RCL handling of policy change

[itsmeagain]

OP is correct this was not the best way for people to find out about a policy change. How many times have we seen people talking about mass mailing that Royal does and we ask why.

 

We know that their IT department is challenged but they should have the ability to send a mailing for all policy changes not just the ones that some people will not like. I think they should send this policy out and any others they come up with to the available mailing lists, but don't think they will because some people will cancel the reservations they may have. With any policy changes that affect revenues they would rather have the ship deal with it after the fact.

 

Not everyone is on CC nor do they go to the royal web site, but a lot of them would have an email address on file that is checked. I wonder what the percentage is of people that cruise royal and are members of CC?

[LindaO]

This is how it works in Corporate America… Corporations such as Royal do NOTHING without knowing ahead of time what is going to happen (well with the exception of ‘New Coke’ and a few other blunders!) Royal mulled this over… worked on it with consultants… and knew what the reaction would be. I’ve been in many many many corporate meetings and I can give you a glimpse as to how this may have all worked out...

Royal decides to stop smoking on balconies… they then go to their consultants (who by the way have done this a lot) and ask… how do we handle this. It is then decided… publish the notice on the web site in the policy section and sit on it. Tell a few key people… and sit on it. Tell a few key people but let it out. I can assure you that if this was to be a secret they would have kept it secret. The ‘leak’ was not an unplanned ‘leak’. The rumor has been out there for a while. So… it blows up on CC. 6, 8, 10 people cancel cruises. Those cabins are immediately back filled.. or will be filled by sailing. A small percentage of cruisers find out about the change. Expected backlash by a small percentage of cruisers is a good test to see if handling the backlash needs to be tweaked.

So… lets estimate that after January 1 (and this is just a guess… for this purpose only… I’m not going to debate these numbers) 87.7% of the smokers on board that have balconies, those that have cruised before (because if it is your first cruise you didn’t have any idea that you couldn’t smoke on your balcony) enter their stateroom to be surprised that they find a note saying… For the Health and Safety of All Passengers Smoking is prohibited from Stateroom balconies. So, just focusing on one smoking on the balcony cruiser… Mr X is so irate that he can no longer smoke on his balcony he immediately questions his stateroom attendant…. Who tells him he can not smoke in the stateroom or balcony. Not getting the answer he wants… he goes to customer service. Waits on line 15 minutes or so (getting hotter and hotter) and demands from the rep to know why he can not smoke on his balcony. The guest services person tries to explain the new policy. It went into effect July 2013, enforced January 1, 2014, yada yada yada. Mr. X leaves…still upset. Mr X threatens to leave the ship… Mrs. X and the little Xs talk him out of it. Still upset.. Mr X demands to speak to those in charge… told to come back later. So… Mr X figure out he can smoke on deck and does so, in the appropriate areas. He goes to dinner with the family, enjoys entertainment, and smokes on deck where he can. But the next morning he wakes up and can’t smoke on the balcony. He goes top side and smokes with the other disgruntled smokers. He then goes back and talks to “someone in charge”… ok… this may happen once or twice, but eventually Mr. X gets an OBC for his trouble. Mr X is still saying… never cruise Royal again. But.. about day 4 he’s into the routine. Smoking with other smokers… not really noticing that he’s not on his own balcony… and he has the OBC. By day 5 Mrs X has secured a FCC letter… and the kids are still having a great cruise. Mr X is having a good time and has calmed down. OR.. no matter what.. Mr X doesn’t adapt.. and he never sails Royal again. At least they had a 50/50 chance of keeping him as a customer rather than having him cancel his cruise and not even try the new policy.

The lesson here, is that Royal knows… If they are on board… they’ll stay on board… they’ll have a good time… they will adapt… and they will most likely come back. If you announce it ahead of time.. and they never get back on board… they will never adapt. There are loads of statistics out there that prove this. Sure some will be irate.. not happy and never cruise again with Royal… but the majority will.

Except the question is... is this is right. It is neither right or wrong… It is Business. It isn’t personal… it is business. Royal consultants looked at the demographics and they have figured out how to implement this policy with the least impact on their bottom line. It is Business… again.. it is not personal.

[mom says]

Except the question is... is this is right. It is neither right or wrong… It is Business. It isn’t personal… it is business. Royal consultants looked at the demographics and they have figured out how to implement this policy with the least impact on their bottom line. It is Business… again.. it is not personal.

 

Interesting: " It is neither right or wrong...lt is business." Essentially you are saying that Business is exempt from ethical practices. Money trumps doing the right thing. From what I have seen of the way RCI does business, it would appear you are correct. All the more reason for me to take my business elsewhere. It's not personal.

[mom says]

I don't see the point in being rude or calling people names over this or anything else on this site for that matter. If you can't articulate your opinion in a civilized matter then why bother.

 

As much as I applaud your post, I can't help wondering if your other username is Don Quixote.

[Cindy]

My $0.02 -- ALL cruise lines need to do a better job of notifying booked passengers when they make a change that could substantially impact passengers' cruises.

I think this is a very positive change, but I can also understand how if I was a smoker counting on being able to use my balcony for that purpose this would be a big deal. I'm trying to put myself in a smoker's shoes, and if I had a cruise booked, I think I would want to be notified by the cruise line, not Cruise Critic.

Something similar recently happened when HAL changed their unlimited BYO-Wine policy. They tried to roll it out with no notice, and there was such an uproar that they delayed implementation until the end of January. People with cruises booked were very angry they weren't notified, because it was a substantial change to what they were accustomed to.

The cruise lines manage to send out plenty of e-mail to customers even when they don't have a cruise booked. How difficult would it be to send notification of the new policy to anyone who has a cruise booked?

[jstraw20]

When changes occur after booking, should RCL (or any cruise line) notify currently booked passengers? This would apply to port changes, etc. Blast emails just can't be that hard for them to do.

 

Agreed. If they can flood our inboxes with promotional material then they certainly have the infrastructure and personnel in place to send updates (or at least a pointer to updates) in their policies.

 

But, LindaO hit it right on the head. It's about the potential risk to the company's bottom line, no more no less.

[Zigggypup]

As much as I applaud your post, I can't help wondering if your other username is Don Quixote.

 

Oh no, I am now being accused of being a "Don Quixtoe".

Sorry, not one in the same. One screen name is quite enough..........lol

[LindaO]

Interesting: " It is neither right or wrong...lt is business." Essentially you are saying that Business is exempt from ethical practices. Money trumps doing the right thing. From what I have seen of the way RCI does business, it would appear you are correct. All the more reason for me to take my business elsewhere. It's not personal.

 

No, I am not saying that business is exempt from ethical practices.... WOW... Business Ethics... that's a whole different can of worms... Royal, like most other large corporations, are not un-ethical... because to do so they would have to act in a manner not conforming to approved standards of social or professional behavior. The act of releasing information, changing policies and informing of such policy changes was in no way un-ethical. I doubt you will ever agree with that.

You decided, immediately upon learning that Royal changed it's smoking policy to never sale with them again. That is fine... it is your personal decision. To now blame it on your perception that the release of information, or lack there of, is unethical is an excuse.

[Cruise4Music]

Interesting: " It is neither right or wrong...lt is business." Essentially you are saying that Business is exempt from ethical practices. Money trumps doing the right thing. From what I have seen of the way RCI does business, it would appear you are correct. All the more reason for me to take my business elsewhere. It's not personal.

 

I guess your giving up cruising?

 

Carnival will probably have the same policy in a manner of weeks.

 

It 2013 there are just not enough smokers to support more smoking areas.

 

And all the CC post in the world won't change that.

 

Sorry.:rolleyes:

[The Sunset Glow]

Actually, no.

 

Copied from RCL website "Royal Caribbean updated the smoking policy July 2013 and the above policy is in enforcement on all ships with cruises departing on or after January 1, 2014."

 

As you can see the policy came out in July. It seems the CC post is what prompted RCL to finally make a public announcement.

 

After rumors started about the possible policy change back in July I stared checking the RCI website for a new smoking policy about every second day. The last time I checked before Patti broke the news here was on sept 3rd and it was still the old policy.

 

Maybe the decision was made back in July but documentation had to be updated before the announcement was made. Just speculation, of course, but a possibility.

[Mark_K]

Rightly, or wrongly, I think RCI feels that if they make a public announcement of a policy change with enough lead time that it's before final payment date, they've done their duty. I don't think they feel they have any real responsibility for airfare, hotels, etc. that were not made though them.

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[skiiergirl]

The reason we even know about this change is because an eagle eyed CC member noticed the change on the website. I think we should be applauding the RCI IT department. For all of the complaints everyone has about the website and IT .....they actually have something posted in a timely manner.

 

There have been a number of various policy changes/issues over the years that they have not notified folks about. Yes, with today's technology, it is easy enough to send emails out. But that same technology allows everyone access to the web....where they posted this change! Maybe this just teaches us that we all need to review the website prior to final payment to see if there are any changes that might affect us! I applaud RC for the policy change. I applaud them for posting online in a timely manner. While I wish the effective date was much sooner, I believe they had to delay to Jan 1 to allow notice for those about to make final payment.

 

To the folKs that say the effective date should be delayed until 2015. That is ridiculous! There is still time for folks on Jan 1 cruises to cancel!

[hlfrps]

The reason we even know about this change is because an eagle eyed CC member noticed the change on the website. I think we should be applauding the RCI IT department. For all of the complaints everyone has about the website and IT .....they actually have something posted in a timely manner.

 

There have been a number of various policy changes/issues over the years that they have not notified folks about. Yes, with today's technology, it is easy enough to send emails out. But that same technology allows everyone access to the web....where they posted this change! Maybe this just teaches us that we all need to review the website prior to final payment to see if there are any changes that might affect us! I applaud RC for the policy change. I applaud them for posting online in a timely manner. While I wish the effective date was much sooner, I believe they had to delay to Jan 1 to allow notice for those about to make final payment.

 

To the folKs that say the effective date should be delayed until 2015. That is ridiculous! There is still time for folks on Jan 1 cruises to cancel!

 

Yes, there is time to cancel, but I for one book my cruises ahead of time for the cabins and pricing and shipboard credit perks at a minimum one year ahead and sometimes year and a half. course , we are getting into why do so for pricing with the recent RC pricing reductions after final payments!

[skiiergirl]

Yes, there is time to cancel, but I for one book my cruises ahead of time for the cabins and pricing and shipboard credit perks at a minimum one year ahead and sometimes year and a half. course , we are getting into why do so for pricing with the recent RC pricing reductions after final payments!

 

We usually book 1 to 1.5 years in advance also. However, we understand...things change.

[J & G]

The CDC statistics claim that about 19% of American adults (those over 18) are smokers. If about half of the cabins on the most RC ships have balconies (actually information seems to vary between 47% and 54%, depending on the class of the ship), then one could deduce that about 9.5% of cruise passengers are smokers booked in balcony cabins. I wonder if that figured in to the decision to release the information via the website rather that via a mass email.....

[OCruisers]

Whatever ... It's their decision but do think more notice should have been given. :rolleyes:

 

LuLu

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[Yillup]

To the folKs that say the effective date should be delayed until 2015. That is ridiculous! There is still time for folks on Jan 1 cruises to cancel!

 

Um, not for Australians...

 

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Forums mobile app

[Georgiagolfer]

Whatever ... It's their decision but do think more notice should have been given. :rolleyes:

 

LuLu

~~~~

 

Agree

[southstaffs3]

Agree

 

Me to :(

[CI66774]

I was working for a major airline when all smoking was banned on certain length flights. My airline chose to ban smoking on all length flights. I don't believe there was a lot of notice given. There was some grumbling among the addicted and the occasional illegal light up in the lavatory but everyone got used to it. This is the same. Some grumbling, but if people want to cruise in the future, they had better bring some Nicorette with them because I foresee all cruise lines will adopt this policy at some point.

[Mapleleafforever]

I just got the email about 10 minutes ago so I came on CC to check for reactions. Personally I'm ok with how they handled the changes and it shows that the company is progressive.

[gaylemh]

I just got an email too. I'm not happy about the change, but at least they sent an official notification.

[cruisenfever]

For those that may have trouble getting emails from RCI, here is what was sent out today, September 9, 2013 received at 3:02PM....

 

Dear Friend,

 

In consideration of ongoing guest feedback and evolving industry standards, Royal Caribbean International is revising its onboard smoking policy, effective for all sailings departing on or after January 1, 2014.

 

Under this new policy, all indoor public spaces will be smoke free, with the exception of the Casino and the Connoisseur Club on Freedom and Voyager Class ships and one designated smoking venue on ships sailing from Chinese homeports. In the Casino, there will be designated smoking and non-smoking areas.

 

Additionally, smoking will not be permitted in the staterooms or on stateroom balconies. Outdoor smoking areas will be designated on the starboard side of all ships; with the exception of Oasis-class ships that will allow smoking on the port side of the ships.

 

Indoor smoking areas permit tobacco cigarettes and electronic cigarettes. Cigars and pipe tobacco can be enjoyed in designated outdoor areas, or in the cigar club on the ships that offer this venue.

 

Please consult our Smoking Policy FAQ for more details.

 

Royal Caribbean International is committed to continually enhancing the guest vacation experience. To find smoking venues and areas while onboard, please consult your Cruise Compass, or visit Guest Services, where we will be happy to assist you.

 

Thank you and we look forward to welcoming you aboard soon.

[Ramblin' Ma'am]

I smoke only on rare occasion. I have a balcony booked for next spring. I probably would have had a couple cigarettes on the balcony, but this won't affect my decision to sail with RCI. I'm honestly not surprised because it does seem that the industry is trending that way. Do I agree with it? No.

 

My guess is that the cruise lines are thinking they won't lose customers if all the lines go non-smoking. But I would not be surprised if some smokers start moving to other types of vacations.

 

EDIT. I hadn't been on the boards in a couple weeks and didn't realize how this was announced. I just got my email today.

[Paul65]

Oh no, I am now being accused of being a "Don Quixtoe".

 

Sorry, not one in the same. One screen name is quite enough..........lol

 

I think you missed the intent of that post, Ziggy. You weren't really being accused of having multiple screen names - just of "tilting a windmills."