTEN to what they said and trust that they would provide solid, actionable feedback. He wound up having a great relationship with the guys he rode with and they would call him up to give confidential feedback on new initiatives or changes. 

 

I really doubt anyone in Miami is listening to the stateroom attendants, cooks, bartenders, servers or maitre d's ... Executives always know best. 🙄 (that's said with a heavy dose of sarcasm)

Level C management, did you work for Bell Canada by chance?

[CruisinShips]

Forget the "lukewarm meals" in the MDR.  My hope is that they can't check in with their offices because their "premium" internet sucks, and they can't find anything decent to watch on their cabin TVs during their downtime.

[Oakman]

23 minutes ago, CruisinShips said:

Forget the "lukewarm meals" in the MDR.  My hope is that they can't check in with their offices because their "premium" internet sucks, and they can't find anything decent to watch on their cabin TVs during their downtime.

We were in cabin 7286 and which is a "dead spot" for internet we found out. By Day 2, we were so frustrated with the Premium package, we went down to the IT Desk to find out if we had the correct settings. The IT Staff Manager came up to our cabin within 30 minutes and used a meter to determine we were in a dead zone with limited access. He left our cabiln and came back 20 minutes later with a WiFi extender and plugged it in. From then on , we had lightning fast internet. 

[PTC DAWG]

I don't see how having some of the Executives on board is anything but good.  They need to experience what the customers are experiencing every now and then for sure.  

 

Having them serve coffee, not so much.  🙂

[CruisinShips]

13 minutes ago, Oakman said:

We were in cabin 7286 and which is a "dead spot" for internet we found out. By Day 2, we were so frustrated with the Premium package, we went down to the IT Desk to find out if we had the correct settings. The IT Staff Manager came up to our cabin within 30 minutes and used a meter to determine we were in a dead zone with limited access. He left our cabiln and came back 20 minutes later with a WiFi extender and plugged it in. From then on , we had lightning fast internet. 

Thanks for sharing that...I wish I had thought to do that during our recent cruise on the Eclipse.

[mrgabriel]

2 hours ago, rowval said:

Level C management, did you work for Bell Canada by chance?

No - this was in the US. 
 

it would be great if cable companies sent execs into our houses!