Butler meal service questions

[Arwenmark]

I have some questions regarding butlers and serving meals in your cabin. First of all obviously One butler must service many suites, I imagine the number per butler decreases as the suite category rises, So if a Butler has say 8 suites and five of them wanted dinner served in the Cabin how is that done? especially timewise? and when do you have to order these Butler serviced meals? I assume if you order a meal you must order the entire meal and it will be served all at once, desert included?

What about breakfast and lunch, especially lunch I know I have read about breakfast service in the cabin but I don't remember lunch, and I assume the Butler has some time off during the day.

How do you get in touch with the butler when you do need something?

[scchasgal]

I have some questions regarding butlers and serving meals in your cabin. First of all obviously One butler must service many suites, I imagine the number per butler decreases as the suite category rises, So if a Butler has say 8 suites and five of them wanted dinner served in the Cabin how is that done? especially timewise? and when do you have to order these Butler serviced meals? I assume if you order a meal you must order the entire meal and it will be served all at once, desert included?

What about breakfast and lunch, especially lunch I know I have read about breakfast service in the cabin but I don't remember lunch, and I assume the Butler has some time off during the day.

How do you get in touch with the butler when you do need something?

 

With the Pearl for instance having 28 cabins with butler service I would hope they have at least 10. Yeah what if all 28 wanted dinner at the same time? I would like to know this too. We don't get a butler in our AB suite but on the larger ships we would have

[smeyer418]

I have some questions regarding butlers and serving meals in your cabin. First of all obviously One butler must service many suites, I imagine the number per butler decreases as the suite category rises, So if a Butler has say 8 suites and five of them wanted dinner served in the Cabin how is that done? especially timewise? and when do you have to order these Butler serviced meals? I assume if you order a meal you must order the entire meal and it will be served all at once, desert included?

What about breakfast and lunch, especially lunch I know I have read about breakfast service in the cabin but I don't remember lunch, and I assume the Butler has some time off during the day.

How do you get in touch with the butler when you do need something?

 

 

yes they can have up to 10 suites.

 

If you order it advance it can be served when you want and it can be served butler style course by course.

 

You can order at last minute and the room service people will notify the butler...

 

He/she can get help. especially with having the food delivered to the room area and then he/she will do the actual serving.

 

the Butler normally gets some of the afternoon off but if he is needed he is needed.

 

You will have a phone number for him/her

[noreddye]

Our butler, Ravi (wonderful), for our Dawn cruise stated that he is on call 24 hours a day. He asked that we order our meals at least two hours prior to the time that we wanted the meal served. For breakfast, we just put the tag on the outside of the door at night.

 

He brought everything (desert included) at the same time. Everything was hot and enjoyable. We ate our lunch meals at Cagney's.

 

Ravi had an assistant so I would guess that if multiple suite guests ordered dinner at the same time then the assistant would help out.

 

Ravi stopped by our cabin after the muster drill and gave us his cell phone number. You can call them anytime (but we did not call after 9:00 p.m.)

 

You will love the additional perks of having a butler.

[Sea Hound]

I have some questions regarding butlers and serving meals in your cabin. First of all obviously One butler must service many suites, I imagine the number per butler decreases as the suite category rises, So if a Butler has say 8 suites and five of them wanted dinner served in the Cabin how is that done? especially timewise? and when do you have to order these Butler serviced meals? I assume if you order a meal you must order the entire meal and it will be served all at once, desert included?

What about breakfast and lunch, especially lunch I know I have read about breakfast service in the cabin but I don't remember lunch, and I assume the Butler has some time off during the day.

How do you get in touch with the butler when you do need something?

 

It depends, too, on the ship. On the two Spirit cruises I've taken, we had two butlers each time. Sometimes one would bring the meal, sometimes the other. That gets a little confusing on tipping -- we tipped proportionate to the amount of service each provided.

 

If I'd asked for three meals a day in the cabin, they would've brought them. It was our experience that, yes, all courses were served at once. As smeyer said, they get time off but if you call, they come.

 

Our meals were all served exactly when we requested them but I can imagine that if all suites ordered for the same time, someone's meal has to be delivered last.

 

Sea Hound:D

[BikerAl]

Actually, they can have at least 12 suites. When we traveled on the Pearl, April 07, we had Karan A, who told us, he had the starboard suites on decks 8, 9, and 10 and another had 12 on the port side. Another butler covered all 10 suites on deck 11.

 

How they do it, is beyond me, but every need or request, was handled perfectly, and on time.

 

Al

[Arwenmark]

Goodness, I would hope they at least have different ones for suites at the Bow and those on the Stern, I would be awful to have one butler responsible for both ends of the ship. Of course some have suites in the middle but most tend to stick to mostly front and back.

[HollyT]

In room meal service was my pet peeve with our butler.

 

In a suite, you're told to call your butler and not room service for meals. And this happened twice: we'd call the butler (during the day - not a weird time) and the call wouldn't go through at all. We'd call room service but the call wouldn't go through either.

 

We finally ended up calling reception to have them have either the butler or room service call us.

 

That was a huge pain and probably the worst part of our suite experience. (It wasn't a vacation killer but we were starving and tired from being in port all day.)

 

Just bring me a sandwich, dang it!

[ImPeaches]

On our recent NCL Spirit cruise, we had a FANTASTIC Concierge, but the Butler....not so great---just okay.

 

On the odd occasion when we couldn't get hold of our Butler, we called our Concierge and SHAZAM, things started happening. Anything we wanted, we got right away.

 

I didn't realize that the Concierge was so high up in the chain of command, but at least at NCL he/she is, so if things aren't going your way in a Butler-serviced suite, definitely give a shout to the Concierge. Chances are, you'll be pleased.

[BarbCT605]

Goodness, I would hope they at least have different ones for suites at the Bow and those on the Stern, I would be awful to have one butler responsible for both ends of the ship. Of course some have suites in the middle but most tend to stick to mostly front and back.

On our last cruise, our friends in the forward suite had the same butler as we did in the aft suite.

[dtracker]

Those guys or gals must be running their little afts off if they service from stem to stern. :eek:

 

DT

[Arwenmark]

On our last cruise, our friends in the forward suite had the same butler as we did in the aft suite.

 

Hm, how very unfortunate. I would think even with cutbacks the NCL could do better than that, it just doesn't make sense.

[Bobbye]

But how many really eat a lot of meals in their suites? We did have breakfast every day but that was it. I think maybe once we ordered a snack in the afternoon. Maybe we're just low maintenance.

[AdoptAtty]

Our Butler was just amazing... Ravi... we didn't eat many meals in the suite, but when we did, it was lovely, all served at once, but done nicely. One day we did call room service in the afternoon, I didn't want to bother Ravi, but I guess they called him, because he delivered it.

[ictcruiser]

Anoop was our butler on the Dawn in February and he was GREAT. We never did dinner in our suite, but the couple of breakfasts he brought were great.

 

He also brought our room service snack one afternoon on a a sea day.

 

I doubt many suite pax eat in their rooms all at the same time...

[garycarla]

Yes, they have lots of suites to deal with, but not that many order meals in their rooms. Especially when you have the option of Cagneys. Even in the courtyard where they will bring you breakfast, many prefer to go to Cagneys. Never heard of it being a problem. Okay, have heard a few people had constant service problems, but rather rare.

[mickeysgal]

In room meal service was my pet peeve with our butler.

 

In a suite, you're told to call your butler and not room service for meals.

 

If I want something lets say, at midnight, I would hate to be waking someone up (the butler) so that they can bring the snack, rather than whoever is assigned to room service for that night who is already up. This would bother me.

[insidecabin]

With the Pearl for instance having 28 cabins with butler service I would hope they have at least 10. Yeah what if all 28 wanted dinner at the same time? I would like to know this too. We don't get a butler in our AB suite but on the larger ships we would have

 

Jewel class have up to 48 suites with butlers

 

AE 8

AD 4

AC 8

AB 10

A4 2

A3 8

AA 4

A2 1/2

A1 2

[mamasue]

If I want something lets say, at midnight, I would hate to be waking someone up (the butler) so that they can bring the snack, rather than whoever is assigned to room service for that night who is already up. This would bother me.

 

I agree.... I couldn't do it!!

I don't feel bad calling room service for a sandwich at 2am, knowing that people are awake and working.... I'd hate for them to wake a butler... I think I'd rather do without my sandwich!!!

[snowman]

On our recent NCL Spirit cruise, we had a FANTASTIC Concierge, but the Butler....not so great---just okay.

 

On the odd occasion when we couldn't get hold of our Butler, we called our Concierge and SHAZAM, things started happening. Anything we wanted, we got right away.

 

I didn't realize that the Concierge was so high up in the chain of command, but at least at NCL he/she is, so if things aren't going your way in a Butler-serviced suite, definitely give a shout to the Concierge. Chances are, you'll be pleased.

One night on the Sun we went to dinner the head waiter said it would be about a 1 hr to an hour and a half wait. The DR was not full at all. I asked the head waiter if we could use the phone to call Anca the concierge. I thought she would get whip lash geting us to a table. So the concierge has amazing power

[terrymtex01]

If I want something lets say, at midnight, I would hate to be waking someone up (the butler) so that they can bring the snack, rather than whoever is assigned to room service for that night who is already up. This would bother me.

 

I guess maybe for GV's or GV's and CV's, the butler is available for 24 hours a day, but on the Sun, Star and Pearl we were told the very first day the hours butler service is avaible for and it was usually 7am or so to 9 or 10pm. We were in AE's. After that room service will deliver your orders unless they just happen to know the butler is still up doing stuff. Then they might call him/her, but that would be rare. I would be mortified if I ordered room service when we got back from the casino or some where at 2 in the morning and they called the butler to bring our order. I am one that is uncomfortable though feeling like someone is waiting on me hand and foot like that. I am too much worried about them being human and needing some rest. 8-)

 

As far as the OP's original question, i had never thought of it before our last cruise, but our butler did mention on the first day that if we wanted something special in the evenings to let him know as far in advance as we could because he might have to work things around serving dinners in different suites. I think it would be rare that he/she would be able to just stand there and serve you course after course and actual physically be there waiting for you to finish one to bring the next. He/she would for sure have to have help from others during that time. The exception of course is the GV's where I am fairly sure they have their own butler that caters pretty much just to them.