Northern Europe on Jewel - horrible suite butler

[RCDR]

We just came back from Northern Europe on the Jewel in an AD suite. Alex, the Australian concierge, and his assistant was GREAT (they go out of their way to accommodate our needs and are ALWAYS friendly and nice), but our butler Ryan was HORRIBLE! We ended up not using him after a few days into our trip and just called our concierge for things we needed.

We were warmly greeted by Alex by our names when we showed up at the Suite Check-in area, but then when we were handed over to our Butler Ryan to go to our suite, things got crazy! We were on a RACE lead by Ryan, jumping lines and racing towards our suite!! I don't know what part of that was a 'relaxing' start of your cruise!!! Then, our first dinner room service was delivered by him ALL COURSES AT THE SAME TIME. So by the time we got to our main course, it was cold since its been sitting in our room with a plate cover all these times! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COURSE BY COURSE SERVICE I HAVE READ ON THIS BOARD? The second room service dinner experience was worse, this time he did not even lay down a table cloth, and of course all the courses wereall dumped into our suite like the first time!!!! The thing that really angered me was Ryan asked for less then a one hr window to come back and pick up our plates since he was 'off work by 10pm'. We did not pay the extra $$ for suite service so that we are asked to RACE through our dinner....I had to suggest to him that we will just call room service after we finished for the plates pick up! I got so sick of him we stopped using room service since we know it will be Ryan serving it....needless to say we did not leave him a single dime of gratuity! I WILL NEVER REWARD SUCH HORRIBLE SERVICE.

We are a bit turned off by this suite experience since its our first time, not sure if its worth the extra cost to potentially encounter another horrible butler!! Maybe a mini suite will be better...

[nlt46]

Sorry you had such a bad experience with your Butler. We have never had a bad experience in 3 suite rides. Looking forward to Oct. when we will be on the Jewel. Wonder if we'll have your butler? Nancy

[NoPiratesPlease]

I'm surprised you didn't tell Alex Forbes. And, if you did, I'm even MORE surprised he didn't fix it, and rip the butler a new you-know-what--that's part of the Concierge's job.

 

After 20+ cruises on NCL, and 12 times in the GV, we don't put up with that nonsense. If a butler is good, he'll be VERY happy throughout the cruise, and, especially, at tip time. If he's not so good, we'll be letting the Concierge know in a NY minute. Actually, in all our times in the GV, we've only ONCE had a bad butler, and he was replaced by Karin, who's now a Concierge and was FANTASTIC as a butler. But who's the best butler? I cannot decide! John D'Souza? Kaydek? Roland--plus all the other fine ones.

[orangeh3]

I'm surprised you didn't tell Alex Forbes. And, if you did, I'm even MORE surprised he didn't fix it, and rip the butler a new you-know-what--that's part of the Concierge's job.

 

After 20+ cruises on NCL, and 12 times in the GV, we don't put up with that nonsense. If a butler is good, he'll be VERY happy throughout the cruise, and, especially, at tip time. If he's not so good, we'll be letting the Concierge know in a NY minute. Actually, in all our times in the GV, we've only ONCE had a bad butler, and he was replaced by Karin, who's now a Concierge and was FANTASTIC as a butler. But who's the best butler? I cannot decide! John D'Souza? Kaydek? Roland--plus all the other fine ones.

 

;) John's back on the Star. :D

 

This Ryan cannot be the same Ryan that was on the Gem TA, could it? I am on the Jewel 10/8 cruise in an AD and Alex will hear from me if the service is bad. :)

[JoJo1554]

I'm confused...I was on the Spirit in May and stayed in an AB. We also had our dinner delivered all at once...Not by courses. Is it supposed to be delivered by courses??? I thought it was supposed to be delivered all at once! If it was supposed to come in courses I'm pissed!

[orangeh3]

I'm confused...I was on the Spirit in May and stayed in an AB. We also had our dinner delivered all at once...Not by courses. Is it supposed to be delivered by courses??? I thought it was supposed to be delivered all at once! If it was supposed to come in courses I'm pissed!

 

It does depend on how busy the butler is, what time you want your dinner. The butlers do have more than one cabin to attend to. If they have 10 cabins and those 10 cabins want dinner at 7:30pm, what can the butler do? Sometimes the butlers have cabins on both the front and aft of the ship, different decks, etc. ;)

[carontori]

If you order room service your butler will bring all courses at once. They don't have the time to run back and forth to the galley for each course.

[time2cruise1]

I'm confused...I was on the Spirit in May and stayed in an AB. We also had our dinner delivered all at once...Not by courses. Is it supposed to be delivered by courses??? I thought it was supposed to be delivered all at once! If it was supposed to come in courses I'm pissed!

 

You can request it be served course by course. Butlers are not mind readers and the norm is to bring all your food at once. Not setting up the table is totally unacceptable. Keep in mind if you do one of two things will happen the rest of your dinner will be on the cart in the hallway or dinner may take two plus hours as a single butler juggles 10 suites.

To the OP if you don't request it don't expect it.

[sarahvch]

Our butlers ask us if we want course by course or all at one time.

[shoreless]

Our dinner (we had an AC cabin on Jewel Baltics in July) all arrived at once, including the ice cream which was already completely melted when it got to our cabin. I can understand the time constraints, but I did think they could have at least put the ice cream dishes into an outer container with ice like most hotels do.

 

Our concierge was somewhat disorganized. I think he spent most of the day at a desk by Cagney's, and he might have been bored and dozed off from time to time. He mixed up a couple of our dinner reservations and a shore excursion request he was trying to arrange for us. The people in the AB next door said he supposedly made a couple of dinner reservations for them but when they arrived at the restaurants they weren't on the lists. They were pretty unhappy.

 

On the flip side, our cabin stewards were fantastic. They moved out some furniture we didn't need (I think NCL gets a little carried away with the amount of furniture they cram into some of the suites), and we have a couple of great pictures of them laughing as they dragged out the huge and hideous fake flowering tree. Almost every day after that they would stop us in the hall to give us the latest update on the fake tree growing and taking over the storage room they put it in.:D

[Luv4dacruise]

We just came back from Northern Europe on the Jewel in an AD suite. Alex, the Australian concierge, and his assistant was GREAT (they go out of their way to accommodate our needs and are ALWAYS friendly and nice), but our butler Ryan was HORRIBLE! We ended up not using him after a few days into our trip and just called our concierge for things we needed.

We were warmly greeted by Alex by our names when we showed up at the Suite Check-in area, but then when we were handed over to our Butler Ryan to go to our suite, things got crazy! We were on a RACE lead by Ryan, jumping lines and racing towards our suite!! I don't know what part of that was a 'relaxing' start of your cruise!!! Then, our first dinner room service was delivered by him ALL COURSES AT THE SAME TIME. So by the time we got to our main course, it was cold since its been sitting in our room with a plate cover all these times! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COURSE BY COURSE SERVICE I HAVE READ ON THIS BOARD? The second room service dinner experience was worse, this time he did not even lay down a table cloth, and of course all the courses wereall dumped into our suite like the first time!!!! The thing that really angered me was Ryan asked for less then a one hr window to come back and pick up our plates since he was 'off work by 10pm'. We did not pay the extra $$ for suite service so that we are asked to RACE through our dinner....I had to suggest to him that we will just call room service after we finished for the plates pick up! I got so sick of him we stopped using room service since we know it will be Ryan serving it....needless to say we did not leave him a single dime of gratuity! I WILL NEVER REWARD SUCH HORRIBLE SERVICE.

We are a bit turned off by this suite experience since its our first time, not sure if its worth the extra cost to potentially encounter another horrible butler!! Maybe a mini suite will be better...

 

So you stiffed the poor guy because you were expecting something non-existant?....Shameful...

 

You were not the only cabin the butler has, i think you were honestly expecting WAY too much. The only valid thing i would say was the table not being set. The rest was all something even if traveling in a suite i would come to kind of expect on a mainstream line. Not putting it down, but, its NCL, not Seabourn.

 

Did you honestly think he was going to go to the galley for each and every course?.....Thats just a little absurd i think.

[joycep13]

Hmm. We were in a Garden Villa on the Jade and our butler brought in everything for our dinner meals all at one time (we had dinner in our villa more than half the time during the course of our 13-ngt. cruise). For the ice cream desserts he put those into our fridge so they were still pretty solid by the time we got to them.

 

To be honest, we didn't even think about whether dinner should be served in courses or not - I guess we were ECSTATIC just to be able to be having dinner in our Villa! My elderly father isn't very mobile so this was really wonderful to not have to get him out to a restaurant every night (he much prefers staying stationary rather than moving around alot).

 

Anyway, our butler, Rhamadan (sp?) always wheeled his carts in laden with hot food exactly on time, laid down white tableclothes (usually 2 because of our large table), and came back promptly after the meal and surreptitiously whisked away the dirty dishes and left the table spotless.

 

It was Glorious. :-)

 

Cheers,

Joyce

[AFAMILY]

Our dinner (we had an AC cabin on Jewel Baltics in July) all arrived at once, including the ice cream which was already completely melted when it got to our cabin. I can understand the time constraints, but I did think they could have at least put the ice cream dishes into an outer container with ice like most hotels do.

 

Our concierge was somewhat disorganized. I think he spent most of the day at a desk by Cagney's, and he might have been bored and dozed off from time to time. He mixed up a couple of our dinner reservations and a shore excursion request he was trying to arrange for us. The people in the AB next door said he supposedly made a couple of dinner reservations for them but when they arrived at the restaurants they weren't on the lists. They were pretty unhappy.

 

On the flip side, our cabin stewards were fantastic. They moved out some furniture we didn't need (I think NCL gets a little carried away with the amount of furniture they cram into some of the suites), and we have a couple of great pictures of them laughing as they dragged out the huge and hideous fake flowering tree. Almost every day after that they would stop us in the hall to give us the latest update on the fake tree growing and taking over the storage room they put it in.:D

 

It sounds like these guys had a great sense of humor and had alot of fun with you! Removing that fake tree probably gave them a good story to tell their friends about as well! :)

 

Can you post the pictures? They would be fun to see.

 

Happy Cruising! :)

[lazydaz]

We were in an AD suite on both the Jade and Jewel this summer. On the Jade our butler was Henry and the concierge was Ruth. On the Jewel the butler was Mark and the concierge was Ryan. We were very happy with all of them. They really helped make our cruises memorable and we tipped them accordingly. Ryan is an experienced butler but because of staff leaves. he was working as a concierge on our cruise. He was always available when we needed him, and told us he looked forward to being a butler again. Both Ryan and Ruth used a desk in the lounge outside Cagney's as their office so we were able to touch base with them easily when we were coming out of the restaurant.

 

It was my understanding on both cruises that the garden suites and owners suites etc. had a separate butler with fewer suites to look after than the butlers who were covering the smaller suites. Their responsibilities included the AC, AD and AE (probably others as well) which were on different floors and at opposite ends of the ship so there was a lot of territory for the butler to cover.

 

I'm sorry the cruise did not go well for the OP as we found it to be quite memorable.

[shoreless]

It sounds like these guys had a great sense of humor and had alot of fun with you! Removing that fake tree probably gave them a good story to tell their friends about as well! :)

 

Can you post the pictures? They would be fun to see.

 

Happy Cruising! :)

 

Unfortunately, the best one came out all blurry (I blame my husband, as he took the pictures ;) ), but we still have these two. I still haven't finished sorting all the pictures of our two month trip -- my husband took thousands, and I took lots too, but just looking through them now I really, really want to go back to Europe and the Jewel! It was our first trip over there and we really had a fantastic time.

[VoyageVirgin]

We just came back from Northern Europe on the Jewel in an AD suite. Alex, the Australian concierge, and his assistant was GREAT (they go out of their way to accommodate our needs and are ALWAYS friendly and nice), but our butler Ryan was HORRIBLE! We ended up not using him after a few days into our trip and just called our concierge for things we needed.

We were warmly greeted by Alex by our names when we showed up at the Suite Check-in area, but then when we were handed over to our Butler Ryan to go to our suite, things got crazy! We were on a RACE lead by Ryan, jumping lines and racing towards our suite!! I don't know what part of that was a 'relaxing' start of your cruise!!! Then, our first dinner room service was delivered by him ALL COURSES AT THE SAME TIME. So by the time we got to our main course, it was cold since its been sitting in our room with a plate cover all these times! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COURSE BY COURSE SERVICE I HAVE READ ON THIS BOARD? The second room service dinner experience was worse, this time he did not even lay down a table cloth, and of course all the courses wereall dumped into our suite like the first time!!!! The thing that really angered me was Ryan asked for less then a one hr window to come back and pick up our plates since he was 'off work by 10pm'. We did not pay the extra $$ for suite service so that we are asked to RACE through our dinner....I had to suggest to him that we will just call room service after we finished for the plates pick up! I got so sick of him we stopped using room service since we know it will be Ryan serving it....needless to say we did not leave him a single dime of gratuity! I WILL NEVER REWARD SUCH HORRIBLE SERVICE.

We are a bit turned off by this suite experience since its our first time, not sure if its worth the extra cost to potentially encounter another horrible butler!! Maybe a mini suite will be better...

 

It is a shame you didn't realize that the course by course dinner should be requested of the butler - they may not be able to fit that service in at the exact time you request but they are normally very accommodating.

 

I do have to ask if you addressed any of these issues with your butler or concierge while on the ship.

 

One has to remember that the butlers are shared between the suites and even though they provide very personalized service (usually) they do have a few other passengers to service as well.

 

That said we have always had very good to great butlers - but a missing table cloth wouldn't upset me either.

[AFAMILY]

Unfortunately, the best one came out all blurry (I blame my husband, as he took the pictures ;) ), but we still have these two. I still haven't finished sorting all the pictures of our two month trip -- my husband took thousands, and I took lots too, but just looking through them now I really, really want to go back to Europe and the Jewel! It was our first trip over there and we really had a fantastic time.

 

Those pictures are TOO funny! Thanks for posting them. There was a thread going recently that you may want to post these pictures and others from your cruise on.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=835009

 

We haven't been to Europe yet. We were trying to decide between a cruise or a land based tour such as Perillo, maybe for 2010. Did you find you had enough time in each port? It sounds like you had a great time. Would love to see your pictures if you have the time to post them.

 

Thanks again for posting the "tree" pics.

 

Happy Cruising! :)

[watchdiva]

When we eat in our suite, we have all of the courses delivered at the same time so that we have everything we requested at one time. For example, DH eats his salad first, I eat mine last - can you imagine how confusing it would be for the butler as well as the kitchen staff if we requested "by the course"? We don't eat course by course at home - I'd be curious how many do?

 

The best tip I ever got from a fellow cruiser was to be specific with your wants/needs while onboard - don't presume that your cabin steward, butler, dining steward, concierge will KNOW what you want. We've always found that to be true........:)

 

BTW - we did have one dinner in our suite without a tablecloth on the table - we decided to have a "picnic in bed" and asked our butler to put the tablecloth on top of the bed (which he did) and then he proceeded to pile all of our covered food dishes on top of the tablecloth! It was a blast.........and we managed to not spill ANYTHING!

[4 cruisers]

RCDR, who was your Hotel Director?

[DMH15]

shoreless - you are on the Sun the cruise before mine. I am in 9076. I can't wait.

[KatWag]

Had the O/S on Star last Feb and enjoyed dinner in our room twice. Both times all courses delivered at once.

 

Honestly, these butlers are swamped. I would have felt bad asking him to deliver it course by course. Several evenings we saw him in one of the specialty restaurants waiting for someone's entree.

 

Adding... our butler was responsible for more than the GVs and the O/S's. He also handled a number of the Penthouse Suites.

[shoreless]

We haven't been to Europe yet. We were trying to decide between a cruise or a land based tour such as Perillo, maybe for 2010. Did you find you had enough time in each port? It sounds like you had a great time. Would love to see your pictures if you have the time to post them.

 

I would love to have had more time in some of the ports, but since we'd never been to any of them it was at least a nice overview, and I do love sleeping on the ship and not having to pack/unpack for twelve days. We're fairly new to cruising, and I love the feeling of sailing into and out of ports. This was the longest trip (by far) that I've ever taken, and we did get a lot of time in England between cruises.

 

I really must get our pictures organized; it's a daunting task, and I'm basically lazy. I hope I get around to it while I can remember which place was which. :o

[shoreless]

shoreless - you are on the Sun the cruise before mine. I am in 9076. I can't wait.

 

The cruise sounds amazing, but, to be honest, I'm still not sure we're going. I find long plane flights uncomfortable. Also, the last time I checked the airfares seemed quite high, although it definitely helps that the cruise had a significant price drop that we were able to get. It's good that we still have almost two months to decide --- I really do want to get to see some penguins in the wild.:)

[conandrob240]

So, we should expect sub-par service because the butlers are swamped? Gimme' a break! The OP sounded like she got the royal blow off by her butler and she was right to not tip. If I order a 4 course meal in a suite I paid mucho bucks for and I don't get a tablecloth or I get all my courses at once, you can bet I will be complaining. And if it doesn't change or get resolved, you can bet I am not tipping. If the butlers are too busy, NCL should hire more, not expect guests to put up with whatever they can do because they are swamped. I now will be sure I am specific about how I want the courses to come out, though.

[AFAMILY]

I would love to have had more time in some of the ports, but since we'd never been to any of them it was at least a nice overview, and I do love sleeping on the ship and not having to pack/unpack for twelve days. We're fairly new to cruising, and I love the feeling of sailing into and out of ports. This was the longest trip (by far) that I've ever taken, and we did get a lot of time in England between cruises.

 

I really must get our pictures organized; it's a daunting task, and I'm basically lazy. I hope I get around to it while I can remember which place was which. :o

 

Thanks for your posting your thoughts on this. There are definite pluses and minuses for cruise vs land-based. Ideally, we would do the cruise and then spend some additional time in Italy. Unfortunately, being away from work and home for that extended period of time doesn't work for us right now. It would have to be one or the other.

 

Glad you had a great time, thanks again for posting.

 

Enjoy your next cruise! :)