Atrium monopolized by nightly Deal or No Deal on Gem - any other ships?

[Seas2mountains]

We had a wonderful President's Day weekend 3 night cruise with our 8 year old granddaughter. I may provide more of a review with photos later but wanted to check to see if this a new trend or not. What happened each night in the atrium and especially on the last night was so frustrating when we love to cruise to listen to the lounge and atrium musical entertainers.

We are used to the Deal or No Deal game shows happening around the ships typically in the afternoon.

 

But has anyone recently experienced Deal or No Deal being the ONLY evening entertainment option in the atrium? This happened on Day 3 of 3 with Deal or No Deal card sales being scheduled 6:45pm-7:30pm and the game at 7:30pm with nothing else scheduled in the atrium before 6:45pm and nothing in the atrium after the game.

 

To try to generate even more revenue in the evening, Spinnaker lounge had bingo card sales from 8:30pm-9:00pm with Bingo at 9pm and the band wasn't scheduled to start their first set of the evening until 10pm!?!  Thankfully, Davi who plays piano and is a great singer started in Magnum's at 9:30pm for his first set of the night. Yes, they had one Trombone player and one Sax player in Magnums before that but that was it except Karaoke and the comedian's second night and we already saw him the first night.

 

I'm attaching the dailies to show the schedule. You can see that cruise director, Emma, hosted it all three nights. On Day 2, we were enjoying listening to Davi play in the atrium while folding chairs were a bit distracting as they were setting up for Deal or No Deal.

 

Just wondering if this is a new trend like no hash browns, no cookies in the buffet (can confirm they are still in the Haven), and no more breakfast in the observation lounges.  I can confirm they were still making crepes in the buffet in the evening.

 

We will cruise again on the Gem in mid-March for a 9 night cruise and are concerned about a shift in entertainment to focus on the revenue generating choices since I am sure Deal or No Deal and Bingo help NCL with $$$ but we aren't used to these so often every evening at the detriment of providing musical entertainment options we have experienced on our past NCL cruises.

 

NCL Gem 021724.pdf NCL Gem 021824.pdf NCL Gem 021624.pdf

[shof515]

Welcome to the new normal. Game shows in the theater is the new evening entertainment. this is normal

[Seas2mountains]

13 minutes ago, shof515 said:

Welcome to the new normal. Game shows in the theater is the new evening entertainment. this is normal

Thanks but to clarify, I know about Price is Right and other revenue generating games (Bingo, Deal or No Deal) displacing theater production shows in the theater. 

 

I was referencing the band, duo, guitar player or piano players who typically perform in the atrium or Spinnaker being displaced by Deal or No Deal and Bingo in the evening. 

 

We were on the Pearl in December and did not experience this on that same class of ship just about 60 days ago.   I am hopeful this was due to it being a 3-day cruise or some other glitch with the musicians.

Wondering if others are seeing more Deal or No Deal or Bingo in the evening and less musical performances in the smaller venues like the lounges (not the theater).

[UKstages]

i don't think this is anything new, quite frankly. "deal or no deal" is quite often done in the atrium. i couldn't tell you whether it's typically in the afternoon or evening, chiefly because i have no interest. i think it had such a big impact on you because it was the evening atrium entertainment for a third of your cruise.

 

"price is right," by the way, generates no revenue. it cost nothing to watch, nothing to be a contestant.

[Seas2mountains]

15 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 i think it had such a big impact on you because it was the evening atrium entertainment for a third of your cruise.

Deal or No Deal was in the atrium for three out of three nights during the prime hours of the evening. It impacted ALL three nights of the cruise.

 

I am very used to Deal or No Deal happening on a cruise but am not used to it happening every single night in the atrium.

It sounds like this may be an isolated incident based on the limited responses so far which is what I am really hoping. Maybe cruise director, Emma, was showing off to someone who wanted to cast her as the game show host in Hollywood. At least that is my hope. And we dread if this will be the nightly entertainment and only entertainment in the atrium in a few weeks.

[BirdTravels]

28 minutes ago, UKstages said:

"price is right," by the way, generates no revenue. it cost nothing to watch, nothing to be a contestant.

And, for most shows, people win prizes. 

 

We were given tickets to a Price is Right Live on shore recently and people were paying $100 per person to attend. 

[SoloAlaska]

Maybe new but it wasn’t the case in December on the TA of Gem. Bingo would sometimes run past 5pm in the spinnaker but there was no deal or no deal after dinner time.

[Seas2mountains]

 

16 minutes ago, SoloAlaska said:

Maybe new but it wasn’t the case in December on the TA of Gem. Bingo would sometimes run past 5pm in the spinnaker but there was no deal or no deal after dinner time.

Thank you. That is what we experienced, too, on past cruises in 2023 and most recently in December on the Pearl.

 

This is very new to us and we are hoping it won't be the new normal.

[SoloAlaska]

10 minutes ago, Seas2mountains said:

 

Thank you. That is what we experienced, too, on past cruises in 2023 and most recently in December on the Pearl.

 

This is very new to us and we are hoping it won't be the new normal.

Crossing fingers over here as well. Hopefully it was an outlier.

[quattrohead]

"Once again" Emma is a good cruise director.

 

It is plain to see NCL is doing everything possible to generate income and slash costs.

It is a disorganized mess due to chronic under staffing.

 

Wedding cruise review coming in the following days....Gem was good, wedding planners a disaster and customer service a disgrace.

[ready2cruzagain]

It was normal on the Epic in January when the new cruise director arrived. Bianca or something. She had Deal or No Deal 2 nights out of 7 in the Atrium. She also did Bingo one night in the Atrium. She also did other silly guest participation at night in the Atrium. We are in the minority and hated it. NCL makes good money on those two things so it is not going away.

 

The week before she got there, we had a band in the Atrium almost every night.

[Firstin87]

Just off the Jade and that was not the case.  "Deal or No Deal" was played in the theater in the afternoons.  I have noticed on past cruises, though, that it is done in the atrium.  This is a poor locations for such a highly attended event and I think it ends up costing NCL in the end as less passengers will buy the cards.  Hopefully, this was not the typical scheduling.

[DaisyGoldberg]

I hate to see that this has creeped into the Jewel class ships. It is one of my highest criticisms of the larger ships.  We certainly have stopped attending all of the games and game shows when they're not in the theatre. Apparently it's more profitable for them, however they determine that, so it will continue. But it has taken over the public areas to a very unpleasant degree. For us it ruins both the game experience AND the walking through the ship experience.

[zqvol]

I enjoy all the game shows in the atrium. It makes for excitement in the evenings and give you a chance to watch for a few minutes without having to go to the theater. 

[Firstin87]

9 hours ago, DaisyGoldberg said:

I hate to see that this has creeped into the Jewel class ships. It is one of my highest criticisms of the larger ships.  We certainly have stopped attending all of the games and game shows when they're not in the theatre. Apparently it's more profitable for them, however they determine that, so it will continue. But it has taken over the public areas to a very unpleasant degree. For us it ruins both the game experience AND the walking through the ship experience.

Totally agree.  We've found on the smaller ships that hold events in the atrium that include using a microphone to be very disruptive.  Not enough space for those who want to attend, the volume is sooo loud that you cannot conduct business with the departments in the atrium (Guest Services, CruiseNext, etc.).  I don't know how the people who work at those desks stand it.  I've often found that on the smaller ships that do this, there are other venues for hosting said events (lounge, bar, theater during the day), so it seems like poor planning by whomever is in charge of that.

[Seas2mountains]

For those who choose Breakway and Breakaway+ and Prima class ships, this is normal.

 

For those of us who love Jewel class and below ships, this is a change!  Cruise director, Emma, may have changed my future cruise plans and cruise line loyalty.

 

I have spent the whole evening looking for alternative cruise lines for our Prima cruise which has final payment due in 2 days and also for future cruises as we need to book a December 2024 and February 2025 cruise.

 

I can live without hash browns and cookies and breakfast in OV, but no rational location for live entertainment is pushing me to choose another cruise line such as Celebrity. We will be Diamond after our next Gem cruise in March.

[Seas2mountains]

Is it unreasonable to expect to have some decent live entertainment options in the evening before 9:30pm?

[AstoriaPreppy]

10 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

For those who choose Breakway and Breakaway+ and Prima class ships, this is normal.

 

For those of us who love Jewel class and below ships, this is a change!  Cruise director, Emma, may have changed my future cruise plans and cruise line loyalty.

 

I have spent the whole evening looking for alternative cruise lines for our Prima cruise which has final payment due in 2 days and also for future cruises as we need to book a December 2024 and February 2025 cruise.

 

I can live without hash browns and cookies and breakfast in OV, but no rational location for live entertainment is pushing me to choose another cruise line such as Celebrity. We will be Diamond after our next Gem cruise in March.

 

We experienced this on the Gem in the Adriatic in August. Multiple nights the main theater was dark, or showed a five year old movie as the evening entertainment... meanwhile Emma was slogging though another round of Deal or No Deal in the atrium. TBH, we wondered if cruise directors have a revenue goal to hit now, so she moved the programing to the atrium to try and sell more cards? 

 

While we overall had a great trip, I will say that we found Emma to be one of the weakest cruise directors on 30+ sailings we've taken; completely disengaged from the passengers outside of her public address announcements and intros at shows. I've never seen officers sprint out of an elite guest reception faster than that sailing. It was like the 100 m at the Olympics. 

[cruisinmeme]

On last cruise try to go to guest service when this madness is going on. You scream and they still can not hear you. Walking thru that area is also madness. With all the complaints it seems they would change it up. 

Speaking of cruise directors i spent 7 days on the ship and never even knew who ours was.

leaving in 10 days so sure it will be a repeat.

[Yesimapirate]

11 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

Is it unreasonable to expect to have some decent live entertainment options in the evening before 9:30pm?

It's may be unreasonable.   A Game show IS a live entertainment option.   Decent is in the eye over the beholder.   While I agree it's lame, the fact that it's well attended shows that many people believe it is indeed a decent live entertainment option. 

 

I'm not sure I'd say a cover band with a bad backing tracking and off key vocals is decent live entertainment and yet I've seen that quite often on NCL.   And always with a much smaller crowd than the silly game shows.  

 

And personally,  I find it a bit distasteful to knock a particular employee repeatedly when we have no clue if this was something she was instructed to do or not.  Wrong to Trae her apart without the fill story.

Edited February 22 by Yesimapirate

[Seas2mountains]

8 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

We experienced this on the Gem in the Adriatic in August. Multiple nights the main theater was dark, or showed a five year old movie as the evening entertainment... meanwhile Emma was slogging though another round of Deal or No Deal in the atrium. TBH, we wondered if cruise directors have a revenue goal to hit now, so she moved the programing to the atrium to try and sell more cards? 

 

While we overall had a great trip, I will say that we found Emma to be one of the weakest cruise directors on 30+ sailings we've taken; completely disengaged from the passengers outside of her public address announcements and intros at shows. I've never seen officers sprint out of an elite guest reception faster than that sailing. It was like the 100 m at the Olympics. 

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience on the Gem and with Emma as the CD.

 

We also had a wonderful cruise but it was tough to have this happen when we did like the musicians on the cruise but they weren't scheduled until late at night even thought the atrium was available earlier. I wondered the same thing about the CD getting a bonus for revenue on Deal or No Deal when we saw it was offered all three nights. I don't think I've ever had a Bingo game on a ship at 9pm at night. 

 

We were on the Gem in March 2023 for a 10 night cruise. I did do a live review and scanned through the dailies I posted.  From what I saw, Deal or No Deal was in the atrium one night at 8pm and otherwise was in the theater at about 1pm and Bingo was also in the theater at 4pm. We have had some amazing cruise directors and I would have let this go with it being a short weekend cruise if we weren't scheduled to cruise again on the Gem again on March 12th of this year. 

 

With so many recent NCL changes, I wasn't sure if this was a fleetwide or not.

Keeping our fingers crossed it won't happen again every night in the atrium on the next cruise.

[CptJLMcCrea]

10 hours ago, Yesimapirate said:

I'm not sure I'd say a cover band with a bad backing tracking and off key vocals is decent live entertainment and yet I've seen that quite often on NCL.

 

But often they are better to laugh at than the comediens.

 

[AstoriaPreppy]

On 2/22/2024 at 12:17 PM, Yesimapirate said:

And personally,  I find it a bit distasteful to knock a particular employee repeatedly when we have no clue if this was something she was instructed to do or not.  Wrong to Trae her apart without the fill story.

 

Had the employee in question ever stopped to chat with passengers, I would have asked her 😉

[Seas2mountains]

2 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

Had the employee in question ever stopped to chat with passengers, I would have asked her 😉

We are so hoping that Emma is on another cruise ship or on a break when we embark on the Gem again in 19 days. We have as many cruises as you have and we have never been so frustrated by a cruise director as we were on this recent cruise. 

[D_And_K_gocruising]

The way the atrium was on the escape, is rather have the game shows than a band trying to play.  The sound is horrible for music there and that makes for just a not fun session.  It just wasn’t good at all.  Put the music in places made for music or smaller areas maybe.  Dunno just didn’t seem to work as far as I was concerned.