Begging for 10's on the Anthem of the Seas

[stinsowm]

Just returned from the Anthem of the Seas and overall had a nice time. However, I have never been on a ship where staff kept asking if we were going to rate them a 10.  We dined in chops on night 1 and our waiter who did a nice job asked not once but 4 times to make sure to rate him a 10.  It really felt uncomfortable.  One afternoon early in the sailing, we also had the person at the ice cream soft serve station say perfect 10 as he gave us our ice cream.   I know many depend on the survey results to get bonus money but they really need to not be so pushy about the ratings.  The other sour point was the pushing of the specialty restaurants.  I understand it day one but they kept pushing it during our time in the windjammer and even coming out of the Diamond crown lounge.  

 

The good about the sailing was our stateroom attendant was always smiling and kept us clean.  We were in a standard balcony cabin and there was plenty of storage and the bed was very comfortable.   We also thought the cruise director was outstanding and the entertainment was great!   The ship was large but easy to navigate.  

 

Sorry to vent a bit regarding the pushing of 10's and restaurant sales.  A cruise vacation is still an amazing vacation overall.  You unpack once and get to travel to some pretty amazing ports of call.  

 

 

[Biker19]

51 minutes ago, stinsowm said:

However, I have never been on a ship where staff kept asking if we were going to rate them a 10. 

That varies across ships and staff. On the next one you may never be asked.

[neverbeenhere]

No worries. Everyone get bugged by various things on cruises. Have the best day possible!!!

 

 

(BTW: Could you give me a 10 for my comment, Please)

[mil76]

You have to sail on Anthem to understand how bad it is.  In the Windjammer they change the monitors when you walk in to beg for 10's, and put up subliminal 10 signs on the different stations.  Then to top it off they play annoying "10 out of 10" songs over the speakers.  We complained about it on our surveys after our June cruises, but it sounds like nothing has been done about it.

[teddie]

18 minutes ago, mil76 said:

You have to sail on Anthem to understand how bad it is.  In the Windjammer they change the monitors when you walk in to beg for 10's, and put up subliminal 10 signs on the different stations.  Then to top it off they play annoying "10 out of 10" songs over the speakers.  We complained about it on our surveys after our June cruises, but it sounds like nothing has been done about it.

Wow!  How recent was this? We sailed the Anthem three separate times between February 2023 and March 2024 and never had this experience. 

 

Teddie

[GTO-Girl]

21 minutes ago, mil76 said:

You have to sail on Anthem to understand how bad it is.  In the Windjammer they change the monitors when you walk in to beg for 10's, and put up subliminal 10 signs on the different stations.  Then to top it off they play annoying "10 out of 10" songs over the speakers.  We complained about it on our surveys after our June cruises, but it sounds like nothing has been done about it.

wow that does seem very excessive!!!  😳😳

[Tatka]

1 hour ago, mil76 said:

You have to sail on Anthem to understand how bad it is.  In the Windjammer they change the monitors when you walk in to beg for 10's, and put up subliminal 10 signs on the different stations.  Then to top it off they play annoying "10 out of 10" songs over the speakers.  We complained about it on our surveys after our June cruises, but it sounds like nothing has been done about it.

 

Must be something recent. We sailed on her 11 times, 7 times since restart and never been asked  about that.

We've been asked once out of 4 cruises this year. On another ship.

[FionaMG]

Oh wow, I must have been walking around in a daze on Anthem last week. I just got off on Sunday and never saw or heard anything like this, although I do remember seeing it reported here beforehand so am not questioning the OP's experience. I am just glad I didn't experience it.

 

Our servers in Izumi and Wonderland, as well as in the MDR, mentioned the survey only once, and briefly at that, and while they explained that 10 was the best score not one of them actually asked us to give them that score.

 

We were also never hounded to book speciality dining. To the one person who approached us on day one I (untruthfully) said we had the dining package. I guess we must have looked like cheapskates as we were never approached by anyone else after that! 😂

[Baron Barracuda]

Haven't been on Anthem for a while but distinctly remember hw or rm getting on the mike EVERY night as we tried to enjoy our meal singing off key and begging for 10's for his hard working staff.  Very annoying.  Stopped by our table one night to solicit 10's and I told him he was currently down to a 9 and every night he kept it up we would take away another point.  Didn't help.  Wrote him up in the survey.

[Mapleleafforever]

Have experienced this on all of our cruises, I used to love the question asking if any crew members asked for a good score on the survey.

[Cruising89143]

We were on the Anthem in early August for nine nights. The only person that mentioned the survey was our server in Coastal Kitchen. Never saw any signage asking for 10’s. 

[mil76]

From June:

 

 

And the worst of all:

[mets123]

That's sad, borderline pathetic. Never saw anything like that when she sailed from Cape Liberty, and we've done that at least 15 sailings.

[cruiseguy1016]

I say, "if you mention it again, I will give you a 1". 

[gavvy]

I was asked 5 times in one evening in the MDR if I would give a 10 of which 3 were by my waiter and 2 by the head waiter or some guy in a suit anyway never worked out what he actually was and he always popped up as were were eating.

 

You end up saying yes just to get rid of them it's awkward and really unprofessional but you have to ask what pressure have they been put under by senior management to resort to such tactics? 

[RobInMN]

I absolutely dread going to the MDR on the last night because of this and the yelling into the crappy audio quality PA system during the staff parade.

[cbowls30]

We had this happen to us numerous times on symphony last year...very annoying and felt quite uncomfortable at times when one waiter in MDR told us at the start of every course! We noticed he was looking around for his section manager and almost whispering to us, interestingly we noticed that on our post cruise survey one question asked us if any crew during the cruise asked us to rate them 10....so clearly they know it's happening 

[Oceansaway17]

Oh I look at them with a sweet smile and then very firmly tell them I do not do surveys EVER so just go to another person. Then I put head down start eating something. They get the hint

[swoopy2110]

2 hours ago, mil76 said:

From June:

 

 

That Norwegian Salmon looks a bit off

[la_croisiere_s'amuse]

5 hours ago, mil76 said:

In the Windjammer they change the monitors when you walk in to beg for 10's, and put up subliminal 10 signs on the different stations.  Then to top it off they play annoying "10 out of 10" songs over the speakers. 

 

I honestly, truly thought this was a joke. 😲 Really not okay. 

Like most of us, I have experienced those awkward requests from waiters, but nothing like this. Holy schnikies. 

[Airbear232]

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

From June:

 

 

And the worst of all:

I thought you were exaggerating - wow - sorry.  That’s annoying. 

[SUgwoz]

On Allure MDR they repeatedly asked. On Icon, not a single comment about it and they delivered 10/10 service. 

[notscb]

10/10 is true in any customer facing position at any corporation you frequent. If you don't get a 10, it's like you might as well have not shown up to work at all and are at risk of being demoted/fired/corrective actioned. On a cruise ship, that 10/10 could be the difference between a shore-day, extra time for phone calls home and working extra time in the dining room.

 

Blame the corporation for devaluing their own customer satisfaction surveys, don't blame the employees for wanting to keep their jobs in good standing.

[fisherguy]

We usually get this on our last day/night of the cruise and across all the cruise lines and ships.  Rather have this than getting asked for specialty dining literally 30 times during the cruise.

 

Whenever i get this spiel, I smile and say, you are the best server on the ship.  Number one in my books so that is what I will put on the survey, the number 1!

[little britain]

We also commented on the ridiculous amount of times we were asked for a 10 whilst on Anthem in June and we complained it was ruining our holiday experience. 
 

The “10” song in the WJ was the final straw.