Demagnetised room keys

[kazu]

This is such a commonplace thing now -look at all the causes people have listed here-that we were appalled to witness a neptune lounge passenger fling her demagnetized keycard at the concierges while ranting at them for this. Happened two years ago. That was brutal enough treatment of the staff by the passenger, but what was worse was the dismissal and abrupt termination of these two staff members. Maybe there were other reasons, but we had been treated so well by these people we were stunned by the impact of a rather spurious complaint by a crazy-rude passenger.

 

I've had my key card not work in the Neptune lounge. The card wasn't demagnetized, there was a problem with the Neptune Lounge door. I just knocked and the concierge let me in. They left the door open after that until it was fixed later in the day.

 

I see NO reason to fling a card at the concierges. They are always pleasant and helpful. It's not their fault if the key card doesn't work:confused:

 

There has to be more to this story. At least, I certainly hope there is. Perhaps they asked to re-assigned if they were going to have to deal with this passenger on a daily basis? I know I would. If a passenger is going to be this abusive or a key card, I would hate to see what they are like about any real issue or problem:eek:

[INSIDERS CABIN]

to clarify, it was the passenger's cabin card that did not work, so they returned to ship and were unable to access room. Staff were not reassigned; we saw one of them on dock next am with his baggage and we had a variety of fill-in people running the neptune for duration of trip. As i said, we witnessed the behavior of the staff, well-trained per usual, and passenger, full blown tantrum. i don't think that both sides of the story are really heard on board. we thought that if passenger went up line to hotel manager and spewed all this venom, crew did not stand a chance to defend selves and as family of 3 adults in lounge at time, no one asked us what we heard and saw! On the other hand, personnel may have had complaints in file and could have been on notice. Same trip, disembarkation am, we saw a woman fling the cream cheese container at the lido bagel server and scream at him that it wasn't any good! (Then she started screaming about there is no coffee on this ship!!! Which ship had she been on all trip???) To credit of server, i was horrified and started to talk and he just said, "bagel m'am" with no inflection in voice or facial expression.

[iceman93]

What frustrates me most about dealing with demagnetized keys is that when they reissue one, they must reissue all keys for that room because they change the code that is embedded. So for me, who's usually traveling with four people, whenever one key stops working we need to get all four reissued. As you can imagine, if this happens a couple of times on a cruise it's a real pain, especially when (for instance) one of us is at the spa when another finds out the key doesn't work, then the person returning from the spa can't get in the room and so has to get another key issued, which then renders the other "new" keys invalid, until we all get together again at some point during the day and get a final batch reissued all at once!

[dchip]

Once I stopped carrying my key card in the same compartment as extra AA camera batteries, I have never had a problem. Took a few cruises to figure out the culprit!

 

Cheers, Denise

[Oceanwench]

I've had this happen a couple of times as well. I finally determined it was the magnetic clasp on my evening bag, so I switched to a small bag that had a zipper instead of a magnet and haven't had any problems since! I always carry my camera in my evening bag, and haven't had problems with the two together, but if I had a cell phone there, it might be a different story.

 

Smooth Sailing! :):):)

 

Yes - same thing happened to me! My evening bags all have magnetic clasps.

I'm glad I figured it out after a couple trips to the front desk for a new card.

I would hate to be down there every night, asking for a new card!:o

[cruz chic]

I'm on the Sapphire Princess right now and I've had 3 cards in 6 days! I went thru 2 cards yesterday. I had it hanging around my neck on a lanyard and when I tried it and it wouldn't work even though it did at one point earlier in the day. Go figure.

[fann1sh]

I know people have joked about "magnetic" personalities, but -

 

I have one friend who can hold a hotel key card in her hand for 5 minutes, and it's demagnetized. No, nothing magnetic in her hand - no slight of hand - no rings - nothing.

 

The demonstration was for a front desk clerk who objected to issuing her multiple keys for her single room.

 

She wanted to stash a spare with me, next door, so she could get in her room before having to go down to the front desk yet again.

 

He thought she was trying to get around extra charges for an unannounced second occupant in the room.

[whogo]

It is not a magnetic personality, it is the little microchips that dentists plant in your teeth for government eavesdroppers. The two-way chips are the worst, I figure that's why I have more trouble with key cards than others do. Does anyone else see a correlation between magnetic strip troubles and the voices in your head?

[SadieN]

Worst was last cruise.

 

Checked in, kept my card in hand for the ping machine onboard and no ping! Had to get the darn thing reissued before I even set foot onboard.

[db777]

I had a little black cloud cloud following me on our last cruise my card demagnetized over 30 times sometimes 4 to 5 times a day. Have never had trouble in the past. I was such a frequent visitor of the Neptune that it was almost a "joke".....the minute I would walk in they would reach their hand out...they tried everything....Even though it happened so many times and I put alot of steps on my pedometer...I sure would not have thrown it at anyone... it wasn't anyones fault... but I do know how exasperating it can be when you are tired and you get back to your room and you can't get in...

 

I tried carrying the card almost everywhere...for a while they thought the slot machines might be causing the problem, but then realized it was happening even on port days (no slot machine use)... carried it in my purse, around my neck, in my pocket, in my hand...nothing helped.... I typically chill out on vacation, but it really got frustrating... I will say that the entire cruise had strange things happening to us (definitiely not my favorite cruise)...so I am hoping things are better on the next cruise...

[NMLady]

Has this happened to anyone else?I've been on two HAL cruises, and *both* times my key card has been demagnentised. On the Oosterdam it happened multiple times(we finally figured out what the culprit was-the magnetic catch on my camera case!).:eek:

 

It happened on my most recent HAL cruise, too(not sure what did it though)

 

 

I'm curious if this has happened to anyone who's been on other cruise lines besides HAL.

 

It didn't happen to us on either of our HAL cruises but it did happen to us on our NCL cruise last October. It only happened once so we didn't try to find out what caused it. We simply had our keys replaced by Front Desk.