Are they still doing the "excellent" speech?

[Creepella]

When we were on the Monarch, every night at dinner our server gave us the speech about how we needed to mark them as "excellent". Are they doing this on the Enchantment? The Freedom? Has anyone found a way to get them to not do this? I want to be polite, and I don't want to get them in trouble, but I find this dampens the tone of the proceedings.

[RevSmith]

When we were on the Monarch, every night at dinner our server gave us the speech about how we needed to mark them as "excellent". Are they doing this on the Enchantment? The Freedom? Has anyone found a way to get them to not do this? I want to be polite, and I don't want to get them in trouble, but I find this dampens the tone of the proceedings.

 

I rarely eat in the MDR so I have never heard the Speech. That's one way.

[39august]

I have never experienced this except on a Princess cruise.

[olibubble]

I got it on the liberty on 2010 but never come accross it since.

[Iamthesea]

We get it on every cruise with RCCL and Celebrity. Never had it on Princess, HAL or Carnival.

 

Usually, I just hold my hand up in mid speech and say "we know, don't worry...you were excellent." That's even if they were not, or the food was not because we know they will be docked payment, status or could even lose their jobs for poor marks. Since we are so much more fortunate than the crew members, we have learned to let the little things go. Being away from family, and many time their spouses, they are bound to have a bad day every so often. :( As for the speech coming on the next to last night, it does put a damper on the evening meal. :rolleyes:

[hallasm]

It is not only in the cruise industry that salary and/or incentive is based on customer surveys - might be good / might be bad - I do fully understand that the waiters try to increase their rating - it can be too much, however it't often only is the last night of the cruise - working for a company where our service and support peoples incentive also is base on an 'excellent rating' by surveys, I fully understand the waiters on the cruise ships - be polite, normally they do their very best - having been cruising for a total of 175 days, I have always been treated well by the waiters in the MDR.

[ARCruisinNana]

Unfortunately, yes, I've gotten it recently. We only ate in the MDR one time on the fith night on Oasis. We had MTD and the waiter asked if we were coming back. We told him that we were eating at specialty restaurants. We hadn't recevied BAD service, but didn't receive excellent service. I told him it was "fine" and he practically went ballistic and went on and on. It really put us off. We just left that part of the survey blank.

[Giorgi-one]

Never heard it on Celebrity and recently on Allure. We always have so much fun with our waitstaff that they pretty much know we will give them excellent rating. I do remember our first cruise on Sovereign in 1996. After every menu selection our waiter would say excellent choice. Everything was excellent. On the last night he gave us the excellent speech. It was no problem because everything was excellent. Food was much better, deserts were much better, different bread selection every night, midnight buffet every night (I rarely at anything), etc.

[DonnaK]

We do the same as an above poster - just hold up our hand and say "don't worry, we know". That usually stops the excellent speech.

[ticktoneer]

We get it on every cruise with RCCL and Celebrity. Never had it on Princess, HAL or Carnival.

 

Usually, I just hold my hand up in mid speech and say "we know, don't worry...you were excellent." That's even if they were not, or the food was not because we know they will be docked payment, status or could even lose their jobs for poor marks. Since we are so much more fortunate than the crew members, we have learned to let the little things go. Being away from family, and many time their spouses, they are bound to have a bad day every so often. :( As for the speech coming on the next to last night, it does put a damper on the evening meal. :rolleyes:

I do appreciate what you've said and it is very thoughtful.

 

I wouldn't let too many 'little things' go though before needing to see more senior staff to stop 'little things' happening.

 

My cruise fare is too hard earned to accept under par service.

 

Happy cruising !! :-)

[Mark_K]

When we were on the Monarch, every night at dinner our server gave us the speech about how we needed to mark them as "excellent". Are they doing this on the Enchantment? The Freedom? Has anyone found a way to get them to not do this? I want to be polite, and I don't want to get them in trouble, but I find this dampens the tone of the proceedings.

Ratings are very important to the servers and many servers want to make sure you know it, I don't think "they" do it in the sense that its a corporate policy.

 

 

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[cruzincurt]

This "rate me excellent" stuff is getting old. Just last week I had my oil changed and the desk clerk reminded me to rate her excellent if I get a survey. She wrote up the service order and processed my credit card.

 

Maybe if she had carried me out to the car...

[yaking]

I always say to our waiter when he/she is seating us that this is a Excellent table and wink at them. They usually get the picture and don't go into their speech. If I am with family, they all know it and if I am with friends that I don't know yet, I explain why I said that. They have a hard job and a lot of fussy customers to deal with. I would not want to change places with them, that is for sure.

[critterchick]

We get it on every cruise with RCCL and Celebrity. Never had it on Princess, HAL or Carnival.

 

Usually, I just hold my hand up in mid speech and say "we know, don't worry...you were excellent." That's even if they were not, or the food was not because we know they will be docked payment, status or could even lose their jobs for poor marks. Since we are so much more fortunate than the crew members, we have learned to let the little things go. Being away from family, and many time their spouses, they are bound to have a bad day every so often. :( As for the speech coming on the next to last night, it does put a damper on the evening meal. :rolleyes:

 

I tend to overlook service lapses in the MDR not because I'm better off than the crew but because in my experience the MDR is woefully understaffed and overcrowded and there is almost no way to provide excellent service in that environment. I figure that, if they are doing the best that they can under circumstances that are beyond their control, they deserve an excellent rating.

 

I'm curious what things you consider to be "little." I'm ok if somebody messes up my order once. More than that, not so much. I'm definitely not ok with a meal taking 2 hours while table around us are in and out in one (and we don't order 5 courses or ask for special preparation). And yes, I will comment on it, and sometimes mark them only "good" instead of "excellent."

 

I also am a "talk to the hand" person. We've had waiters chase us out of the MDR if we leave before dessert to make sure that nothing has gone wrong and then break into the speech. If we are skipping a course because we want to be somewhere else at a particular time, we aren't going to slow down to listen to it.

[SolsticeAZ]

I can honestly say I do not believe I have ever heard this speech, by anyone, on any of my cruises. Interesting.

[taxgal]

We got it last month on Jewel [only on the last night]. I just think back to proficiency/conduct marks for my Marines. In the olden days, they were rated on a 5 point scale and I tried to do the ratings according to the scale norms established in the codes manual. The 1stSgt ask the young second Lieu into his office an explained that while I was doing it correctly, I was hurting my good Marines because of grade inflation. If I did not rate my best Marines 5.0/5.0 they would not get promoted as they should because my 3/3 grade for a good Marine doing a good job would put him behind his peers. So, long story but the point is, unless you got poor service it is in the waiters and you best interest to ensure he continues to have the opportunity to give more excellent service.

[bigque]

I'm another who never heard this com anybody on a cruise. I have heard it from the guy who installed my directv and my home security installer.

[CalcDiva]

We were on Freedom a few weeks ago and did not here this. We had My Time dining with the same servers every night - except one. Our service was amazing except for the one night we were late and got a different table.

[misty57]

The only time we had poor service in the MDR was on Allure. We had the excellent lecture on Freedom, Jewel and Oasis. It was every night! I don't mind too much as long as they don't interrupt our conversations,. On the Freedom we had a very large table and one passenger berated the poor waiter so much it made me write a glowing review for him in such a way that it would cancel out any negative review that person might have given. It was all over the order the waiter brought out extra entrees that were ordered. That poor waiter was so heart sick you could tell.:(

[cruzeluver]

Have not heard that in awhile and hope never to hear it again. What is the point of giving me a survey of you are going to tell me how to fill it out?

[Iamthesea]

I'm curious what things you consider to be "little." I'm ok if somebody messes up my order once. More than that, not so much. I'm definitely not ok with a meal taking 2 hours while table around us are in and out in one (and we don't order 5 courses or ask for special preparation). And yes, I will comment on it, and sometimes mark them only "good" instead of "excellent."

 

Forgetting coffee 2 of the 7 nights. Wrong order once or twice (this has only happened once and I ate it anyway. :D) Now, if a waiter or waitress is snarly once or twice, I'll chalk it up to them having a hard day, but if they are downright rude, I guess I would have to report them.

 

I'm another who never heard this com anybody on a cruise. I have heard it from the guy who installed my directv and my home security installer.

 

Hmmm....I wonder why certain waiters decide to give the speech. If we were complainers (which we are not) I could see them reassuring themselves with this speech. However, we are always very nice and forgiving. Maybe it's the way we look? :rolleyes:

[cruisnseas]

This is what I hate about surveys. I've recently: bought a car, had satellite installed, had internet hooked up, changed cell phone providers, had my car washed, and gone to the grocery store. All of these places told me how very important it is I give them a 10, or excellent, or absolutely agree. I get that businesses want to be able to rate their service but if you demand everyone get the top score you are going to get false responses.

[cruising_knc]

We had this speech on the Disney Dream earlier this year. Interestingly, one of the survey questions asked whether we felt pressured to give excellent ratings.

[OCruisers]

We had this speech on the Disney Dream earlier this year. Interestingly, one of the survey questions asked whether we felt pressured to give excellent ratings.

 

That's great! Seems Disney actually wants to know how you really feel and not how you felt pressured to rate. :)

 

LuLu

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[Sandy1975]

Didn't hear this on my 2 trips on summit but on enchantment (we did it in nov 2012) the waiter told us this in an indirect way. He told us to mark excellent if we had no complaints (this was on day 3 I think) , if service was lacking to let him know so he couod fix it. Of ciurse we we said not to worry about it.

 

I would not be able to have a job where performance sometimes ia linked tobcustomers who think they are like royalty or above anything. So for this reason alone, even if service was lacking I woukd just keep it to myselfb or mention it to the head waiter but never to their boss.