Staffing the new ship Ray

[tinaincc]

I am new to SSea and will be sailing on Ray in June hopefully. I am wondering how SSea goes about staffing a new ship, do they hire a completely new staff or do they pull experienced staff from other ships or a combo? 

 

 

[Gourmet Gal]

Good question.  I’ve been wondering if the rapid rate of ships being added to RCL has impacted how well staff can be trained and “onboarded”.

[Solitarycruiser]

My experience has been that SS will add new staff from existing staff and new hires.

[Port Power]

2 hours ago, tinaincc said:

I am new to SSea and will be sailing on Ray in June hopefully. I am wondering how SSea goes about staffing a new ship, do they hire a completely new staff or do they pull experienced staff from other ships or a combo? 

 

 

I have had the same experience as @Solitarycruiser.  Experienced staff are pulled from the rest of the fleet to balance a lot of newbies.

[tgh]

My 5c value  contribution is a belief that SS are ensuring that the new front line ships enjoy fully experienced staff and that the older ships are used to train. A recent whisper cruise saw many inexperienced crew resulting in indifferent service levels -v- a current cruise on Nova where the crew have been quite exceptional.

Management on each ship also plays a part in staff attitude but they have to train them somewhere….

[Emtbsam]

54 minutes ago, tgh said:

My 5c value  contribution is a belief that SS are ensuring that the new front line ships enjoy fully experienced staff and that the older ships are used to train. A recent whisper cruise saw many inexperienced crew resulting in indifferent service levels -v- a current cruise on Nova where the crew have been quite exceptional.

Management on each ship also plays a part in staff attitude but they have to train them somewhere….

Our cruise on the Nova last fall had many, many inexperienced staff.  Few had a cruise ship background either with Silversea or anyone else.  Poor service was probably my biggest complaint on the Nova.  I am glad to hear it has improved.

[Randyk47]

Our last cruise was on the Dawn shortly after she came into service.  They were still trying to round out the crew and were actually short 20+ folks in the wait and service departments.  We saw quite a few instances where more experienced crew had a “shadow” new crew with them and actually overheard one say “this is how we do this” to their partner.   From what I have heard and read most cruise lines are still working to attract new staff and crew post-Covid.  New builds only add to the demand.

[drron29]

All cruise lines lost staff over the COVID pandemic. SS had the added problem of 4 new ships to staff. Moon, Dawn, Nova and Endevour . Silver Origin also joined the fleet in 2020 but was replacing a similar sized ship.

The plans for the new builds were made well before Covid.

 

So SS is sure to have quite a few more experienced staff but there will have to be some new recruits as well. The new crew we have talked to haven’t usually come from other cruise lines but most come from a hospitality background and usually from higher end hotels so service shouldn’t be alien to them.

 

One of the new hires that we met on the Muse was so good that after 3 months into his first contract he was promoted to a senior waiter in La Dame. And we heard that he is back for his second contract and has a further promotion.

 

The Ray will have a senior Captain as well. It will be Captain Zanello who has been the first Captain of the Muse, Moon and Nova.

[LAL Cruiser]

Yes, it will be a mix of longer term Silversea team members with a lot of new faces. 

 

Silversea faces the same challenges that many cruise lines (and travel firms in general) are dealing with in the post COVID world; Silversea has grown (see discussion above), so much long-term staffing was lost and did not return post pandemic, and demand for travel is sky-rocketing.  All at the same time!!!

 

We were on the Nova over Christmas and the service was good, not great, and improving.  Our Butler for example was lovely but clueless.  The Dining staff was good and much better than our first post COVID Silversea cruise (May 2022); on that cruise everyone was trying hard but service was below average. (The best service we ever had on Silversea was our ''COVID Cruise" - we cruised on the Moon through the Greek isles when the ship was brand new during August 2021 and the service was sublime.)

 

I do think that the Silver Ray introduction will go easier than the Nova - there is now once again a large enough pool of seasoned staff to get the ship running and a lot has been learned from the introduction of the Nova.  The Nova was a challenge, new ship, new design ship, larger ship and entirely different systems, limited staff - all at once. 

 

I am sure it will be fine - enjoy your journey.