Maybe I'm the only one, but I doubt it....

[Boreus]

Until about my 9th cruise, I would have agreed with you. I don't cruise for the entertainment, so couldn't care less who the cruise director is. But I do cruise for the leisure aspect - cabin maintained, food and drink how and when I want them.

 

But when the Hotel Director has apparently lost interest or alienated his or her staff, this aspect of the cruise will suffer. Cabin attendants who are lazy or cavalier about their duties - definitely the minority of cabin attendants - go uncorrected. If the Hotel Director does not work well with or effectively supervise the dining room supervisors, the housekeeping supervisors, all of these functions will break down. Staff become brittle and careless or cynical. Calls to customer relations the third morning in a row that your toilet doesn't flush, the third morning you've made the same call, are treated as just one more annoying passenger telling them something they already know, etc.

 

Because hotel operations on the vast majority of my cruises have been excellent or better, it was the breakdown on one cruise that revealed the importance of this complex job. Trouble didn't make me want to meet the person, nor does excellence (the norm) make me want to meet him/her. But a comment on the end of cruise survey can note how smoothly cabin services, customer relations, and food and drink operated. An effective Hotel Director makes this happen.

 

As for tone: If bars are your thing, and all the bartenders are cranky, it affects the tone. If dining is your thing, and it becomes clear that your waiter and assistant waiter are working at cross purposes, or that the dining room manager is sharp with staff repeatedly, then it affects the tone. Etc. A good hotel director maintains awareness all the way down chain of command that the service is excellent for the passenger. Keeping employees not only well trained but happy is part of this.

 

Well said Desettraveler and I entirely agree with you. Human organizations have their distinctive tones. We have all known offices, shops, and companies where the employees are happy, sullen, cooperative, efficient, barely competent and so forth. That is the tone of the group. The passengers on a ship influence the tone by being cranky, difficult, or happy, but as in any organization it is up to management to set the right tone and see it is projected by the employees. Management on a ship is the captain, staff captain, and hotel manager, in my opinion.

 

Whenever the ship's photographer takes my picture with the captain I wonder why the captain wants my picture. I prefer to have the captain driving this ship, not shaking my hand or hosting me at dinner. I don't want to be a priority for the other senior officers either. As for the CD, does anyone remember the Social Director song from the Broadway musical "Wish You Were Here"?

[ISABELLA]

The more we cruise, the more we find that captain's, hotel director and cruise director actually make a large difference....they set the tone for the ship, the crew, the officers.

 

I agree that I don't really care if I shake the captain's hand or not, etc.....but they do make a difference.

 

I agree with you. I think the overall attitude of the " higher ups" reflects on crew attitude - friendly or not, doing the good job or not.

[lambcom]

I'm one of the people who could care less who the senior staff are and with about eight Celebrity cruises under my belt I've never had to complain to the HM, the CD or, God forbid, the Captain. Any problems I've had have been well handled by staff further down the food chain.

 

A thought. How long do you think anyone in these positions will last when, cruise after cruise, the survey forms come back with negative responses? They know that word of mouth is the best advertising and bad comments kill business. The knife will fall quickly on bad performance even at senior levels, IMHO.

 

George +

[tarheelmjfan]

As long as the senior staff does their job, that's all that matters to me. I don't vacation to socialize with them. Like you, I don't see the attraction with meeting with the Captain or anyone else. IMHO, they're just doing their job. Of course, they're going to try to make you feel special. They wouldn't last long in the position, if they didn't. There are enough people who care about them socializing to make that mandatory to survive in the field. I don't need or want special treatment. If there's something I really want to do, I'll pay for it if possible. I'd much rather meet fellow passengers who aren't getting paid to show me attention. Then again, I'm not a Hollywood or sports, celebrity groupie either. We're all just people co-existing in this world. To me, they're no more special than anyone else. I am happy, when they're good at their job. I have no interest in socializing with them though. I never understood why anyone would want to do that, but to each their own. They may not understand things about me either.

[misha1]

I'll probably get blasted but I agree that who is running the ship's various functions does not matter at all to me. And, I also do not go out of my way to befriend the wait/ housekeeping staff. I am always cordial, saying please and thank you and tipping for extras. But I am not interested in the staff's personal life and I do not inquire. They have a life, I have a life. And, for a brief time our paths cross.

[Gracie115]

I agree that the Captain and Senior staff sets the tone, but as long as that tone is pleasant and everyone is doing their job I make no effort to meet them. The CD doesn't have ANY impact on our cruise, except, of course, in how he impacts show schedules and performances. Have no idea who the CD was on the vast majority of our cruises....

[ariawoman]

Than you have probably never met Alejandro. :) He is the exception.

 

Anne

 

He definitely didn't have an inflated head, somehow. I enjoyed him - though at times his accent was difficult to get through lol

[toban]

As long as the captains name is not Schettino I couldnt care less who he and the other officers are. They have never impacted any of our cruises one way or another.

[JFontaine]

I got off my cruise on Sunday. I experienced service failures very large, and not so large, from the beginning of the cruise. On day two I still had not heard from anyone, so I wrote a letter to the Hotel Director. He did not bother to respond - instead, one of his staff did. She was very nice but ineffective, and any casual reader of Cruise Critic would have known more about the amenities of my cabin and the ship then she did. The service failures continued throughout the cruise so I wrote to the Hotel Director again - this time on the welcome letter that he sent me that was in my cabin when I boarded. Still no response. Finally, on the last night (admittedly, too late on my part) when I sensed another disaster in the making (sure enough, I was right) I called and asked to speak to him. He returned my call ten minutes later. He blamed this person and that for my troubles, and was cold and almost nasty to me. I am an Elite, have cruised Celebrity more than 20 times since the founding of the line, and I was in the Penthouse - fully paid, not an upgrade.

[Wine-O]

I got off my cruise on Sunday. I experienced service failures very large, and not so large, from the beginning of the cruise. On day two I still had not heard from anyone, so I wrote a letter to the Hotel Director. He did not bother to respond - instead, one of his staff did. She was very nice but ineffective, and any casual reader of Cruise Critic would have known more about the amenities of my cabin and the ship then she did. The service failures continued throughout the cruise so I wrote to the Hotel Director again - this time on the welcome letter that he sent me that was in my cabin when I boarded. Still no response. Finally, on the last night (admittedly, too late on my part) when I sensed another disaster in the making (sure enough, I was right) I called and asked to speak to him. He returned my call ten minutes later. He blamed this person and that for my troubles, and was cold and almost nasty to me. I am an Elite, have cruised Celebrity more than 20 times since the founding of the line, and I was in the Penthouse - fully paid, not an upgrade.

 

Could you elaborate on the service failures -- seems like you had a bunch of them.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

I got off my cruise on Sunday. I experienced service failures very large, and not so large, from the beginning of the cruise. On day two I still had not heard from anyone, so I wrote a letter to the Hotel Director. He did not bother to respond - instead, one of his staff did. She was very nice but ineffective, and any casual reader of Cruise Critic would have known more about the amenities of my cabin and the ship then she did. The service failures continued throughout the cruise so I wrote to the Hotel Director again - this time on the welcome letter that he sent me that was in my cabin when I boarded. Still no response. Finally, on the last night (admittedly, too late on my part) when I sensed another disaster in the making (sure enough, I was right) I called and asked to speak to him. He returned my call ten minutes later. He blamed this person and that for my troubles, and was cold and almost nasty to me. I am an Elite, have cruised Celebrity more than 20 times since the founding of the line, and I was in the Penthouse - fully paid, not an upgrade.

 

Perfect example of the difference a hotel director can make on your cruise.

 

Here's an example of a good hotel director. We had a bunch of CC cabins. One of them had problems with temperature regulation. She called and they sent someone to fix it. Only the fix didn't work, for some reason. So she called guest relations again. Next thing she knew, she had the hotel director and the chief engineer on the scene assuring her that they would work on it until it was fixed. After they got it fixed, they sent her a tray of chocolate covered strawberries. That's the difference a good hotel director can make on your cruise.

[deserttraveler]

I got off my cruise on Sunday. I experienced service failures very large, and not so large, from the beginning of the cruise. On day two I still had not heard from anyone, so I wrote a letter to the Hotel Director. He did not bother to respond - instead, one of his staff did. She was very nice but ineffective, and any casual reader of Cruise Critic would have known more about the amenities of my cabin and the ship then she did. The service failures continued throughout the cruise so I wrote to the Hotel Director again - this time on the welcome letter that he sent me that was in my cabin when I boarded. Still no response. Finally, on the last night (admittedly, too late on my part) when I sensed another disaster in the making (sure enough, I was right) I called and asked to speak to him. He returned my call ten minutes later. He blamed this person and that for my troubles, and was cold and almost nasty to me. I am an Elite, have cruised Celebrity more than 20 times since the founding of the line, and I was in the Penthouse - fully paid, not an upgrade.

 

I did a little sleuthing and found that your service failure and mine occurred on the same ship, although my sailing was last April and I was in Aqua Class and not a suite. It has not happened on my other Celebrity sailings (Infinity twice, Silhouette twice, Solstice once.)

[kitty9]

I think the biggest factor is the Captain. A ship, and her crew, takes on the "personality" of the Captain. You certainly can tell the difference between a Captain that runs a tight ship and one who's more buddy-buddy with the crew. There are some Captains in X's fleet that you know are strict and you can see that just in how the ship is taken care of and in the general attitude of the staff.

[JFontaine]

Here are some examples, as I said, some are bigger than others: no luggage for five hours. When I called to inquire, about 15 minutes prior to departure, I was told to dress in what we had (wet bathing suits) and go on a wild goose chase through the bowels of the ship looking for our luggage because they were sure that my three tags on each piece had fallen off. They hadn't, and our luggage was later discovered "somewhere on our floor". We had only hot water coming out of both bathroom faucets. We had no mini bar - no bottled water or carafe of water, I had to think about our needs and order drinks in advance. We asked about our complementary dinner - and was told it was on the first night only. We asked about reserved theater seating, they didn't know what we were talking about. On the first night at dinner (select) we were not greeted in any way (no 'hello'), just a demand for our cabin number. We were shown to arguably the worst table on the floor, past plenty of nice empty tables (I fixed this). Air conditioning in bedroom was set on heat and couldn't be adjusted. One chair on balcony was damaged and tore the skin on my friend's hand and my pants - chair was not replaced. The main shower had a sewer smell (this was fixed). Major problems in casino with new and inexperienced staff making several monetary mistakes; assistant manager was charming when he saw this, but the manager was an arrogant bully who quickly and in an ugly way lost control. We asked for help with early departure because I had an early flight. I was assured that my butler could help me off the ship. Instead, security had no record of the arrangements, refused to allow him off, and I was left with the heavy end of a large luggage cart pulling it down the ramp as the Customer Service Manager stood there yelling at security (too late for that). There are others, but you get the idea. Picky, maybe. I was quickly offered a small credit towards the next cruise. But I said to them that I want this cruise to be hassle free, and I didn't care about the next. Sadly, if the Hotel Director showed one iota of interest in me I wouldn't have gotten off the ship feeling the way I did.

[JFontaine]

Sorry - thought of another one. I received a welcome letter in my cabin stating that the cash advance fee would be waived because, I presume, we were in the Penthouse. Casino refused to honor this offer.

[librarylady19]

I see from your earlier posts that you were on the Summit. I did feel that something was definitely "off" about the service on our September sailing (particularly bar service and waiter service in Blu). We had wonderful cabin attendants who really made up for a lot!! Sorry to hear of your experiences - very disturbing as Summit used to be known for its great service. Perhaps a change in management is in order.

[JFontaine]

Which ship was this please?

 

Same ship you were on this summer. By the way, I'm a big Bruce fan too - 350 shows.

 

To anyone reading this about to go on a cruise - the Captain left the ship with me to go on vacation, so if the Captain sets the tone, hopefully it will change.

[Wine-O]

Same ship you were on this summer. By the way, I'm a big Bruce fan too - 350 shows.

 

To anyone reading this about to go on a cruise - the Captain left the ship with me to go on vacation, so if the Captain sets the tone, hopefully it will change.

 

They had this problem prior to the ship arriving in Bayonne this past summer. They put on a new Hotel Manager, and things really turned around. He departed a couple of months later, and I guess things went back as before.

[freeholdfriends]

I keep reading threads about good and bad cruise directors, experiences with the Hotel Manager, or meeting the captain. And I get that it's kind of an old school tradition in cruising. I also don't mind one bit if people find these things important.

 

But I don't. Not in the slightest. In all my cruises, I've never once cared to meet the captain. I couldn't imagine encountering the hotel manager unless I had a huge problem that had to be elevated up the chain. And as for the cruise directors, they have never been a factor in any of my experiences.

 

Again, I am not knocking those who find these things important. But it does make me wonder one thing?

 

Am I alone in this perspective or are there others out there who agree with me?:confused:

I 100% agree with everything you said--well put

[JFontaine]

Correcting one error, I got off the cruise on Saturday, not Sunday.

[jackdiamond]

I agree with the OP.

[cruiseacecat]

JFontaine,

 

This is pretty scary since I am boarding Summit on 8 December and am expecting the usual level of service.

 

I believe that Capt. Panos, if my memory serves me, is leaving for vacation than will be Master of Eclipse. I have always found him to be very accessible and quite a pleasant person and seemingly well liked by staff and crew. As for the hotel director, if it is still Ugo, I have known him for sometime and I cannot conceive of his not responding to someone with multiple problems, and in the Penthouse no less. Something is awfully wrong here. Too many reports of problems on Summit lately. Hopefully, Lois will return with only good things to say, but you have me very concerned.

 

Anne

[librarylady19]

Same ship you were on this summer. By the way, I'm a big Bruce fan too - 350 shows.

 

To anyone reading this about to go on a cruise - the Captain left the ship with me to go on vacation, so if the Captain sets the tone, hopefully it will change.

 

Wow, 350 shows, lucky you. How many on the current tour?

[richstowe]

Sorry - thought of another one. I received a welcome letter in my cabin stating that the cash advance fee would be waived because, I presume, we were in the Penthouse. Casino refused to honor this offer.

 

JFontaine,

 

This is pretty scary since I am boarding Summit on 8 December and am expecting the usual level of service.

 

I believe that Capt. Panos, if my memory serves me, is leaving for vacation than will be Master of Eclipse. I have always found him to be very accessible and quite a pleasant person and seemingly well liked by staff and crew. As for the hotel director, if it is still Ugo, I have known him for sometime and I cannot conceive of his not responding to someone with multiple problems, and in the Penthouse no less. Something is awfully wrong here. Too many reports of problems on Summit lately. Hopefully, Lois will return with only good things to say, but you have me very concerned.

 

Anne

Me too! Lots of so so reviews of the Summit lately.

Very impressed with your knowledge of the staff.

 

Interested in any review you may post JFontaine

[JFontaine]

I might be going off topic here, but there were some stars among the staff, particularly an Assistant Restaurant Manager who was so kind, and made some things obtainable that we were told "no" when we dined at the Captain's table (like ranch dressing and consommé soup), my butler was extremely sweet and eager as was the stateroom attendant and we had the same great waiter for four dinners. I had a wonderful cruise - perfect weather, great ports and we met some nice people. I was disappointed by the service, although some of the stateroom issues I put in the 'things happen' category. Bringing this back to the topic of this thread, I think if the Hotel Director had just picked up the phone and in a five minute conversation conveyed some empathy instead of finger pointing (and the message was delivered because the Customer Service Manager became nasty to me too) and maybe sent a $10 bottle of wine as a gesture this would have been a different story. Instead he ignored me, and then was just awful when I spoke to him.

 

LL - most (not Chicago) with several more to come.